Commentary 3

This is very important for our own and others’ purpose. I am not praising Buddhism because I am Buddhist. I am telling you the truth. Every religion has its uncommon good qualities. The good qualities of Buddhism are that it gives you a peaceful mind…

We can understand the path to enlightenment and enter, make progress, and attain the supreme happiness of enlightenment. These are the uncommon qualities of Buddhism. When I am praising Buddhism I am not…

We enjoy Buddhism. And others enjoy their own religion. We should respect others’ religion but we should know the qualities of our own religion.

We should never give up our promise to seek refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha throughout our life. Through maintaining and sincerely practising the 3 principle commitments of our refuge vow we can attain the ultimate goal of human life and be able to benefit all living beings.

The main reason why we need to make the promise to seek refuge in the 3 Jewels throughout our life is to attain permanent liberation from suffering.

Through this way we will accomplish our aim. Permanent liberation from the suffering of this life and countless future lives. Because we are preparing for our countless future lives, we are really human beings. If we just think of this life alone we are no different from animals. Some animals are even more intelligent than human beings. Sometimes the police need help from dogs to find things. We need understanding about not just this life but all our future lives. Animals can’t do this.

This life is just one single life and it is very short. Our next life could be today or tomorrow. Our next life is not far away. This life is very short but future lives are endless. The duration of countless future lives is so long, too long. And in these lives we will have to experience unbearable suffering continuously. So we have to prepare protection for the freedom and happiness of countless future lives. We have to prepare this protection now. This is very intelligent. Denying or neglecting preparation for countless future lives is very stupid.

A great compassionate mind that spontaneously wishes to attain enlightenment is bodhichitta.

So what you need to do is to memorise the first contemplation and the 4 lines (of the prayer) then whenever you recite the prayer, to concentrate on the meaning. Everything is included here to make it easy for us to gain familiarity.

Unless we have previously memorised and trained in the instructions and have familiarity through continual practice, unless this - nothing. Just open book, reading alone, not enough. Because once we close the book - nothing. Only if we have memorised and have familiarity then we can remember continuously and use it to solve our daily problems.

If we have it here at our heart because we have memorised we can use it day and night even in our dreams. Wonderful. In and out of meditation contemplation still remains. In this way our mind will develop great familiarity with Dharma which is our real protection and refuge. And our Dharma and mind will become mixed. We are storing huge precious jewels of Dharma in our mind. The more we use them the more they will increase.

In summary we go for refuge to Buddha Dharma and Sangha, going for refuge from the depths of our heart, and taking the refuge vow which is a promise. And developing bodhichitta. Then contemplate and recite the 4 line prayer. The sadhana contains all the previous Instructions. Through it we can fulfil all our own and others wishes.