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19930525GR3P

It’s not everlasting, so, two points, I’m not sure if we can cover both or not but let’s see. Difficult to find. [audience inaudible]0:00:22.8 When we look to ourselves, normally no matter whoever we might be, whether we are somebody who are concerned with our spiritual path, or somebody who is not even concerned with the spiritual path but totally dedicated for money-making, total life dedicated for money-making, that means yuppie life, something like that. Or couldn’t care less happy-go-lucky hippies or whatever it may be. So if you look very carefully, we don’t really think about the life itself. We would be simply thinking only how I’m going to manage, how I’m going to live, or what I wanted. But not really thinking about life itself and its qualities that we talked the other night. We don’t think about it, we just simply think what I wanted, and that becomes our goal. So we are taking life for granted. And when certain unfortunate incident hits our life, no matter whatever it might be, it could be financial crisis or health crisis or any such unexpected, unplanned thing happen, then we get the biggest shock and freak out and cannot handle it. And people normally say I don’t expect it to go that way. And there is no such a thing called I don’t expect it to go that way. We hope to go everything smooth, nice, wonderful, long all of them. But we don’t expect anything else to happen. So it is very funny when you look at the life, it’s not that smooth, there’s a tremendous amount of criss cross all the time, all the time. Right? Criss cross, goes here and there. So many things. And they’re there, you cannot get rid of it, they come. The question is why they are coming. And not only question is why they are coming, why it’s happening, but what else the life itself come from. What does human life itself is coming from? We talk how precious life is, how important it is, what we can do. We talk about that we should embrace the life, not reject, all this we talked the other day. And then the question rises in one’s mind, how come I’ve been so lucky to have such a life. When you’re convinced that life what we have is important, and it has all this qualities that we mentioned, and when we decided to embrace, then suddenly the question arises, how come? No matter how unfortunate I have been, most of us all the time, sometime or another, we always feel miserable and suffering, we don’t feel great. That’s a very little time, almost once in blue moon type of thing we get. Most of the time, this is not right, that’s not right, this is not right, if this is right, that’s wrong, that’s wrong. There’s so many things wrong, and very little things are right. So out of so many unfortunate incidents that are taking place in our life, how come we have that very basic wonderful life? Where does it come from? So naturally, we don’t have the capacity to answer that question by ourselves. Because we don’t know exactly. Our capacity is limited, limited to be able to know for sure what causes this life is very limited. Right? There are certain things which we will know we can understand. There are certain things which we can figure out by using some kind of intelligence, analysis. And there are certain things we can’t do anything which completely we lack our capacity to figure out. So even Buddha made very clear to the disciples, there are two things. One, which we can understand, and a certain which we cannot understand. Directly or even indirectly. So what causes such a life, and life after life, reincarnation, and all of them really falls in that category. Reincarnation, there are some things which you can talk about it, argue about it, and maybe logically we can analyse a little bit, and at most what we can do is the benefit of doubt we can give, that much is in our capacity. And to be open with you, so what as a Buddhist, what do we do, things which we do not understand, things we will not be able to understand, we rely on the certain words of those people who are beyond our capacity, like Buddhists rely on Buddha’s word, which is a sharing of his personal experience. We rely on those words because it is beyond our capacity. Why we can rely on Buddha’s word, not because it‘s Buddha, but because Buddhism, what Buddha shared based on his personal experience which really makes a lot of sense, and it comes almost true. I don’t know why I’m saying almost true but it comes as a true fact. Use that as a reason. We will never use the reason because it’s Buddha, his words are right. That is a wrong reason. But because the words what he had mentioned everywhere, the experience he had shared here, we began to understand it is sort of as a truth, we can see it. So therefore, when his words are right, the guy is right. So we prove that Buddha is correct by using what he says, his experience right, from that angle we try to trace back that way rather than it’s Buddha’s word so therefore it has to be true, not that way. Did you get the picture? So that way. 0:10:08.3

