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19960618GRAABWL

Tape 6 side A - 06/18/96

Just as a flash of lightning in a dark, cloudy night,

for an instance brightly illuminates all,

likewise in this world, through the might of the Buddha

a wholesome thought rarely and briefly appears.

We are still talking about verse five. Last time I mentioned that the ‘flash of lightning in the dark clouded night’ could be seen as an experience that people do occasionally have through various ways and means. That was very much relevant to the people. A lot of people had such experiences. That is not necessarily a great experience, but not necessarily a bad one either. It just gives us some idea that there is something other than what we think. It also gives you the idea that the dreams of life do not have to be limited to material comfort and success alone. Having said that, I have to go back and look at this verse in the traditional way too. It is a dark and cloudy night - like the many lives that we experience. Too many of them are like the dark, cloudy night. That means that most of the time we don’t have any idea or understanding or knowledge of any spiritual path, any knowledge of how we can liberate ourselves once and for all. That idea is extremely rare. We don’t have it. It is true, when we talk about the human life’s preciousness. There are so many people the same as you and me. They are born in the United States, they are educated, nice, kind and wonderful people, just like yourself. But when the question of the spiritual path comes up, they have no interest for whatsoever. That is commonly true for a number of people we know. We have had so many lives and many of them have not even been human and many that might have been human lives were lives as absolute yuppies who have no interest in anything else except money or material life - if that is the meaning of ‘yuppie’. Maybe it is not. Many people we know may be nice, kind and wonderful persons but simply have no interest in the spiritual path, because it does not mean anything to them. You may never know, but these persons never show interest in whether there is any future lives or not. They may be great, wonderful beings.

I met this doctor from Stanford or Harvard, Stephen Levine, who wrote a book called ‘How you die’. He describes how the body dismantles completely and ceases to function. He told me personally, ‘I don’t buy into any spiritual path at all, as a scientist I should not. If I had to, I would pick Tibetan Buddhism, because it makes the most sense here [in the area of death]. But I am not going to do that, unless I saw somebody coming back from the bardo and shake hands with me. Until then, I cannot follow that. That is my principle as a scientist.’ So there are these wonderful, great people around, straight forward, honest, great people. However, they will not buy that there is any future life. That is fine, absolutely fine, but what I am telling you is that this deprives him of the opportunity to explore what happens when you die and thereafter. That opportunity is cut out.

Therefore, as a human being, only a very limited number of people will have the opportunity to look into it. The majority of even human lives is covered by this ‘dark and cloudy night’. Only a few will have the experience of the lightning - bright and luminous. That is one of the reasons why Buddha said right from the beginning that Buddhism is very rare. Buddha kept saying that even though in his time in India there were hundreds of thousands, even millions, following him. He kept on saying what a rare opportunity is was. It is not that it is difficult for Buddhism to come, but that the opportunity for one individual to take it and connect with it and get an interest and look into it, is very rare. It is like lightning in the dark night. The whole night is dark and the lightning only comes for a very short period. That is what this verse is talking about.

Then the verse continues that similarly, in this world, through the efforts of the Buddhas or through your own good karma or fortune, there comes a brief opportunity to people. We are in that brief period.

That is the traditional way of explaining this verse. The way I did it last time is the practical way, the way people experience things.

Now I am going to move to the next verse:

Verse six

Hence virtue is perpetually feeble,

The great strength of evil being extremely intense,

and except for a Fully Awakened Mind

By what other virtue will it be overcome?

The Tibetan text literally says that ‘like we explained, the period of virtue is weak and short’. Therefore virtue is not very strong with us. Why? The basis on which we can be perfect is very weak and small. Therefore the virtue itself is weak in us. It is true. Simply observe your mind. Give yourself thirty minutes. Keep on watching your own mind. The traditional Tibetan teachers used to do that - when there was nothing else to do. You pick up black and white pebbles. You sit there for half an hour and if you notice that a positive thought comes up, you put down a white pebble. If you have a negative thought, put a black pebble, or whatever other color. Keep on putting down pebbles according to what kind of thoughts come up and you are going to have a lot of negative pebbles and only very few positive pebbles. That is how it was measured in the good, old days, when they had nothing to do. They used to sit for whole days, putting down pebbles. In the evenings they would weigh them, and the weight of the negative pebbles would always be greater.

