Archive Result

Soundfile 19901229GRFNLCWR3

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location

Topic

Section

Transcriber Wee Lin

Date Dec 31, 2021

0:00:31.3 ( Audience leading the meditation-on process of entering the path of the Vajrayana…)

The foundation of what then produces the two powers

is the guarding of the pledges and commitments

of tantric initiation

Bless me so that I may have uncontrived knowledge of this

and guard my discipline as I do my very life

0:02:01.4 Rimpoche: The essence of the Vajrayana practice …. What was mentioned earlier up to here is the prerequisite. In order to have a good and perfect Vajrayana practise, one should have not only an understanding of these stages but should also have some kind of idea not only to learn but to get used to it and also have it under control. Under control in the sense that it works with individual with one step following another so that one can cope and no steps are missing. Once you have that and then it is absolutely necessary to have a Vajrayana initiation as John had said. The labelling is John from Al. I said John said. Isn’t that interesting? I called him Al and he acknowledged Al then when I called him John, he can also acknowledge John. That shows it is not permanent, right? You can switch the label around. So one of the prerequisites is not only be able to take the steps but also be able to switch John to Al and Al to John.

0:04:21.3 Can you see it? If you think I have been called John and if I have to be John forever then you have the holding of permanence and also you have an idea of understanding that John exists inherently as John. When you can switch from John to Al and from Al to John that means neither the John nor the Al has inherent existence coming out calling “I am John”, “I am Al”. You don’t have that. So it is knowing John or Al is a combination. The existence of John or Al is the combination of the consciousness and its body on which you can put the label on correctly by a correct person to a correct base. Please mark and underline my words, “by a correct person to a correct base”. Otherwise we can call the brass the gold and the gold the brass. Gold doesn’t become brass and brass doesn’t become gold because the base is not correct. [Putting a label] to a correct base by a correct person is so important because people get confused with the idea of emptiness. They get completely confused [thinking] in reality it is absolutely empty so what does that matter. You can do anything in absolutely reality. Nothing matters, it is all empty, isn’t it? Lots of people say that around here. So one of these prerequisites is to be able to switch. It is not switching like changing my name, like I was called this and that and then now I am been called this and that. That anybody can do.

0:07:42.3 But the most important thing is the name is the label. The label put to a correct base by correct people. I [used an analogy] using the president. It worked well. You name and label somebody a president. Right? You call George Bush president today. You look at him and say here is the president, whether you like it or not. When he comes on the television, you will say “here is the president”. And when you say “Mr president”, he will say, “what?” He will acknowledge. He will also say “I as president, I have to do this and that”. He always say, “as president I have to send 400,000 people overseas.” Ha ha ha. So he acknowledges himself as president. We call him president, he thinks he is president and he is president. But his presidency is totally dependent on him being labelled by correct authority as president. If the Republican party had labelled him president, he did not become president because the wrong authority was labelling. He only became a [presidential] candidate. When the American people as a public labels him as president then he really becomes a president. When American people decides to impeach him then he will be no longer president. It is also depends their decision. Being a president is dependent on the label that he carries as president. The label is also issued by the correct person to a correct base. Otherwise you can name somebody’s son President but he doesn’t become president though the parents might be the correct person who had labelled the son. If the parents call the child as president the child does not become a president because the base is not correct. He or she is not candidate for president. He or she happens to be just son or daughter. So the label base has to be correct. The label has to be given by a correct [person] and you should have correct base too. When that happens it materialises and becomes president. He will call himself president, people will say “yes, he is president”. He becomes a president.

0:11:37.2 There is no inherent existence of president. Otherwise if there is inherent existence of president, when George Bush was born, his parents should have said the president was born. The parents did not say the president is born. Neither the president was born nor even George Bush was born, just some kid was born. One child was born, He might have been labelled as George and then put the Bush underneath so becomes George Bush. And when that George Bush has been labelled as president, he becomes president. Otherwise if these things are not there and if you try to find another president who are not depending on those things, you are not going to find it. That is your emptiness. You don’t have to shut. That is emptiness. If you feel the moment you say emptiness, if you start shutting, look at George Bush. He will give you emptiness. Ha ha ha. This is a free country. You can make joke on the president.

So you now have a rough idea of emptiness and the basis of the bodhimind, love compassion. Rachel had said “I wanted to be something but I am not going to get, I am frustrated, what can I do? “ I think everybody has that frustration. One who knows how to live with those sort of frustrations are called “patience”. One who does not know how to live with certain frustrations called “impatience”. So patience means one who has difficulties and who can adjust with that.. And difficulties are difficulties and when that becomes very hard, what Brenda said yesterday was very interesting. That reminds me of something else you said yesterday. I wanted to comment but completely forgot.

