Archive Result

1Soundfile 199871109GR&RTMN1_01

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche & Robert Thurman

Location ??

Topic Tibet Mystic Nation

Transcriber Vicki Cahill

Date September 4, 2021

[Robert: what did I do?

Audience: …

Rimpoche: Stepping over the wires as well as the buttons and

Robert: Oh yeah. We can pass those along that way

Rimpoche: Yeah. Well, yeah. That’s better

Robert: And. Can you pass those back?

Rimpoche: I think it will be better if you, sort of tried to teach there. Better if you stand up and start giving it. I think that.

Robert: I think a few more will be coming..?. You know, late coming ]

0:00:44.6 Welcome. Many of you who were not here today. We started a second day. Which is. Second session is moving on the beginning of the second page, what is known as the later, the period of the later dissemination is what I was going to say, the 0:01:00.5 citta(?) from the earlier dissemination period which we talked about last time. Although we didn’t quite finish. So, what I, what we’re going to do and some of the figures, when we get to the main topic of the day, the Kagyupa tradition. [The catch. Guess that doesn’t help much]. The Kagyupa tradition. The main, some of the main figure’s names and dates and so forth are down here, which will help you when we get to that section later in the class. And then above is sort of little outline of the different topics that we will rotatingly talk about during the class. And what I would, what I thought I would do, is I would begin with a quick summary. A quick historical context, contextualizing which will bring us up to date, to talk about the Kagyupa order. One of the complexities about this whirlwind course, through a thousand years of Tibetan history is that we want to cover the different orders; their particular teachings. And we also want to keep a certain historical context. But by that we don’t want to. It should be clear that it’s not really that neat historically. In other words, it isn’t that one order is mainly important in one era and then another in another, another in another, sort of like that. It’s sort of intermingled. But there, see there is a certain kind of logic about putting them this way. And that is why this one, today, I talked, called “yogic Tibet”. Which I hope will become clear as we go along. In talking about Milarepa. And what I will do, is I will, on the basis of some slides that I brought, I will begin by surveying the history part again. And bringing us up until the time of Milarepa, which is the eleventh century. So, we will start now from pre-history and we’ll go up to there. Up to about ten past eight. Then we will turn to the Siddha. And Rimpoche will introduce the whole concept of mahasiddha. What is a mahasiddha? And how the tantric element is important in Tibet. [Could you pull the thing a little forward? If you see the slide projector, you’ll see there is a blue switch towards the back. You just pull it forward and the light goes on. Yeah. The one that slides. Just push it forward. That’s it. Thank you. And can someone get the lights. These are a little. For some reason the way the tables are. The floor itself slants. So, we just have to be patient. It’s going to be; everything is going to be a little crooked. So could someone catch the lights.

Rimpoche: It’s outside somewhere. This side. Somebody said earlier]

Robert: Alright. Ok. Very Good. Now, I apologize if the slide is. This is my own photograph taken of a book page. And so, it’s a little bit; the focus is good in some places, but not everywhere.

0:03:54.1 Now. What this is. Do you remember? Those of you who were here before, do you remember Rimpoche talked. We talked about the myth of Avalokiteshvara incarnating as a monkey. And as a monkey, marrying a demoness, and then between them producing the race of Tibetans. Do you remember the myth? This is an illustration. A traditional Tibetan tangka from the Potala museum, which illustrates. Do you see the monkey here? This is the bodhisattva monkey right over here. Avalokiteshvara, the monkey. That’s Avalokiteshvara in his peaceful form emanating as a monkey. That is the Buddha Amitayus in his pure land at the top. Or Amitabha. At the bottom of the flag, the reddish colored Buddha. Indicating this sort of heavenly realm within which Avalokiteshvara made this vow. And then he incarnated down into this world. You can see actually, the ray of light comes down from one Buddha to another, then comes forward into this monkey. There’s a lot of details. I, I can’t. If I dwell on each detail, it will take too long, so I, which I won’t. But here he’s sort of the culture hero. He’s teaching the Tibetans. Here’s the king. Nyatri Tsenpo, who came down from heaven pointing up. “I came from the sky.” This is the later century. See him here? And then the Tibetans carrying him on the seat, on the nape of their neck. Like a palanquin. Which from which his name becomes “The king who was carried on the back of the neck”. And then and so forth. It goes down to where they built the first Tibetan palaces. The kings did. And it goes up to a certain point. Up until. Previous to the time of Songtsen Gampo. So, it shows a kind of a. It’s very cute. If we dwelt on the detail, it would be interesting. It shows the Tibetan way of encapsulating history in a visual form. They are very. They have a very special art of doing it. And this was a particularly fine example. You see this sort of thing in frescoes in Tibetan temples all over Tibet, showing how very strongly their sense of their national culture and history is. It would be sort of like a picture of you know, King Alfred the Great or something in Normandy. And various myths you might have about. And some Druids would be there and Stonehenge. 0:05:55.9 (For it’s?) it’s equivalent sort of type of thing. And it goes all the way back. I love particularly, the one about the monkey. The Dalai Lama. There’s a joke he always makes about that I must share with you. You’ll enjoy. He always makes this joke. He first made it in eighty-one, when he was here. And there was an Arkansas trial going on about Darwin versus creationism. And he had heard about that. He read about it in something. And he said, “I wish I could go and testify down there.” He said, “We Tibetans have a very good system.” He said, “We also have a birth from God.” He said, “But our God luckily is a monkey. He’s” (laughs) “So, we can reconcile when we have both a God and a monkey,” He says. “I wish I could testify.” He used to say that. But I think I told you, “This is the monkey. God the monkey, who becomes the progenitor of Tibetan race.

0:06:43.1 Now, here we come into the era of Songtsen Gampo. And this shows his deeds. Where above you see the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara, in the clouds there? And he incarnates. It’s, we can’t see on this reproduction, but his is a ray of light comes from him, down to that little palace up there, where he takes rebirth, in the womb of the queen of Tibet. And then here he meets, here he sends an emissary to the king of China. That’s the emperor of China with that black hat, supposed to be. And then they, they do various things here. Here he brings the Buddha’s for brought to Tibet. He brings the statues. Here, I believe, he’s beginning to make the Jokhang, by filling up this lake. He builds a structure over a lake. They built the Jokhang, the first great cathedral on top of a lake. You can see they’re putting a structure on top of the lake. And there, as I say again, this, there are many, many episodes depicted in this, in this painting. And here’s another one. Showing some of his battles with the Chinese. There’s some war scenes in it plus his building. And here he’s built the Jokhang. And you can see the Jokhang as with this statues are installed there. That’s the central cathedral of Lhasa which still stands today, which he built from that time, seventh century A.D. And at the moment, unfortunately it’s full of Chinese police and it’s cordoned off. It’s sort of like, although there is no press, so there’s no coverage. It’s sort of like the red, the golden temple, an 0:08:06.1 emblazer(??) or something. It’s like the national shrine is now shut up and closed off by the police. That is the national shrine, dating from the seventh century. As it’s still. It’s of course, much more elaborated today. And these are other local shrines that he built around about Tibet. This is his own palace. I’m not sure. Some of these are also scenes from his life. And other temples that he built. There was a story that the geomancers of the time detected that Tibet lay on the top of, another of their myths. On top of a giant earth goddess. Kind of, sort of slightly demonic one. And that they have this kind of myth that they had to build temples on certain parts of her body. Twelve temples. And then sixteen on outer perimeter, the geomancers said, “Oh, this great demoness will arise and will be annoyed about Buddhism. To make her, sort of pacified so that we can develop this culture, we need to put these temples in these certain geomantically powerful places.” And so, these are the. This is a picture of some of those temples that were built around about Tibet.