In those earlier days, they did not know how to calculate things in terms of statistics. Nowadays we know that. So instead of sitting the whole day, just sit there for half an hour. That will give you enough information to get your statistics right. That itself will prove to you how weak the positive thoughts we have are, how weak our positive karmically-oriented mind is. The positive influence we can get depends on how many positive thoughts we have. Therefore it will be absolutely clear that virtue is ‘perpetually feeble’ within ourselves. Really, that will be absolutely clear.

Since it is clear how feeble virtue is, what will be strong, is the negativity, the opposite part. We are such people that we don’t sit around idle much. Particularly the Western people will never sit idle, unless they are high. You are active, physically, mentally, emotionally. If you don’t have positive mental attitudes or positive emotional feelings or positive physical actions, you are bound to have the opposite. That makes the ‘great strength of evil extremely intense’. This is not talking about some external evil, with horns, etc., but the negative emotions and thoughts will make you do something very negative, very mean. That is the evil.

I am such a strange fellow, when I come to think about myself. My background and my upbringing comes from a period and society which had a tremendous amount of superstition and mystical things. What I heard, what I learnt, what I dealt with, all that was very mystical. However, as a person myself, I am not into anything mystical at all, but very plain. Therefore to think about somebody called ‘Evil’, some kind of formless being, that comes round, does not work for me at all. That does not exist at all. I had a number of encounters with all sorts of ghosts and so forth - a number of times, but I look at them as beings, like all of us human beings are. They are persons you can talk to, negotiate with, give and take all sorts of things. I see them like that rather than as some kind of mythological figures. So when the words ‘evil’ or ‘devil’ are used, my mind straight away goes within me and identifies that with my neuroses, my attachment, my anger, my hatred, jealousy, meanness, etc. That is what I refer to.

So when the positive portion is weak, then the extremely powerful, intense thing you have within you is that negative one. Right? That is human nature. That is the division within us - the good and the bad. When you see that the good is weak, the strength is in the negativity. Whenever we do a Dharma practice, we are shifting this balance. The evil, negative side should be made light, and whatever positivity we have should be made heavy. I always say that the positive and the negative karma functions within the individual like a sea-saw - like what the children play on. The change we are trying to bring about is in this way rather than that way [i.e.: to bring the positive side up and the negative down, rather than the other way round]. That is the shift we have to make from the evil forces to the positive ones. That is why the practitioners in Tibet kept on playing with the pebbles. You put the different colored ones according to what thoughts you have. If you have nothing to do, sometimes it is fun. Give yourself half an hour or twenty minutes and put down different-colored pebbles - see what happens. If the positive ones are more, be happy, rejoice. If the negatives ones win, be cautious. That is interesting. That is how you have to deal with your life. So we have these extremely intensified evil thoughts. How can we purify them? How can we make them useless? How can we make the great change? How can we switch that around?

The text says,

‘and except for a Fully Awakened Mind

By what other virtue will it be overcome?

It is not possible to overcome such powerful, evil neuroses, except through the awakened mind. That means bodhimind. Bodhimind is the ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion. Nothing else, no other mind can overcome these evil neuroses. It is not possible. That is why we are saying all the time that bodhimind is one of the best ways of purification. ‘Bodhi’ is referring to Buddha, who has the totally awakened state. The mind which is seeking that, which is interested in that, the mind which makes you interested in having that bodhi state, that is called bodhimind. It is ultimate love and compassion. It has no self-interest at all. This mind is not based on self-centeredness at all. It has shifted from the self-centeredness to caring for others. Therefore it is not going to bring any frustration, no difficulties in finding out how to work.

