A moving, often beautiful evocation of the great Indian teacher Atisha, whose work had a profound influence on the development of Buddhism in Tibet. Sangharakshita presents Atisha's life as both a challenge and an inspiration to all who wish to practice the Dharma and discover its relevance in the world today. Excerpt from the talk entitled A Life for the Dharma, part of the series Three Lectures to the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, 1999. ***
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[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. What we generally have to do, at least one thing that we can do, a very important thing we can do, is to retrace our steps. To go back to fundamentals. If we are mentally confused, for instance, and there's a great deal of mental confusion around these days. Finds you in the newspapers and, well, one. Here's you on the radio, and I'm sure if one watched TV, which I don't am glad to say, you probably find lots and lots of it there. You find mental confusion, of course, in some of the books you read, and even some of the Buddhist you meet. Even some of the Buddhist teachers you meet, you find mental confusion. So, if we're mentally confused, as we very often are, as we usually are, when we're not making spiritual progress, we have to go back to meditation. That may seem a very dire, a very prosaic, a sort of remedy, you know, back to the old cushion, you know. Back to the old mindfulness of breathing, back to the old metabharvana, back to stamatabharvana, in other ways, but that's what we have to do. If we're mentally confused, if we're not able to develop wisdom, and in that way, make real spiritual progress, we have to go back to meditation, back to stamatabharvana, because, as the Buddha said, it is the concentrated mind, that these things, as they really are, not the unconcentrated mind. It's the concentrated mind that develops cragneya. But suppose our meditation is unsatisfactory. Suppose we don't have too much time for it, or suppose we're troubled by all sorts of wandering thoughts, distractions, what happened yesterday, what have got to do tomorrow here, all that sort of thing. I'm sure you're only too familiar. So if we find meditation difficult, if we can't concentrate, we have to get back to Sheila or ethics. We have to practice the precepts more carefully and more vigorously, because an ethical life is an integrated life. And the more integrated we are, the easier we shall find it to achieve mental concentration. It's no use leading an ethically unintegrated life, and on top of that, in despite of they're almost trying to achieve mental concentration, trying to meditate. But suppose our practice of ethics is not very successful, supposing we find it very difficult not to be cruel, maybe we do sometimes take something we haven't been given. And as for that third precept, I'd better not say anything about that. And what about speech? I mean, I sometimes say that, well, this is the easiest preceptor for all to break. The precept, according to which we should abstain from not just false speech, but harsh speech, speech which divides people, and just useless talk. Well, I'm afraid most of us have to admit that we break this new precept many, many times of day, perhaps. But sometimes it is really the most difficult precept to take. You're very unlikely to kill anybody in the course of the day, or actually to steal anything in the course of the day. You don't usually rob a bank in the course of the day, and you're not very likely to commit adultery in the course of the day. But you're almost certain to infringe the speech precepts. So one needs to watch that, and of course there's that fifth precept, because the matter of some controversy, whether the fifth precept requires total abstention, or just not taking too much. Well, those are just the five precepts. There are other sets of precepts, or the ten precepts. The ten, no, Guslin, across the Adarmes. Supposing we do find even the practice of ethics in a flawless way difficult, what shall we do then? Is it possible to go back to something even more fundamental? Well, it is, fortunately. If we find even the practice of Sheila ethics difficult, well, we should just practice dana or giving. At the very least we can do that. And through dana, through giving, in all sorts of ways, we learn to empathize with other people. And we can therefore say that imaginative identification with other people, or other living beings, in fact, is the foundation of ethics. And in this way we get back to the path of regular steps. We start making progress again. And this is what a teacher did. This is what a teacher did. He retraced his steps from the Vajrayana through the Mahayana and from the Mahayana through the Hinyana. And at the age of 29, he became a monk. He gave up all his tantric rituals, tantric paraphernalia, jana chakras, tantric priests. He became a monk. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. You