0:09:14.9 Here I think we’re coming into the era of Trisong Detsen, the later king. Where you can see here, Shantarakshita, the abbot Shantarakshita. This is. Now this, we’ve jumped here into the ninth century; the late eighth and early ninth century. And this depicts some of the scenes that we talked about where Shantarakshita, the abbot comes to Tibet. They begin to work on building the monastery and so on. And I don’t see Padma yet. I think this is before Padma comes. This is also from that time and here you can see Padmasambhava. You’d see above on the right there, Padmasambhava? And I’m sorry that, if I can only focus on one part at a time. This is Shantarakshita teaching there. And this depicts some of the disciples of Padmasambhava Sort of the atmosphere of Tibet in that time. In their different retreat places. Different palaces of the different kings. This one is, I believe, the twenty-five disciples of Padmasambhava. The so-called famous twenty-five disciples. We didn’t really touch on this. But Padmasambhava’s importation of the highest tantric teachings in Tibet were carried on by these twenty-five major disciples, who many of; some of them lay people, some of them monks. Who went around in different caves and meditated. Some of them you can see, lived with tigers. Others stayed in this and that cave. And they’re all kind of fly, they all had attained different powers and abilities. Very magical. And very powerful. And they sort of flew around and here and there began to bless the land. This one’s coming out from under a waterfall. You see him? It’s really cute. See, this is a little one swimming there. This is the king, Trisong Detsen here, meditating while all this, this charismatic activity goes on. A couple of them are flying up, up in the sky. See them? Flapping around. They’re very cute really. The twenty-five great disciples of Padma. Of (?)0:11:04.3 Padmasambhava’s teaching in that cave up at the top there. Giving his tantric teachings in the famous cave above Samye monastery. Which is still very, still visited. This is a depiction of the two central temples later in the time of Trisong Detsen. You know, this is the Jokhang and the Potala. The earlier version of the Potala. Maybe somewhat anachronistic, actually. Just sort of begins to look like the later Potala. But this is what at least they think the earlier one at the time of Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen looked like. At least with the present one, you’ll recognize as much, much bigger than that. And that’s the Jokhang and that’s Lhasa in this early period. And up there is the Ramoche Cathedral, presently that’s where the other famous Buddha image was placed. And which now is in the, is in the, is still there actually. These are similar deeds of that time. I think these are the peripheral temples. Yes. These are depictions of the temples around about the periphery, that are holding down the goddess. The earth goddess. You know, placating the earth goddess so that the work of dharma can go a, go ahead. That’s what they are. Here is a picture of Songtsen Gampo.

Rimpoche: 0:12:18.1 (Tibetan:..with GR and RT)

0:12:29.4 Robert: This is Songtsen. This Songtsen Gampo. This is Songtsen Gampo. You can tell by he has the little Amitabha head peaking out of his turban to indicate his incarnational status of Avalokiteshvara. This is the King, Me Agtsom, one of his descendants. This Trisong Detsen over there and Trisong Detsen is characterized by the two lotuses he has by his shoulders, a book of Prajnaparamita and a sword symbolizing that he’s an incarnation of Manjushri. Because it was under him that the monastery and the major translation work was undertaken. And he’s considered an incarnation of Manjushri. Yes?

Rimpoche: I was. Trisong

Robert: And Me Agtsom, this king was the father of Trisong Detsen and I guess the grandson of Songtsen Gampo. Grandson. This. I’m not sure. Rimpoche. I’m actually not sure. This is called the 0:13:15.8 (Tibetan :..ong Chongye) This is the famous nine story tower called the ong Chongye 0:13:25.1 tower. It is.

Rimpoche: 0:13:26.7 (Tibetan:..)

Robert: And I think it’s at the time of. It’s also in the time of Trisong Detsen. And I think it’s a special tower that he built. See the chain that’s holding it? And it’s in the vicinity of Samye. A kind of special tower that he built. It’s. It’s no longer standing and I was unfamiliar with it. So, you can see Padmasambhava teaching over there. These paintings give you the flavor of what was going on at the time. There’s so many monks. People coming from all over Asia. Now they’re all sort of Tibet lost in the wilderness there are people. It was a center of cultural activity. From this vast empire. People were coming to the capitol and Buddhist monks were escaping from invasions in India. And in central Asia, the Muslims were attacking around about, here and there. And so, Tibet was kind of a cultural mecca at that time, actually. And they were beginning to collect all sorts of traditions, not just from India, but from Greece, from China, from Mongolia and from Central Asia. And Tibetan culture is this unique; unique synthesis of those elements. And so, I think it’s, it’s nice to see these. Because they give you the feeling of what a, instead of just a few people, it shows you what a vast, enormous and pluralistic thing it was. These are also some of the outside temples in Chongye at different places. 0:14:44.8 (Tibetan: RT and GR) That’s the Yungbu Lakhang. That one above there is called Yungbu Lakhang in the old version. It was the first palace built by the Tibetan kings. And it was demolished recently, but then had been rebuilt; it’s a part of it as a tourist. Just the top part there. I’d never seen it in blue as a representation. I see usually it’s yellow or white. But that is the Yungbu Lakhang. That’s in the Yarlung valley in the cradle of Tibetan civilization. And I’m not sure what that marvelous looking one on the rock in the middle of the hill, with the light ray shining from it. It might be some paradise. 0:15:20.1 Sukhavati(??) Rimpoche pure land sort of representation. With a rainbow around it. That’s marvelous one. But I’m not sure what it is.

Rimpoche: 0:15:26.9 (Tibetan: )

Robert: This is some sort of emanated bhikshu who is coming down teaching people on that. Coming down that light bridge from that. Maybe it’s Wu Tai Shan. 0:15:40.5 (Tibetan ??) Could be 0:15:43.6 (?) it’s the famous sacred place in China where Manjushri dwells called the five peaks.

0:15:50.0 Anyway. I don’t want to dwell on too long. 0:15:52.4 (it Chongye ba ) I chose this one because it’s. This is the monastery. This is Chongye, which is, again the, right near the valley of kings. The Tibetan valley of the kings. This is a, a reconstruction built by the fifth Dalai Lama, who also came from Chongye. From that original place with the valley of 0:16:11.4 (budeen buden se dun). And he built a small monastery there as a retreat place in the seventeenth century. But it was totally destroyed in the recent events. And I just, to show a contemporary small monastery in that same place as why I included this. Now we come to the siddhas, and here I think I will stop because I have caught us up, almost caught us up. After, I should catch us up in this way. We’ll leave this siddha up there and I will just talk like this.

0:16:44.2 After the, that early period when, when Songtsen, when Padmasambhava had such a great spread of the tantric teaching. And Shantarakshita and Kamalashila had spread greatly the monastic teaching and ordained many monks. And many people were beginning becoming educated in Tibet and so on. And Trisong Detsen had commissioned many conferences and translations of many texts. It was a tremendous flowering in the eighth and ninth century, early ninth and late eighth century. And as I say, refugees came from Buddhist areas all over India and Iran, Afghanistan area, Central Asia, fleeing from various Muslim incursions that were taking place at that time. The Muslims were being, in their early movement, were very destructive. They didn’t understand about monks. They don’t. They didn’t have monks. And they didn’t like statues, idols and so forth. And so, they were pretty destructive on the Buddhist, on the Buddhist. And so, a lot of them fled to Tibet and Tibet was a great area of Renaissance. However, Tibet had its own problem and that was that the king after, two kings actually after Trisong Detsen, was a king called 0:17:54.9 Tri Rapalchen (?) who was a very powerful and important king. And Tri Rapalchen, became. He was even more of a dharma fiend, then either Songtsen Gampo or Trisong Detsen. And he even more wanted to have. He wanted to have monks in the government. He was having ordaining of people all over the place. He was sort of letting down his guard as far as his sort of politics went. Because he was getting so devoted, so interested in the dharma. And so, what happened was, there was a kind of backlash, where the sort of right wingers, it’s the equivalent of the Tibetan right wingers. You know the ones who want to preserve the Tibetan race, who wanted to get back to the old ways, who wanted to get rid of this new-fangled universalistic teaching of Buddhism and so forth. They wanted to get rid of him. And they were abetted by two factions; one, the local regional aristocrats. The regional lords who were becoming restive in the third, fifth, fourth, or fifth generation, where they were begin. The central dynasty by, by its patronage of the dharma and its importation of this new culture was becoming too much of a sort of king and it was getting to be too stabilized, a feudal situation. Whereas as you know, the regional lords like to sort of; they unite under a single leader in war time for conquest. But then they like to have their own sphere of influence at home in their own valley sort of thing. And so, they were getting annoyed about the constant pressure from the central dynasty.