We talk about the Three Principles all the time. The first is Seeking Freedom. The moment we realize that it is absolutely necessary to get freedom, our mind is straight away going to drive us to the question, ‘How am I going to get that? What should I do? Should I prostrate? Should I do mandala offerings? Should I do mantras? Should I do retreat? Should I shave my head?’ ,etc. A zillion different thoughts will burden you all the time, so much so that you cannot even sleep at night. You will have such an anxiety to find the solution. You will wonder whether Hinduism is better or Buddhism, maybe the Zen tradition or the Tibetan tradition, maybe the Jewish kabala is better, or maybe voodoo is better. However, you are not going to find anything with that attitude. You know why? If you go looking around, thinking, ‘I should do this, I should do that, I, I, I, !’, then that itself is a problem.

This is not only with Buddhism, but everywhere you go. The moment you have that idea, the Buddha’s wise way, technically called ‘skilful way’ is to recommend, ‘For this moment, forget the I, I, I, , move to the second and third person, or think ‘others, others, others’. The joys you are seeking you can get when you help others. If you do something good for somebody, don’t you feel joy? You do, you have satisfaction.

Pat O’Meara came last week with a broken arm, and he said, ‘I have been a Bodhisattva.’ He said that he saw a girl, about thirteen to fourteen years old, who took the mother’s car and crashed it into a tree. It was starting to catch fire and he saw it, broke the window and pulled the girl out. It may be a Bodhisattva act or not, but it is a good citizen act. What happened is when he pulled out that girl and saved her life, he felt joy. That is an example. So anybody whoever helps somebody can feel the satisfaction. Right? All these joys and all the bliss and all the great things are following from the love and compassion. That is why, when you just think, ‘What can I do? I, I, I ‘, you won’t get it. When you say, ‘you, you, you’, or ‘others, others, others,‘ then you get it. That is the point. If you could gain everything from self-centeredness, there would be no need for the second principle. You could stay with the first principle and get it over with. But you can’t. In order to get over it, you have to move to the second principle. So the quality of the compassion, the power of the bodhimind, has the power to overcome the neuroses. I am not fully happy with this translation we have. I mean I cannot do better than that, but am I really happy? No. That is why I was hoping that somebody else would have another translation of that.

It says here, ‘Except by the fully awakened mind, by what other virtue will it be overcome?’ We are talking about overcoming the evil thoughts, evil emotions, evil motivations, evil actions, which is negative karma and neuroses. Therefore the best purification is bodhimind. I guarantee to you - this is not a warehouse sales person - but I guarantee you that generating the bodhimind is a million times better than doing a million prostrations, or a million mandala offerings or a million Vajrasattva recitations. The Bodhisattvacharyavatara is a witness to that.

Not only that. The text continues,

Verse seven

All the Buddhas who have contemplated for many eons,

Have seen it to be beneficial;

For by it the limitless masses of beings

Will quickly attain the supreme state of bliss.

Not only does the bodhimind give tremendous powerful purification, but it also helps you. It is one of the best ways to bring about an accumulation of merit and one of the best ways to reach [other beings?]. The spiritual strength you can get is this. So the Buddhas thought for eons, trying to find the best way to help other beings and have found that this is the key. This particular quotation has been used by the traditional teachings for the seven limb practice and for the bodhimind, both. The Buddhas’ resolution after eons of meetings was that the seven limb practice is the best solution for easy work, and at the mind level the bodhimind is the best way to reach to and bring countless beings to the ultimate spiritual position.

I am trying to finish two verses in each session, but maybe it takes too long. Are we going to take five years to finish the Bodhisattvacharyavatara ? Actually the first chapter of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara totally gives you the benefit of the bodhimind. Why does it give you the benefit first? When it shows you the benefit of the bodhimind, it is able to shift the yuppies’ focus from the yuppieness into the center and also draw the hippies from their extreme into the middle. That is the reason why the benefits are chosen first.

These benefits are:

Verse eight

Those who wish to destroy the many sorrows of (their) conditioned existence,

Those who wish (all beings) to experience a multitude of joys,

And those who wish to experience much happiness,

Should never forsake the Awakening Mind.