But, words like these beyond our capacity, points like these beyond our capacity, so, so many of them for until we reach the capacity to our wisdom, development of wisdom, until we reach that, we will rely on certain words which are, what we call it “tsema” 0:10:32.3 which is a reliable word which cannot be interpreted a different way, the reliable words and sort of we rely on them. So if we do that, this is how we were trained, how I was trained anyway. So here you cannot, your intelligence capacity, your logical understanding, all of them, we will reach to the limit, beyond that you cannot see it, you cannot prove it. So, what do we do, we turn to the words of the Buddha and their disciples, their debate, their arguments and then somehow we try to understand from there. So the Buddha’s word for this, in order to reach such a valuable human life what do we have, all these qualities we have mentioned earlier, means it’s a perfect foundation of morality and activity of six parameters which means generosity, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, wisdom and morality. So six parameter activities. Plus perfect pure play and conjunction. So sort of Buddha give you these are the criteria to be able to find such a life in the midst of big, you know when you, when the person separates from this body, your consciousness is flying in the midst of huge, sort of open space, no where to hang, going around over there, so then your next life has to be click on something. And in order to click that particular life, to be able to have such a life as what we have, is today what we have is, these are the criteria that’s wanted. And that’s why a lot of Tibetan teachers, particularly that of Atisha, who had come from India and brought Buddhism to Tibet and the Buddhism which was there earlier he sort of little overhauled and went through and made perfect in 1100. Atisha very often repeated what kind of life you had before is you look at your life today, you get your answer. And what kind of your life going to be in the future and if you look at today’s behaviour, you get the answer. This is what Atisha told the Tibetans in 1100. And thereafter, every Tibetan teacher has repeatedly saying they compose poems here and there, slightly different. Some of them said [recites in Tibetan]0:14:28.2 so some of them said previous life I thank you for what you have given me in today’s life. But today’s spiritual practitioner please do not let me down in my future. This sort of they keep on writing a little different wording here and there but everybody repeat the same thing. So therefore, for what we have done earlier, will be reflected by what we have today and what’s going to happen in the future is reflecting our behaviour, our way of living, way of thinking, way of dealing with people, with ourselves, with our lives. And that is the reflection. So how easy for me to pick up each individual, point finger to your own noses, how easy am I going to find such a life in my future, which I never know whether it could be tomorrow or ten years after today or hundred years after today, who knows. But whenever, whatever happens, what am I going to find, presuming life after life, OK? Because we talk the other day too, you know, there’s no proof or anything but still continuation and all this we talked. So that’s the question. So when that question rises, then immediately what you do is you have to look what you did in your life, what do you remember what you did, and what you don’t remember what you did. And those of you what you remember will help you those what you did which you don’t remember because our character is the same thing, our behaviour is very similar always. So whatever you remember, you have a similar type of thing then which you don’t remember. By knowing your own personal character, personal how we handle our problems. Right? That’s nothing difficult. And that will tell you how good I had been or how bad I had been. So it’s not so difficult and we don’t have to ask your partner have I been good, you don’t have to ask some Tibetan lama or Hindu sadhus or Christian ministers or the Jewish rabbi or whatever, you don’t have to go and ask what I’m going to be. You know, the Tibetan normally very open they will often ask you to do a divination, they’ll ask you a lot of things. Always they’ll ask you do divination of this, divination of that. And some of them do so much so that even words that you use you have to throw your divination, whatever you’re using, dice or rice or whatever you’re doing they keep on throwing. I do know certain lamas who do tremendous amount of divination for every movement they do and who should I take it with me or what word should I use. Like Lama Zopa, one of his FPMT editors told me, when they find three or four different synonyms, and then they come across Lama Zopa, he will immediately throw dice, this is better. So even what words you use for it, so they do that extreme. So some of them have asked different lamas earlier, during the Kadampa period, the 1110, 1200 that was the peak period. And they will ask them, what will be my future, Rimpoche, please do a divination and Atisha has a very simple answer, you don’t have to ask for a new divination, Buddha has already done that. If you’re good, you will be good. If you’re bad, you will be bad. Buddha has done the divination already, so don’t have to do new ones. That’s what the Kadampa lamas replied for that. So simply reflecting our own personal way of life, that’s what it is. 0:19:43.9