0:19:17.7 And backing them were the local shamans, the sort of priests of the old ancient cults, what, which were, which called Bon. The Bon religion. But it isn’t really. I believe it’s not really the Bon of today, but was more like a local regional shamanism where each lord had a particular high priest who was hereditary, who related to a particular local deity of some mountain. Like the great king of the mountain Yarlung Tsangpo0:19:45.0 was the deity of the Yarlung kings. And other regions had their own mountain deities or gods or goddesses or river goddesses. And they wanted to be able to sort of have their own autonomy. So, all of these conspired to create a kind of movement and they assassinated King Tri Rapalchen. And they put a cousin of his on the throne name Lang Darma, who led a total reaction and a persecution and they kicked down all the Buddhists. And they burned down different buildings and they burned books. And all the Buddhists had to flee from Tibet in about five years period. Everything that had been built up over two centuries was more or less wiped out. Totally. It was interestingly parallel. It shows the sort of waves of history that I feel originated in Tibet. Others might feel originated outside. But right about the same time. A little after that was the great persecution of 845. When the Chinese wiped out most of the glory of Tang dynasty Buddhism. There was a group, known as the first great persecution in China was 845. But a little, a short time after this, this persecution in Tibet. The persecution was rather short lived. In five years time. After five years approximately, the king Lang Darma was himself assassinated by a Buddhist monk and yogi who was a kind of adept. And who killed him to stop him from getting more bad karma of destroying temples and buildings and monuments and so forth. And so that put a stop to the active persecution, but by that time. And then that monk had to resign from being a monk because he’d broken his vow, by killing a sentient, a living being, human being. And he went off and sort of did penance. Although Tibetans regard him as a kind of national hero, he himself was regretful that he had to take a life. But of course, he saved, in the, from the Tibetan Mahayana point of view, sometimes you have to use violence surgically. Because he prevented the king from killing many more monks and many more people. And there is this kind of. Ethics are a little more complicated for the bodhisattva then they are for the monk. For the individual vehicle monk. So, then. But then, after that, even though the king, that particular king was out of the way, the central dynasty kind of crumbled. It’s authority crumbled. The local regional powers asserted themselves and the dharma got lost for about a hundred years really. More or less. There were a few major figures who preserved things individually. They escaped to Eastern Tibet, Western Tibet, to Central Asia. But within Tibet there was a kind of cessation of Buddhism. It was sort of lost.

0:22:16.0 And then what began to happen in the tenth, the early part of the tenth century. And through the tenth century was an interesting phenomenon. Whereas that first period of Buddhism had been a sort of top down importation of Buddhism, by the dynasty, you know, imposed by the dynasty, sort of bringing in foreign culture in a way and educating and sort of bringing their own nation up to civilization was sort of their idea. So, they were sort of imposing it upon the people. And teaching them and sort of thinking, “We’re civilizing you.” Type of idea. And, but, and then that, that pressure had lasted for a couple of centuries. Then it was sort of, thrown off, you know. Tibetan national deities threw off. Padmasambhava had predicted it actually. Because he was disturbed. Well, I won’t; that’s too long to tell that story. But anyway, he didn’t quite finish the certain exorcism that he did. And this one dragon that he was taming, escaped at the end of a big struggle that he had. Because he was distracted. And he said, “Well, because that dragon escaped, it’s going to be a big tail lashing will take place later and you’ll see. It will be bad.” And it did happen several, a century later. But anyway, having had the presence of the dharma and the light of the dharma, the people weren’t really turned on again, when they got back to the sort of gloomy grizzly old sacrificial business, you know. Sort of mumbo jumbo and killing an ox here and there and having some thing and making these blood rites. And sort of local shamans. It wasn’t as colorful. And it wasn’t as much fun as sort of doing yoga or having some monk travel around and teach you some dharma, or learning a book or something like that. They got a little bit. They weren’t sort of into going, going native, going back to their own native roots. So, what happened was, up from the grassroots, as we would say, the people themselves began to look for Buddhism. And they began to sort of invite a teacher here, a teacher there. And somebody went to India or went to Kashmir to study. And this sort of thing. And so, the dharma was sought now in a much wider power base, you could say. Because the people themselves, there was no king telling and they themselves were looking for a more sane and a more gentle way of life, than the old shamanistic way. And starting with the 0:24:26.0 re(?) for exemple, starting in Western Tibet, where one dynasty, 0:24:30.2 the Guge dynasty. Western Tibet began to sponsor Buddhism again. And they began to invite translators. They sent the famous translator, Rinchen Zangpo to India, to Kashmir to study and he brought back and began to translate books and build temples in Western Tibet. And then they invited the great master Atisha from India, who was sort of the president of the university in India, of the central university at the time. And he wouldn’t come after many invitations. Finally, one of the kings gave his own life as a ransom, kind of, to get. He was old you know, but he, he was captured by somebody and they raised money. They raised money to free him. And then when they had raised this huge money to free that king from some neighboring king, he said, “Don’t free me. Use the money instead and go and invite Atisha from India and let me die. And tell him the story.” So, when they told that story to Atisha, that touched Atisha. He said that, “If even the king, the old king is willing to give his life to invite me, they must be serious about the dharma. I guess I’ll go and teach them.”

0:25:31.00 So, then Atisha went up there. That wasn’t the only reason. Also, he had a statue of Tara that used to talk to him. And he asked her, “Should I go?” and she said, “Yeah. You better go. It will shorten your life by seven years. But the twelve years you will spend there will be worth fifty years here in India. Because the time will soon be up in India. Because India will get invaded too much.” It had already been quite invaded by that time. “And in Tibet you will plant seeds that will give great fruit in the future.” So, he did go up to Tibet in 1042. And he did a lot of important teaching, which we will come back to in detail in a later class, when we deal with the kadampa school. After; simultaneously there was the Khon family, from southern Tibet went down to India and studied and met different siddhas. And they found the Sakya order. And then a great translator by the name of Marpa, also from Southern Tibet, from Lhodrak, from Southeastern, a little more Eastern Tibet. He also went and he met Naropa and Tilopa. And he began to bring in the dharma and eventually founded the Kagyupa order. So, this, this individualized movements; a number of them. And the personal contact between Indian teachers and Tibetans, without too much patronage from the central dynasty. This is now what resulted in what is known as “The period of later dissemination”. And the period when Buddhism really became a popular movement in Tibet. And when Tibetans as a whole, sort of the Tibetan masses, sort of undertook Buddhism. And this is why I put the Kagyupa second. Actually, the Sakya school was technically; its first monastery was founded earlier than the Kagyupas. But the reason I put them second is because, it was, they sort of represent to me, because of their great man Milarepa. They represent sort of, when the Tibetans as individual, like simple folk, not aristocrats from the court, but simple folk went out and got educated, became yogis and in the case of Milarepa, I think, became a Buddha even in a single life by great devotion and dedication, went from a sort of ordinary person to being a buddha in one life. And so, this to me, he is a symbol of the Tibetan common man’s appropriation of the dharma and full turning of their heart over to the dharma. And there are many elements in Milarepa’s story that point to him being understood as such a symbol. He became, later, he was talked about as, you know, Mila was beloved by all Tibetans and subsequently of all orders. And this was because he represented this moment of sort of, where the Tibetans on their own, sort of, adopted Buddhism as their own. Not as something Indian, you know. Where a Tibetan could really be a Buddha, you know. Which you could understand, like for example, nowadays in the West, we have Buddhism here. And you know, there’s sort of an idea that Buddhism is either from Japan, if you’re in Zen. Or it’s from Tibet, if you’re in Tibetan Buddhism. Or it’s from Burma, if your in Burmese Buddhism. And if you’re just an American practitioner, you’re sort of playing at it. You’re learning to do some meditation, but if you want to look for someone enlightened, you sort of expect it to be either a Tibetan, or a Burmese, or a Japanese. And so if some American, it looks, sort of, that’s sort of silly. How can he be enlightened? He’s one of us. You know, or she’s one of us. You know. We’re Americans. We don’t get enlightened. You know. “We’re at an early phase of understanding these traditions, and so we still have that kind of notion in our culture. By conversely, we expect every Tibetan that’s thought to be enlightened. Unfortunately, often we are right. But sometimes maybe not.

0:28:51.0 And, excuse me, Rimpoche. I’m sorry. But. That’s a joke. That’s a joke. You, of course, are one of the enlightened, I know. (Rimpoche laughs) But. So, however there might come a time. A century down the road, where it wouldn’t really matter what was the cultural or racial background. Where maybe certain Westerners have so appropriated in their own hearts, this thing, and how it, somehow, given some incontrovertible evidence of it, as Milarepa did in his whole life, teaching and so on. And all of his; and all of his songs, and his way of living. That it might become irrelevant in a way and that would be sort of a, that would be a stage where the west had truly appropriated Buddhism. And it really was Western Buddhism in that certain sense. Do you follow me? Which I think we haven’t really reached yet, actually. But maybe we will in the twenty-first century. Or maybe the twenty-second. Who knows? So, this is why anyway we do that second and now I will stop. This gives you, I hope, a sort of, historical sweep through until from around the eighth, the late eighth, early ninth century up until the eleventh century; the time of Milarepa. And so, I hope you get a feeling of what happened in Tibet then. And we’ll continue with that. Ok? Any questions on this part. This sweep that I sort of just did. Any particular questions, any particular confusion.

Question: Do you think you can go back to Marpa and Tilopa?