0:16:01.4 Bodhimind is mind that would like to give utmost service to other beings. We have a problem with this. I have a problem too. I am really very interested but what is lacking in Buddhist groups and Buddhists is the service. I really have tremendous desire to push people to do some kind of physical service. Somehow that never materialised in Jewel Heart except once Colleen made soup and tried to start a soup kitchen. It happened to be vegetarian and nobody showed up except one single person who even scolded, “Why didn’t you tell me it’s vegetarian, I would have gone somewhere else.” Ha ha ha. So except for that, we haven’t done really much and couldn’t do much. I did mention to Lochoe Rimpoche that that was what we wanted to do but somehow never materialised. He laughed and said the people want to benefit all sentient beings, obtain enlightenment and do permanent service for them rather than choosing to bring some food here and blanket there. In a way it is true. In a way it will be like only sitting here and may not have any practical interpretation, but it is not that we don’t have service, we do but we don’t have practical service translated in terms of physical materials. I think that is also necessary so we shouldn’t leave that out.

0:18:49.5 Now when you have such a desire to help to do service, then you see the limitation. When you see the limitations then you see that you are getting frustrated. That’s true. When you get frustrated you can say “hey, the stage of Buddhahood is where you can do much more.” That is one of the reasons why Buddha did not introduce stage of Buddhahood as ultimate goal even to the Theravaden teachings. People are not going to find idea of becoming a Buddha so attractive. Not that attractive at all. So unless you come up with the idea [of becoming a Buddha] slowly and you see the path and the necessity, otherwise from the beginning if you say Buddhahood is your ultimate goal, you are not going to be very much interested. I don’t blame you. You are not going to be interested. So what if I become Buddha? So what? If I am going to be a God, I am not particularly [interested.] ( Note: Someone had told Rimpoche that before) That is true fact. You are not going to be that interested to become a Buddha. It will be almost at the third level when Buddhahood becomes your aim because that’s the beginning when we see its necessity and importantness. So it becomes the third level of your aim. Somehow that is Tibetan way, you start throwing things at the beginning but however when you really look at it, you are not going to be interested. You will say, “hey, do you want to become a Buddha? I will show you how you become a Buddha”. They will say , “Thank you but thank you , No. But no thank you.” right?

0:21:21.4 Then at the second level in order to gain that [conviction of ] seeing the Buddha level as important you will have to take one step before that. You have to take one more important step before that. The step before that is “hey what about the suffering business?” We have these problems one after another. Facing these problems, if you get better with one, then you get another problem. Whether it is illness, therapeutics problems or whether it is medical problem or family problem or money problem or what about man trouble, ha ha ha, man woman trouble, spouse trouble, kids problem, mother problem, father problem, all these problems we encounter one after another. We thought we solve one problem then you will find another bigger one there. And then most frustrating about that is when one tries to solve the problem, somebody else will do something and make it a bigger problem, always. This is the samsaric symptom. The meaning of that word, samsara is circular existence from live, death, after rebirth, after death, after rebirth. It is called circular live which is referred to as samsaric. So it is symptom of samsara. When that [samsara] is not there, then it will be over.

0:23:58.8 Now I remember what Brenda raised yesterday. It is a samsaric problem and in the samsaric problem you have the soup. That soup which has the good tasty part and the bitter part of it. So she raised the question, “are you willing to give up the tasty part of it?” That was the question and I thought I have to comment on that. Are you willing to give up the tasty part of it? Are you willing to give up the cheesy part of the soup? No, right? Sure, for you to say sure is easy. But if you really have to deal with it, it is not easy. We now pretend to be at the level of Bodhisattva stage, at least the senior people around here. We now pretend to be. I will say the word pretend to be. Underline that. As long as we are not ready to give up the tasty part of the soup, we do not have determination to be free. The determination to be free, freeing ourself, when you don’t have the determination to be free, we will not give up the tasty part of the Brenda’s soup. Because the tasty part of the soup carries the glue, the glue which will stick us to the soup so that we don’t get out of the soup. Ya, you can’t get out. You get stuck there and stuck there, stuck there more and more and finally you put your two feet up to here and you will be lying in the soup. That’s what it is. And then if you still don’t move or make wrong move, you will go up and up until you go completely into the soup. Then the soup will become very tasty. Ha ha ha.