So when you raise these questions to ourselves, what kind of life am I going to find. So you have the answer within you. Get me? You don’t have to go and ask. I don’t think you have to go through an astrologer to do an astrological chart reading. Or you don’t have to go to a psychic to give his or her flashes that come to the head. 0:20:31.7 [audience inaudible] Oh why, what’s so funny? [audience laughs] Oh you don’t have to go to some lamas to read what the future record say. You know, you don’t have to do that, you have the answer within ourselves. So looking at those answers, then we will find ourselves in a difficult point always. Basically everybody will have, oh I’m not bad, I have not killed anybody, I have not stolen anybody’s property nor have I rape anybody or done anything or all sorts of things we can come up, that’s in a way true. On the other hand we also have unconsciously tremendous amount of non-virtuous also built up. So that’s a very strong dilemma on that. So judging from this, even if you try to go as a fundamental base would be as a like a perfect morality. The morality, when I use the word, what normal American understanding of morality that you talk and that what I’m talking morality may be slightly different. I’m not talking about whether you are homosexual or lesbian or straight, I’m not talking on that account of morality at all. When I’m talking about morality, I’m talking about commitments that you have given, the vows that you have taken, honouring those vows, keeping your commitments, I’m talking about that type of morality. I’m not talking about whether you’re lesbian or homosexual or heterosexual or straight or crooked or whatever may be, I’m not talking about that, ok? So that’s the morality I’m referring to. So when you’re looking at those thing, the vows that we’re taking, have we been breaking the vows. The commitments that we have given, have we been honouring all those. And that is the basic fundamental morality and particularly those who are interested in Eastern religion, a number of them have knowingly or unknowingly taking a lot of initiations and a lot of ceremonies and this thing and that thing, and whenever there’s a big name flashing around, hundreds of thousands of people go there and not knowing whatever it is, thinking you’re participating in certain ceremonies or something, but in reality you have taken a lot of of vows without knowing and so there’s a lot of commitments which you don’t even know what you have committed. I mean I came across a number of different people on that manner. So those people will have a tremendous amount of broken vows, it’s almost like beyond question of repairing it. The rituals you participated here and there, these rituals do this and that, all this sort of thing. 0:24:39.5

So that’s why when you raise the question am I going to find such a great life if I lose this, am I going to find it, the answer lies on difficult. Why? Because getting that life is difficult. And therefore, finding this life will very definitely be difficult because there is a reason, it is karma oriented, cause and reason oriented. When there’s no cause, how can I get a reason, right? We cannot hope to get a nice craft if you put a lot of seeds on this wood over here and then leave it there, no matter how long you leave it the wood will remain until it gets bad or emptied or worms eat or whatever it is till something happens, it’s not going to grow because the conditions are not right. Even if you have cause, you have some kind of grain over here but if the conditions are not right, it’s not going to grow. Even if you make the right conditions, bring some kind of dirt here, put a lot of manure and put some water and keep heat and all this, and put it over here but if you have no grain at all you keep on hoping, it’s not going to grow anything, if grows tall it’ll be weed. So that’s what happens. So one doesn’t know cause or condition within us, it is difficult to find. So that’s why this particular word says, leisure and opportunity hard to find, the second word hard to find. That’s the meaning, the reasons behind this, hard to find is because of that. So what do we do? So we have established one point. It is leisure, opportunity, wonderful life. We have also established it is hard to find. So now that tells us we