Robert: Oh yes. Now we’re going to go. What I’m going to do after this section. Now, Rimpoche’s going to start. He’s going to talk about the siddha phenomenon. And he’s going to touch on the lineage of Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa a little bit. Then, when he’s done, then I’m going to come to Milarepa individually and look at his life in detail. This was how we go. You know, this is our see-saw routine. Ok. So, any other questions about this, this first sweep of history? Any other puzzlement? There is a. You should know. Those of you who are new today. This. There’s a number of books that I have mentioned to people. Ancient Tibet, by Tarthang Tulku, I think is the easiest introduction to the earlier history of Tibet called Ancient Tibet. And they carry it downstairs, I know. And, published by Dharma Press. And then, to this, this transitional history. I think Snellgrove and Richardson, David Snellgrove and Hugh Richardson called A Cultural History of Tibet. It’s probably a good, just overview. Gives you an overview of this, this prophecy that I have been discussing. And you know, we’re just touching on these things and trying to make them vivid for you in these classes. If you want to really deal with master Tibetan history in this fall, without, which I hope you will. You should read a little of that. That’s your homework. As a little homework, if possible. Ok? So, now I turn the floor over to you Rimpoche. I think you don’t need the slide.

Rimpoche: Ok

Robert: Do you want to just leave it?

Rimpoche: Leave it there but not

Robert: I know. I know it can’t go too long. Gets a bit hot, doesn’t it, if I leave it too long.

Rimpoche: Ok. You can stop

Robert: Maybe we should stop the slide. This is 0:31:42.5 (Tibetan: RT and GR) I, we believe this is Tilopa himself actually. So, it’s auspicious that we begin with the. It’s his siddha. YOU can see his attributes as a siddha. And Rimpoche will explain them. But we will come back to the slides then. When I, when I come to a later section. [Actually, could someone turn the light off but leave the fan on. Just click it back one click. Yeah. Like that. So, it cools.] And now Rimpoche. The floor is yours.

0:32:12.5 Rimpoche: Thank you

Audience: Could you give me a definition of a siddha

Robert: A definition of a siddha? Rimpoche? A siddha. Well, literally, siddha means the word 0:32:22.9sad(?) in Sanskrit is a, it’s a means to achieve. Or to accomplish. So, a siddha means one who is accomplished. And they’re called Mahasiddha, meaning one who is universally accomplished. Or greatly accomplished. And so, a good translation I think for it is a great adept. You know, with a capital Adept. And basically what they are, are is; remember I said the three, the first day, I gave you a typology of three kinds of Buddhism. Of the individual vehicle, or monastic Buddhism. Universal vehicle or messianic Buddhism. And then what I called apocalyptic vehicle or Vajrayana Buddhism; tantric or esoteric Buddhism. That’s third. And which now this, the archetype of the first vehicle is an arhat, a saint. The one who attains nirvana and purifies themself and disengages from the world totally. The archetype of the second one is the bodhisattva, who vows not to disengage from the world till all beings have been saved, who vows the messianic vow to transform the entire universe. Right? And the arc. But he’s sort of, this idea that it will happen someday in the future; the universe will take a long evolutionary time to do. The, the Mahasiddha, the great Adept is the apocalyptic archetype who changes dimension and goes through a kind of magical or onto a subtle level where although ordinary history is still chugging along to some future final evolutionary fruition. He’s gone into a realm where time is transcended and there’s a kind of apocalypse now sort of thing. So, that he is already a Buddha. He has already transformed the world on a subtle plane. He’s not waiting for the future. So, that’s why he’s an apocalyptic archetype; the great Adept, in that it’s happening; the revelation of fruition is immediate. Ok? So, that’s a beginning definition. Rimpoche will continue this. Ok?

Audience: Thank you

Robert: You’re welcome

0:34:16.8 Rimpoche: Thank you. Now, to continue with this, you have given very nice definition of the siddhas. There are certain things what you said, is I have to, with all due respect, I have to (Laughs) disagree with you.

Robert: Oh, good. Which one?

Rimpoche: Which one? I forgot actually. Just joking. Number one; I would like to, to say, the, the. The development of the dharma in the West, or rather absorbing the dharma practice in the West, which you put it a little back in the twenty-first century or whatever. I don’t think I’m going to agree with that at all.

Robert: I see

Rimpoche: The reason. (laughs) I’m sorry. The reason why I don’t agree with this is, if you had said that in 1930’s or 40’s probably it would have been ok. But as today, dharma is much more in the West, to certain extent than is in original places. 0:36:00.1 illustrate(?) For example, the definition, rather the definition of. By the way, if you do not understand my English, please stop me. Because this is the language which I never learned. So. So. So, wherever you don’t understand, please stop. Rather to stop than you know, going through, taking trouble of going through it.

Robert: You’re doing fine, Rimpoche. Please.

Rimpoche: Thank you. One of the from the, what you call it, .What you call it? 0:36:38.1 (Tibetan with RT)

Robert: discipline

0:36:41.5 Rimpoche: (Tibetan) Individual

Robert: Individual vehicle

Rimpoche: Individual vehiclization or whatever.

Robert: Monastic Buddhism

Rimpoche: Monastic Buddhism point of view. The definition of where you’re having Buddhism is where you have a monastery, where the Buddhist practitioners, more than four monks and nuns are available, it’s considered to be a Buddhism available. So, therefore, from that point of view, definitely Buddhism is, I mean already in the West.

0:37:28.7 And number two, the bodhisattva of the Mahayana, you call it apocalyptic, right? No.

Robert: Messianic

Rimpoche: Messianic. Messianic.

Robert:. 0:37:39.3 (?)

Rimpoche: Huh? Point of view. The, their point of view, the development of the Buddhism is wherever there are bodhisattvas, for practicing on the six, what do we call it, paramitas in Sanskrit. Or six bodhisattva activities, like generosity, morality, patience, so and forth. Including wisdom. And that was considered to be a Mahayana Buddhist practice available, Buddhism available. So, that is very much in the West. And then, thirdly, the Vajrayana or what do you call it?

Robert: Apocalyptic

Rimpoche: Ok

Robert: Apocalyptic.

Rimpoche: Ok. Point of view. Where they are people are taking full initiation. Where they’re taking full, a commitment on the vows. Where they’re doing their sadhanas and yogic exercises, are considered to be the Buddhism available. So, from that point of view, it is also available here. As well as, we can very well see, there are a lot of individuals who are putting a lot of efforts to the development of the Buddhism. 0:38:58.3 forciles(?). Others are forcicles(?) themselves or whatever it is. And a lot of people are sort of putting a lot of efforts among the 0:39:07.6 (?). Though people, including yourself. You may complain all the time, I don’t have time. But you have chance to do everything.

Robert: (laughs)

Rimpoche: So, it is sort of bodhisattva activities going on. So, therefore I should really say. There are a lot of others to, you know. And a lot of them. So, I should really say, the Buddhism has really taken root already in the West. I do not say whether it has been developed yet. Or whatever it is. It will take, in due course of time. Whether it is going to grow up or going to dismantle it. As it happened in Tibet. Well, it is entirely, depends on the Western practitioners and however it goes. Right?

Robert: Right.

0:39:58.2 Rimpoche: So, that’s that part of it. And. And. Professor had mentioned earlier during the Tri Ralpache period, or Trisong Detsen period. There are tremendous respect for the giving to the, to the, I’d like to add up with you permission a little word. A tremendous respect was given to the Buddhist monks. The reason why it’s called Trisong Detsen or Ralpachen. The reason is, the king used to put all the monks; the Buddhist full-fledged Buddhist bhikshus are above the head. In order to represent that, they used to put a five-colored silk rope, knotted, sort of tight to his hair and put that down and have the Buddhist bhikshus sitting on top. That’s why this business of Ralpachen comes in. Putting the top. And at the time, when the, when the Shantarakshita first set up a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, the, the expenses of the monks are totally paid by the king’s treasury. And it has become very expensive. It’s interesting. Incidentally, I was looking through a book which has been a very interesting, early development of Buddhism in Tibet. With the modern scholarly way worked out by a, one of the great 0:41:59.3 coolick(???) friend, of course senior. By the way, the same teacher, a friend of mine called 0:42:06.(Tonga losang ti le??). And unfortunately, or fortunately he’s a professor in China. So, he had worked out this early Tibetan history here. Actually, it is called. 0:42:21.5 (Tibetan:..) The both dharma and political activity, how it developed in Tibet. And in this account, if you look in here, he’s worked out expenses, beginning how much it cost to the, to the, king’s sort of treasury to sort of, to meet expenses of the Buddhist monasteries and the monks. And the later they decided they could not afford to pay that money any more. So, they worked out and they worked out the. This is the, I mean, actually it, in a way it’s funny, you know. I mean, really it is. The first, the both expenses of the Buddhist monks by the state. And later when the state could not pay, they started giving land to them. Land. They started giving them land and to them. And when they can’t get, when they can’t manage land, they started giving the people to help them. That is how the Tibetan monasteries. I mean, it’s a true fact.

