— Lama Karma Drodhul
The teaching today is from the sutra, the Well-Explained Reasoning. “Stain” in Tibetan is drima and we can relate this to Gampopa and his meeting with Phakmo Drupa, who was one of his three famous disciples from Kham (Eastern Tibet). Phakmo Drupa traveled to see many lamas and ask his most pressing question: What is the cause of samsara? All of them gave the standard answer of ignorance, which did not satisfy him. Finally he met Gampopa, who replied to him: “Ordinary mind is not able to rest in its way of being.” “Ordinary mind” here means “profound mind.” And Phakmo Drupa then became Gampopa’s disciple.
In general, there are teachings that explain how thoughts are by using the example of a mirror. If you breathe on it, temporarily the mirror is clouded or stained. So when we talk of stains, we must remember that we are talking about temporary or incidental stains, which do not come from ordinary mind. Gampopa spoke to Phakmo Drupa of ordinary mind and teachers explain it in different ways. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche has taught that all our thoughts–whatever they may be, of anger, jealousy, and so forth–are changing moment by moment. After one thought has arisen and before the next one comes, we can experience the deep ordinary mind. But in our case, as Gampopa taught, “Ordinary mind is not able to rest in its way of being,” because our mind is temporarily stained or clouded over.
Now we look at the six stains in particular, which are (1) pride or arrogance; (2) no faith; (3) no interest; (4) our mind is constantly distracted outwardly or (5) withdrawn inwardly; (6) sad or fatigued. These are the six obstacles to receiving a transmission properly. How can we overcome them? In Tibetan, the first stain of pride is nga gyal (nga rgyal), where nga means “I” or “me” and gyal means “king” or “victory” so we are thinking, “I’m the king of the world.” “ I must be on the top.” So we are completely preoccupied with this “I” that has never existed. We tend not to see others but just our selfish ego. In particular, it is said that we feel superior to our guru and our Dharma friends. If, for example, we have done three-year retreat, we could think, “I’m a lama or an older practitioner and I should be respected.” This is a problem since Dharma is made to overcome ego and here it is just building it up. When listening to Dharma, however, we can discover that we are clinging to something that has never truly existed. We could be perfect in this very moment, on this very seat as we are listening to the sound of the transmission.
We can remedy a lack of faith by recalling that we have a great opportunity to be in this special place that is His Holiness the Karmapa’s seat. Even if he is not physically here, he is mentally present and always with us. This sense of real appreciation can help us to generate faith.
No yearning interest, the third stain, means that physically we are in a place of Dharma but we do not have much interest and so our mind wanders outside, and this is the fourth stain, being distracted outwardly and not concentrated. With the fifth stain, our minds are sunk in dullness; we may hear the sound but we are sleepy. This is a sign that we have obscurations that need to be purified. Finally, the sixth stain is being too tired–we think that the teaching is too long; we are hungry and thirsty, or too hot or too cold and do not really want to listen.
These six stains are what prevent the liberation of thoughts. These six are obstacles not only in this life, but also in those to come when they pose the danger of not being able to encounter the Dharma. Therefore, we must listen to the Dharma with good motivation and good conduct. These six stains are part of the preliminary teachings for the Way of the Bodhisattva, which were given by the great Nyingma master, Khenpo Kunpal.
— edited by Michele Martin