0:27:30.5 If you become interested [in the first level], that’s why Buddha gave the second aim. They don’t show Buddhahood as an aim [yet]. Just hide it for a little while saying free from the samsaric circle, free from the pain. That’s why the Theravaden tradition goes up to that level, showing how to free from the pain and suffering which is easier to see than Buddhahood as goal. If I ask, “Are you interested to become a Buddha?” You would say no, thank you but no. “Would you be interested to be free from all these pain?“ You will say, “Are you sure, can you do that?” People will automatically be interested.

That becomes sort of a prerequisite of seeing Buddhahood as ultimate goal. Before that you seek that [prerequisite]. To some people it is even beyond imagination and then say well if there is something called future life, how can I make sure that myself get better in there if there is one. Even if I have doubt, in case I happen to be there, then I had better do something if it is true. Because a lot of people say it is true and if that is true, what can I do? I am not very sure whether there is future life or not. I don’t believe particularly. However if there is, then I had better be prepared. So what can I do?

0:29:19.7 And that becomes the first priority even before I can understand easily. Even to understand that, what they need is somehow the understanding is if I try to be good, I get some kind of good result back, if I try to be bad I get bad result back and that understanding also becomes a prerequisite of that. So what we can see is somehow my relation with my actions or my actions somehow is sort of goes around and work for me. You know what I mean? Somehow it sort of come back to me and that will be the first sort of thing we have to see and acknowledge, chew and digest. Once that happens then you begin to see the karma and its functioning. You will be able to chew it, bite and chew and digest. Then you begin to see the future lives and its functioning.

Let’s say by chance we take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and sangha, we try to be good and by chance we die and at the period when you die somehow you die at certain level where you can be in a positive moment and virtuous linkage to a dharma linkage and you get a rebirth just like today. Same human being, same place in Midwest or wherever and can be very interested in developing spiritually further or can be totally not interested and just want to make cars for General Motors only or something like that. That’s all I am interested in or something like that. There is a possibility of that.

0:32:27.1 Then the question arises if that happens to me what will happen when I die again? The efforts I put in this life and made myself into that position be able to be reborn in that manner and then what happens? The whole life put in making cars for General Motors then I have no interest for whatsoever and then what will happen? Of course you will make enough money and you make all these things but what are you going to gain? Practically nothing. Maybe you can throw some more and impress some more . That’s about it. What that’s going to gain and especially when I die, I leave everything including my credit cards, Visa, Master both maybe American Express. So I am back as before. Whatever efforts I have been putting in just bring about one better life and I land in the zero figure again.

That’s why when I see this is not going to work out, I got to cut beyond that. Really cutting through. Then you begin to think and begin to see the getting out of the samsara. Though normally we give aim is Buddhahood, aim is free, then you begin see totally free and getting out of samsara. That is a must. You get convinced because otherwise same thing is going to repeat, same old thing. Born as human being, then whole life will be repeating, there will same problem, man, woman, children, parents, illnesses whatever, all of them going to repeat again because the same thing. There is no end. If you get frustrated you should get frustrated on that point. That is the samsaric problem.

0:34:59.9 When you recognise that as samsaric problem, say ah if I don’t like that. I should be out of samsarsa because it is the samsaric problem and I get into it by [not giving up on] the tasty part of the soup which makes me to stick to it. It is true. It is true those moths jump on the candlelight all the time, they are attracted. Their attraction is the light, so they jump on the candlelight and burn themselves. Here there is sort of spray for the cockroaches but in India they have some kind of sweet little sticky poison that they put and all cockroaches love that. So because it is sweet sticky thing so they go on that and get stuck on that. Wild animals love the music, they won’t even move when there is nice music, that’s how the wild animals get caught. Lots of wild animals love nice music so they listen and then they get caught. Elephants love the smell of … tea. Then human beings love anything. Hahahaha. That is how we get into the soup.

0:37:07.1 Once we realise this is not what we want then we will look for the determination to be free. Get out of it. Once we get out of it, Ya, I got through but what about the person I care about, what about I have been so selfish just working by myself, how come. I can’t do that. I care for this one, I care for that one I care for this one and that one so what do I do now. Then you begin to develop the love compassion for all the beings. Your ordinary love will become greater love, your ordinary compassion will become great compassion. With great compassion and great love then you develop what we call Bodhimind. Earlier you raise the question, remember, Mary Beth? That mind you will become. So the double headed mind, one you are seeking enlightenment for yourself but for helping others. I need to get that position. It is like manipulative position type of thing. I need to go over there so that I can do this and that. Just like that. Like I have to get my man elected as president so that we can change certain policies in the country so that we can have more money. People do that all the time here. It is similar to that. Very similar. That’s why the politics in this … and the dharma politics work the same way. That’s how you become interested to become enlightened.