Why does the translation say, ‘conditioned existence?’ Anyway, the samsara, the cycle of existence for life after life, uncontrolled reincarnation, is based on the conditioned existence. What is conditioned existence? Created phenomena? The text is trying to tell you what the root of samsara really is. In Tibetan the word is ‘samsara’, I don’t know what ‘conditioned existence’ really is. In Tibetan they use the term sipa, which is samsara. What is really samsara? What is the continuation of life after life? That is really the question. You may simply say, ‘Me’, but that is not right. If I have to continue, then I have to be permanent. It is really the continuation of contaminated identity of the individual. That is what is really continuing. It is what we identify ourselves with. It is not necessarily physical identity or mental identity, not necessarily emotional identity, but the combination of it. Sometimes there is form, sometimes there is formless form, sometimes there is something [else], which we refer to, which continues, which will be the basis of our functioning. This is the really true ‘me’, who can experience, who can remember in future. There is some kind of identity that will continue. That identity at this moment is contaminated. The moment you switch from samsara to nirvana, that identity will become uncontaminated identity rather than contaminated identity. Why do we have contaminated identity? Because we have continuous neuroses. The brief way this is described here in the text is ‘conditioned existence’. That is the cause of our suffering.

tape 6 side B 06/18/96

...And those who wish to experience much happiness,

Should never forsake the Awakening Mind.

One should never give up the bodhimind. If you do give that up, you are never going to find much happiness. If we are looking for the way out, from the Mahayana point of view is nothing but love and compassion. Generating love and compassion to the ultimate level is the way out. If you give that up, there is no other way to get that anywhere else.

I have already covered one verse that I had not planned to do, so might as well cover the next one too. This verse I have by heart:

Verse nine

The moment an Awakening Mind arises

in those fettered in the jail of cyclic existence,

They will be named ‘a son of the Sugatas’,

And will be revered by both, men and gods of the world.

‘Son of Sugatas’ means Sons of Buddhas. So it does not matter how weak the person might by, you might be completely tied down in suffering, you may be at the bottom of the pit.

You remember Buddha generated the bodhimind in the hell realm. He had tremendous compassion for his companion with whom he had to pull the horse cart and his companion could not pull and Buddha wished that he could manage to pull it all by himself, so that his companion would not have to suffer. Then the administrator hit Buddha’s previous life’s incarnation on the head with a hammer and said, ‘How dare you think that way!’ He hit him so hard that he died and was reborn as a human being. And that is exactly what this verse is about.

No matter how weak you may be, no matter how much suffering you may have, no matter how much difficulty you may have, no matter how much you may be tied by all these neuroses, but if you grow this mind within you, you get out. These are the tricks in the spiritual path. The moment you have bodhimind, you become a son of the Buddhas. This does not mean that the daughters are looked down on, but you have to remember that this tradition started in India two thousand five hundred years ago. We are talking about kings and kingdoms and princes and all that. What used to happen is that when you are a prince, no matter how young, how weak, how immature you might be, you are much more powerful than those great mature diplomats and ministers. By virtue of being the prince you overpower those ministers. No matter how old and mature these diplomats and politicians might be, just by virtue of being the Prince of Wales you totally overpower them. Likewise, this is the key for us. No matter how conditioned our immature state might be, if we can grow the bodhimind, we have the solution. It is the mind that cares for others, which has the total altruistic dedication. It is the mind that admires and seeks enlightenment in order to serve others. If you can grow that mind, you are like the Prince of Wales of the enlightened beings. This is a little easy way how you can help yourself without much effort. These are the short cuts. This is how you can overcome the negativities. This is how you can push yourself in, without having twenty-four hours devoted to meditation, saying mantras, or doing something, without even putting eight hours in. It is a simple way of overcoming [negativities], it is the best way to do. It is like joining the Harvard Club. Does that make sense to you? That is how you go. When you join the Harvard Club you can get the best jobs in the United States. That is how you go about it.

Now I have covered four verses and I am not going to do any more.

