Archive Result

;;;Soundfile 19920105GRJHNLLR 7

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Netherlands

Topic Lam Rim

Transcriber Jess Willyard

Date 2-2-22

So, by knowing the Lam Rim, so hopefully people can have that benefit. The question is how again? By doing the Lam Rim thing, we have introduced earlier base, path, and result, remember? Base, path and result. So since we know the base, path and result, since we are looking forward the result. So no matter what ever it may be, anything that’s helping to bring the result closer to the individual. And that is when you learn how to respect those. Not only you learn how to respect, but really you appreciate. So you don’t insult them at all. That does not mean again, you have to do everything. Then it becomes soup. And it’s not necessarily be great soup either. It will soup mixture of chili and sugar. And one kills the other. Right? Sour and salt. If you mix them, so the salt kills the sour, the sour kills the salt. So does the chili and the sugar. Same thing. I shouldn’t say because you people are greater cook than me. So you don’t have to do everything together, right. But at the same time you should not lose the respect. So all of the benefit I have mentioned here, so about that much now.

And now what is this. (Rimpoche reads transmission)

For example even more, or one of the other four qualities. Even you look at the first quality it says all the teachings will be noncontradictory.

Audience: There is nothing incompatible in all Buddha’s teachings.

Rimpoche: What does incompatible mean?

Audience: Noncontradictory.

Rimpoche: That’s right.

I mean, again, the translation makes a lot of difference here. So the translation doesn’t, in the Tibetan teachings, the text says, all the teachings. And in the translation goes only Buddha’s teachings. So anyway, doesn’t matter, they may be saying to the Buddha’s teaching, but the main point is, it is leading towards liberation. What ever it might be. One should be able to see nothing is incompatible.

0:05:21.7

Ok these are the, all the qualities are there. So the idea of the quality, though we are ignoring today, but it should not be ignored because idea of the quality, if properly presented makes the individual be interested. The reason why the quality is being given here is to gain inspiration. So we maybe doing a little disservice by not going through those qualities very carefully, but however, there are books that are now available. I mean particularly that Liberation in Palms are available. And that has tremendous detail in it. Compare, I mean, there might not be good enough detail for Tibetans who study in Tibet, but over here now, with the time limit what we have, it is more than detailed in that. And do kindly read that portion of it. And after reading it, just don’t run away somewhere and close the book and think a little bit about it. And think a little about it and then try to bring some kind of essence of it. And that little essence whatever you got in, and you sort of you meditate or you think over it for a little while. And then you do in the evening once more. And do the next morning once more. And do the next evening once more. And once you do like four times. And then it remains with you. And that, so that moment you say “saving from the great mistake” or something, you probably get the basic idea of it. You don’t have to remember everything. The stories, you don’t have to remember the examples, jokes, everything. But essence, if you remember that’s good enough.

0:08:25.5

The next is the, now the beginning part of actual Lam Rim. Now the guru devotion

Then after having taking….what happened. Where did this outer taking refuge come from? Then after having taking, did they talk about refuge before? What? You sure we’re doing the same text? I’m beginning to wonder.

You know there’s two kinds of Tsongkhapa’s text. One is called short Lam Rim, and the other is called Lines of Experience. This is the Lines of Experience, that’s what we are looking at two different things.

(Back and forth about which text everyone is looking at.)

0:11:40.9

Then we reach to the guru devotion. So, now they’re talking about the guru devotion. Guru devotional practice is called root of development. It is root, because all spiritual benefit, whatever the individual wealth you get, it’s going to grow out of guru devotional practice. It is not really…you have to be really careful in, particularly in the West when you talk this. There’s a tremendous amount of “guru trips” has been in this part of the world. And we are not interested to building a “guru trip”, another one. However there’s a point where it’s important nature of the guru devotion becomes very essential for one individual’s practice. Over here it says: the root of all benefit of this and future, so it is also important. And if you look detailed in the Lam Rim again, the Liberation in Palms, or any other Lam Rim, there’s a lot of basic outlines, a lot of basic important nature of it. Particularly mentioned a lot of those things are there, but basically most important thing is, you should look, like there’s eight benefits of having a guru devotional practice. Eight disadvantages, not having, and eight disadvantages of the wrong doers not practice.

