The Tibetan Seven-Point Mind-Training

Superficially, the arhat who is free from mental suffering can seem to us who lack this realization as numb and de-tached, in a state of existential anesthesia. A buddha, one who is fully awakened, presents the paradox of being free from suffering and also non-dually present with other people's joys and sorrows, hopes and fears. A buddha taps into immutable bliss, the ultimate ground state of aware-ness beyond the dichotomy of stimulus-driven pain and pleasure. The mind of a buddha has been purified of all obscuration and from its own nature there naturally arises immutable bliss, like a spring welling up from the earth. With the unveiling of the buddha-nature of unconditioned bliss, there is also a complete erosion of an absolute demar-cation between self and other. The barrier is gone. This is why buddhas are vividly and non-dually aware of the suf-fering of others, their hopes and fears, the whole situation, and at the same time are not disengaged from the purity and bliss of their own awareness. The mind of a buddha doesn't block out anything and nothing is inhibited, and this is why the awareness of an awakened being is frequently described as "unimaginable." Meanwhile, back in samsara, we are identifying—"This is my body. These are my problems. Your problems are not my problems." Our ground-state is the suffering of vulnerability, a very big problem. Many people assume that after death, the suffering of life is extinguished. Buddhists say that is wishful thinking. The Buddhist position is that whether you like it or not and regardless of your belief system, the nature of reality is such that there is an un-broken stream of consciousness not contingent on this body. Your body will eventually turn into fertilizer but your consciousness carries on. There are both theoretical and empirical grounds for the continuity of consciousness. There is currently no consensus in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, or philoso-phy of the mind, regarding an empirically based theory of consciousness. This is a major void in the edifice of modern science. Since object-oriented scientific methods themselves present obstacles to the effective study of consciousness, scientists are at odds even about the methodology of studying consciousness.

There are alternatives to the Western methods for the study of consciousness. The philosopher of science Tho-mas Kuhn observed that in order for a paradigm shift to occur, it is not enough to see that one's present paradigm is flawed. It is important to present a coherent alternative that accounts for what you know and makes intelligible what was previously unaccounted for. If you are in a boat that needs periodic bailing, you won't improve matters by be-ing rescued by a sinking ship—and you don't want just to swim for it either. What you want is another boat, preferably one without any leaks, otherwise your best bet is staying where you are. The Buddhist hypothesis is that, like the scientific theory of the conservation of mass/energy, there is conservation of consciousness. Consciousness doesn't arise from mass/ energy, but consciousness is conditioned by mass/energy. The brain, sense faculties, nervous system, and environment all condition consciousness. Just as mass and energy take different forms—gas, fluid, or solid—the Buddhist teach-ing is that under different conditions, consciousness mani-fests in different ways. Additionally, consciousness is not a by-product of matter, nor does it arise ex nihilo, out of noth-ing.7 The Buddhist view is that the brain does not produce consciousness, but it does condition consciousness. The stream of consciousness is a continuity that stores imprints, memories, and tendencies throughout a lifetime. Just as mass/energy changes form rather than disappearing alto-gether, consciousness changes as it disengages from the physical body.

The Buddhist theory of the origin of consciousness is that consciousness arises from consciousness. The Buddhist hy-pothesis is that an individual's consciousness does not arise from the consciousnesses of his or her parents. Parents have their own continua of consciousness. Individual conscious-ness exists prior to conception, arising from a preceding, unique continuum and will carry on after this life. When individual consciousness disengages from the body, the number of types of embodiments it can enter into is vast. There are states of re-embodiment that are condi-tioned by intense suffering; another state conditioned by unfulfilled desire; another conditioned by mental dullness; and another by great joy. If in this life as a human, we do not profoundly purify our minds and gain deep realiza-tion, we are vulnerable to rebirth in other less favorable realms of existence. The continuum of consciousness is tre-mendously malleable and can take on a wide variety of forms, some subtle and blissful, some very dense and mis-erable. There is nothing in this vast spectrum of modes of rebirth that we are automatically exempt from. Since we are no longer incorporated in a human body after death,

there is nothing human about us at all. According to Bud-dhist theory, re-embodiment is propelled by our habitual grasping. The sobering notion here is that not only is our mind basically in an afflicted state making us vulnerable to suf-fering, it doesn't get better by itself. If we continue in habitual patterns, there is no way out. When Buddhists say no way out, they mean it. Samsara never runs down. The cycle of existence from rebirth to rebirth is like being a ball in a per-petual motion pinball machine. Merely wishing, "I have been in samsara for countless eons and have had enough," won't get you out. Samsara runs of its own momentum as long as it is fueled by the same habitual patterns. The Bud-dhist hypothesis is that samsara stops only when we take radical measures and break through the habitual patterns of delusion. Buddhist psychology states that mental suffering is pro-duced by one of three primary mental afflictions. The first primary mental affliction is delusion. The Buddhist term "delusion" includes the philosophical term "reification" and means mistaking what has no inherent existence as being concretely real. Delusion results in grasping—"I am," "I am autonomous," "I am separate," "I am permanent." The primary delusion of our self as an inherently existent, autonomous entity is the source of all mental afflictions.