0:39:08.1 And once you want to become enlightened then you need a quick way to get it otherwise it is going to take eons and eons. So the quick way. Then you see the Vajrayana. You begin to see Vajrayana. The Vajrayana is the quick way. It’s quick and dangerous, good and bad both. Quick and dangerous. Very quick. Instead of they talking about taking hundreds and thousands of eons to become a Buddha, Vajrayana talks about short period of lifetime like if you get it before you die, get it otherwise forget it. Sort of almost that path. Almost. I use the word almost. So the Vajrayana is that quick. It is really quick and very important

but unless you have those [prerequisite] which I had mentioned earlier you don’t have interest in that. [Until then] Vajrayana would only be a fancy word, talking about transforming the anger and the attachment to path, wow. That is the only thing that you will have, wow, otherwise you really don’t get the taste of the Vajrayana. And when you really get the taste of the Vajrayana that’s about it.

0:40:45.0 So the first step is entering into the mandala. That means properly introduced by an appropriate person to appropriate mandala. Once you are introduced and then you become a member. I once worked out an analogy . It is very similar before initiating to any mandala, whatever you do it is almost praying, it is praying. I give the analogy of a Tibetan beggar’s system. In Tibet the beggars will sit outside the door yelling and screaming, “give some gifts”. It is like that. You don’t know anybody, you have no way of knowing what’s happening on the other side but somehow from outside you are crying and saying help, help help . But once you are introduced to the mandala, it looks like you are introduced to the family so it is not appropriate for you or for the family also to let you sit outside the door and shout as you know each other. It is neither appropriate for you nor for the family inside. So when you come to the door they open it and will look at you. They may not like you ( laughter) but they will still look at you and recognise you and willingly or unwillingly will let you in saying “what can I do for you ?” Right? That is the big difference in gap. Rather than shouting from outside asking for help you will be knocking at the door and start talking person to person rather than talking to machine, talking person to person. That is the level it works on.

0:43:43.8 And once you are doing all your commitments, you are doing your sadhanas and you do more retreats and all these you will not only become better known to whoever you’ve been introduced to like I meet you here and there. But you become on a more friendly level where you can call one another frequently. Then you begin to gain the confidence of the principal of the mandala. Not only you become a member of it you also begin to start walking around and you may make appointments for some other people to see you in there. You may invite guests there and almost functioning as a member of the family. You start functioning yet you don’t completely have the confidence of the head of the family. You may not be making decisions for the family like what to do. However you are inviting people in, you are giving a party, you are doing all these sort of things. Then once you really gain good confidence of the head of the family, you will begin to make decision, you begin to execute , you begin to be able to say, “ok you can invest this much, you cannot do this.” That depends on how much confidence you get from the head of the family just like what you normally do. Very similarly when you become much closer you begin to do all these. This is how it works. So how to gain that sort of confidence of the head of the family and how to receive that sort of capability and to be able to do these depends on the two stage practice.

0:45:52.5 The two stage practice is called the Development stage and completion stage. Development stage is generating yourself. Vajrayana is very very positive religion. Really extremely positive. So positive that you keep on thinking that you yourself are completely fully enlightened being. Those who propagate positiveness, they will say “Oh it is going to be done, it’s going to be alright.” You keep on thinking it is going to go right. That much you cling on. Here you think, I am a fully enlightened being, my house is not an ordinary house , it is a mandala, the members here are the members of the mandala. And every being is pure being. I recognise them, they are pure beings. Hey you are Tara, you are this, you are that, ah ah woo, how much more positive do you want than that. It is extremely positive. Somebody told me that Tibetan Buddhism is not positive Buddhism, it is very sad , gloomy and suffering. But it is really positive. What more positive than that. You are not going to only think you are going to be, that work is going to be done or you are going to get better. You are thinking you are a fully enlightened being. You try to recognise that. And that is how you generate.

0:47:50.7 Also the most important practice of the generating stage is the three level practice, the level of the death, level of the bardo and level of the rebirth. So rebirth, stage in between and dying stage. This is the major practice. Also there is a base, there is a path and there is a result. Under normal circumstances, in the sutra, non tantric practice, people work on the base first like when you are talking about the determination to be free or bodhimind or whatever, you talk about the base foundation first. Right? In Vajrayana it is different. Base, path and the result you do all of them together instead of establishing the base first then path on top and then try to get the result . Instead of going three times it does all together, one time base, path and result. That’s why ordinary death will be used as base, practising that becomes path and making that as dharmakaya becomes the result. So the result, path and base work together. So is bardo and the sambogakaya, so is rebirth and nirmanakaya. Acknowledgement so and forth. These and then of course concentration and all these, that’s how it works.

