We Begin with Atisha

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me here. It's my first time I was in Ojai, but I thought I must have come before because I've heard of it, but then eventually I realized that's due to Krishnamurti. So anyway, it's a beautiful place, and those of you who have come from Los Angeles or elsewhere, thank you for making the trouble to come here. So we are going to go to this evening and then tomorrow through a text written by someone called Deepankara Atisha. Now who has not heard of Atisha? So Atisha was a monk from Bengal, in fact from modern day Bangladesh, in the 10th and 11th century. He was a great scholar, and he travelled even to Indonesia and spent 12 years studying there with a great master. And then in India he was the abbot of a large Buddhist monastic college called Vikramashila. So his fame travelled even as far as Tibet. So Tibet in the 10th and 11th century was going through something of a crisis. After a brilliant start in the 8th and 9th century, then there had come some problems in Tibet, especially with the kings who were against Buddhism, and there was a lot of corruption and difficulties going on. And so there was a king in western Tibet in a place called Guge, who was very concerned about this and wanted to invite Atisha to Tibet to sort them all out. So he invited Atisha, but Atisha said, no, I'm too old. I can't go find somebody else. And meantime, this king had sent 21 young monks to Kashmir to learn Sanskrit so that they could make authoritative translations of texts coming from India in Sanskrit. But most of them died, and only two of them survived because of the conditions in that part of the country. I don't know why Kashmir is already quite high. But anyway, for whatever reasons, they all died, except for two, one of whom was Rinshin Tsongpo, who became a great, very famous translator. Anyway, the king decided that since Atisha refused to come, he himself would go to invite him. So the king's name was Yishia, which means wisdom light. And he went as far as the border, intending to go into India from Nepal. But there he was captured by a king and imprisoned. And the king asked for his ransom of his weight in gold. So his son, Chan Shuk-e, went all over Tibet, trying to raise enough gold to ransom his father. But in the end, he only got as far as the head. He didn't have enough for the head. So the bad king said that that's not enough. He wanted the whole lot or nothing, and he would behead the king. So then Yishia, the king, said, look, don't bother with me. I'm old anyway. I'm not that much longer to live. Take all the gold you've collected, go to Atisha, and tell him how you collected this gold, and that I sacrificed my life to bring Atisha to Tibet. So they did that. The king was beheaded and the son, Chan Shuk-e, went to see Atisha and explained what had happened, and the king sacrificed on behalf of bringing Atisha to Tibet. So what could Atisha do? And meantime, Atisha was very, very devoted to Tara, who we see here, the Buddha Tara, who represents fearless compassion. He was very devoted to her and saw her many times in visions. And she told him, you have to go to Tibet anyway, so no choice. She said, it will shorten your life, but it's very, very important for Tibet that you go there. So therefore, he traveled to Tibet and stayed there until the end of his life and had an enormous impact on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism down to the present day. I used to think that Atisha was kind of boring because he's so good. And he was a great scholar, a great practitioner, and he was so self-sacrificing, and he was so ill. But in fact, as I began to read Atisha and to start teaching some Atisha, I recognized how really wonderful he was. And I really hold Atisha in my heart now. I think that he was the one that really kept the Tibetan Buddhism focused because of his tremendous emphasis on aspiration of attaining enlightenment for the benefit of others and of the importance of great compassion and ethics and really making a very strong foundation before engaging in higher tantric practices that really needed to have a very solid foundation before you start building the temple. And so that kept Tibetan Buddhism very much on track. And in all the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, they include Atisha and his texts and those of his followers. All the traditions have incorporated his teachings into their studies and their appreciation of what he did for Tibet. He was really very special. Anyway, so this is a very simple text by him. He wrote many, but this is a very basic introduction to his approach. Very simple. But if we try to incorporate it into our life, then also very profound.