Audience: Isn’t the goal of bodhimind to do things for others without observing the joy?

Is it a natural process to gaining bodhimind to observe the joy?

Rinpoche: The answer for that is that the joy is going to come, whether you like it or not. You will enjoy that. The satisfaction is there. But you don’t look for joy. The joys will come. It is effortless in this sense. You don’t look for joy, you don’t work for joy, but the joy comes. What you do is good deeds. That will give you joy. That is there. You don’t have to push that away. You don’t have to feel guilty that you enjoy that. You deserve it. Really true. But if it is fake joy, it is fake and not that great anyway. The truth comes the moment you seek enlightenment, when you want to seek freedom for yourself from the neuroses. So you are looking for a way and the way and how you perceive that is like this, ‘Like me, the others are in the same condition. How can I help them?’ That is the key for opening the way out. The key is not thinking, ‘What can I do, how can I do it...’ The key is thinking of others, how they are, what they are doing. The moment you say, ‘What can I do for them?’ it is not that great work. In American life it may be considered great work, but there is an I interest there. So you don’t want to bring that in. Straight away switch to thinking, ‘What about the others?’ The moment you are focusing on what I can do, it is the door way to idiot compassion. That is true. Also, in that case you are not letting go of the ego-grasping and this is the actual point where you hold back. The conditioned existence is the ego-existence. As long as you do not let that go, no matter whatever you do, you are not going to find the way out. Remember that in future.

Our mind is trained in such a way, that no matter how many times we say, ‘This is for the benefit of others’, there is always self-interest. That is always locked in. Even if you would like to do something great, it should be me who is doing something great rather than you who is doing something great. This is locked in back there. It may not come out openly, but it is there. Therefore, if you have to let something go, it should be the ego-existence or conditioned existence. The conditioned existence is the root of samsara.

Audience: In verse five when it says, ‘a wholesome thought rarely and briefly appears’, I don’t quite understand what is meant by wholesome thought.

Rinpoche: I was also not fully satisfied with the English translation ‘wholesome thought’ at this point. In Tibetan it says, jig ten sö nam lodrö. The word jig ten here means samsaric existence. Sönam is luck and lodrö is wisdom. So occasionally you get the wisdom and fortune of all beings. I think the translator chose to put the terms ‘existence, luck and wisdom’ all together and chose to call that ‘wholesome’. Actually that is the cause of the lightning in the dark, cloudy night. It is the fortune, positive karma, and the blessings and wisdom of the enlightened beings.

Audience: How do Buddha’s blessings and good karma bring that about? I can understand the karma part, but what are the Buddha’s blessings doing in there?

Rinpoche: The answer to that is that the world in which we exist very much depends on our own karma, the good and the bad. It also depends on the other beings’ functioning. We are dependent arising. We don’t arise independently. So the Buddha’s blessings have something to do in there too. Not only that, your own neighbours, your own friends, the Panameans and Mexicans too have got something to do. Every existence here is dependent. It is so much so that whatever little thing anywhere happens, it effects every part everywhere. A little movement by a butterfly in China will effect the United States, environmentally, and the way everything functions, because we are a dependent world. It is your own deeds - no doubt. It also depends on other conditions. You may now raise the question, ‘In that case I don’t have to care much about myself. I can go and do all bad things, let others do all the good things and I will get the same effect.’ Maybe it is true, maybe it is not. It is not, because you don’t have the basis on which to function.

Audience: When you try to generate bodhimind in the earlier stages, is there a way to protect yourself from idiot compassion?

Rinpoche: I don’t think you have to protect yourself from the idiot compassion at all. Idiot compassion will not destroy bodhimind at all. It is fine, it is no problem. It is a problem for the practitioner, but no problem for the bodhimind. However, you do have to protect yourself from the ego grasping. You have to protect yourself from the I, rather than from the idiot compassion. The I is the problem if you want to create wisdom and the I is the problem if you want to create bodhimind. So if you want to seek protection, seek protection from I. end of tape 6 side B 06/18/96