really have to make best use, we really have to keep it and preserve it. We should not reject, we should preserve it, appreciate, and make best use of it. OK? You can make best use of it, but you can’t be best of all, you know that. You can’t be best of all, everybody have in their deep mind. Now please listen to this carefully. Everybody have in their deep mind, I want to be the best. Not to be the best of everybody, nobody will think like that unless you’re crazy, nobody will think. But whatever you’re doing, you want it to be the best on that capacity of what you can do. You say I have the capacity, I want to be the best of it. Everybody has that. Anybody, when you go through with your mind, nobody says I don’t want to be the best. You don’t have that. Everybody want to, love to be perfect and best within your capacity, within your framework, within your eligibility. I want to be the most handsome guy, I want to be the most beautiful woman, I want to be, you know within your arrangement, I want to be the most capable person, I want to be the most intelligent, I would like to [audio problem 0:28:43.5 to 0:28:51.6] failure on my duty. So though it is very hesitating to say, a lot of people build up on that. But if I don’t say it, I may be failure. So sometimes we say, the spiritual and the material world are two separate one, they go in two different directions. But we always try to knit them together, that is sort of our end, knit them together and try to make sure they don’t contradict each other and try to go together, try to sort of knit together, spiritual and the normal, not necessarily material, diving for the money only, but the normal life, society, functioning life, try to knit them together. That is our job but a lot of the lamas who sort of rely on the crazy wisdom functioning, they probably say the material and spiritual world are totally separate, one goes to the right direction, the other goes to the left direction, they say that, and that’s based on this. That’s not a baseless statement, it has base. But on the other hand, what we do is we move between so that we don’t hundred percent give up this, we don’t hundred percent give up that, try to do best what we can do to go though the combination and that’s why the system that Tibet followed from the 1100 onwards until 1959 and from the 1100 onwards to 1642 by the different Tibetan lamas have ruled Tibet as a whole country and set up the policies. By 1642, the fifth Dalai Lama ruled Tibet till 1959. The fourteenth Dalai Lama, the present Dalai Lama, he left his seat, until then sort of they knit them together, it’s called the Dharma, the religious practice, and the culture, political sort of knit it together. Which makes the Tibetan unique, the Tibetan culture unique, the Tibetan Buddhism unique to all other different, is because of this particular thing. All these great masters and great enlightened beings, Buddha line up to live, try to make them work together for the individual, so that you don’t completely go opposite direction, but somehow knit them together. 0:31:49.0

So this afternoon we spend a lot of time to try to find out one little reflecting word for these two together, so I don’t think we have achieve anything. We did not get one word and combine them together and we came out with crazy words like Tibetan Budeo culture something like that but these are crazy words, doesn’t really work. Anyway so that’s the thing, that is really what the combination of you know, sort of actually the union of the functioning of the society. We are not really following the mad yogi’s footsteps but on the other hand we’re not going totally materialistic. Foursquare cut data oriented materialistic you know but sort of try to knit in between. So that is one of our goals too, that’s what Jewel Heart really try to do. The people work together, build up their spiritual and at the same time don’t be completely mad yogi. So you know what mad yogi is? Yogi is the Sanskrit name for the practitioners or the siddhis with long hair and a little bit of crazy wisdom type of functioning. So we try to keep in between, that’s what we do. So that’s why when you look in to our total way of thinking and we will find it is difficult to find. So it is true it is difficult to find. So while we have that, let us not think if I find another one, what should I do. Let us not think that. Let us think what I have in my hand, what can I do with that. You know what I mean? That’s how it works. So let’s not think about it, I’m not going to find another alright I’m convinced that is difficult to find or maybe not difficult to find but whatever it is, let’s not worry about it. But let us see what we can do with this. How long would that last with me. Do I have time to do something. Truly speaking, our life is limited. Life is absolutely limited. And there is this particular body where you have these three nadi systems. The flesh and bones and the veins through which the energy can