Dalai Lama Video Media

H.H. Dalai Lama Video Media

The Four Mindfulnesses (VDL1)
In 1989, His Holiness the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize. Subsequently he gave a series of Dzogchen teachings and empowerments in San Jose, California. Speaking to a small gathering at the Vajrapani Institute retreat center in Boulder Creek, California, His Holiness gave this teaching on the Four Mindfulnesses, from the well-known root text of the Seventh Dalai Lama. To receive teachings from the Dalai Lama is quite extraordinary; witness his sparkling alertness and intelligence, experience his warmth and compassion. Boulder Creek, California, October 1989.
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The Song of the Four Mindfulnesses, Causing the Rain of Achievements to Fall
by Kaysang Gyatso, the Seventh Dalai Lama

Mindfulness of the Guru
On the seat of the immutable union of method and wisdom
Sits the kind guru who is the entity of all the refuges,
A Buddha who has perfect abandonment and wisdom is there.
Forsaking thoughts of defects, make a petition with pure perception,
Not letting your mind stray, place it within admiration and respect,
Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within admiration and respect.

Mindfulness of the Altruistic Aspiration to Highest Enlightenment
In the prison of the suffering of limitless cyclic existence
Wander the six types of sentient beings bereft of happiness,
Fathers and mothers who protected you with kindness are there.
Forsaking desire and hatred, cultivate endearment and compassion,
Not letting your mind stray, place it within compassion,
Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within compassion.

Mindfulness of Your Body as a Divine Body
In the divine mansion of great bliss, pleasant to feel,
Abides the divine body which is your own body of pure aggregates and constituents,
A deity with the Three Kayas inseparable is there.
Not conceiving yourself to be ordinary, practice divine pride and vivid appearance,
Not letting your mind stray, place it within the profound and the manifest,
Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within the profound and the manifest.

Mindfulness in the View of Emptiness
Throughout the circle of appearing and occuring objects of knowledge
Pervades the space of clear light, the nature of phenomena, the ultimate,
An inexpressible mode of being of objects is there.
Forsaking mental fabrications, look to the entity of immaculate emptiness,
Not letting your mind stray, place it within the nature of phenomena,
Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within the nature of phenomena.

At the crossroads of the varieties of appearances and the six consciousnesses
Is seen the confusion of the baseless phenomena of duality,
The illusory spectacles of a deceiving magician are there.
Not thinking they are true, look to their entity of emptiness,
Not letting your mind stray, place it within appearance and emptiness,
Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within appearance and emptiness.

These instructions on the view of emptiness for one who uses the four mindfulnesses, special instructions actually bestowed by the holy Manjughosa on Tsong Khapa, a king of doctrine, were composed by the Buddhist monk Lozang Kaysang Gyatso for the sake of his own and others' establishing predispositions for the correct view.

Translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins and Lati Rinpoche (1975). From The Buddhism of Tibet, Snow Lion Publications, New York, 2002.