Out of delusion, the primary affliction, grows the sec-ond fundamental affliction, attachment. Attachment is not simply desire but entails superimposing desirable qualities upon objects and screening out undesirable qualities. The result is craving. Attachment is distorted awareness in which we idealize an object—"If only I could go there, have that job, that spouse, that car, then I would be happy." Ide-alization creates a fiction that we cling to. When we conflate a person with a superimposed fiction, we might fall in love with the wonderful fiction and later be disappointed that the person "changed." Anger, also referred to as aversion or hatred, is the third of the three primary afflictions. Anger is the natural complement of attachment. Anger regards its object with superimposed disagreeable qualities, and filters out desir-able or neutral qualities. The frequent result of anger is aggression. The Buddhist hypothesis is that from day to day, from moment to moment, whenever we experience mental suf-fering, its source is the arousal of one or more of the mental afflictions.

When we experience suffering, we habitually identify the source of suffering as "out there"—other people, situations, traffic, the government. In Buddhism, this is an incorrect analysis, a wrong view. The radical Buddhist diagnosis of our condition is that the source of suffering is mental afflic-tions. When mental afflictions are catalyzed in any of many ways, we suffer. The actual source of suffering is not "out there." External circumstances and other people merely serve as catalysts to trigger something already within us. The source of suffering is not our job, spouse, children or other variations on the theme "I am suffering because of them or it." The source of suffering is rooted in mental afflictions. What about happiness? Once again, Buddhism presents an extraordinary hypothesis. The Buddhist hypothesis is that happiness is your birthright; all you need to do is dis-cover it. When we stop the behavior that impedes natural, inborn happiness, when we stop throwing dirt in the wound, just stop, happiness starts to well up naturally. From a Buddhist perspective, what we need to do is stop making the great efforts smothering the natural happiness that is within us. A good definition of Dharma is: that which enables us to unveil the natural, genuine happiness within.

The purpose of discursive meditation on suffering, the third of the four thoughts that turn the mind, is to become disillusioned with all the mundane pursuits we value. Pleasure, reputation, comfort are all stimuli that result in rela-tive well-being but do not deal with the fundamental problem, our profound vulnerability to suffering, a problem that continues until we do something about it. Karma The last of the four thoughts that turn the mind is karma. "Karma" is the Sanskrit word for "action." In anthropo-logical terminology, "karma" is a thick, theory-laden term. Karma refers to the nature of actions and how their long-term consequences play out over time. According to Buddhism, the universe is not a mechanistic, sterile machine as some philosophies argue. Instead, reality has a moral dimension. Some modern Western Buddhists have shrugged off the significance of karma and the continuity of consciousness after death, claiming that the Buddha simply borrowed these ideas from the Indian culture of his time. Study of the prevalent views concerning the afterlife that were proposed in India during the Buddha's lifetime, however, shows that his assertions were profoundly unlike those of any of his contemporaries. Moreover, he claimed that he had directly observed the truth of his claims in this regard on the night of his enlightenment, and he showed others how they might verify these theories for themselves.8 Certainly we must consider that the Buddha's assertions in this regard may be wrong. But to claim that he adopted these from others as congenial metaphysical beliefs is simply a sign of ignorance. The repercussions of karma are deep because they affect not only this lifetime, but the entire continuity of conscious-ness extending over many lifetimes. The Buddhist belief in the continuity of consciousness from one life to another is backed with logical reasoning. Reasoning alone isn't utterly compelling, but Buddhism does present the continuity of consciousness as a coherent and rational hypothesis, and centuries of Buddhist contemplative experience have produced experiential evidence to support this hypothesis. There are many cases of remembered past lives, foretold future lives and, further, the subjective details of the tran-sitional, or intermediate, state between embodiments, called the bar do. Preparation for dying and taking rebirth is a very significant part of Tibetan Buddhist practice.

In 1989,I interpreted for the Dalai Lama in a Mind and Life Conference with a group of neuroscientists in New-port Beach, California.9 Most neuroscientists believe that the mind is a by-product, or epiphenomenon, of the brain; mind vanishes when brain dies and that is all there is to it. The neuroscientists were disturbed when the Dalai Lama, a very intelligent man, discussed the continuity of con-sciousness from one lifetime to the next. The scientists pointed out that retrospective accounts of reincarnation, however numerous they may be, are not scientifically com-pelling due to lack of proper controls. For example, a child's experiences in the first years of life are largely unknown. We can't know for certain what the parents told the child, where he went, or what he saw on television. It was further pointed out to His Holiness that only a prospective study would be impressive scientifically. If scientists interviewed a dying Tibetan yogi and were told by him the specific de-tails of his rebirth and these details were later confirmed by a child reincarnation of the same late yogi, this would be very hard for scientists to explain away as coincidence. His Holiness is very interested in collaborating with scientists on a prospective study of reincarnation. Continuity of consciousness and karma are not elements of a religious creed Buddhists are required to believe. The extraordinary premise of Buddhism is that the nature of reality can be experientially determined through diligent spiritual practice. Being Buddhist means only that you trust and follow the Buddhist path, critically.