Robert: Um hum

0:43:41.4 Rimpoche: And had a lot of land sometimes. And become big landlord later in the. I mean, early nineteenth century or 1900’s. you know. Really, very wealthy landlords, some of the monasteries. And that was how it started. It is not the fault of the Buddhism. I’m always defend Buddhism. I’m sorry. But I really think it is. It’s not a fault of the Buddhism. And neither it’s the fault of the monks. But it’s fault of how system worked from the beginning. So, that’s why it has become a big landlord. The question is there. Definitely. That’s how the monasteries are, some of. Not all. But some of the monasteries become big landlords. And that is how it started. And also. It is a little funny joke I tell you. During the period of Trisong Detsen, Tri Ralpachen who is, who bring the hair throne. And he had each monk had been given umbrella, you know. Umbrella is sort of big honor in traditional semi-Tibetan Indian Chinese whatever mixed culture. They have this umbrella. It’s a big, big honor. They have this yellow umbrella and all this. So, you see even the pictures and videos where His Holiness is traveling, or the regent or whatever big lamas, they carry this umbrella. It is the. It is the symbol of status at that period. So, the Trisong Detsen started giving everybody umbrella behind. At that time there’s little monk, you know. I mean, if you look in today. And certain, certain countries like China or something. I mean, not really in China where the mainland is. But Chinese culture outside with Buddhist monks and all this. And very, very high respect to those monks are. And similarly to that in Tibet. That time it was there. So, there’s umbrella. And later it become too much umbrella and the 0:45:50.8 function(?), they cannot fit. And also, there are too many people. So they decided to put the umbrella on head. So, that’s why. That’s why you see this funny little head in the. (Laughs) Sort of, you know, sort of round head with some kind of silly

Robert: Grin

Rimpoche: Top standing there. That is. That period it is started. Because they could not have people carrying umbrellas. There were too many. So, they decided to put the umbrella on the head of the bhikshus. That’s why there’s this funny head, way which is not in India. You know, the Tibetans have sometimes you see it, pictures, old pictures there. Funny hat, you know. That is how the umbrella went into the head shape for can no longer fit, so they put it on the head. So, I thought it is a joke and to also inform you this, You know, you’ll see it. When you see it. the head, what is this funny head? Where does that come from? So, that is the idea. You know. Umbrella. Put it on the head of the individual .Ok? Now. (tape cuts out)

0:47:06.4 Siddhis are the subjects that I should be talking. Now you have got very good, what you call it? Explanation of what siddha is. Now the question I have in my mind is, “How does one become a siddha?” And the siddha, or siddhi, whatever it is. The males are the siddha and females are the siddhis. And the siddhas and the siddhis are not, not like the traditional Indian custom of caste. Where there are some sort of caste. You know, you’ll become a Brahmin caste or this caste, or untouchable caste. It’s not that part at all. It is open from every different casts you have siddhas have come in. As a matter of fact, there was very good biographies of all the siddhas are available in English now. Unfortunately, I don’t read English at all. The moment I started looking at it, it takes a long time. So, I always throw it away. So. But sort of, very, very lazy, you know. Cannot put any efforts in it. So, anyway, I had a glance of look at it about, I don’t know when, about, I think about it now a couple of months ago. It’s called Lion for the Buddha.

Robert: Buddha’s Lions

Rimpoche: Buddha’s Lions or something. It was published by the Tarthang Tulku’s Dharma

Robert: Dharma Press

Rimpoche: Dharma Press. Yeah. Dharma Press published. And it has the biographies of the eighty Mahasiddhas. Sometimes you’ll find, people will call eighty-four Mahasiddhas. And sometimes you’ll find, called eighty Mahasiddhas. The reason is; sometimes four in; sometimes four out, is four, the Tibetan siddhas added up. That’s why, traditionally India they have this eighty Mahasiddhas was sort of well known. And among them, Tilopa s one. Naropa is another one. 0:49:43.0 (Tibetan: telos Naro) And then there are lot of them. As a matter of fact, there is a beautiful eighty Mahasiddha paintings are available around. I think I saw one in the New York Museum the last two, two weeks ago or something.

Robert: I have more slides too.

0:50:04.7 Rimpoche: You do have slides. Yeah, but I saw nice painting there and. And one I noticed where I was standing on sort of the left hand side of there was very, very nice quality of Mahasiddha tangka, which I was told was donated, or folded or whatever. Came in the recent collections of the museum. So, it was the left hand side of the part where I was 0:50:41.0 staying/standing(?). And so, this siddhis are. How does one become a siddhi? And what is really siddhis do? And I believe it is very interesting. Really, it’s interesting. When you look at those siddhis, when you look at them. I believe it is very hard for us to know it is great person. Don’t get disappointed. Ok? What I’m going to say. I believe it is very hard. They will not give you a picture of a holy person, at all. At all. Poster. And for example, when Naropa was looking for Tilopa. How does Naropa found Tilopa? Naropa is Tilopa’s disciple. And Tilopa, sometimes known as 0:52:02.6 (Tibetan:..) In certain books you will see. It’s called Fish Stomach. So, why it’s called “Fish Stomach”. When Naropa was actually looking for Tilopa, searched every direction, wherever he could. He could. So, he found Tilopa near a river and where he’s picking up a fish like this and shaking it and swallowing. That’s how he had his lunch and dinner. Picking the first straight up from the river and swallowing. And that’s how Naropa first found great Tilopa.

0:52:46.2 Also. Also, when Marpa found Naropa. Naropa, before he’d become a Mahasiddha, he was one of the most outstanding examples of a great monk. The most learned person in Indian tradition at that time. Buddhist tradition at that time. The most. Both be Kamalashila and Nalanda. The outstanding master, teacher, learned scholar, well behaved bhikshu, who suddenly throw his robes out. And started wearing funny little skirt around. And putting a, a little, little sort of an earring, like what the hippies do in 1960’s. And jumping around. Yeah. That is the great Naropa. When Marpa found Naropa, Naropa totally drunk. Drunk. Drunken man throwing, throwing up and half horrible moving around making fuss and all sorts of things. And that is how Marpa had first found Naropa. They have this very, very funny behaviors. And if you read those, each one of those individual biographies of those great siddhas. Some of them are 0:54:32.8 (Tibetan:..) Some of them are sort of, you know, washing. Washing man in India. 0:54:39.8 (??) And some of them are 0:54:43.8 shepherds(?). And some of them are, you know, all sort of things. You will not find a single decent one in there, sort of where you can really think it’s a great person. It’s very hard. I’m sorry. You know, I’m sorry I disappointed you. But each one of them have obtained highest. I mean, really total Buddhahood. Totally enlightened. Within that life itself. I mean, like we see. Professor, professor made clear as Milarepa had obtained. Here we have the Milarepa biography, so you can see it. How he worked hard. How he put efforts. How it developed. And Milarepa really didn’t run round much as the early Indian Siddhis did. S iddhas did. I mean, he sort of, sort of kept himself in the mountains mostly. But the siddhas at that time, was really right in the middle of the street and you know, you find mostly the siddhas are at that time, the most unexpected areas. Most unexpected areas you’ll find them. Ok? They’re not found in the monasteries. They are not found in the retreat areas. They are not found in the holy places. But they are found in the most, what do you call it? Green light areas. Or red light areas. (laughs)

0:56:33.8 Or, all these sort of places. And all are like that. Yet each one of them are so fully developed. So powerful. So learned. And tremendous, tremendous magical power and every power that you wanted. You can ever dream of getting it. For example, I’ll give you one example. That is the Naropa, when he was asked to move his robes and go. Go. When he’s; when Naropa asked to move his, throw his robes off and go. So, Tilopa told Naropa. Naropa is Tilopa’s disciple. Alright? Tilopa told Naropa, “Ok. From now on, you do not behave like you’re a great scholar. From now on, you do not engage in any debate with any anti-Buddhist at all. Not even for defending Buddhism or anything else.” All this he had told. So, what happened is, during the Naropa, when he was gone. And that, in India, early that period, there are a lot of debate goes on. A lot of debate. Between anti-Buddhist and the Buddhist. A lot of debate goes on. When this debate comes, one of those big learned person will claim that “I’m going to debate.” Ok. To one of those big monasteries they will come and they’ll block you all totally in. They’ll lock you in. You cannot go out. You cannot come in. Nobody can come in. Nobody can go out. They sort of surrounded you around. And keep on counting heads every day. Till you can really be able to challenge something. At the time of challenge, it’s not like two individuals debating. It’s time of challenge, they get kings, then also a lot of people around at wilderness. And whoever lost, they totally give up. If they’re Buddhist monk, Buddhist monastery lost debate. The total monastery give up and 0:58:58.2 surround(surrender?) to the anti-Buddhist and if you, if you have a, if you don’t have hair, you grow hair. And do whatever you have to do. You have to do that. If the anti-Buddhist debater is lost, they immediately cut the hair, the hair out and put the robe in and do and all the disciples and all, whole thing. It was like that. It’s not like, the presidential debate on television for two hours or something. It’s not like that.

