Counsel for Lama Kunga
Counsel for Golok Kharnang Lama Kunga
by Khenchen Ngawang Palzang
Looking on me with your knowledge, love, and wisdom, you have taken me into your care;
You have opened my eyes to the immaculate path,
And led my mind to holy Dharma—
I pay homage at the feet of Tenpai Nyima, the Sun of the Teachings![1]
Dear student, if you sincerely want to enter into freedom,
First, it is imperative to investigate your own mindstream.
When you have the opportunity to practice the Dharma, your mind has three ways to go:[2]
Thoughts can be negative, neutral, and positive.
Dispatch the watchman of mindfulness to your mind full of negative thoughts.
If you do not cut down attachment and hostility as soon as they arise,
You’ll be aimless when it’s time for accumulation and joining[3]
So it will be hard to subdue toxic thoughts through a lofty view of emptiness.
Here and now, ensconced on the side of afflictions,
If you don’t give in to the power of confusion but are steadfast, stalwart,
Constant, and staunch—how can you have afflictions?
Always watch for whether the stains of your mindstream have dissipated or not.[4]
It may be a long time since you entered the Dharma,
But when you don’t run counter to the thoughts and deeds of the ordinary,
And, remaining careless and arrogant, pose as a practitioner,
It’s certain you’ll impoverish yourself and others in this and future lives.
If, deep down, you don’t see afflictions as foes,
Then what use are the noble guru and his profound instructions?
It’s essential to look directly into your mindstream.
Thus, it’s a profound thing to rely on antidotes no matter how intense your afflictions are.
These days, true realization is in decline,
So our mindstreams are wretched, and charlatans,
With their pretentious prattle, spread through the land.
To turn away from presumptions about the view, submit your mindstream
To what helps it most—the four reorientations.[5]
If not, you’ll spoil your relationship with Dharma;[6] you'll feel disillusioned with it;
Your understanding will not improve; and an ignoble body will soon be yours.
Carrying on in feckless apathy,
You might hold to the mountains to sleep, eat, loaf about, and expect to be happy.
Such superficial sanctimony might look nice,
But it’s hardly the way to activate the potential of the path to freedom.[7]
The sincere emergence of confident faith[8]
In the undeceiving Three Jewels
Is like the fund, or treasure, on which your Dharma depends.
Bolster yourself wisely with the faith of reasoned understanding.
If you wish to overcome the suffering of saṃsāra's three planes of existence,
Which is produced by karma and afflictions within your mind,
You must practice the nectar-like Dharma.
Reflecting on their causes, comparisons, and statistics,[9] you will see that
The Dharma’s noble supports—the precious freedoms and advantages—
are so rare to find.
It will be hard to somehow find anything like them again,
Therefore, enliven your heart and dedicate yourself to the holy Dharma.[10]
If you waste time,[11] putting things off until tomorrow or the next day,
Your life will surely slip away, days and months evaporating.
Think about how, when the moments of your life have reached exhaustion,
You will march inexorably into the Lord of Death’s grip.
Everyone knows that it’s death alone that’s coming,
But they think, “It’s not yet time to die,” and with this misconception
They use up their time on earth hoping to accomplish things in this life.
You don’t know when you’re going to die. While you’re here, think about it.
When you’re dying, your body, possessions, loved ones,
Accomplishments, influence, and strength will do you no good.
Even the body you’ve lovingly cared for—you’ll lay it down and have to go.
Nothing will help you or harm you but your goodness or corruption.
Unstable, empty hubris
Seldom solves anything at this time of need.[12]
If the view does not suffuse you, then meditating in dull stability
Will lead nowhere but to the animal kingdom.
The path of the two truths is where emptiness and compassion are equal.
If you can experience the simultaneity of appearances and their emptiness,
All the bodhisattvas’ practices are subsumed therein.
If they’re split up and you focus on one, it might look like you’re practicing
And you might pontificate and brag about experiences of meditative diaphaneity,[13]
But when it comes to ending birth and death, you'll be even worse off than someone quite ordinary.
But oh, how important it is not to let the view of emptiness ruin you.
Pema Ledrel wrote this for Golok Kharnang Lama Kunga.
| Translated by Joseph McClellan with NT Ninjyed, 2025.
Bibliography
Source Texts
mKhan po ngag dgaʼ. ʼGo log mkhar nang bla ma kun dgaʼ la gdams pa. In gSung ʼbum ngag dbang dpal bzang, 2:139–42. Khreng tuʼu, nd. BDRC MW22946_8C6E68.
mKhan po ngag dgaʼ. gSung ʼbum kun mkhyen ngag gi dbang po, vol. 1, pp. 146–149. sNga ʼgyur kaḥ thog bcu phrag rig mdzod chen moʼi dpe tshogs. Khreng tuʼu: Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2017. BDRC W4CZ364088.