One key to the contemplative exploration of the nature of reality is meditative concentration, the ability to stabilize the mind and enhance its clarity. The refined and stabilized mind is the tool Buddhists use to investigate the whole of reality, from cosmology to the nature of awareness. Such meditative technology gives you access to exceptional states of awareness. The continuity of consciousness from lifetime to lifetime is not contingent upon any belief or disbelief in reincarna-tion. From the Buddhist point of view, even if you personally don't believe in continuity of consciousness, there is still continuity. An analogy from physics is that if you roll a ball down a ramp, it accelerates, even if you believe its velocity remains constant. In the future there may be contemplatives, maybe even Western contemplatives, who will take up the prospective challenge of the neuroscientists and die under scientific scrutiny. If continuity of consciousness is a fact and if, as Bud-dhists tell us, it is possible to pass through the dying process with complete awareness, then an important question arises. Is rebirth random? Does Nature play roulette so that in one life you are human but in the next, for no reason at all, you are a frog? If there is coherence to rebirth, what is the nature of that coherence? The Buddha's claim was that, from the perspective of an awakened awareness, there is coherence—certain types of actions give rise to certain types of consequences. The coherence is called karma. The fundamental cornerstone of existence as a sentient being is seeking happiness and avoiding suffering. The at-tainment of enlightenment may be the ultimate goal but in the meantime, a sentient being would rather be well than sick, have enough to eat rather than starve, have harmoni-ous relationships and not painful ones, have a fortunate life rather than a miserable one. We all desire these things. The Buddha taught that certain types of actions give rise to certain types of consequences. The question then becomes: what types of actions give rise to the things we wish for, and what types of actions give rise to the things we seek to avoid?

The natural inclination is to believe that this is easy enough to figure out for oneself. Unfortunately, the undis-ciplined mind tends to be subjected to delusion. As the eighth-century Indian Buddhist sage Shantideva wrote in A Guide to Bodhisattva Way of Life, "Those desiring to escape from suffering hasten right toward suffering. With the very desire for happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy."10 In other words, de-luded desires for happiness lead us to engage in actions of attachment that inevitably result in aversion. Our goal is happiness, but our actions lead to suffering. Continuity of consciousness is a continuum through dif-ferent states of awareness: sleep, dreams, the waking state, the dying process, the intermediate state, and rebirth. Freud wrote, "in mental life nothing which has once been formed can perish...everything is somehow preserved and...in suit-able circumstances... it can once more be brought to light."11 This statement, taken out of the context of the rest of Freud's views, is reminiscent of the Buddhist theory of karma, actions, and their consequences. The Buddhist premise is that all actions, including men-tal actions, leave seeds, or imprints, on a continuum that is not only a continuity of experience, but also a kind of reposi-tory. This continuum is laden with tendencies and configured by experience. When something happens to you, whether traumatic or joyful, the experience imbeds itself in the form of memory, resulting in emotional and behavioral tenden-cies. In this way, the continuum of consciousness, or mind-stream, is configured by the cumulative effects of parents, friends, education, and our general environment.

The mental continuum is also configured by our actions. Engaging in a certain type of action develops a tendency, a pattern, or habit that is initiated and then reinforced. If the action was difficult at the beginning, it becomes easier as the habit becomes more deeply ingrained. Some habits de-velop much more easily than others. Responding with irritation when something disagreeable happens is a very easily acquired habit. But irritation and indignation are only two of many possible responses to something disagreeable. When a driver is rude on the freeway, gesturing and firing off a sermon on the nature humanity can get to be a habit. Another option is simply moving out of the way. A habit reinforced by subsequent actions triggered by outside events is one type of karma. Being held morally, or karmically, accountable for one's thoughts is daunting. Fortunately, there is a loophole. When an unwholesome thought arises, it is grasping onto it, think-ing, "I want this ... I want to do that...," that starts the karma meter ticking. If you are meditating, and a disgusting im-age or desire arises, no problem. A malevolent, jealous, or selfish thought arising in the space of your mind does not accumulate negative karma. No harm is done by the pres-ence of negative thoughts as long as you don't grasp onto them. When thoughts are allowed to play themselves out and vanish of their own accord, your mind remaining like space, there is no accumulation of karma. The problem is having sticky awareness that latches onto negative thoughts with, "How could I be thinking this stuff ... but I like this thought... Oh,but I shouldn't...." Identification, grasping, is the problem, not the thoughts themselves. I mentioned a loophole. If thoughts of anger, jealousy, or craving arise that distort the mind, you can choose not to identify with them and create a space around them. You can sever grasping and the accumulation of karma by honing attention to focus right in on the nature of the men-tal process itself. This is a powerful technique that works if you hit the mark. If you can attend right at the onset, right when the mind begins to be drawn into the vortex of a nega-tive thought, simply by observing the nature of the thought, the karmic effect is cut just as if with a knife. Effective spiri-tual practice includes developing the attentional skill to remain outside the vortex of afflictive thoughts and emotions without slipping in.

The fundamental moral, or karmic, framework of Bud-dhism is a list of ten virtues and ten non-virtues. These do's and do not's cover the most common problems in life. Committing an unwholesome or non-virtuous deed plants a seed that can potentially produce a negative impact as it matures in the mind-stream in this lifetime and the ones to follow. In this list of ten, there are three unwholesome deeds of the body, four of speech, and three of the mind. The three of the body are intentional killing, stealing, and sexual mis-conduct. These three non-virtues are negative because they inflict harm and suffering. The physical misdeeds are be-haviors we can make decisions about; we can usually decide not to engage in them. There is nothing metaphysical here. The next four unwholesome acts concern speech and are more difficult to recognize and deal with than physical non-virtues. The first is harsh and abusive speech. The non-virtues of speech are difficult because, as the Buddha said, nothing in the world is faster than the mind; but the mouth is a close runner-up. Harsh speech engages a mental affliction, frequently anger, sometimes attachment or de-lusion, and turns speech into a subtle and sophisticated weapon, at times more damaging than a punch to the jaw. Harsh speech includes sarcasm. Tibetans liken sarcasm to throwing a rock covered in fluffy wool—it is initially mistaken for a friendly puffball until it meets its target. The second type of verbal non-virtue is lying. Lying is intentionally saying what is not true and can have many motivations. Slander or divisive speech is the third verbal non-virtue and an interesting one. Slander may be lying with a twist or it may be the simple truth coupled with a motivation to do harm or create conflict.