0:59:29.0 It goes for days and months and then whoever lost is finally that’s what happens. So, during that period, one of the Indian great monasteries have a big challenge. And no one could really defend. Defend and they’re losing it. And then the anti-Buddhist have built a huge, sort of stupa and over a nine-story building somewhere. And just above the monastery, where that debate kept going on. And they could not really defend and losing debate. And finally, they keep on praying to Naropa to return and have a debate. The Naropa’s always in, in a funny style. Gone. Right? So, they keep on praying and all this. And that happened during the .Aryadeva’s period. That happened during Naropa’s period. Aryadeva is what. 1:00:28.4 (Tibetan..GR and RT)

Robert: Aryadeva

Rimpoche: Aryadeva

Robert: Aryadeva. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Rimpoche: (laughs) 1:00:33.5 (??) completely Tibet 1:00:36.5 (Tibetan: da w ach Gr and RT) So, Aryadeva period it happened once. That’s what, how Aryadeva lost one eye. (laughs) And then Naropa’s period, what happened? So, finally Naropa couldn’t sort of, really. Naropa thought for a little. Actually, forgot that his instruction by Tilopa. And also; and also, he could not really, sort of, bear it. This whole total monastery is losing in the debate. So, Naropa quickly sneaked out and came out and started debating. And joined in the debate crew and they started debating. And Naropa, mind you, is one of the outstanding person. Right? Could not really challenge that much. You know, sort of in debate he’s almost losing. And he thought, “Well, this fellow really is not saying the correct. I’m really having true presentation. Even then, why I am losing?” He had little thought. When he suddenly remembered that Tilopa had instructed him not to. So, he remembered. When he remembered, and he from his heart of hearts. Though it is center of the debate you know,. From his heart of heart he regretted and he sort of prayed to Tilopa, He said, “I’m really sorry. I just totally sort of forgot about it. And emotional losing whole total Buddhist monastery could not sort of bear it. So, I jumped towards this decision. And I’m really, sort of, deeply sorry.”

1:02:32.7 He started putting to, praying to Tilopa. Who already passed, sort of, commonly he’s dead. You know. Gone. So, he started praying to Tilopa and at that moment Tilopa appeared, right in the middle. He sort of suddenly came in like this. As sort of funny fellow, dirty, filthy, with all sort of long hair knot. Full of that. Full of smell. And carrying a skull cup in the hand. Having some kind of blood in it and half of it in the air and started drink from here. Comes up. And the moment Naropa sees Tilopa. And that time, you know, Naropa always shaved his head, wearing robe and sitting there. Right? So, the moment Naropa saw Tilopa, he jumped up from the throne and started prostrating to Tilopa. The moment he started prostrating to Tilopa, his opponent debaters said, “No, no. You lost. Pong Pong .” They just, “You lost, lost. When you’re bowing down such a dirty filthy man. You have totally lost. You have no characteristic. Lost. Lost. Lost.” So, moment he said that, Tilopa said, “Lost. Lost. Lost” He hands up like that. The moment his hand raise up like this, this nine-story building when they built, it starts straightaway tumble down. And race down to the ground And he said, “Lost. Lost. Lost.” So, one foot(?)1:04:10.0 all these debaters fly away by the air like that. Carried away. And that sort of power, Tilopa showed. That is the great siddhi toppled that.

Robert: (laughs)

Rimpoche: I’m sorry.

Robert: No, it’s great. I wish we had at certain faculty meetings I know about.

Rimpoche: (laughs) So. And then he looks at Naropa. He said, “Well. I have saved you this time. But you have forgot what I told you. So, you will not obtain total enlightenment for during your lifetime.” (snaps his fingers) Instead(?)1:04:46.6 . Tilopa disappeared. So, that’s right. That’s the price you have to pay for it, if you break it.

1:04:58.4 So, that is how Tilopa and Naropa worked. And then there are other siddhis. There are a lot of them. Some siddhis are not like that. Very, very well dressed. Tremendously well dressed. And wants every best of life possible. Every best in the life. You know. They’re well- dressed. Lot of retinues around. Each one of them are very, very well dressed. I mean, the tip top in the society at that period. And very proud. For example, Nagpopa. 1:05:39.9 (Tibetan:..)

Robert: Kalapa

Rimpoche: Kalapa.

Robert: Kanhapa

Rimpoche: Kanhapa

Robert: Um hum

Rimpoche: But I’m not. I don’t know Sanskrit. It is a problem with me.

Robert: (laughs)

Rimpoche: Ok. What we call it. Nagpopa. A great Mahasiddhi. Great siddhi. And he’s such a show-off person. And not like, not at all, not at all well behaved. I mean, well behaved. No doubt. But not at all humble at all. A great show off. Tremendous show off. And he always walks without touching his feet on the ground by this much. Always. And because his siddhihood, he can do that. He’s always and his feet doesn’t touch on the ground. This much. He’s all around. The banners and his. This, you know. This symbolism of the umbrella etcetera, will fly automatically wherever he goes. It sort of really flies around. So, no one can, sort of, go straight forward when Nagpopa comes. Everybody has to sort of, lay down and bow down and do something. Otherwise, you know, he is very show off. And that type of thing. And he also has a lot of retinues. You know. Tilopa, Naropa; these people are single person running through the forest.

1:07:19.0 But here, Nagpopa and all these people are having like two to three hundred people moving together. Wherever he goes. He has them around all the time. You know, all the time going around. It’s very interesting. Nagpopa is over proud. Over proud. And sometimes the proud can cause a lot of expenses too. It becomes very expensive for Nagpopa. The example is: the great Nagpopa is, supposed to have obtained ultimate as a Buddha, Heruka-hood with the help of Vajrayogini. Vajrayogini. So, Heruka and Vajrayogini appeared three times in Nagpopa. In his lifetime. Three times. All three; he could not take it. Because he is so proud. Proud. The first what happened is Nagpopa was travelling from one village to another village. There was a river to cross. And, sort of, Nagpopa walked through. For he want 1:08:48.3 taxi ride(?????). He walked over the river too. You know, I mean, as he walked over there, he just sort of straight on walk. There was an old lady, such a helpless and with full of leprosy. She’s sitting near the river, saying, “Please help me to cross the water. Please help me to cross the water.” So, sort of(?) 1:09:09.4 begging to everybody. So, each one of them, Nagpopa walks straight way and all these disciples also running one after the another, you know. Sort of big proud way. And poor lady was nobody helping. And at the last person, in Nagpopa’s party is a very new, sort of, very newly joined, a Bhikshu; not even Bhikshu. It is, he is a getsul. Getsul is a novice.

Robert: Novice. Yeah.

Rimpoche: Novice. It’s last chap who go. So, he thought, he looked. He said, “Oh. Wow. This great lama has walked through. Great. And all the disciples all through. This poor lady is left here. Nobody helping. So, let me help.” So, he, he doesn’t know what to do. She got sort of full of, sort of leprosy. Very badly sick. And all. Blood and pus dripping every part of the body. So, he sort of took his robe, the yellow robe down. Put it down there. [There’s a chair here. Marion. There’s chair. Ok?] So, he put the robe down and started carrying. I mean, he has no 1:10:34.61 siddhi/stick(?). He has to walk in the river. He can’t even walk over. It’s not. He has to go like everybody. So, he started carrying here at the back. And started crossing the river. At the middle of the river, and there’s suddenly huge noise come, saying, “Ha ha. He he.” All sorts of things there. And Nagpopa looks back and there the old lady is not leprosy lady. It happens to be Vajrayogini. And she took this, this novice up. Nagpopa has to look up and put his mouth in the finger. That is what happened.