So when you have time, read about it. There are a lot of interesting stories will tell you. These stories are the sort of examples. It helps one to comprehend to get the message. And after covering the disadvantages, then the advantages, and finally boil down to three points. So seeing the Guru as an enlightened being, how can you see that. What is needed for that. And how. And these are the three major points. It will come. That is also in detail in the Liberation in Palms, but basic question is, I would like to make emphasize here. It doesn’t matter whether you look at your guru as an enlightened being, or you look at your guru as a silly goat. It makes no difference at all for whatsoever. But what does make difference, is difference to the individual, the practitioner, me.

0:17:49.3

So if I look in my Gurus, and I was started to label them. One is, oh he’s so much jealous, you know he’s so much angry, he’s so much this and that. If you keep on looking from that angle, there is countless. Basically, we are born as human being, there will be nobody who is faultless at all. Even Buddha, during his lifetime, number of people have seen him completely faulty, phony, particularly his own cousin has been challenging him all the time. And that is human quality. And if you keep on looking from the fault angle, there’ll be tremendous fault you can point it out. We will see it as, if we don’t like somebody. Let’s say if we love somebody and we say that person is great. Say somebody is newly in love with somebody. Falling in love with somebody, right? So during that period, everything is great, become a great quality, whatever the other person do. Right? Even going to the toilet you have a quality for it. Ok, so but when something goes wrong, when you started fighting, everything’s wrong! When you are in love with it, you will see the kindness, compassionate, smart, sensitive, gentle, which will totally if you are fighting it will totally change. Mean, rude, ugly, you know, everything will change. Including their compassion will also become faulty, instead of the other going to toilet, you know! Even they say mantra that also faulty one. Even you meditate they’ll say that has faulty one for that. So idea is, if we are looking from the fault angle, we’ll see the fault. If you look from the angle, the quality, you see quality.

0:22:03.0

So what would you do? For this practice what would you do is, you look from the quality angle, and from when they see the fault ones, just leave it there. And that’s what I do. I did.

And because when you have number of thirty different teachers, I have. And somewhere somebody bound to do something funny. Whatever the purpose may be. Somebody will add some very silly thing, absolutely silly really. So I just leave it there. Ok? So only appreciate from the good quality, from that angle I look and I appreciate that. And the faulty ones, whether they actually they good teacher have fault or not fault, whatever it is. It is beyond my comprehension, so I just leave it there. The reason why I did this, leaving there is two reasons. Number one I’m not a judge. And I don’t have to make a judgement on it. And number two, I won’t benefit. And I don’t want disadvantages. So if that individual has a problem that’s his problem or her problem. And what I wanted is the benefit. So I’ll look from the benefit angle. That’s it. That is, same thing happened to the lot of Western people. Particularly with the different Gurus. Doubt everywhere. And Gurus have fault for sure. And when you emphasize on those faults, and the West people are very, sometimes Westerners have very great, number of, some people, not in Westerns all, some people have very good interests for sensational news or something controversial, or scandal. People have lot of interest in that.

0:25:45.8

And there are people who like to magnify it or emphasize, or whatever all those sensation points. So we begin to see and hear all this particular Gurus, particularly when they are dead. So they will hear the problems of the Muktananda, Chittananda and Matananda one of those ‘nandas. And followed by the Rajneesh, followed by Trungpa, followed by Krishnamurti, and all of them will announce, read, comes in the magazines, and comes all this. And I was shocked to see the Krishnamurti criticism on the last issue of Tricycle magazine. I mean couple of pages! I thought Krishnamurti is the only, sort of, doesn’t have much criticism, you know. I was really shocked to see that. Really. But when Krishnamurti in life, you don’t hear all this. This came after Krishnamurti died, two years, three years, how many? Six years or something like that, then these things coming out. There’s a woman who says I’m daughter of my mother who had an affair with Krishnamurti for 25 years! And all these fun things you know comes up at the end anyways so. So doesn’t matter, so that’s what it is.

