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peace and happiness, you should think about how all other sentient
beings have the same wish. You should then practice meditation in
order to liberate all sentient beings, yourself included, from all forms
of suffering and bring lasting peace and happiness to all.
It doesn t matter what kind of meditation you are going to do, if
your mind is excited and distracted, you must first try to bring it to a
peaceful level. This is why we need calm abiding.
We all have to breathe. So, based upon the natural vehicle of
breath, try to contain your mind and deal with its excitement. When
you breathe out, remain aware of the exhalation of breath and when
you breathe in, remain aware of the inhalation of breath. One exhala-
tion and one inhalation constitute what is known as one round of
breath; count from seven to twenty-one rounds to calm your mind.
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MIRROR OF WISDOM
Use your own natural rhythm. Don t exaggerate the process by
breathing more heavily or strongly than normal. That would be artifi-
cial. When you breathe in and out, that gentle or natural breath
should be through your nostrils not through your mouth. If you mess
up in your counting, it means that your mind got distracted. If you
try to do this focused meditation on your breath right after you return
home from work, it might prove a little difficult, but you should be
able to do it after taking a little rest. Through this kind of focused
meditation on your natural process of breathing, you are basically try-
ing to bring your mind back to whatever is your object of meditation.
Once your mind is brought to a certain relaxed state, you can begin
your actual meditation. Maybe you want to meditate on the imper-
manence of life, on death and dying or on the infallible workings of
the law of karmic actions and results. Maybe you want to do guru
yoga meditation, where you visualize your guru or teacher. The same
preparation should be done for any other kind of meditation includ-
ing meditation on bodhicitta or the perfect view of emptiness.
Many people have the notion that meditation is easy, that you just
close your eyes, sit properly and put your hands in a certain gesture.
Sitting like that is just a posture. It s not meditation. We must know
how to meditate. The Indian master, Acharya Vasubandhu, in his
Treasury of Knowledge, states that you should be abiding in ethical dis-
cipline and should have received teachings on the practice you are try-
ing to do and contemplated their meaning. When you have really
understand the practice, you are ready for meditation. It s a process. If
you do it that way, you won t go wrong.
BETWEEN SESSIONS
The text states, In between meditation sessions, be like a conjurer.
How can we be like a conjurer? Our usual perception of things is
that they appear to exist from their own side. They seem to have a
kind of solidified and fixed nature. However, there is a disparity
between the way phenomena appear to our perception and the way
they actually exist. So, between sessions, we should try to understand
that the way things appear to us as fixed and independently existent
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LEARNING TO BECOME A BUDDHA
is like a magician s trick. We must also understand that we ourselves
are the magician who created this trick, for it is our own faulty per-
ception that sees things as existing independently. We should always
try to see through this illusion, even as we interact with it.
Most people perceive all things as if they existed inherently and
grasp at and cling to that perceived inherent existence. There are
other people who perceive the appearance of inherent existence but
don t grasp at it things appear to them as if they existed in and of
themselves, but they are aware that things don t really exist in that
way. Then there are people who are free of both appearance and
grasping. Not only do these people not grasp at things as if they exist-
ed independently but to them, things don t even appear to exist in
that way. The difference between these kinds of people is illustrated in
the following example.
In ancient India (and still today in some parts), there were magi-
cians who created optical illusions to entertain people. Using only
rocks and sticks, they could create beautiful magical illusions of horses
and elephants. The spectators, whose visual perception was influenced
by the magician s incantation, would actually see horses and elephants
and believe them to be real. The spectators are like those people to
whom phenomena appear as inherently existent and who also grasp at
things as if they existed in that way. The magician himself would also
see the horses and elephants, but the difference was that he knew the
tricks he was playing; he knew he had created them. The magician is
like those people to whom phenomena appear as inherently existent
but who know that things don t actually exist that way. There would
also be people whose consciousness had not been affected magical
incantations they wouldn t see any horses or elephants, so they
wouldn t grasp at them. They are like people for whom there is nei-
ther the appearance of nor the grasping at the inherent existence of
phenomena.
Ordinary people like us ordinary in the sense that we have not
realized what the ultimate nature of phenomena is experience both
the appearance of and the grasping at true and inherent existence.
Things appear to us as if they exist truly, objectively and independently
and we grasp at this perceived mode of existence because we think
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MIRROR OF WISDOM
that things really do exist in this way. On the other hand, those who
have gained direct insight into emptiness may also experience the
appearance of inherent existence of phenomena, but they don t grasp
at this appearance because they know the truth of how things actually
exist. Then there are the aryas, transcendental beings who have directly
and non-conceptually experienced what emptiness is. When they are
in meditative equipoise on emptiness, neither does inherent existence
of phenomena appear to them nor is there grasping at such existence.
The reason you keep going round and round in this compulsive
cycle of rebirths is that you do not understand ultimate reality. When
you engage in your practices, you shouldn t do so with the idea that
maybe, in some mysterious way, your practice is going to make you
enlightened in the far distant future or that perhaps it will help ward
off some negative influence. You must do your practices for the pur-
pose of cultivating bodhicitta and the wisdom realizing emptiness.
When you make offerings, recite mantras or help the poor and needy,
you should dedicate the merit of such actions to gaining these realiza-
tions. To really understand emptiness, you must meditate consistently
over a number of years and continually do purification and accumula-
tion practices. But don t let this dishearten you. Through constant
effort and with the passage of time, you will definitely come to
understand emptiness.
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FIVE
DEDICATION
We need to properly dedicate the merit we have gained through
studying this teaching. Let us dedicate our collective merit for the
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