Idle gossip, the fourth of the verbal non-virtues, is con-sidered the lightest of all the ten non-virtues but, as one of my lamas remarked, it the easiest way to waste an entire life. Idle gossip is speech motivated by mental afflictions such as attachment, anger, jealousy, pride, and delusion. The net effect of idle gossip is worse than just wasting time; it reinforces mental afflictions and accumulates negative karma. The next grouping in the list of ten non-virtues is the three non-virtues of the mind. The first is malice. Malice is the intention to inflict harm. Avarice, craving another person's possessions, is the second non-virtue of the mind. The third of the non-virtues of the mind is holding onto false views, which is regarded as the most harmful of all ten non-virtues. "False views" refers to misconceptions about the nature of reality. An example of a false view is the belief that actions have no moral consequences.

Paralleling the Buddhist list of ten non-virtues is a list of ten virtues. These are the flip side of each of the non-vir-tues. For example, the virtue opposite to killing is protecting life and the virtue corresponding to harsh speech is speaking gently. All virtuous and non-virtuous deeds place imprints upon the mind-stream that are potent karmic seeds that will ripen in this or a future lifetime. Once karma is imbedded in a stream of consciousness, it is carried from one lifetime to another until it is catalyzed. Just as a plant seed can remain dormant in the desert for decades and sprout to life at the first contact with water, a karmic seed can lie dormant for a long time, from lifetime to lifetime, before a catalyst triggers its ripening. Another characteristic of karma is that its effect is simi-lar to its cause. For example, if one cultivates a tendency to help those in need, the karmic effect carried into the next life would be being born with an altruistic tendency, being gifted in compassion. Buddhists explain the differences be-tween babies, obvious to any parent, as partly due to karma. This does not deny genetic and environmental influences. Many influences come together in an intricate weave to form this life. The interesting point here is that Buddhists don't consider the mind of an infant to be a blank slate. Due to the influence of past lives, sentient beings are strongly conditioned even before conception. Therefore, cultivating wholesome tendencies is a top priority of Dharma practice. The view that karma affects the continuum of conscious-ness from one life to the next is of fundamental importance in Buddhist practice. Many Buddhists acknowledge that attaining buddhahood in one lifetime, although possible, is highly improbable. Understanding karma and its effect on the continuity of consciousness elevates spiritual prac-tice from an all-or-nothing, one-life-only proposition. If spiritual practice has continuity and coherence, if greater kindness, wisdom, and balance have developed and the various afflictive tendencies have declined, then these quali-ties are embedded in the mind-stream. Even if you don't become enlightened in this lifetime, if you practice Dharma diligently, because of the nature of actions and their conse-quences, you will be able to pick up where you left off in the next lifetime.

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, reincarnations of ex-ceptionally mature practitioners are sometimes identified in childhood. These tulkus, which literally means "emana-tion bodies," are a source of inspiration for Tibetan Buddhists. The recognition of tulkus acknowledges that spiritual maturation is preserved as karmic propensities from one life-time to the next. This is true not only for tulkus, but for all practitioners. A third type of karmic effect, and the most difficult to understand, is environmental. The various types of envi-ronments encountered in your life are also a result of karma. Being born in a hostile environment, amid plague, famine, drought, war, is a maturation of karma manifesting as an environment. The same reasoning also holds true for a harmonious, beautiful environment.

The Buddhist hypothesis is that humanness is very much contingent upon a human body and we are not thoroughly as human as we believe. When the human body dies, what remain are tendencies. According to the Buddha's teach-ings, it is difficult to conceive being born in a non-human form because we identify so much with human intelligence and human form. But we have more in common with other realms than we like to think. For example, if cravings domi-nate your life—"I want a nice car, a bigger house, more of my fair share"—then this is comparable to the life of a preta, a hungry ghost. Similarly, leading a life driven by one's "animal appetites," not taking advantage of human intelli-gence and experience, for all practical purposes, is a human facsimile of living the life of an animal. The general Bud-dhist teaching is that a life heavily dominated by delusion directs one toward rebirth as an animal; a life heavily domi-nated by craving leads to rebirth in a hungry ghost realm; and a life heavily dominated by malice or cruelty heads one toward rebirth in a hell realm. I will give you an example of a rebirth in a Buddhist hell. Keep in mind these rebirths, all of them, are no more substantial than dreams. A Buddhist hell is not a place in the center of the earth or on the back of the moon. If one takes rebirth in a hell, the hell you experience comes into existence, like a dream, at the time you are born there and, also like a dream, seems very real while you are there. One of the Buddhist hell realms is called "again and again revi-talized." In this hell, you and all the people around you have weapons. You are in constant hand-to-hand combat, maybe killing a few of the other inhabitants of the dream before someone rams you through with a big spike and you die. But then you come right back to life and fight again. This happens over and over: fight, kill and get killed, come right back. That situation continues until the tendency that propelled you there wears itself out.