1:11:19.0 Robert: Um hum

Rimpoche: And he’s proudness has to pay that’s first price. And now, there are three of them. Now, I will not go into the detail for that. Just to give you an idea how siddhis work. So, some siddhis work, such a humble way. Dirty, filthy way. Some siddhis will work all sorts of, you know, show off. Tip top. The best; everything. Everything. Nagpopa will not sit in ordinary chair or ordinary seat like anybody does. It has to have special throne. He has to lay a special thing on top. Otherwise he won’t sit on it. Nagpopa is like that. There are many of them. And there are. One; if you look into the eighty-four Mahasiddhas and they are really there. Some of them show such a, such a thing. It looks so funny. I mean, we; it’s beyond our understanding. It is sort of really beyond our understanding. One of the siddha, I don’t even remember his name. And showed. Sort of what they showed is too strongly attached to his lady companion. And finally, the lady companion died and he carried the body over to the cemetery and sat there till 1:12:43.5 compated(?) that body and he sat there for the rest of his life. And like that. Siddhis. I mean, they are great, totally enlightened beings. Highest beings. But their behavior is such a very, funny, most funny unexpected way. So, that’s why. One of the reasons, in the great many teachings, you should not judge people by their behavior. Because if we look at their behavior and when you see it, they’re doing something strange. And you started. We started talking bad things about them and we create tremendous bad karma for it. Ok? So, that’s why one should not really fear much things by whatever we sort of, see. That is the briefly about general siddhis. And how many times do I have and how, what? Should I conclude or should I?

Robert: Well. We can go on to Milarepa now. We’ll take a short break and go onto Milarepa.

Rimpoche: Is it time or should?

Robert: Approximately. I mean, you can go on another five or ten minutes, you have a few more things.

Rimpoche: Ok.

1:14:03.3 Yeah. I will say a few more things. Ok. Now, the generally most siddhis, as I mentioned to you is in, in India earlier. But it’s not that you grew out. That you don’t have siddhis today. There are definitely siddhis around and siddhas. In the Tibetan also, there are outstanding, since you are going to mention Milarepa. And I have always like to raise the lady’s side up. So, I’m going to raise the Machig Labdron. I do not know whether these names are familiar to you or not. 1:14:44.8 Ma cig Lab kyi sgron ma is the equal important siddhi. Just like Milarepa. Unfortunately, no one has translated the Labdron’s biography. No one has translated. It’s not been popularized in the West. Otherwise, it is equally outstanding lady siddhi in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. So, you may think. Some of you may think, you talk about siddhis, siddhas, but what about the siddhis? Right? So, the Machig Labdron is one of the earlier outstanding siddhi of Tibet. Ok. It’s the same period. Almost the same period, I think, if I’m not making

Robert: It’s same period. Padampa Sangye was met with Milarepa.

Rimpoche: Yeah. Padampa Sangye is. Machig Labdron is the disciple of Padampa Sangye. It’s almost same time with Milarepa.

Robert: Yes, yes. He met Milarepa.

Rimpoche: It is almost the same time as Milarepa. There was equally important lady siddhi have come into Tibet. 1:15:56.9 Ma cig Lab kyi sgron ma. She. Well, I think I’ll come back. Because Labdron’s biography is a bit long.

Robert: Um Humh

Rimpoche: So, what I’ll do is, I’ll come back. But. But it is not only. You should not think there’s only male siddhis. And male important great persons, great lamas. But there are equally important ladies. I can have all this sort of name one after the another, this lady important siddhis as well as great incarnate ladies also.

Robert: Um hum

Rimpoche: So, I’d like to emphasize that. Because the male side is very much emphasized and popularized and translated. Even the 1:16:41.0 four(?) has been translated but female one is not done yet. So, we’ll do that later. Ok. I’ll stop here. If

Robert: Ok. Do any of you have some questions of Rimpoche first?

Rimpoche: Oh, yeah.

Robert: Take a few minutes for few questions if there are any, then we’ll take a five minute break. But first a few questions for Rimpoche on the siddhis.

1:16:58.4 Audience: What about modern day siddhis today ?

Rimpoche: Um hum. Well, I believe those days, whether at the time of Naropa and Tilopa, they came very well behaved in that manner. And in modern days, today, I do believe there are great number of siddhas and siddhis available. However, they cannot go so wild as those days. If they go so wild as those days, if they go so wild as those days, it will be very hard for them to help and to do any service to the human beings.

Audience: You think they’re here in the West?

Rimpoche: Yeah. Why not? What’s wrong with the West? (laughs) Excuse me. Yeah. Definitely.

Audience: ..like they could go into Greenwich Village and nobody would know the difference. I mean, if they’re that normal, that free.

Rimpoche: Yes. Yes. There are. I’m quite sure there are certain amount of yogis. Who have given very, very low key. Who you have no idea. You didn’t, you don’t even bother who he is or who she is. Till at the time somebody discover it a little later. But there are some who outstandingly comes out and behaves rather strange way. Rather strange way. Huh?

Audience: We’ve seen some for sure.

Rimpoche: You have seen someone. I’m glad. I’m glad. I’m glad. Thank you.

Audience: I just want to say, one reason I’m here tonight is because I belong to the yoga foundation 1:18:53.4 (???) developing siddhas. I mean, there’s Swami Chidvilasananda

Rimpoche: that’s right. But for example, Swami Cittananda, or Muktananda.

Robert: His disciples Gurumayi. Gurumayi is great. Gurumayi is a disciple of

Rimpoche: Ok. Well, I don’t know much about Gurumayi

Robert: Gurumayi

Rimpoche: Mayi. I’m sorry. I really don’t know. But. But taking Muktananda or Cittananda or take Maharesshi. I rather to be extreme tonight. I’m sorry. Take Rajneesh. Take Chogyam Trungpa. What was all these people are. Huh? There’s nothing wrong with them. Huh?

Audience: Do you can consider Mahresshi 1:19:36.8 (???) or Malti Shetty siddhas?

1:19:39.7 Rimpoche: I do not know. Ok. I do not know. But I cannot rule out. I’m not the person. I have not developed in that position to say to each siddha, “Ok. He’s not a siddha.” But I also, when I don’t have the power to say, “He is siddha.” So, equally do not have the power to say he is not a siddha. So, therefore these are some of the outstanding examples we have today. But I’m not saying they are. But neither I’m saying, they’re not. But I just draw your attention to those. Ok? I’m sorry.

Robert: Ok. We’ll take a short break. Short break. And very short. We’ll start again at nine o’clock.

Milarepa, in the end of the line of siddhas and siddhis and this issue. I won’t here. But it’s sort of in the dialogue, since Rimpoche was saying. What Rimpoche was saying about siddhis and siddhas. This thing about not. I have something to say. May. Just excuse me Rimpoche. Can I say one thing?

Rimpoche: There you go.

Robert. Now. About this. What Rimpoche said is extremely true and in the tantrayana, for example. When one enters into the realm of tantrayana practice, there is one of the basic practices that one does is what is called the purification of perception practice. And sometimes it is called the reversal of perception. And this practice has to do with the fact that, because of, well, the nature of what tantric practice is. Where the gross reality. Remember I said the apocalyptic one is the one who is a monk. He is an individual vehicle practitioner. He seeks. He or she seeks nirvana liberation. He is a messianic Buddhist practitioner, bodhisattva. He or she seeks to transform the entire universe. He is not. It should not be thought that the tantric practitioner has abandoned those earlier vehicles. But the tantric practitioner has rolled those other vehicles up into the special intensity and the immediacy of the apocalyptic vehicle, where this liberation of self and transformation of the universe. Or liberation of others is to take place immediately. There’s no waiting. So, therefore this person goes into a subtle realm out of the ordinary timeline of history and insists upon the transformation of these things. And therefore, the ordinary perception of the ordinary reality is not indulged in at all. Anything that looks like a fault. If this wall. This wall looks like it’s a coarse wall made out of concrete and sort of rubbed in a few dirt marks and some peeling paint or whatever it might be. That is my misperception. If I’m a real tantric practitioner. Actually, this wall is made of pure diamond. Like the diamond palace of Vajradhara Buddha.

