Archive Result

12

Soundfile 20140425GRJHNLTB01

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location The Netherlands

Topic Tibetan Buddhism

Transcriber Lay Tin Ng Elsie

Date 21 October 2021

Audience: (In Dutch)

0:01:20.6

Rimpoche: All greetings to everybody.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Okay. Welcome to the tonight’s talk. I believe the subject is Tibetan Buddhism according to Gelek Rimpoche, isn’t? Something like that.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: (Rimpoche laughs.) But thing is, you know, sometimes when you go in between two languages, and then it changes. And, so, there is, I do, I do every Sunday, did every Sunday last year. Talk on Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche. So, probably, probably, that becomes according to tonight.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Can you hear okay?

(Transcriber’s note: From here, think there is a technical glitch on the sound system, and the people in charge are trying to sort it out.)

Audience: (Inaudible)

Rimpoche: No?

Audience: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Go ahead. No? Maybe you can take this. I mean, clearer, honestly.

Audience: Laughing.

Rimpoche: That will be more important than English. You know why? Because, everybody will hear Dutch and less people will hear English.

Audience: No, I think, I think.

Rimpoche: Is it going to work?

Audience: I think.

Rimpoche: Works? Let’s see. That makes a difference?

Audience: (Inaudible)

Rimpoche: It must be some switch on and off.

Audience: Laughing.

Rimpoche: Getting all back. All back.

Audience: Respect for the oldies.

Rimpoche: Ya. It works. (Rimpoche laughs.)

Audience: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Stress.

Audience: Clapping and laughing.

Rimpoche: So, anyway, Gelek Rimpoche has nothing other than whatever he learnt as a young kid in one of the greatest monasteries in the world, Drepung, over 10 thousand monks at that time. And, there is no Buddhism according to Gelek Rimpoche. (Rimpoche laughs.)

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:05:44.5

Rimpoche: Having said that, and, you all are here, we have to say something.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And that is Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is such a profound and very huge subject. I don’t know from what angle we can give you Tibetan Buddhism in a short talk. However, I try to, to give you little bit of what Tibetan Buddhism is all about in according to so many Buddhism there too.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:06:59.2

Rimpoche: When I came to, came out of Tibet, that is 1959, 60. At that time, the Tibetan Buddhism is not known in the world at all. Very little known of Tibetan Buddhism in the world, they called it Lamaism.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And, and those professors Buddhologist and Tibetologist who called Lamaism, they have, there are very valuable reasons, such as, as lamas become the dominating, dominating figures within the Tibetan Buddhism number 1. And number 2, there are several different lamas have set up their own religions within the Buddhism sect, different sect traditions. And, and also, also seem to be the dominating lamas make the decision of many things. So, they have a right to call Lamaism, honestly, to my opinion.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:09:33.1

Rimpoche: Then I do remember, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, thought that is terrible. And he really fought against that. And he tries to say not Lamaism, it is Buddhism. So, then the Lamaism, I think gradually begin to change into Buddhism or whatever so of Tibetan Buddhism. Because there are differences because of the culture point, not only culture point, historical point, and maybe subject even. So, they have to identify something so the world begins to categorize as Tibetan Buddhism.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:11:12.2

Rimpoche: Historically speaking, there is no Buddha in Tibet. I mean, Buddha didn’t come in Tibet. You can’t say there is no Buddha but. Buddha didn’t appear in Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism did not started Tibet, it started in India. It is the Indian Buddhism. Whatever the great Indian tradition of Buddhism, and that had travelled to Tibet.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:12:07.7

Rimpoche: As you know, the great Indian Buddhism is divided into two categories of northern school and southern school. And northern schools are travelled from India to the north, and the north which means Tibet, Mongolia, China and so and forth. And then southern school are travelled to Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, and all that, South East Asian countries including Burma. And then in the Burma of course, another Buddhism coming from China to South East Asia, and from India going to South East Asia. So, so, you have slightly different there. So, Tibetan Buddhism is that northern Indian Buddhist school branched out to north.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:13:55.9