0:28:10.7

So particularly those of like people following Krishnamurti or admiring Krishnamurti, or for that matter, Rajneesh or Trungpa or Chittananda or Muktananda or whatever it is, all of them. So if people who are following them, if you started looking from their fault angle, get tremendous disadvantage for that. And it becomes obstacle. The obstacle will become interesting. The obstacle will not come as obstacle. Obstacle will come as intellectual understanding or some kind of positive outlook through which it will come. But what that did to the individual is hold back their upliftment. They will definitely hold back. The knowledge may not be hold back, but the developments holds back. The last year I was invited at Naropa Institute where Trungpa’s foundation is. After Trungpa’s death, they had tremendous split. Four times, four, four. Not only two times but four times big split! But Trungpa himself was great teacher, there’s no question. When you look at it contributions Trungpa made to the Western society from the Buddhist point and spiritual point, it’s tremendous! But afterwards there is tremendous scandal too, or after or during. Trungpa says during because it’s almost during his lifetime he does funny things too. But the split comes after his death. And the people who are responsible to splitting, I’ve been able to see, I saw them. They talked to me. And they are very nice people, unfortunate, they’re very nice people. And they have very reasonable reasons and arguments why they have to do it.

0:32:02.5

On both sides. So but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but underlying all this, I also begin to see on their faces, tremendous problem with them too, individually. They are very learned people, very learned. Well read. They write beautiful articles. They’ve edited Trungpa’s books, quick. But when you look at them in between lines finally you see, you’ll be having to see them, some of them could not progress at all. And some of them beginning to realize what’s happening, and they are noticing it, but they didn’t contribute to that. They started asking me what happened to me. To the fairness, I have to say I don’t know, I can’t say. You did this and you created problem so you have a problem, they’re going to get more angry, so I said, well I don’t know! I hope you’ll do better. What else can you do?

0:34:11.9

So whether we have those scandals or no scandals, makes no difference to Krishnamurti, it’ll make no difference to Trungpa, and I’m sure it doesn’t make difference to Rajneesh too. But it does make difference to the individuals. So, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche told me the main reason for the Guru devotional practice is: I seek benefit, I don’t want disadvantages. So therefore, I follow that statement. So beginning, before we’re taking, before you’re really having as a spiritual teacher or Guru or something, before that you have to check. Check carefully. Even the dogs check, if throw a piece of meat to a hungry dog, they’ll smell it. They’ll go like that first. If it’s rotten they don’t eat. If it’s good then they’ll bite! Chew and swallow it. So we have to do better than dog. Once you have taken as Guru, then look from the positive angle, and just let it be, the negative angles. So I do remember I’m not a judge. I don’t have to issue judgement. You’re better off. Yup. I recently read two days before I came, I saw a movie on television one night. And that movie was the Nuremberg trial after the World War II. Nuremberg right? It’s called Nuremberg trial. And I saw or not in that movie it shows that the judge had tremendous pressure. The trial is over for the four judges of Germany. Nazi judges all Nazi judges. And that American judge is the chief one. Has always been. And he had tremendous pressure. One senator came to visit him, to Nuremberg and tried to say something. I mean, they came to a political decision. Russia is going to attack Europe. You can not hold German, whole Europe lose, so therefore we need cooperation of the German people. And if you need cooperation of the German people, you can not send German judges to, sentence them to the prison. So they should have light sentence. So the American government is putting pressure on the judge, saying that somehow they should find that they’re not guilty.