0:50:03.4 As matter of fact we very much insist that people have a complete Lam Rim stage before entering into Vajrayana. That is important. Without Lam Rim, Vajrayana may be not be that great. I shared this story with a lot of you about two Yamantaka practitioners going into retreat. One died and one lived. That’s a true story. It happened in Tibet. Happened in a place called Pembo north of Lhasa behind that mountain. What happened is without Lam Rim foundation, these two people went to retreat and one died. The other one kept on continuing with retreat and saying mantras and doing meditation. Suddenly somebody appeared, looked like Yamantaka in there. So this fella thought, Oh I got Yamantaka vision and started praying. And that person who appeared to him said no no no, I am your old friend who die giving the name. He couldn’t believe it. What happened is as a result of being so positive, this person had been generating himself in Yamantaka form and then he died and became a ghost looking like that. The ghost became very hungry and came to seek food from the other friend who was doing the retreat. Continuously doing retreat and so that was what happened.

So the Lam Rim foundation is absolutely necessary. But you don’t have to be perfect on that. You can continuously practise Lam Rim. As a matter of fact, if you look in Yamantaka sadhana, the whole Lam Rim practice will come within that. That is the long sadhana, not the short one what you people do. The long one has the whole Lam Rim practice but not as organised as Lam Rim but up and down, you get the whole Lam Rim there completely including concentrated meditation and wisdom.

0:52:48.6 And bless me so that I may gain realization of the main practices of the two stages of vajrayana, essence of the

tantric path; and by sitting relentlessly in four daily sessions

of yoga, actualize just what the sages have taught

Empower me that the masters who have unfolded the

sublime path within me and the spiritual friends who have

inspired me may live long;

and that the myriad inner and outer interferences

be completely and utterly calmed forever

In all future lives, may I never be parted

from the perfect lamas or the pure ways of dharma

May I gain every experience of the paths and stages

and quickly attain the stage of Vajradhara

0:53:40.0 Thank you. Briefly this is what this practice really does. Go two days of fasting together, not one day like what we do here but they do two days. Like we started after last night’s dinner till day after tomorrow, so the whole day today and then half day after. Anyway during that period what they normally do is they say a lot of mantras and some people do prostrations like the 21 prostrations of Avalokitesvara.

We did Nune in Ann Arbor but we will not be able to do anywhere else. Here we are not really having a nune however it is very similar to it. For nune the mantra you say is the longer mantra of Avalokitesvara which goes like dara dara, dili dili duru duru …… but here we say mani, it is almost the same, one is shorter form, there other is longer form. 0:55:18.8 The visualisation is very similar to what I had mentioned earlier during the migtsema period. It is same thing. Here when you visualise Avalokitesvara you don’t visualise Avalokitesvara as a separate entity but it is a common as all the enlightened beings, Buddhas, it is same as Avalokitesvara, same as Manjushri, same as Tara or same as Tsongkhapa and same as your own spiritual master. It’s all in one, same as Buddha, same as dharma and same as sangha, not separate than that. You look in that manner but in the physical form shown as Avalokitesvara because it is specialised that way. Keeping that in mind and the visualisation here will focus almost on purification so therefore three ways of doing that.

0:56:21.8 One we did earlier. The powerful nectar and the light coming through Avalokitesvara’s body, hit ourself surrounded by all other sentient beings who are also trying to purify. You are leading them. You have to think of yourself, you don’t have to think of your person who is sitting next right or left. You are leading all sentient beings. You are surrounded by all sentient beings. If you can think the whole ground is filled up by all living beings and all space’s being filled up by the manifestations of Avalokitesvara. In front of each being on the ground, there is a Avalokitesvara in front of each and you are the leader, you are the big one. You got the big Avalokitesvara in front of you. You‘ve the lion share. Then light and liquid come. The light is almost like hollow tube light with the liquid fills up inside. It’s a powerful one washing down like what we did earlier.