Rimpoche: Southern and northern school in India are divided, one, geographically but more from the Theravadin principles or Hinayana principles as major point of helping and developing individual. Northern schools are more or less Mahayana. So, that is how not only geographically divided, but subject division.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:14:59.6

Rimpoche: And Maha, and big and small vehicle is not one is superior and better than the other is, but it is the Maha, they called it the bigger, because it is not only the individual concern, but concern of everybody else.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Theravadin principle is actually, it is also called self-liberating. Is called it Theravadin is self-liberating. Self-liberating means I am concern, I wanted to be done, it is me, me, me, and then the other one is the we, we, we. That is the difference, bottom-line.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:16:17.0

Rimpoche: And then, also, and also the path of quickness and the slowness of a, you know, every religion has its own goal. So, Buddhism has a goal. The goal is to liberate yourself in one hand. The other hand is to liberate not only yourself, to liberate everybody. So, that is very simple, straightforward.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: So, to liberate myself, is I can put lot of efforts, go slow, and do all that. But to liberate everybody else, there is quickly you have to do, you need efficiency, very quickly. So, comes in to Vajrayana.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:17:43.3

Rimpoche: So, the, so the, you know, in the first Buddha’s teaching, is Four Noble Truth. Which is basically, individual, do the right thing, wait for the right result, avoid wrong doing so that you won’t have terrible consequences.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And that is the Theravadin principle.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And Theravadin principle is also principle of Mahayana.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: So, the Mahayana says, says, okay, we do the right thing and wait for the right thing. But then, is take extremely, is there any way we can speed up this, and make it a little faster, a little more efficiency.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And then, Buddha comes out, saying, ya it is, but that is not only do the right thing and do all this, and what about develop a little compassion, and a little love, and what, we see what will make the difference.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:19:51.3

Rimpoche: And so, so, the Mahayana, that’s why, is Ma, I say right from the beginning, Mahayana is we, we, we, everybody. And, in the Theravadin, it is me, me, me, I, I, I. I am not looking down on Theravadin, but that is how individual focusing or practice.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Tremendous difficulties, scarifies, Theravadin. Discipline, morality and all of these are huge issue.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And because you got to do the right thing.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And then the Mahayana become a little more love compassion oriented. Of course, you got to do the right thing, of course you have to have it discipline, of course you have to have it, morality and all that. But a little more expansion of everybody else’s beings, so considering all the decisions are not based on the one individual lay, but base on people, group, more, that’s how it is.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:21:58.5

Rimpoche: And then, Vajrayana Buddhism on top of that, and even, you know also, maybe I should tell you this. The goal of the Theravadin or the Hinayana is to become stage called Arhat. Arhat means you are free from the suffering of all samsara and you reach Nirvana. And that is the goal.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And then, the Mahayana is not only I am reaching in Nirvana is not enough, I have to bring everybody else, not only Nirvana, you have to be total, become Buddha.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:23:26.5

Rimpoche: So, then goes back to Buddha, and say how long it takes?

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And Buddha comes out, and saying first, develop love and compassion.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And then, second, to accumulate merit and purification for countless three eons. (Rimpoche laughs.)

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:24:12.8

Rimpoche: And not three lives, three eons.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Which is huge amount of you know, time.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And then finally you become Buddha.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Okay, Buddha. Then is there anything faster than this?

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: This is very long way. Yes, there is. And then he introduced Vajrayana.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: If you follow Vajrayana, if you practice Vajrayana, and in according to only instructions, you will become Buddha, possible, even this life.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: So, which means, 60, 70 years of short life we have.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And if that is not possible, at the time of the death.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Even that is not been able to do it (Rimpoche speaks in Tibetan), at least within 8 or 16 years, sure to become, 16 lives, sure to become a Buddha. That is the Vajrayana.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Okay. Also, also, also, this is does interesting here. Also, as I said Mahayana, as I said Vajrayana, discipline, morality is the key and major principle, and then in Mahayana, love, compassion is the key and the major work. In Vajrayana, yana, the major work will be developing joy within your mind and transforming ordinary our usual every day mind into extraordinary, joy nature mind. And that very joy nature mind, recognize and encounter with the true reality without any obstructions or dualistic or anything, sort of joy nature mind, nakedly recognizing, focusing true nature which, sort of, one technique, one cannot do without other technique but become superior way of dealing with our neuroses which is negative emotion. And, developing true beautiful nature of the individual. So, these are the three differents.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:30:01.4