0:39:19.6

Then the senator came. Then the judge says, “Mr. Senator tell me straight away, what are you up to?” And he said, “I’m not trying to influence your judgement at all, but…” So they have to go to election, right? Senators has to go by election, that’s why he couldn’t say a word. But the journalist they are putting pressure to this judge to find them not guilty. So at the end this judge found everybody guilty, tremendously guilty! They put, send them to life imprisonment. And it was very unpopular judgement for Nuremberg that day, and also unpopular to the US Government too. And then he has to leave that day, go back to his home, that judge. And he was saying that, he was cursing, why should I be the judge? I could have done any other job, why I have to be judge? So that’s what I’m saying we’re not judge. That’s the main point. Anyway, so the Guru devotion thing is very sensitive, very funny yet, very important. So if I do not bring that up, because that’s part of it, as well as it is very important point, and I have to bring it up. If I bring it up clearly, it also doesn’t sound great. So after sort of having understanding of the Guru devotional practice, then the way and how the devotion show though a mind and though the action, there are two ways. And then after, these are sort of advices, how the devotion is being shown through thoughts and through action. So then you have to know them properly and follow it. And in the West, number of places, what they do is they make the people stand up, with the folded hand and also doing prostrations. I noticed a lot of centers do that. And we in Jewel Heart don’t emphasize that at all. The reason why I don’t emphasize that is, there was an elder Tibetan Lama, I think Tara Rinpoche, visiting Jewel Heart in Ann Arbor, or Chicago, I forgot. One of the places he’s visiting.

0:44:01.0

And he told me, people in the West are so devoted. And I said how? And he said look at them how they stand up doing prostrations and folding hands when you go up and down. And I said, do you think that’s devotion? He said what else that is? So there was three elderly ladies, three different. Normally doesn’t much come in our center, she was there, she was there that day. So I picked them all three up. I said, why are you doing this? And one of them says, did I do something wrong? I said no, no. Then I asked other one, why are you doing this? And she says, I’m trying to be nice to that guy. And the third one says, isn’t that Tibetan system? So that’s that. So there’s a big misunderstanding here the traditional old Tibetan Lama, older one thinks they’re expressing tremendous devotion. On the other hand there’s a Western lady sitting there “I’m try to be nice to that guy, what does he think he is?” So and I say there’s no point in doing that at all, so I did not encourage people to do that at all, rather with this characteristic, to do it. And then when you sit down together, talk to each other, share our informations, try to become friend helping to each other. Then you gain some kind of better personal appreciation. Far better for the individual practitioners. And also far better for the person who receives. It is genuine, coming from the heart. Rather than artificially made in. Half culture, not culture, half acting and half not knowing what to do. So again that is the important point. And when you appreciate, expression comes out. I think that is reason devotion. So you don’t really have to take literally in the book what they say. Get up, don’t move and this and that, all this. Sometimes it is so funny in the Tibetan tradition they have this so strong sometimes. Like the Tantric college, you know upper and lower Tantric colleges. They have system. When their abbot or the lama, they have two sort of the deputy abbot is called lama. And when they have, they can not see outside face to face, they can not.

0:49:12.7

So in Lhasa in 1950s I remember when the Tantric abbot lama comes, any tantric monks around, they turn back and they show their back to him. He started bowing down. So people whose room it becomes so tight, I said you can’t even look at the face what else can you do, there’s nothing to say, can’t turn around, so people started turning around and showing the back. So that’s not available for whatsoever. So you don’t have to take everything literally. Ok, that’s about it. The main point is, what does the guru functions? It is the messenger in-between. It is the contact in-between. It is like magnifying glass. If you want to build a fire on the dry grass you use magnifying glass to take the solar energy down. So this magnifying glass helps to catch the fire. So this magnifying glass helps to catch the fire. If the magnifying glass is not there no matter how strong the sun may be it won’t catch fire. Normally. So the magnifying glass makes it easy to catch. That is the difference. That is the purpose. So the energy of the magnifying glass is getting the message of the unbroken lineage. So if individual practices, it can work. Otherwise, no matter how much we have information and if you don’t have the lineage, it doesn’t work. It’s like squeezing hand full of sand to get butter you’re not going to get at all. Or, try to burn the candle continuously until even when after the wax is over. So that is about that. And so I would like to, since you people said this, and I would like to read the Foundation of All Perfections as well, so that it goes together. So the guru devotional practice covered in the Foundation of All Perfections:

Following a kind master, foundation of all the perfections, is the very root and basis of the path.Empower me to see this clearly and to make every effort to follow well.

This root text in Tibetan goes: (Reads Tibetan). Ok that covers that part. And that including oral transmission of that as we covered. Now the next is, when you read the book it says, the great teachers have followed that way one will seek the liberation, I may be able to follow, something like that. In the Dutch translation what does it say? Is everybody repeat that.