follow and have feelings about it, it is very important and more valuable than that of light natural body. I think it was the weekend, not last Tuesday, during the weekend I even said if you have light natural body, it is as good as you’re having a skin filled up by hay. You know the old Tibet what they do the big animals like the big yak, the wild yak, it’s a huge animal, twice the size of the buffaloes, huge wild yaks, when they die they keep the skin and they fill it up with hay in it and then they stitch the skin together and hang it on made it a little fearful some place or whatever it is, that is making it fearful or they keep out those, you know, things. So it’s almost like that. If you have light natural body, we may think it’s great but it’s not. The body, what we have, whether we can feel the pinch, whether we can experience the joy, that body is something much more important than that of even light natural body. If there is a ghost, even the ghost has light natural body. Right? So that’s nothing great. We’re definitely better than ghost. They do have light natural body and this body is very important. However, it’s not ever lasting, it’s totally impermanent. No one knows when we are going to separate from that, no one knows. The days, the hours, the minutes whatever we’re spending, is always decreasing, not increasing. It goes down. It’s like a soap opera, like Days of Our Lives, the sand in the bottle or something right? There’s some kind of the sand in the bottle and the bottle turns upside down and it starts going down, so the days of our lives, that’s exactly in that condition. Whenever I see that soap opera on the television, and they say as the sands, I don’t know how to say [audience inaudible]. That totally reflects me and I watch that for a long time and whenever I see it, it reminds me how our lives are impermanent, how it’s going. And to prove that, to make it make a difference to ourselves, if you want to prove it, if you keep on watching ourselves in the mirror, we’re not getting younger, we’re getting older all the time. All the time we’re getting older, our hair will change colour, some grey will come mix up, some white will come, I call them invitation from the lord of death. The first invitation landed on our head in the form of snow, white snow. That’s invitation. Or lose the hair and become more shining [audience laughs]. Right? A little bit more wrinkles here and there, in the face, in the neck if you have long neck. I don’t have to worry, I’m short. Shortest possible neck I have, so I don’t have to worry much about getting wrinkles here. So I like a little more hair on your, the moustache here, the more you shave, it will keep on growing more. These are the truths that we have as the bottle has turned upside down, the sands are going down. The wrinkles, the white hair, the shining head. Whatever, all of them sort of tells you that’s the proof of that. So we’re not getting younger, people say that in the United States. And that also lucky, who goes that way. Really true. Some people, all of a sudden something happens and gone. I saw Bruce Lee’s life story movie this weekend. All of a sudden the guy didn’t wake up, right? At age of 32 I believe. So does his son, gone, even younger than that. So that’s why, even those of us who have time to become a little grey, or a little bald headed and pick up a few wrinkles, are lucky, and fortunate. Really. So we have a great opportunity to be able to enjoy the human life, we ate human food, and it is time for us to leave something behind. That’s the payment for the food we ate. Right? And that will be spiritual work, helping others, helping yourselves, and providing good examples for the others, sharing your qualities. Everybody does something to live but one of the Tibetan poet wrote [recite in Tibetan] 0:43:31.1. One of the 19th century Tibetan poet, very famous poet, wrote, some people try to live, everybody would hope of watching back even after you’re dead, to hope of looking back, they leave something behind. That is some people will leave the house and wealth that they’ve accumulated. Some people built up monasteries and temples and disciples and practitioners and leave something out. Some people built up some monuments and so that they can hope for looking back even after death. But then he said [recite in Tibetan] 0:44:38.2. He said the beggar who neither had the money nor had the Dharma has nothing to leave like those other people do, but I ate tremendous amount of the human food, to pay that, I’m going to leave a little book behind me, he wrote on his colophon. [recite in Tibetan] 0:45:18.4 The beggar who neither has the Dharma nor the money, I have nothing of those sort, neither the house nor the children, nothing to be left behind, however to pay the food, I’m leaving the book here. That’s what it is. Like that. 0:45:42.8