In non-human realms, unfortunately, the laws of karma also hold. There is a caveat, however. The greater your in-telligence, the greater your understanding and wisdom, the greater impact your actions have. Animals accumulate a small amount of karma for aggression, but a human being with the same behavior accumulates much heavier karma. The metaphor of the tortoise cruising around in the ocean surfacing for air every hundred years is also descriptive of what is necessary for an animal to be reincarnated in a hu-man realm. From the Buddhist perspective, compassion is rare in the animal realm but it is there. In the hungry ghost realm, compassion is even rarer, and rarer still in the hell realms. However, again there is a loophole. Because of the relative difficulty of compassion in non-human realms, the karmic significance of even a little bit of compassion is great. It is said that in a hell realm, a being who has compassion for another is immediately liberated. Think of an example from your own life when you felt you were in hell. How difficult was it to feel genuine com-passion for someone else? Not impossible, but certainly difficult because we tend to be absorbed in our own feel-ings and problems. It is not easy for virtue to arise in the midst of craving and obsession, or when the mind is de-luded. This is why once you take rebirth in a miserable state of existence it is very difficult to get out. From the Buddhist perspective, the type of fortune we encounter, happiness or sorrow, is not due to somebody doing something to us. If I win the lottery, it is not because Buddha selected me for a bonus. No god or buddha is re-sponsible for what happens to us. Rather, our circumstances are fundamentally created by previous actions. This is a dangerous statement if misunderstood. A very unfortunate misinterpretation of what the Buddha was getting at in his teaching about karma is the conclusion that other people's suffering is simply their own fault. The Buddha did not teach that a child suffering from disease or hunger brought this suffering upon himself. The Buddhist explanation of suffering is that a deed embedded in the continuum of con-sciousness eventually gives rise to consequences. The deed may have occurred in this life or many lifetimes ago. This does not imply that a suffering person is morally degener-ate any more than suffering the consequences of eating con-taminated food does. The suffering we experience is due to karma accumulated under the influence of delusion and mental afflictions. This is true for all sentient beings.

The person witnessing another person's suffering has only one appropriate response: "How can I help?" When karma comes to fruition and causes suffering, the response should never be, "This is your karma. It's your destiny, so I can't help." Your own karma may very well present itself as an opportunity to help a suffering person. Misunder-standing actions and their consequences can be disastrous. The Buddhist response to the non-virtues we all commit while strapped to the wheel of samsara can be inspiring and encouraging. The Buddhist teaching is that it is pos-sible to neutralize negative karmic seeds embedded in the stream of consciousness. Deeds cannot be undone, but it is possible to purify one's mind-stream so that the impact of karmic seeds will be nullified. The method used to purify the mind-stream is the "four remedial powers." The metaphor for the effectiveness of the four remedial powers is that of burning a seed. Karma, like a seed, can be scorched in the fire of purification so that it will not sprout. The seed won't vanish, but it will not sprout. The first of the four remedial powers is remorse, regard-ing a misdeed as detrimental. Remorse is sincerely focusing on a misdeed, taking responsibility for it, and regretting having done it. Remorse also includes acknowledging con-sequences. Just as remorse is a step toward nullifying the impact of a negative karmic seed, rejoicing in virtue em-powers its positive karma. Tsongkhapa said that the easiest way to empower the mind in virtue is to take delight in virtue. In the same vein, rejoicing about something malevo-lent, such as congratulating yourself on sarcasm, empowers the negative propensity of the karmic seed. Rejoicing enhances and remorse helps neutralize the effect of karmic imprints on the mind-stream. Another ex-ample: If you give a homeless person five dollars but walk away thinking, "He would have thought I was just as gen-erous if I had given him only two dollars. Then I could have bought myself a coffee and newspaper," that remorse just neutralized the karmic benefit from your five-dollar beneficence. Remorse is hazardous when conflated with guilt. Re-morse is wholesome because it focuses on an event. Guilt is an afflictive state of mind focused on the self as in, "I am an unworthy person." Guilt, a reification of the self around negative tendencies, is simply another mental affliction. Properly directed remorse, on the other hand, can be very helpful for disengaging from unwholesome tendencies.

The second remedial power is reliance. When we have harmed other sentient beings, the remedial power of reli-ance is cultivating compassion for others; and when we have behaved wrongly toward spiritually realized beings or their teachings, the power of reliance is entrusting ourselves to their guidance. The third of the four remedial powers is resolve, turning away from misconduct. The power of resolve is stopping unwholesome behavior by the strength of determination and decision. The final remedial power is purification. This is also called "applying the antidote," and entails doing something that counteracts or neutralizes the negative deed. For ex-ample, if the deed involved killing, applying the antidote would be protecting life. Buddhist tradition teaches that through the four reme-dial powers it is possible to completely extinguish the potency of even the most virulent deeds. There is no deed so evil that it cannot be purified. Milarepa said that the aim of his Dharma practice was to die without remorse. His point was that if you have engaged in non-virtuous deeds, it is im-portant to purify their karmic imprints on your mind-stream while you have the freedom to do so; purify karmic deeds in this life so that you don't carry negative imprints into the dying process. Crossing the threshold of death is a really bad time for remorse to arise. The Buddhist scheme also accounts for grace, influence from outside the cycle of suffering, which is a powerful source of purification. It is said that the power of compas-sion, mercy, and grace of the enlightened ones is infinite. To open ourselves to grace, just as in Christianity and other religions, we need to open to it with faith. If you don't have faith, follow carefully the tenfold law by engaging in vir-tue and avoiding non-virtue and you will still come out all right.