Rimpoche: Until the mind, until the mind becoming joy nature, no matter whatever you do, it is an external thing from outside, ??? working, praying, sacrificing whatever, it is external activity. The moment the mind becomes joy nature and then you internalizes, so then, everything, internally managing out. And that is why it is much more efficient than externally taking in.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:31:32.8

Rimpoche: And what I made this last statement, short little statement, what that mean, may not make a much sense to those who are new here today. But I am sure this will do a lot of good service for those who have been little longer.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:32:10.4

Rimpoche: And, but at least those who are new, you begin to realize Vajrayana is not just a different way of doing it, and Vajrayana it is really, sort of, internally, develop and coming out. Is sort of, you know, internally burn, sort of out, which is much more faster and bigger and better, you know.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:33:00.4

Rimpoche: So, this is the true quality of Vajrayana.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Anyway, so, Tibetan Buddhism is a combination of all of those together.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And it is Indian Buddhism. It is Mahayana Buddhism. And it is Theravadin principle of Buddhism. So, so, that is a Tibetan Buddhism.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And Tibetan also have sacrifices so much for bringing this Buddhism within Tibet. Sacrificing not only they have sacrificed their wealth and their people but even the life of ruler himself.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:34:28.0

Rimpoche: First, Indian Buddhism came in to Tibet by great many Indian teachers. Mostly, the difficulty, theses of Buddha’s and Buddha’s disciples’ thoughts and ideas. And then, second level, great Indian Adepts such as Guru Padmasambhava and all of them, and of that category brought in a lot of mystical aspect of Buddhism. Thirdly, refined Buddhism after sacrificing the life of the king and then great Indian Bengali Pandit called Atisha. And it is sort of third flex of Buddhism into Tibet, in this now, 11 hundreds.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:36:32.7

Rimpoche: As in India, you have a, in India, you have Kangyur, the Buddha’s words, collected Buddha’s words, and the Tengyur, the Shakra, the commentary by great Indian masters.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And it turned out to be Shakra are more, more, more, I don’t say important, but more convenient than the real Buddha’s words.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Because, you know, if you are acceptance like word of God, just like even tradition of Christian tradition, there is a word of God tradition. So, if you accept the word of God, and as a Kangyur word of God, and then come a lot of contradictions.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:38:13.8

Rimpoche: And there is no principal contradiction, but funny ways, like, give you one example. There was an Indian king, called the Bimbisara or something, Indian name, king. And he has a son, prince. And he wanted to takeover the kingdom. And he started rebelling against the father. So, he succeeded and he put the father in jail. And, and then, all the ministers, all the ministers are very loyal to father, also loyal to the son. And they don’t know what to do. So, years later, the present king decided, well, I didn’t realize my father was been so kind to me, so it is so wrong that I put him in jail. So, we need to release him. So, they, ministers started running, say, I go, I go, I go. So, there was old fashion, upstairs is the court, downstairs is the jail. So, people getting busy up there. So, the father thought, they going to come to kill him. So, somehow, he died there. I mean, I make long story short. He died. So, then, this king got so much regretted, and he killed his own father, and that was terrible, tortured him, suffered him all that. So, finally, he doesn’t know what to do, so, he went to Buddha. See Buddha. And then he said, and Buddha said, why you have come Maharaja King. And he said, I am a terrible person, I killed my own father, blah, blah, blah. He said, oh, father, mother should be killed. They are meant to be killed. And, so, if you destroy the retinue and country, you will be liberated. So, he said, what. And sort of, you know, get him a chance to break his ice, and begin to work out. And then, of course, Buddha will explain. But father and mother should be killed is the, become words of Buddha. So, if you take it literally, so they will say, oh father, mother should be killed. So, then everybody will be killing their father and mother. So, that is not right. So, that’s why it is interpretable. And that’s why Shakra commentaries are become so important, because they are the great teachers, great masters when Buddha was saying that. That is under that circumstance, this is Buddha’s thinking. Buddha just wanted to relief that king’s little bit of shock. And, because he is going terrible depression and couldn’t even speak properly and certainly need to be get big shock. So, Buddha, father and mother should to be killed. What. Get a big shock. So, like that, the so Shakra, are, the actually, the translating the, the explaining situation, circumstances why Buddha said this and that. And it is the same thing with Christianity too.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:44:38.0