Audience: It does say that. “In this way the honorable spiritual teachers have acted in few have strived for liberation, develop yourself in a similar way.”

Rimpoche: Ok, is this English or Dutch?

Audience: This is Dutch.

Rimpoche: Ok so when you are saying together, when you’re saying together reading together, that’s how you do. And if you are teaching, during that period you have to say, I the yogi who have practiced that way, you who are seeking the liberation should follow. If you are teaching, you are supposed to switch that way. Whether the I, yogi has done or not, that’s how it goes.

0:55:43.0

The next is, now this is dealing with embracing the life. The life what we have today is called a leisure life. Why it’s called leisure? Cause we’re so busy. In the samsaric, there are lot of different lives, such as hell realm, and also have hot and cold. Then hungry ghost. Then animals. Then human beings. Demi-gods. And samsaric gods. That becomes what, six. Plus two hells, two hell realms in the human land. So all this, 6+2 is 8. So all of them are busy, busy with the suffering. Some are too hot, some are too cold, some are hungry, some are stupid, some are so much jealous, some have so much pleasure and they don’t even bother, so each one of them have it’s own little problems, and make them busy. So the human beings we are a little better than the lower realms and even little better higher realms that are higher than us. Particularly better to develop compassion because we can understand what suffering means. Samsaric gods can not understand what samsara, what suffering is. Because they don’t experience. And when you don’t experience it’s very hard for you to understand. So we do understand. We have capability of understanding because we’ve seen it, we share with them, we have tremendous problems, pains with us. We have a problem of homeless. We have a problem of hunger. And we have a problem of AIDS. And we have all these problems if you begin to look from the problem point of view, it’s full of problems. And we have mental problem. Everyone of us sitting here and looking nice and looking at each other smiling but in our deep, deep mind we have sorrow. Each one of us has sorrow. There’s sorrowness is within us something’s wrong with our life, something’s not happy, something’s gone wrong, I have been abused. Whatever the reason might be. Everyone of us carry a sorrow within us. It is full of pain. It is almost like you know, we sit nicely here look at each other, it looks like fully ripened fruit, you know. Those peaches, you know, it’s fully ripe, looks very nice, if you push little finger and there, it will burst out. And we all are like that. (Everyone laughs) But there’s an advantage on this, that what we can understand. Even each one of us laughing, you see you’re laughing. Indicates we can understand. And those samsaric gods, they can understand because they never experience, they don’t ever! And the lower realms they don’t have time to think about it.

1:03:00.0

Because the direct pain is so strong, they can’t think nothing but that direct pain. So the human life is the life. In a way that is advantage for us. So we do have an opportunity. A leisure. Unless we make ourself ninth(?) busy ones, that is the man made busyness, you know eight busyness, which we counted earlier, so if then we make ourself ninth busyness. The ninth busyness, what we have today is probably doesn’t (inaudible) for the Buddhas, they didn’t like here. Maybe true! Cause during the Buddha’s time is not that busy. Because we not have to pay bills at that time. So almost everything’s free. The water is free. Light is free, you don’t have electricity. And nobody rents house during that period, right? You don’t have to pay gas bill or telephone bill, or no credit card bills. No loans. So today we have them. So that probably make us ninth busy one. Anyway, so even no matter how busy we are, we still have time to do. Particularly those who says I’m so busy, I have no time, we’ll have time for gossip. Time to go to the bar. Have aerobics. And vacations. So it’s not that true that you don’t have time, you do have time, little bit. The time or the demand is not that big. But what difficulty is the constant effort you put in, that’s difficult. As usual everyday, what, 20 or 40 minutes? And that much one can definitely afford to spend for the benefit of my future lives! We spend that much time even in toilet! You had to wait for over 20 minutes to come out with you. So that’s what it is. Not only that. Not only we have the time, but we have the right opportunity. The right opportunity is really important. If we have been in little earlier than this, our life have been a little earlier than this, say we’re eighties today, eighties or nineties or hundred today. Probably never have this opportunity. And if you are born here before Buddha’s period, then gone. If we are born before Buddha’s period. Definitely gone. If later than this, we’ll probably have some problems too. It is great opportunity. So that’s why Tsongkhapa referred this as like wishfulfilling jewel. So it is important. It is very, very valuable for us. So our life is precious. You should never say I blew it, it’s a terrible life. One should never hate the life. If something has gone wrong it is the me who’s done wrong, not the life. So if you look in the life, it is tremendous. I mean, we are perfect. Today in the late in the morning we visited Helen’s alma (?). And somehow when I, during talk, I asked her how her holiday was. Marianne translated remember. And she said, among them I found how healthy I was, I am. Compared with others, she said. Similarly if we think our self, how good we are, though we are like ripened peach ready to poke this come out, however we’re not coming out. We’re still covered well you know.