We have now covered the First Point of the Seven-Point Mind-Training: "First, train in the preliminaries." The preliminaries are four discursive meditations upon the pre-ciousness of a human life of leisure and opportunity; death and impermanence; suffering; and karma. The preliminar-ies accelerate disillusionment with false dharmas so that we don't have to learn their lessons by long hard experience. At whatever age you start, ten years or eighty, you can get on the fast track to spiritual awakening if you realize at the outset what doesn't work. Disillusionment with the mundane pursuits of happiness is not enough, nor is fathoming the depth of suffering or the variety of evil in the world. Knowledge of these might make you a good existential philosopher, but it won't give you the inspiration to devote yourself to spiritual practice. Theoretical understanding comes from reading, hearing lec-tures, conversing, thinking. But theoretical understanding is like a recipe in a cookbook, and a recipe is not the same as a meal. It is only from practicing Dharma that sustained inspiration for spiritual practice is derived. The practice it-self nourishes you with a sense of happiness and well-being. Suffering is diminished. The benefits of Dharma are tested by Dharma practice itself. The Second Point: Cultivating Ultimate and Relative Bodhichitta The Seven-Point Mind-Training is a quintessential guide to enlightenment, which is defined in the Second Point as "cultivating ultimate and relative bodhichitta." The San-skrit word bodhi means awakening, and one who is awake is called a buddha. Chitta means mind, heart, and spirit, so I translate bodhichitta as a spirit of awakening. With ultimate bodhichitta we probe the nature of reality to realize its ultimate nature. Relative bodhichitta is the altruistic aspi-ration to realize perfect spiritual awakening for the sake of all sentient beings.

The cultivation of relative bodhichitta is like a mountain climber skillfully throwing a grappling hook up to a ledge to which he is climbing. The climber, confident in his hook, puts all his weight on the line, and starts the upward ascent. A skillfully placed grappling hook is a climber's connec-tion with his ultimate destination. Bodhichitta is the grappling hook for the attainment of enlightenment. Bodhichitta is also the basis of continuity of practice. If you die suddenly or become so ill that your capacity for practice steeply de-clines, bodhichitta—the aspiration for perfect awakening in order to be of service to others—will provide continuity over the lapses in practice and continue to draw you like a magnet toward enlightenment from one lifetime to the next. After solid grounding in the discursive meditations of the preliminaries, the Second Point of the Seven-Point Mind-Training moves directly to enlightenment itself, the cultivation and integration of ultimate and relative bodhichitta. The Second Point begins the training in for-mal daily meditation to integrate Dharma into active daily life. In traditional Buddhist practice, one begins every ses-sion by taking refuge, entrusting oneself to the "three jewels": those who have achieved perfect spiritual awak-ening, Dharma as the path to such awakening, and the spiritual community that is committed to enlightenment. Upon the foundation of refuge, bodhichitta, the highest mo-tivation, is cultivated with the heartfelt prayer: "May my practice be of benefit for the spiritual awakening of all sentient beings." This prayer nurtures our highest possible motivation, enlightenment for the welfare of others. Once you have achieved stability, reveal the mystery. The Second Point moves directly to the contemplative in-vestigation of the nature of reality and consciousness itself. The brief mnemonic of the text encapsulates some of the deepest insight practices in Tibetan Buddhism. The insight practices taught here probe the nature of consciousness and its relation to reality, which is the mystery to be revealed. The stability referred to is meditative stability, mental bal-ance, the prerequisite to the contemplative investigation of the ultimate nature of mind and reality. The mind is stabi-lized and refined into an instrument of investigation, which is the foundation for the cultivation of wisdom and com-passion. This is the quintessential method for revealing the mystery.

The hand gesture, or mudra, commonly used in the medi-tative posture symbolizes the goal of the Second Point, the union of ultimate and relative bodhichitta: the right hand, symbolizing compassion, rests on the left hand, which symbolizes wisdom. The touching of the two thumbs symbolizes the union of wisdom and compassion, both the path and the goal of Buddhist practice. Achieving stability is central to the Second Point of the Mind-Training and has two interrelated aspects. One as-pect of stability is faith, or confidence, which is a theme shared by all religious traditions. The other aspect is medita-tive stabilization, a practice highly developed in the Buddhist tradition. Faith In our modern, highly secular world, we are not only over-whelmed with information, but we are cast into an ocean of conflicting religious, philosophical, and scientific claims about the nature of the universe and human existence. No human society in recorded history has ever been presented with such a diversity of views, many of them presented as if with great authority. Now in the midst of this cacophony of voices, we are presented with the teachings of the Bud-dha and later teachers who have followed the path he revealed. When we first encounter the Buddha indirectly through his teachings, we meet with a stranger from a faraway time and a faraway place. It doesn't get much stranger than that. And when we first encounter Buddhist teachings, many of them certainly do seem strange, for they fly in the face of many views held by our society at large. The Buddha himself as well as contemporary authentic Buddhist teachers do not present themselves as unques-tionable authorities on the nature of reality, nor as masters who instruct us infallibly on how to lead our lives. These teachers offer themselves to us above all as friends, specifi-cally as spiritual friends, and as guides to lead us on an experiential journey in the pursuit of knowledge and personal transformation. But when we first meet them, they are strangers, and it is perfectly appropriate to respond to their teachings with agnosticism and skepticism. After all, when assuming a stance of agnosticism, we are quite realistically acknowledging that we don't know—the first step toward wisdom! And by taking a position of skepticism, we are in effect saying, "I doubt that you know either." Considering the wide range of authoritative claims being made today about everything from the nature of consciousness to UFOs, in many cases such skepticism has to be well founded.