Rimpoche: So, the principles of Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhism in Tibet, in Tibetan language after translating the, the Indian original Buddha’s words plus the Shakra, around about 300 and some odd ??? and then the Tibetan started giving his own commentaries in his own language because people understand. People don’t understand Sanskrit. But people do understand your own language. So, they started giving their own different commentaries. And, in accordance to these commentaries, and in accordance to each teacher, and again, different sects formed in Tibet like Kagyu, Nyingma, Shakya, Gelug, and all these four different, plus, I don’t know, 16 Kagyupa or something, if you go sub details, there are so many of that type of sectarian systems also developed on the basis of each teacher and it is own commentary, that’s why earlier Buddhologist and Tibetologist called Lamaism. Honestly.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:47:03.5

Translator: Gelek

(Transcriber’s note: During translation, the translator translated Gelug as Gelek.)

Audience: Laughing

Rimpoche: That’s Buddhism according to Gelek Rimpoche.

Audience: Laughing

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:47:48.1

Rimpoche: And this is the serious matter of how Tibetan Buddhism developed. And, then I give you a joke too.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And then, next to Tibet, that those days, and the biggest country is China. And China ruled by the emperors.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And, politically, China needs to annex Tibet and control Tibet.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: So, they found the best way to control the Tibetans is through religion influence.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And they give, they give well known lamas a title and, and also give a title like, like religion, religion teacher, master of emperor.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: From the Chinese point of view, they giving a position of religion adviser. My guess.

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:49:45.8

Rimpoche: From the Tibetan point of view, from the individual point of view, I become the master of emperor. (Rimpoche laughs.)

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: So, you see the misunderstanding there right from the beginning, the beginning. And then, so many different sect lamas coming in and Chinese couldn’t figure out how to identify them. They all wearing red robe or yellow robe or something, you know.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: And they all bringing that little Tibetan dog called Lhasa Apso, and it is the seed of the Pekinese dog. Honestly, the smaller it is, it is better it is. So, they all bring gift of Lhasa Apso to the emperor, everybody. Lhasa Apso is a dog, little dog.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: So, they all look like yellow, red, they all bring little dog, and need to identify. So, they started giving hat. So, they give one multi-colored hat, one red hat, one yellow hat, so that they can write yellow hat, red hat, multi-hat for the Chinese classification. (Rimpoche laughs.)

Translator: (In Dutch)

0:52:11.2

Rimpoche: And those lamas come back to Tibet with red hat, with yellow hat, with all that hat, and then started having different religion sect according to yellow hat, red hat, blue hat, multi-colored hat, that’s how it happened.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: But please don’t tell that to the other Tibetans so they think I am very radical, you know.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: But I really do think that’s what happened. Honestly, that I really do think that’s what happened especially in the 11 hundreds or some 12 hundreds, 13 hundreds, that’s what happened, I think.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: So, anyway, that is, the, the difference of Mahayana, Hinayana and, and it is, it is development in Tibet that much. Now, the next one, will be what does Tibetan Buddhism is so unique about it. And what will they do. And what is Tibetan Buddhism different than others. So, this will talk when you come back from your tea break or pee break whichever way you want.

Translator: (In Dutch)

Rimpoche: Is there a conference break, right? Marianne ???

Translator: 9 O’clock. It’s okay we have a break.

Rimpoche: I thought there is a coffee break.

0:55:01.5

(Sound ended)