So what we have to leave behind is two things. Something to carry with us, and something to live for the future. If you cannot carry something with you, you’re not going to leave anything at all, you may leave money but that’s a different matter. But if you want to leave behind a spiritual gift for the future people, you have to have the spiritual development within, then you can leave something. And that is the best thing to pay for our human food that we ate. If you don’t do it quick, you never know when that’s going to come. There is no certainty. So tomorrow never comes. So whatever you want to do, you should do it today. Don’t let it go till tomorrow, it may not come. Three things we have established. One important point, that point is look behind what we think our goal is. When I mentioned to you earlier our goal is I should be the best. Whatever the field may be, wherever you are, within your capacity, within your you may not think you’re the best of all human beings, unless you’re crazy you’re not going to think it. But within what you can do, you want to be the best so that people will appreciate you, so that you have something of that sort of attachment is the something which you should really little bit tone down. So the look, the meaning of life, the purpose of life having this available is more than that. The best what I can do for myself, not in terms of getting a popular name, not in terms of achieving material comforts, I don’t mean money in the terms of wow this fellow has done great. You know, our biggest attachment is three things basically. Basically what we are attached to, good living as in having good food and good crowd and so on, good looking, and having a great name among people, you know, great name in the sense - wow he’s great, she’s great, she’s wonderful, sort of wow you did it - we won’t do that, right? You say oh you look wonderful, you like it, you say thank you. If they say oh you look terrible, well ya well maybe not that bad, or something. So it reflects what we like. We would like to be best. If you want to be the best in the spiritual development, that’s a great thing. But we don’t look for that. We want to be the best looking, we want to be the best admired what ever it is. That is attachment. But that doesn’t mean you have to look horrible. That doesn’t mean you should not have good life. That doesn’t mean you should not have money, you should not have comfort, doesn’t mean that. It means you can have everything, you should have everything. But if you don’t have it, don’t get upset. Don’t have hope don’t hang on it. Whatever is there, enjoy it. You don’t have to throw it away. That is you deserve it, it is your karmic reserve, you can have it. But if you don’t have it don’t get upset. When you have it, enjoy it. If you don’t have it, be the same guy. Don’t hang your head down, that’s what it is. Be able to do that. So look beyond that, look beyond that. Sometime going beyond that, that is what it is. When you go beyond that, then there will be time, if you have it it’s fine, if you don’t have it that also fine. And when that time comes, somehow it comes up all the time. There are a lot of early Tibetan masters, if you look at them, they’ve been meditating in the mountain top and they couldn’t find enough food, so they’re always running around, running down to the villages to try to get some food, they waste a tremendous amount time. And then what they say you know what they say. And then later they develop quite OK, and then food started rolling up, they don’t go down, the food started rolling up. And then you’ve to say, when I was struggling, running down, rolling down the hill, running into the villages, but I couldn’t find any food. Now the food started rolling up but they can’t find my mouth. And that’s what it is, that happens because when you break through and things come up, there’s no way of you don’t expect any gifts from anywhere but suddenly pops up here and there. And that’s called inexhaustible sky treasure. So that’s what happens. As long as you have attachment, the food is not going to roll up, you have to roll down, and we won’t find it. The moment you cut attachment, they start rolling up and they won’t find your mouth, they’ll be running around. That’s how it works. It is true wherever you look. So, three points, life is important and valuable, you have it, appreciate it. If you lose it, difficult to find and it is certain you lose, you never know when to lose. And that establishes urgency for your life to do something that benefits you. What to do? Less attachment, less anger, less hatred. I’m not saying give up, you can’t, at this moment we cannot. But have less effect. Get it? I don’t expect you people to become a scholar but I do expect you people to have a better life, lesser attachment, lesser hatred, lesser jealousy. Not torturing yourself for something unavoidable. OK? So the next week we have to talk about karma so that we talk about our attachment in future lives also, we can try to pull out from there, and that’s what we do next week. Thank you.