བློ་སྦྱོང་ཚིགས་བརྒྱད་མའི་བཀའ་ཁྲིད། ༧ རྒྱལ་དབང་ཀརྨ་པ་མཆོགEight Verses of Training the Mind by 17th Gyalwang KarmapaJanuary 11 - 12, 2014
 Monlam Pavilion, BodhgayaLanguage: Tibetan and English

The Gyalwang Karmapa teaches on The Eight Verses of Training the Mind, one of the most beloved texts on mind training (lojong) that distills its very essence. The author, Geshe Langri Thangpa, was a famous Kadampa teacher, who was also called, “the Serious One,” or “Gloomy Face.” Due to his compassionate focus on the suffering of living beings in samsara, he hardly ever smiled.

“Why are sentient beings so valuable? Because in order to achieve awakening we need bodhicitta, and in order to generate bodhicitta we need compassion. And because compassion must be generated with respect to sentient beings, sentient beings are infinitely precious and necessary for our awakening.” Without other beings, the Gyalwang Karmapa explained, we would not be able to generate the bodhicitta that is the root of the path to awakening. Therefore, without other beings, we could in fact not achieve awakening ourselves.

What is Lojong?The core of mind training, the Karmapa explained, is to practice seeing oneself and others as equal and then to exchange oneself for them. Having studied these instructions in the main texts and practiced their teachings, Langri Thangpa condensed all of them into these eight verses.

Usually mind training does not depend on the length of the text but the concise presentation of the key points. We might read many texts and their commentaries, the Karmapa commented, but if we cannot blend these teachings with our mind, if we do not internalize them, they will not benefit us. The Kadampa lineage in general emphasizes practice over study; its teachers focused on experience rather than the intellect. Extracting the essential meaning of all the Buddha’s teachings, they put these into practice without mistake and without leaving anything left out. Each of Langri Thangpa’s verses gives one of these key instructions, as we shall see.