1:22:41.2 If you people look like you know, ordinary beings, something confused, some problems, this and that. This is my fault of perception. Every single one of you is actually manifestation of Heruka, Vajradhara Buddha or Vajrayogini. You’re all perfect Buddhas and bodhisattvas pretending to be ordinary beings to liberate idiotic me. So, my perception of any fault in you, I must reverse and see all faults in myself. Finally, even it goes so far as any faults I perceive about myself as being an ordinary schmo, is my fault of perception. And in fact, I am, myself, part of this, indivisible from my body and mind and speech and ideas are all indivisible from the five buddha families and so on. So, the purification of perception finally comes to the purification of the ordinary self-image. So, this. On this level, to judge the fault in another, especially some of these extraordinary gurus and siddhis is of course, wrong, as Rimpoche said. And we can never know who is a guru and who is a siddhi and therefore we shouldn’t indulge in judging them and being self-righteous about them. On the other hand, so I concede a hundred percent this. However, on the other hand, one of the great things about Tibetan Buddhism, that differentiated it from the Buddhism of India, the siddhas in India. Where the three different types were sort of seen to be apart. You know, someone would become a great monk and fulfil the individual vehicle and become liberated. And then they might go out and they work in the world as an educator or teacher or bodhisattva and create wealth or do something to benefit beings. And then they finish that was not enough, they might become a siddha and go into the jungle and be a missionary to the barbarians in Tibet, even. In those days, to go to Tibet was like to go to the horrible. Remember Rimpoche last time; horrible, grizzly, ugly, mean, dirty, awful land. Remember? Rimpoche was saying. And so, 1:24:41.5 I said I(?) , when Atisha, these people, these Indian masters went to Tibet. Other people, friends of theirs were weeping, saying, “Poor fellow. Going off to like grizzly land, you know?” And there’s mean Tibetans are up there waiting for him, with their butter tea and the howling winds and all this too. Nice gentle Indian going up there with his mango, you know. You know, won’t see another mango for twenty years.

1:25:04.9 So. So, tsampa, tsampa all the time, you know? So, things were a little different. So, this might be the case in India. But they would have a separate roles. But the Tibetans did an extraordinary thing. Eventually they came to where, same person would be a monk. The perfect bhikshu might be also a king and a very wealthy person and benefiting society and taking responsibility for industries and whatever it might be. Like a bodhisattva or like a king. And simultaneously be a total siddha. Complete weirdo. Complete like transcendental completely in another realm. And keep all three knitted perfectly together. Mutually supporting each other. You can see this in the Tibetan lama icon that we are, this whole course it’s aim is to try to understand. Where you’d see a lama who is kind of almost a kind of royal figure who has a Shakyamuni Buddha, a monastic Buddha in his heart, with a monk’s robe and who has a Vajradhara or a siddhi. You know, Vajradhara male and female even in union in his heart. Right? So, the synthesis of the three you see in Tibet. And therefore, in Tibet it’s a strange thing where the sort of social reality, the level of ethics, and the level of behavior and the level of activity of the messianic vehicle, of the bodhisattva and even the monastic level of ethics and the weird behaviors of the siddhas were unified in a certain way. So, there are new problems involved in that. And so, this sort of ability to go berserk kind of and do all this wild things is somehow controlled within the Tibetan social context. Why? Because the Tibetan society had become so permeated with the dharma, that 1:26:52.1 physical(?) issue of extraordinary perception was something very widespread. Many people were practicing the tantra. So, if you have so many. When you have one or two weirdos in the jungle, going around and doing weird things, that’s one thing. If the whole town is going around doing weird things, it gets, like, messy. You know what I mean? If everybody’s drinking and barfing and vomiting and freaking out and nobody is wearing any clothes, the whole thing, it gets to be a little bit chaotic. So, instead they keep that level of ecstatic intensity controlled and they maintain a more normal level of ethical behavior on the outside. And therefore. The Dalai Lama and I were talking. But, but. Because of the differentiation of the three realms in scholastic studies, there’s no work that sort of, really discuss fully the interactions of these three different levels of ethics. This is something maybe that we can elaborate in studying Tibetans. This is all 1:27:45.7 (????). Tibetan masters wrote about tantric ethics. They wrote about bodhisattva ethics. They wrote about monastic ethics. But they didn’t write about how the three interlocked.

1:27:53.9 They worked it out in their culture to a great extent. But they didn’t analyze it. But if you do try to analyze it, what Rimpoche does. 1:28:01.2 (check!) ??? like up with one formulation. And that is, “Ok. A siddha might behave weirdly sometimes, but one should judge the social circumstance. And one should keep a certain judgement on a certain level. And you can say that if that person’s occasional weird behavior was a departure from a certain norm, maybe ok. But if it looks like, if it becomes the norm. You know, sort of abusive things, strange confused. Then maybe one has to actually reestablish a certain level of judgement. Not in an emotional self-righteous way, but in some sort of way of unifying these different levels. So, I just want to say, I don’t think, in other words, the suspension of all critical faculties about things is not to be done, sort of, haphazardly or easily unless one is in a certain level of practice. If we sort of take it as a general rule that the whole society suspends all critical faculties, well we can be very sure what we are going to end up with. Because there’s a lot of people who can behave weirdly because their deeply enlightened, and then there’s a lot of people who can behave weirdly because they are weird. Do you agree Rimpoche?

Rimpoche: I don’t/do(?) because it’s a little short, a little part of the 1:29:26.0 kadampa rules(?).

Robert: Right. Correct. Ok. So, now, coming to Milarepa. Now, Milarepa is most extraordinary person. And he was in the line of from Tilopa and Naropa were the two Indians that Rimpoche mentioned. And then there was the great master Marpa, who went down and met Naropa and their stories Rimpoche began to tell you. And there’s a life of Naropa. And you all can study them yourselves, these stories and they’re extraordinary. And they’re very, very inspiring. And also, they’re inexhaustible. I have to say, I’ve been studying these things for twenty seven years. The story Rimpoche just told about Naropa, I had never heard. That’s the first time I ever heard that particular story. And I read all those different biographies. It’s not in the normal biography. So, there’s still more to these people. It’s amazing, you know.

1:30:22.1 Now, in the case. What is wonderful about Milarepa in particular is that he is so documented. If you read the life of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas you’re going to be very disappointed in one way. And that is, each one of these extraordinary siddhas or siddhis has about three paragraphs which is their life. Then they may have about ten songs that they wrote. Saraha wrote a few more. Tilopa and Naropa wrote some treatises and then they wrote each a few poems. It’s a very scanty remains of their, you know, fifty years of activity. So, one gets the idea that it’s all something very mysterious. And becoming a siddha is like you sort of go “poof” and fly off to dakini heaven. And you don’t really have a role, a role in society. You wouldn’t have that sense if you read the biographies of the Indian siddhas. In fact, what the Indian siddhas were, were not, they did not reject monasticism. They supported it. Look at Naropa, running back to defend the monastery. They did not reject the Mahayana. They supported it. They went even further, out into the jungle. And they taught people who had not even been touched by Indian civilization. They went to Tibet and they went other places. And so they were sort of standing on the foundations established by monastic Buddhism and messianic Buddhism. And carrying Buddhism to people, sort of direct heart to heart type of way. And. And so therefore they interacted over many years with many people. For example say, Shavaripa lived in the jungle with tribal people in India. And he lived with them daily. He must have had long conversations with them daily. And he must have elaborated ways of teaching them the dharma, in some way that that tribe understood. Sort of like an anthropologist who didn’t not only go there, but also enlightened the people he was with. And we have no record of it at all in India. Nothing. For example, the great siddhas of Bengal created the vernacular Bengali literature. They were the first authors in Bengali. Their poems are the first extant writings we have in the vernacular Indian languages. Otherwise, everybody wrote in Sanskrit.

Rimpoche: the vowels

Robert: Yeah, not only vowels, but you know the language of Bengal, the language of Orissa(?)1:32:29.8, These sort of local languages. They began to teach dharma in those languages to people who didn’t know Sanskrit, you see. So, they were like real. They were real culture transformers, just like Padmasambhava was. But we can see it with Milarepa. Because, for example, we have Milarepa’s life and the wonderful biography translated by Lobsang Phuntshok Lhalungpa, which I recommend to you. It was the first book I ever read about Tibetan Buddhism. It’s a marvelous, one of the great stories of all time. And I want to analyze that story a little bit for you, but it is a wonderful story. You can’t It cannot reproduce your own reading of it. And, even in the biography, we mostly hear about the struggles Milarepa went through to become enlightened. We don’t know that much after he becomes enlightened. The death scene is very vividly told. Very extraordinary; his death scene. And it’s told very vividly. But mostly we are told about his struggles to become enlightened. But then, there’s another huge literature, what is known as hundred thousand songs of Milarepa. And there’s actually more than a hundred thousand. This is one collection. There are other collections of Milarepa’s songs as well. And these show Milarepa walking around and talking to different ordinary people in Tibetan society. And how he taught the dharma to them in a sort of immediate way. How he related it to their everyday activities, type of thing. And he made out of every element of ordinary Tibetan life, something that would teach the dharma, which I want to illustrate by reading one of his stories. But first I think I should tell something of his life story. Milarepa was, I wouldn’t have realized this, but there was an interesting book by a chap named Robert Paul called the Tibetan Symbolic World. Who is a psychoanalyst and his book is much maligned by Tibetologists and Buddhologists. You know, because he dared to psychoanalyze people in ancient Tibetan history.

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