But if we want to know, if we want to make genuine dis-coveries about matters that are of life-and-death importance to us, we have to move beyond agnosticism. If we are totally convinced that no one else has discovered what we want to know, then we have no one to rely but ourselves. But what are our grounds for being so certain that no one else knows about what we are after? If we are to be skeptical, surely we should start by being skeptical about how much we know about how much everyone else knows! If I'm re-ally agnostic, I have to start with the premise that I don't know whether you might have made important discover-ies that I have not. Likewise, just because our Western civilization is ignorant in some respects, it would be silly to assume that no other civilization has made important discoveries where we have not.

When it comes to knowledge, Western civilization has made enormous strides, especially since the Scientific Revo-lution. We can take great pride and satisfaction in our many discoveries concerning the world around us. But one do-main of reality in which we still remain scientifically in the dark is the realm of consciousness. It's just not science's strong point. However, precisely where science is at its weakest, the Buddhist tradition makes its strongest and most astonishing truth-claims. The only way we know of the existence of consciousness is by means of our first-per-son experience, and the Buddhist tradition has devised many ingenious methods for enhancing and refining this mode of perception so that we can probe more deeply into the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness. In any early account of the Buddha's life and teachings, it is obvi-ous that he claimed to have made bold discoveries based on his own meditative experience. If you read how he re-sponded to many of the metaphysical assertions of his time, you will see that he wasn't one for simply adopting wholesale the beliefs of his contemporaries. For example, the earliest account of his enlightenment makes it clear that his claims about the reality and signifi-cance of the continuity of individual consciousness after death were based on his own experiential knowledge.12 In evaluating his claims, we may conclude that he was right or that he was wrong, but there is nothing to imply that he was agnostic or that he lifted these ideas from someone else. His assertions about rebirth and karma were unique in his time. One of his remarkable claims that was inspired initially by other contemplatives is that the scope and pre-cision of mental perception can be enormously enhanced by training in meditative concentration. In a broader sense, he claimed that the mental afflictions that beset us—such as hostility, craving, anxiety, and delusion—are not immu-table. With training they can be attenuated, and with deep training, they can be eliminated completely.

How do we know whether he knew what he was talking about? Simply put, we don't. We start out as agnostics. But if we want to find out, the only way to proceed is to put the training to the test of our own experience. Here is a time not for skepticism, but for intelligent faith. William James com-ments in this regard that where preferences are powerless to modify or produce things, faith is totally inappropriate, but for the class of facts that depend on personal preference, trust, or loyalty for actualization, "faith is not only licit and pertinent, but essential and indispensable. The truths can-not become true till our faith has made them so."13 We will never progress in Buddhist practice, in education, or in any other great venture without such faith, starting with faith in our own ability to gain new knowledge and transform ourselves in meaningful ways. When we first meet the Buddha indirectly (through his teachings) or a contemporary Buddhist teacher directly, we are meeting with a stranger. But if we cultivate the rela-tionship, over time, we get to know the qualities of the teacher, and he or she may earn our trust. Then the teacher becomes a friend on whom we can rely for matters that are important to us, including matters that are presently be-yond our ken. After getting to know a specific Buddhist teacher, if we find him untrustworthy or unhelpful, then we are free to choose another teacher. Likewise, if upon careful examination we find the teachings of a certain Bud-dhist tradition to be unreliable, we can check out another Buddhist tradition. And if we find the Buddhist teachings as a whole to be unsound, we are free to look elsewhere. A number of my lamas have commented after giving public teachings, "If you find these teachings to be sound and use-ful, by all means put them into practice. If not, keep on looking!"

At the same time, we need to apply discerning intelli-gence to our own way of putting the teachings to the test. Do questionable Buddhist truth-claims violate reason or compelling empirical evidence? Or do they just violate our assumptions and what the people around us think? What do we really know, and what have we picked up as un-tested assumptions and preconceptions from our society? This is a time for self-directed skepticism. And if we put the teachings into practice and find them ineffective, where does the inadequacy lie: in the teachings or in our own implementation of them? For example, the Buddha and many later Buddhist contemplatives claim to have achieved irreversible freedom from various mental afflictions. If we fail to do so, what have we proven? That they didn't either, or simply that we did not practice with sufficient diligence and intelligence?

On the one hand I'm inclined to say there are no easy answers to these questions. On the other hand, there is one kind of response that is relatively easy and untroubling. While we are at sea in the midst of uncertainty about the nature and potentials of our existence, we can cling to ag-nosticism and skepticism as we would cling desperately to an anchored buoy. This can provide us with a bit of secu-rity and an easy answer: "who knows?" Intellectually there seems to be safety here, immune to the ridicule of others. But there's also an immobility to this position. We are at sea in the midst of confusion, and there we remain. The Buddha is like one who swims out to meet us and shows us the way to shore. He says he has been there, and many discoveries lie in wait for us on land if we will let go of the buoy of our uncertainty, our faint-heartedness, and our skepticism. Of course, there is nothing to compel us to place our trust in him or in any later Buddhist teacher. We can remain agnostic and skeptical as long as we like. But if we choose to accept the challenge of the Buddhist path of contemplative exploration, we need to let go of our insecu-rities and take the plunge into practice. And this requires that we accept some of the Buddha's assertions on faith as working hypotheses. The Buddhist tradition speaks of three kinds of faith, and this is the first kind: the faith of belief. How can we believe Buddhist truth-claims when there are so many diverse claims attributed to the Buddha, let alone the many points of disagreement among different Buddhist traditions? Two things need to be borne in mind here. The first is that, according to even the earliest recorded teachings of the Buddha, not all his assertions were meant as definitive truths about the nature of reality. Some of them are called "provisional truths," which are culturally imbed-ded and are meant more as heuristic devices to help specific individuals or communities at specific points in their spiri-tual development. But the Buddha and many later Buddhist contemplatives made many other truth-claims, based upon their meditative experience, that were meant to be defini-tive. That is, they were presented as genuine discoveries about the nature of reality, not just social constructs specific to a particular time and place.