0:57:44.0 After some time you can change to another way. When it is not very clear to you, then you can change focus. Instead of the light coming down and washing, it fills up from the ground like filling a pot. If you put water in pot and if there is dirt in that, when the pot fills up the dirt comes up and over flow. So instead of going out from the lower door, it goes out of your ears, nose, eyes and particularly from the crown. All these non virtuous actions, troubles or whatever you want clear got out. Not only getting out and dripping from here and there but another powerful [light] comes and completely wash [everything] out not only inside but also outside. By doing so, we are not only clearing the non virtuous actions and difficulties but clearing the obstacles of energy and obstacles of the channels as well. One of the problems that we face is the channels are not working properly. And when the channels do not work then you get all sort of other obstacles because energy cannot travel through them properly. So all the blocks of the channels energy obstacles will also be cleared.

0:59:18.7 And then if you are capable enough you can clear your emotions. If you are not capable enough don’t ( start up again??). We want to see a smiling face tomorrow and during the new year rather than long face. Ha ha ha. Anyway I am not joking, it could be good opportunity maybe do short short period. We will chant 100 mani and after that I will start reading and you can start chanting mani quietly. Whenever you have to go to bathroom or whatever you have to do, get up and walk. You won’t hear the sound when you go to the toilet , right? Then you should not go to the bathroom. You should hear the sound. You can walk around , read, do whatever and if you want become pinching lama that’s also fine but be aware of it. Keep awareness. If you are pinching you are pinching, keep awareness. Be aware.

1:00:59.3 Any particular thing like what we mentioned earlier like non-virtuous, bad karma combined, physical illnesses, mental emotional problems and all these and then the most important is anything especially if you are feeling guilty and all this sort of things, you have to remember it is impermanent. If it is a permanent fixture, you can do nothing about it, it is fix. It is permanent. Nobody can do anything. That very fact of it being impermanent is the hope that we have to be able to change. The very fact that it is impermanent. If you still think it is permanent then you are crazy because we see for ourself that it changes. We change, every thing changes, thoughts will change, person changes, physical look will change, hair colour will change, everything. Everything is changing though it is continuation but it is changing. It is changing. So there is every hope of change. And particularly if you are aware of emptiness, the best purification is emptiness. Because it exists only conditionally. When the conditions not right it ceases to exist. Remember George Bush [analogy]. It is only conditional existence.

1:02:45.3 So everything, [even the] emotional problems that you think you had from childhood, it is there but there is no point of carrying it over. To me at least I am still not convinced. So there is no point of carrying it over. Whatever has to be done, it has to be done and leave it there. Why pick it up? Right? Now it is in our own hand so we can try to change it. Shantideva applied differently. If something can be changed then why don’t you do it rather than worrying about it. And if you can’t do anything about it, then forget it, you can’t do anything about it. Shantideva goes that way. That may not work for some people but for some people it definitely works.

Whatever it is, no matter whatever physical or mental abuses we have, nobody had ever abuse our enlightenment [opportunity]. We still have the opportunity, we can still can go, no matter whatever. No matter how angry I may be, I can still obtain enlightenment. No matter how sad I may be, I can still obtain enlightenment, no matter how sick I may be, mentally, physically I can obtain enlightenment. Doesn’t deprive me of that opportunity at all. So these small things are not big deal. Even if I take them as big deal because they bother me all the time, if I don’t like them to be big deal but they come and stress me and disturb my peace and stable mind, ya it is true they do that. In a way it is your karma, you had to go through, what you can do is you can pray by experiencing these problems with me it might clear all my heavy karma that I may have to suffer tremendously for long time. As a matter of fact, a dharma practitioner always does that.

1:05:15.3 Like the great Drom Rimpoche. It is the beginning of the Kadam tradition in Tibet, Drom Rimpoche was Atisha’s most important disciple. Drom Rimpoche prayed that he may be with Atisha in the next life and Atisha said, “ya you may be but if you have leprosy at the end of your life then you will be with me. If you can’t take that I doubt you are going to be with me in your next life.” That’s what Atisha said. So Drom Rimpoche even had that illness at the end of his life. His or her I am very sure. Tibetan tradition goes on and completely gives idea that Drom Rimpoche is a he but on the other hand there are tremendous amount of signs that Drom Rimpoche is a she. I do not know whether he may be both. You know there are people who sometime been female sometimes male. I don’t know. I have no idea. But one thing I notice is that Drom Rimpoche was not a monk and never put monk’s robe even in the drawings and pictures. He wore some kind of thick yak skin gown like [what people wore] earlier. That type yak skin gown and had a … going nine times round her body. A long one and goes round the body nine times. So even Drom Rimpoche went through that. That was the step that cleared all the non virtuous karma that Drom Rimpoche had.

