This instruction on how to listen to and teach Dharma is a method for transforming listening and teaching into the spiritual path. It is also a supreme instruction to give as a preliminary to teachings. Therefore, keep it in your heart.
The instructions are in three parts:
1 How to listen to Dharma
2 How to teach Dharma
3 The concluding stage common to the Teacher and the student
how to listen to dharma
This has three parts:
1 Considering the benefits of listening to Dharma
2 Developing respect for Dharma and its Teacher
3 The actual way of listening to Dharma
considering the benefits of listening to dharma
If we contemplate some of the countless benefits of listening to Dharma we will naturally enjoy listening to and reading the instructions, and we will do so with an especially keen interest. The result of listening and reading in such a positive frame of mind is that we will actually experience all the benefits we have contemplated. In Collection of Many Special Verses by Buddha Shakyamuni, called Tshom in Tibetan, it says:
By listening you will know all Dharmas.
By listening you will cease all non-virtuous actions.
By listening you will abandon all that is meaningless.
By listening you will attain liberation.
Here the term ‘Dharmas’ refers specifically to the meaning of Dharma instructions. The meaning of Dharma reveals what objects are to be abandoned, what objects are to be practised, and so forth. By listening to Dharma instructions we will understand the meaning of Dharma clearly and we will gradually gain Dharma realizations. Every pure Dharma realization arises in dependence upon meditation, and successful meditation depends upon receiving correct instructions. As explained, all the instructions of Sutra and Tantra are included within the three sets of Buddha’s teachings. By receiving and practising the instructions on the set of moral discipline we will cease non-virtuous actions. By receiving and practising the instructions on the set of discourses, where Buddha explains how to attain concentration, we will abandon all meaningless activities and distractions, the obstacles to concentration. By receiving and practising the instructions on the set of wisdom we will attain liberation.
In Stories of Rebirth Aryasura mentions the following benefits of listening:
Listening is a lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance.
Listening is the best wealth that cannot be stolen by thieves.
Listening is a weapon that destroys our enemy of confusion.
Listening is our best friend from whom we receive our best advice.
Listening is a relative and friend who remains loyal even when we are impoverished.
Listening is a harmless medicine that cures the disease of delusion.
Listening is the supreme opponent that destroys great faults.
Listening is the best treasure because it is the foundation of all fame and resources.
Listening is the best gift that we can offer to our friends.
Listening is the best means of pleasing many people.
Listening is a lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance Nothing is more important than to remove ignorance, which is the main cause of all our suffering and the root from which all other delusions arise. Ignorance is an inner darkness that is removed by the illuminating lamp of listening to Dharma.
Listening is the best wealth that cannot be stolen by thieves Whenever we accumulate ordinary wealth and material resources our life becomes full of practical problems and anxieties. We live in fear of losing our wealth, and to maintain it we have to work hard, even sometimes having to deceive others. We have to pay taxes and spend time and energy working out how to use our wealth and where to invest it. However the wealth of listening to Dharma never causes problems. It can never be lost even when we offer it freely to others. The more we give away, the richer we become. After death it is the only wealth that we can carry with us. Unlike worldly wealth it benefits all future lives as well as this one.
The Tibetan Teachers are living examples of the great value of listening to Dharma. When they were forced to flee Tibet they left everything behind, including even their begging bowls; but nothing could force them to part with their wealth of listening to Dharma. This will always remain with them. It is the very wealth that they are now giving to their western students, the only wealth that can survive death and external destruction.
Listening is a relative and friend who remains loyal even when we are impoverished When we experience severe misfortune and great suffering there is very little that our friends and relatives can do. At such times only the spiritual advice that we have received will come to our aid. Remember the example of Yeshe Ö, who was able to confront death with equanimity by relying upon the good advice and encouragement he had received from his Spiritual Guides. If we listen to or read many Dharma instructions we too can transform the difficulties we experience into the spiritual path and use them to increase our wisdom. Our problems are opportunities to observe and contemplate the law of actions and their effects, the law of karma. They are opportunities to contemplate suffering and its causes, and to practise patience and joyful perseverance. At such times, if we apply the Dharma that we have heard and read we will find that it is a true friend enabling us to maintain our practice uninterruptedly and with joy.
Our ordinary friends and relatives are of no help when we experience great suffering. Sometimes they even abandon us in our greatest need. While Lama Kachen Yeshe Gyaltsen was practising meditation in his cave, he was as poor as Milarepa. One day he was travelling to Tashi Lhunpo Monastery and on his way he saw one of his uncles. His uncle, noticing how impoverished his nephew seemed to be, pretended not to know him. Later, Lama Kachen Yeshe Gyaltsen was promoted to the position of tutor to the eighth Dalai Lama. Thinking that his nephew must now be very wealthy this uncle went to visit him and declared ‘Hello, nephew, I am your uncle.’
Once, a man who was at first very poor and without friends or relatives became rich by engaging in business. People began to visit him, pretending to be his friends or claiming to be his relatives. One day this man invited all his new friends and relatives to dinner. In the middle of the table he placed a huge sack containing all the money he had accumulated. When his guests arrived he made solemn prostrations to the sack and recited these words of praise: ‘O Lord Money, through your great kindness I now have many friends and relatives when previously I had none. Therefore, I make prostrations to you.’
Ordinary friends and relatives can change their feelings and attitudes towards us largely depending upon whether or not we possess wealth and good fortune, but our friend of listening to Dharma will not let us down. It comes to our aid when we are prosperous and it comes to our aid when we are poor. It is the only friend that will endure death with us and support us in all our future lives until we attain enlightenment.
In one Sutra, Buddha says:
By listening you will develop strong faith in Dharma.
By listening your mind will be attracted to Dharma and you will experience powerful results.
By listening your wisdom will increase and your confusion will be eliminated.
To hear just these three lines Prince Chandra offered a thousand gold coins. In the past, those who were intent upon spiritual paths considered receiving instructions so precious that even a gift of their own flesh was not too dear a price to pay.
In a dream, the first Panchen Lama once heard Je Tsongkhapa say:
If