How are we to discern which Buddhist teachings are pro-visional and which are definitive? Buddhist tradition states that the cultivation of that kind of discerning intelligence is a crucial element on the path to spiritual maturation. Put the teachings to the test of reason and experience, and see what you find. As for the many truth-claims across mul-tiple Buddhist traditions over the past 2,500 years, it would be unreasonable to expect that they would all speak with one voice. Just look at the history of Western science over the past four hundred years! And even today, in any cut-ting-edge branch of science there are disagreements, many of them quite fundamental.14 Once again, grappling with such diversity is a central challenge in the pursuit of knowl-edge. If we're not up to this challenge, we can always slide back to the stagnant comfort of agnosticism. The faith of belief as a working hypothesis is one kind of faith that is regarded as indispensable in the Buddhist tra-dition. A second kind of faith entails admiration for those who have achieved high states of spiritual realization and for their teachings. Such faith is not simply a matter of belief, but rather arises out of one's understanding and apprecia-tion of the noble qualities of such individuals and the truths they reveal. And a third type of faith in Buddhism is the faith of aspiration. With the faith of aspiration, the possi-bility of making genuine, deep discoveries about the nature of consciousness, its origins, and its potentials becomes more than a matter of belief. It is more than an apprecia-tion based on understanding. It is a fervent desire to test the teachings oneself by engaging in the practice. Now is the time when the extraordinary claims made by the Bud-dha and later Buddhist contemplatives are truly adopted as working hypotheses to be tested by experience.

Faith is important but is no substitute for putting spiri-tual teachings to the test. Does practice help or not? Are mental afflictions decreased and does genuine happiness increase? Constant vigilance, assessment, and reassessment are required to follow a path of spiritual awakening. What is required is consistent probing, not settling into dogma-tism or complacency, and continuously testing the path for its effectiveness. Of course, we are testing not just "the path" but our intelligence and perseverance in following it, so we must be equally critical of our own efforts. This brings a type of stability, or faith, that is in motion, part of the process itself.

William James addressed the issue of faith in the context of the dogmatic and materialistic mood of late nineteenth-century science. At the close of the nineteenth century, many scientists felt that religious belief was antithetical to the rational and skeptical stance of science. For example, Will-iam Clifford, one of the more prominent nineteenth-century scientific materialists, attacked religious faith on the grounds that "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."15 Many scientists considered religion to be a failure of intellectual integrity, and faith to be a path of least resis tance for those unable to handle the brute facts of science. Some scientists today express the same sentiment, claim ing that religious people hold onto their beliefs because of an unfortunate genetic predisposition. ;

What such materialists ignore, however, is that scientists and religious people alike, without exception, place their faith in some belief system which transcends the scope of their present knowledge. As William James pointed out, whether in scientific research or in daily life, We often cannot wait but must act, somehow; so we act on the most probable hypothesis, trusting that the event may prove us wise. Moreover, not to act on one belief is often equivalent to acting as if the opposite belief were true, so inaction would not always be as 'passive' as the intellectualists assume.16 Faith, he asserted, is essential, but as a practical, not a dogmatic, attitude, and it must go with toleration of other faiths, with the search for the most probable, and with the full consciousness of responsibilities and risks. Specifically, James defended one's right to believe ahead of the evidence only in those cases where (1) much is at stake, (2) the evi-dence at hand does not settle the case, and (3) one cannot wait for more evidence, either because no amount of evi-dence can settle the case, or because waiting itself is to decide not to believe. For many things studied by science, personal beliefs are virtually irrelevant. Whether or not a scientist believes in the existence of intelligent life in other solar systems will have a negligible effect on the data she collects from the Hubbell telescope. In other domains of reality, faith or in-tuition will significantly influence the reality that is being addressed: parenting, teaching, and almost any domain in which we engage with people. There is an enormous range of experience in which faith and intuition influence the reality about which we have faith.

What about personal reality? Do you have faith that the mental afflictions that cause suffering are genetically de-termined or do you believe that your mind is malleable and these afflictions can be alleviated? Do you believe that wisdom, compassion, virtue, can be cultivated, or do you believe that the brain's physiology fixes an upper limit on these virtues? Our faith concerning the human potential for wisdom and compassion has an enormous impact on how we lead our lives. Even a small positive intuition that happiness and well-being actually could arise from our hearts and nurture us can have a tremendous influence on life. Alternately, if you have faith that all happiness comes from the outside, this faith will also profoundly influence the choices you make in life. William James agreed with most scientists that there are things about which we should not have faith. But there are other domains of life in which faith or lack of faith will have an enormous impact. If we have no faith that we can develop insight or develop deeper compassion, it's not likely that we will. In this way, our beliefs often act as self-fulfilling prophesies. We can have faith in our own potential, or we can remain skeptical and agnostic. Some people are skeptical of Buddhist truth-claims because they violate the beliefs of their religion. Others are skeptical of the truth-claims of all spiritual traditions because they violate the beliefs of scientific materialism. And yet others are skepti-cal of all truth-claims, be they scientific or spiritual, because they violate the beliefs of postmodernism. In Christianity references are often made to "believers" and "non-believ-ers," with Christians being the former and everyone else being counted as the latter. But in reality we are all believers! It is a just a question of what we believe.