1:07:15.2 We can also do this. Anyway it is opportunity. Om Mani Padme Hum is the word we use. There are a number of meanings of Om Mani Padme Hum. Some people will say the six letters which represent the six realms. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition tells you there are six realms of existence in the [existence] circle. The Chinese will tell you ten. If each letter represents one realm, by saying each word it clears the karma of taking rebirth in that realm. That’s one explanation.

But I think the most important is the letter OM. Om has tremendous number of explanations. If you hear one explanation and you hear something else, you can’t say the other explanation is wrong. OM has a hundred different explanations. Let me make this clear today. How does the letter OM exist? OM has three different letters put together to make that sound of OM. You have Ah sound (quote in Tibetan) , the Manjushri Nama Samgiti which is the wisdom tantra as well as tantra of Yamantaka combined. It is called Manjushri Nama Samgiti. It says Ah is the best letter. Why best? Because it is the life of all letters. If there is no Ah there is no life, you cannot make sound at all. ( Tibetan ) Ah comes from within you, it has no rebirth, no … and then goes into emptiness. I am not going to go there.

1:10:00.4 That’s the reason why Ah is the essence of emptiness. That’s why Ah is considered most important. On top of that you have a letter Ma, otherwise can’t be Ah O M combined to become OM, Ah O Ma. You have to think in Sanskrit, In English it is difficult. If you have to say Om, you say Om Cafe with the Om but you will not have Om sound unless there is Ah behind. You cannot make OM without Ah. There are Ah and O and M, three letters. If you work with Sanskrit or Tibetan, there are three different letters. These three different letters represent this, body, mind and the speech of yourself and of the deity, both. Represents your mind, deity’s mind, your speech, deity’s speech and your body, deity’s body. So when you are saying OM it means you are calling for action of the body, mind and speech, all of them together. When the enlightened beings act, they have nothing else to use besides body, mind and speech. Whether it is enlightened or non- enlightened beings, whoever does something , it has to be done either through body, through mind or through speech . There is no fourth door. There is no fourth way at all. Either through body, through mind or through speech. Right, that we all know. So when you are calling OM, you are actually calling for action of the body, mind and speech of all beings. That’s what makes it so important. That’s what OM does. Ah, O, Ma, three letters, body mind and speech, OM.

1:13:02.8 What is Mani? Mani in Sanskrit is ratana. Ratana is jewel. If you look at Avalokitesvara, if it is a four hand Avalokitesvara, [the hands are] folded and you find a little piece of jewel held there. The hand implements are the initials of each deity normally. The hand implement is their initial like how we would say “would you please initial on this document”. Even if we don’t sign the document we put our initial as indication [of having seen it]. So Mani or jewel is in the hand of Avalokitesvara. It is one of the hand implements which is one part of initial. Why? What does jewel do? They are supposed to fulfil your wishes. Whether it does or not, that is the job of the jewel. Right? If you have a good heart, a jewel heart, you are supposed to fulfil service to the beings, fulfil their wishes.

How can you fulfil their wishes? In order to fulfil the wishes of all sentient beings it means bringing joy, … peace and happiness to all sentient beings. That happiness is ultimate happiness, not ordinary happiness. For a being like Avalokitesvara who is a fully enlightened being when they look at happiness they look as ultimate happiness. That is the result of love compassion and bodhimind which is the ultimate spiritual development which will be the ultimate happiness for all the beings. So Mani or the jewel which fulfils that wish which try to bring the ultimate happiness of enlightenment to the heart of a sentient being. That’s really what jewel heart is. The idea is that. This is outer explanation. This means you have all the practices of love compassion, freeing oneself from the samsara, taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and sangha, all of them are represented by that word, Mani as well as jewel.

1:17:57.1 The other part of that is Padme. Padme in Tibetan or Padma in Sanskrit is white lotus. Here in this case is the white lotus. If you look at Avalokitesvara the other hand is holding the lotus. Lotus is normally grown out of mud yet it has no fault of mud at all. That indicates that the wisdom which grows out of our muddy mushy samsaric swamp is pure wisdom has no fault of the samsaric swamp at all. That is the wisdom.

What does this HUM do? Hum combines the two together that is method, love compassion etc on one side and the wisdom of the emptiness on the other side. HUM combines them together within one individual. It is the union of wisdom and love compassion together within one individual. That is what the Hum represents. Lots of Western people would say Hum with M sound but it should sound with Ng or N with drop on it, so Hung [pronounced Hoong] rather than [pronounced Whom] Om Mani Padme Hum. That Hum is the union of the method and the wisdom together combined within individual person.

