(TibetanReview.net, Oct01’24) – Some 1,300 devotees from Taiwan received religious teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and offered to him a long-life prayer, ceremony attended by some 7,000 people over Sep 30-Oct 1. The teachings – which were on ‘The Three Principles of the Path’, authored by Jé Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism – and the ceremony were held in the Tsuglakhang, the main Buddhist temple at McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala.
In his teachings, which took place on the first day, the Dalai Lama explained: “The three principles of the path are: renunciation, or a determination to be free; the awakening mind; and the correct view. The determination to be free does not lead to enlightenment directly, it needs to be augmented by the other two principles.”
Talking about putting the Three Higher Trainings and the Three Principles of the Path into practice, the Dalai Lama said: “When we develop a determination to be free, we’ll no longer be drawn to the pleasures and attractions of this life or future lives in cyclic existence. We’ll turn away from them. However, we will not reach the state of omniscience without the awakening mind of bodhichitta and a correct view of emptiness.”
And he made it clear, “The Three Principles of the Path need to be integrated within us. They need to become part of our inner experience.”
He also explained, however, that a determination to be free without a pure awakening mind of bodhichitta does not bring forth enlightenment. Therefore, Bodhisattvas generate the excellent awakening mind. They reflect on how all beings, our mothers, are swept by the current of the four powerful rivers, tied by strong bonds of actions so hard to undo, caught in the iron net of self-centredness, completely enveloped by the darkness of ignorance, born and reborn in boundless cyclic existence, and are ceaselessly tormented by the three miseries. Thinking of them in this way they generate the awakening mind.
The Dalai Lama noted that the text touches on how, despite these realizations, without wisdom, the realization of emptiness, we cannot cut the root of cyclic existence. Therefore, we must strive to understand dependent arising.
The Dalai Lama declared that the main cause of “higher rebirths” in the future, which would afford fortunate opportunities for attaining speedy enlightenment, is cultivating the awakening mind of bodhichitta and an understanding of emptiness.
At the long-life prayers offering ceremony, made on Oct 1 under the aegis of the International Association of Tibetan Buddhism of Taiwan (IATBT), Changkya Rinpoché and the Ganden Tri Rinpoché each made a mandala and representations of the body, speech and mind of enlightenment offerings to His Holiness.
Hu Mao Hua Ming, President of IATBT, read a fervent prayers-request, beseeching that the life of His Holiness remains firm for a hundred eons and that the wheel of Dharma continue to turn forever.
In his brief address, the Dalai Lama assured the gathering that he had premonitions suggesting he would live to be more than one hundred and ten yours old.