Secondary Texts
Kretschmar, Andreas. Drops of Nectar: Khenpo Kunpal’s Commentary on Shantideva’s Entering the Conduct of the Bodhisattvas, volume 4. Andreas Kretschmar, 2004. https://pktc.org/wp-content/themes/bb-theme-child/downloads/bca4comm.pdf
Ngawang Pelzang, A Guide to the Words of My Perfect Teacher. Translated by Padmakara Translation Group. Boston Shambhala, 2004.
Patrul Rinpoche. “Guide to the Stages and Paths of the Bodhisattvas.” Translated by Adam Pearcey. LotsawaHouse.org, 2007. https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/patrul-rinpoche/stages-and-path
Patrul Rinpoche. The Words of My Perfect Teacher. Boston: Shambhala, 1998.
Version: 1.0-20250123
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Ngawang Palzang's root guru, Nyoshul Lungtok Tenpai Nyima (1829–1901). The last two terms in his name mean “sun of the teachings.” ↩
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"When you have the opportunity to practice Dharma" loosely translates chos ldan rten la, which, more literally, is something like "To rely on what is dharmic…" ↩
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Accumulation and joining here refer to the first two of the bodhisattva paths. Patrul Rinpoche glosses them briefly as follows: “It is called the path of accumulation because it is the stage at which we make a special effort to gather the accumulation of merit, and also because it marks the beginning of many incalculable aeons of gathering the accumulations… The path of joining is so named because it provides the connection [between the path of accumulation and] the direct insight of non-conceptual wisdom on the path of seeing… The non-conceptual wisdom of the path of seeing is likened to a fire that incinerates the emotional obscurations. However, even before they catch fire, two sticks will produce a degree of heat when they are rubbed together. In a similar way, certain indications or signs of ‘warmth,’ unlike any we have experienced before, develop in our being as the coarser destructive emotions subside. This is known as the stage of warmth…” (Patrul, “Guide to the Stages and Paths of the Bodhisattvas”). ↩
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This line contains the phrase skya dri, which we find in no lexicon. Skya usually means "grey" or "pale," so it seems to be qualifying dri ("stain/distortion") in some unpleasant way. As we are unsure of the combination, we simply use "stains." ↩
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"Four reorientations" are more commonly known as the "four thoughts that turn the mind": the preciousness of a human birth, impermanence, karmic causality, and the flaws of saṃsāra. ↩
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"Spoil your relationship with Dharma" loosely translates chos gzhung shor. Chos gzhung can mean Dharma books/scriptures, but it can also mean the whole canon or system of Dharma, connoting the true meaning of it all. ↩
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"Activate the potential" is a loose translation for sa bon thob—more literally, "attain the seed," which does not seem to transfer well in English. ↩
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"Confident faith" (yid ches dad pa) is one of the three kinds of faith—the others being vivid faith (dang ba'i dad pa) and eager faith ('dod pa'i dad pa). If refers to unshakable conviction in the qualities of the sources of refuge. ↩
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The reflections on the freedoms and advantages' causes, comparisons, and statistics, see Patrul, The Words of My Perfect Teacher, 19–37; Ngawang Pelzang, A Guide to the Words of My Perfect Teacher, 17–54; Kretschmar, Drops of Nectar, 65. ↩
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"Enliven your heart" renders snying po 'bungs gsum. 'Bungs means earnest application, and here gsum, does not literally mean three but is an intensifier. ↩
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Both editions read dron, which we take to be an alternate spelling of gron pa, "to waste/squander." ↩
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This line and the one above are problematic. The old edition reads gnas cha med pa'i stong pa'i sbad khams kyi/ /dgos pa'i dus su mnyen po thub pa dkon. There, two things seem amiss. First, sbad khams is found in no lexicons. One source gives a somewhat similar term, sbad kha, as an uncommon form of kha bshad ("lip service"). The 2017 edition also reads sbad khams, which might be a deviant spelling of rbad kham ("boasting"). Either reading is plausible, but there is no way to tell, so we settle for "hubris." In the second line, where the old edition reads mnyen po ("pliable"), the newer edition reads, more sensibly, gnyen po ("remedy"). ↩
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“Meditative diaphaneity” for zang thal, an important term in Dzogchen discourses referring to the meditator’s experience of the world as transparent and luminously unsolid. ↩