1:11:20.4

They’re together. We’re not handicapped. We are not mentally damaged. We can think. We can act. We can have judgement. And we have tremendous opportunity. Such an opportunity has never been before here. Yeah, where in the East it will only have the Eastern religion. And in the West you only have Judeo-Christian religion, whatever the Western religion is. Today, the Judeo-Christian has been carried over to the East by various missionaries. And the Eastern religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, so and forth. Buddhism particularly the Tibetan teachers, by kicking out by the Communist Chinese, they all kicked out in the West. So it is almost like available, and anything, what ever you want to follow it’s available with you in front of you. It’s making it, food lay on your table along with a spoon and fork. It was never before like that. Never. And the Tibetans went down to find the Buddhism from India and lost tremendous amount of lives including their king. Once they found, they thought it’s very precious and kept completely isolated in snow mountains around and don’t let anybody in just keep it like that. So today it’s all over the world. Earlier we have to go and search for teachings and carry the food at the back and crossing the mountains, crossing the river, and you never know whether you’re going to be alive or not, by the time you reach there, you have to go that way. Today you don’t have to do that. You just open your newspaper, the advertisement is there. So that’s it. So it shows how wonderful opportunity it is. And no matter whether the opportunity is in front of you or not. If you can not take advantage, then it equals to not having. So to find such a life is like once in a blue moon. To finding such a life is like finding blue moon. Blue moon is expression that in two moons together something. It does happen sometimes. In one of our retreats last year, it’s a winter retreat, we had a blue moon. Two moons together. It’s called a blue moon. I don’t know they translate. In that day two moons. It is an expression in English they use as in a blue moon, really rare. During our last retreat. During the last in Ann Arbor. Not the summer, at the winter retreat. During the new year period. Somebody started shouting, he said hey new moon, I didn’t see anyway.

1:17:10.0

So it is important. So it is really difficult to find but somehow, by shear luck, by coincidence, or by accident, whatever it is, we had this opportunity. So which is very difficult to find, and easy to lost like that of lightning in the sky. So difficult to find is we have talked, no we haven’t talked. We recognized the important but then the difficult to find is, each one of them is not without cost. Every good thing, or bad thing, whatever happens with us, we have some causes before that. And good and perfect works brings good and bad works bring the bad result which is known to all. So when you try to search, internal investigation within our mind, searching for good perfect work to be able to bring such a life in future. It is very difficult to find it. So in order to bring such a life in future you need a tremendous cause like that. So when we don’t have this sort of cause, it is hard to find. So hard that Buddhas have given the final example to how hard it is. It is like children’s story. They say, there’s a yoke in the ocean. And the yoke is moving with air everywhere. There’s a blind tortoise or whatever it is, somebody underneath try to get their neck under the yoke, boom boom gone. And that also once in 500 years. So it is almost impossible. And that’s why they give that as a funny looking example there. So, the timing wise, I also told you, it is really difficult to find. So we appreciate what we have found. And if you want a New Year’s resolution, you should pass that you’ll make best use of it. Not only a New Year’s resolution, but also if you keep on meditating it, and it will be one of your major emphasize on it. Well I think that covers the difficult to find. Ok I’m going to stop here tonight and we can meet tomorrow. So do try to meditate and think, and whatever is said, try to analyze that, and make some short things to hold on, some short thing each explanation make some kind of little essence of it to hold on and that is something to hang on. And so, that’s what you should do we tell you hang on.