Earlier we mentioned OM represents body, mind and the speech of yourself and of the enlightened beings, both. That Om which is the pure body, mind and speech of the enlightened being and the impure body, mind and speech of ourself is again combined together by Hum. My body will become the body of enlightened being. My speech will become the speech of enlightened being. My mind will become the mind of enlightened being. Combined together by HUM. Combination and union. That is what it is.

1:21:27.0 If you want a little more profound [meaning] than that, then the wisdom we are talking about is the lotus wisdom. The lotus wisdom represents the clear light. The jewel is the method which is love compassion, accumulation of merit and all of these whatever we were doing just now. What will happen? When we accumulate merit and all these, What will happen? When you become better and pure, what will happen? These will become the physical form of yourself. When you say the enlightened being’s body is different than our body, why is it different? Our ordinary body is the result of suffering. It is result of cause of suffering. It is created by the cause of suffering so therefore the result is suffering. That’s why our body aches and if it is too hot, we burn, if too cold we suffer from crack, break and all these because it is indication that it is result of the suffering. The illusion body is not a result of suffering but result of good work, virtuous work, perfect work and work of gone beyond. That result body will be the illusion body.

It may look the same. If it looks different then you will become a strange monster. May look the same, however it is result of the pure work rather than cause of suffering. For example if you look at Tara, why is she so beautiful? Where does that come from? Why do you have to [describe her as] beautiful all the time. Even when you draw her you have to draw the most beautiful ever possible. Why? Because in reality, her nature and looks is in that manner. Why is she like that? Why there is there no decay in that body? Why? Because it is not an ordinary body which is created by the suffering and cause of suffering but it is the result of the good work that we do, like when you say Om Mani Padme Hum and all these efforts that you put in, these will materialise in that physical form. There will be a time when you will become that.

1:24:32.5 For example if you look at Yamantaka, there are two horns. Where do that come from? By meditating on the two truths, truth of absolute and truth of relative that will become the two horns. Then the thirty seven practices. Out of those 37, like four mindfulness will become one of the physical forms of that body. We talk about the mandala all the time. The westerners very familiar with mandala. The mandalas have four doors, right? You always see four doors. You have the big drawing like architectural type of drawing and there are four doors. These mandalas are not built by the concrete, steel or wood. So what are the mandala built from. What are the doors made of? It is not steel door, not (Gordage) [brand] door. Those big safe doors. They are not made by those, so what is it made of? It is made of your mindfulness. When you become an enlightened being, you will have your own particular mandala. Whatever the deity you may become you will have your own mandala. And if you lack mindfulness, your mandala will be without doors. So anybody can walk in. Ha ha ha. That’s that. The four doors will be the [result of] four mindfulness, mindfulness of mind, mindfulness of feeling, mindfulness of phenomena and mindfulness of body. These four mindfulness will become the four doors of the mandala. If you don’t have those mindfulness there will be a mandala without doors.

1:28:15.8 So each one of our efforts put in, what we call accumulation of merit, these will become the rupakaya,the physical form of the enlightened being. When you become enlightened that’s what it will become. If you don’t have enough prostrations you will probably be a Buddha without third eye. There are things like that, that’s [how] it works. Each one of those little [actions] will materialise as a physical form later. It will be part of your body or a part of your mandala. So that’s is called rupakaya.

So mani or jewel represents the accumulation of all these and the physical form, the rupakaya. The lotus or heart is the pure part. It represents the enlightened mind. The being who will occupy that particular pure body and the pure environment will become the dharmakaya. Out of these three kayas, rupakaya, [sambogakaya] and dharmakaya, it is called dharmakaya in Sanskrit. Anyway it is the mental part. So now you need a union of this. If you don’t have union [it will be like] you have a big mansion which has nobody living in there. You have to identify and union is that. The union in this case the outer physical form and the inner being has to be combined in union. That’s why enlightened beings have no limit. Every part of the enlightened beings has its own mind. Wherever there is mind, there is a body. We say that. We call this the extraordinary quality of enlightened beings. Wherever their mind is, their physical form is. That’s why you say every place has enlightened beings because enlightened beings will see it. And when they see it, they know. Their mind functions. When their mind functions their body functions. So union really means the mind and body function together. For us it is limited. For us, our mind can go while you are sitting here, yout [mind] can go to the New York city, go downtown or 5th avenue wherever, you can go there. There is no limit but our body is limited. If the plane doesn’t fly, you will be stuck in Michigan. Your mind may be there but your body is stuck here. So it shows there is a difference. it is not combined though you occupy it, it is not combined.