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19960730GRAABWL

Tape 12 side A 07/30/96

Right now we are talking a little bit about the bodhimind, its benefits. Then we will go on to the activities, once you have that mind. That is what the whole book ‘Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life’ is about. So in one way it is an ongoing teaching on the basis of that text, but in another way it is material for meditation, particularly in this case on love and compassion.

Lets look again at verse seventeen:

Although great fruits occur in cyclic existence

From the mind that aspires to awaken,

An uninterrupted flow of merit does not ensue

As it does with the venturing mind.

This mind is ultimate love and compassion. This means caring and having love for every single being, regardless of the person and their relation to you. It is easy to have what we think of as love and compassion for those close to us, for those who are our dear and near friends, companions, lovers, wives, husbands, children, or whatever. But with that loving and caring we have to check why we do have love for that particular person, why do we care for them? There are always reasons. Very few people will think it is because it is a person. Very few people will think it is because it is a being. Many will think ‘He is so and so, she is so and so, she is a close friend of mine, she did something for me, she is my friend’, etc. There are all sorts of various reasons. But we don’t have the reason that he or she is a being, or even that he or she is a human being and that therefore we do care. That thought is very rarely with us. It is very limited. That clearly shows us that with the little love and compassion we think we have there is also some attachment involved. As long as we have attachment involved, it is ego entertainment rather than real love and compassion. That is my feeling.

It is usually very hard to tell people, ‘You care because you have attachment’. They will definitely say, ‘I do not have attachment for whatsoever, I do care because there is somebody’. It is very hard to tell people that. But you know, in an open teaching like this there is one advantage. We can say things that we could not say individually, one to one, face to face. The benefit that this has is that you can pick it up, understand and use the teaching as a mirror to find out what kind of compassion you have. You can check, ‘On the face of my compassion, do I have a spot of attachment? Do I have a spot of hatred?’

The teaching can really become like a mirror. In a mirror you can see your face and see if you have a black spot here or a red spot there. Maybe you have too much red over here or not enough white over there. You can make changes. The purpose of these talks, these teachings and these compositions is to provide you with material that you can use as mirror that you can look in. It is also easier for me to speak that way. It is not addressed to any individual but to anybody. You know attachment, love and compassion are so close. It is so difficult to make distinctions. It is very hard for people who have not trained their minds. We don’t have that much mind training, so for us it becomes one piece of mumble-jumble, a nice, juicy, wonderful, but at the same time sticky mixture.

The goal is to make your mind pure, to move your compassion beyond attachment. Attachment actually appears to us as something nice that we have enjoyed, that we had a wonderful time with. We look in that way. But very soon, this wonderful time is not there any more. Then it gives you pain, it gives you trouble and all sorts of difficulties. We know that, don’t we? That is the indication that it is attachment, not really pure love. Pure love and pure compassion should not give you any pain at all. It is always free of that sticky stuff. Are you people with me? That is how you should look. Simply look within you. You are not going to find it on the other side. Ask yourself what the reason is why you care for this particular person, why you can tolerate that person better than another person, why you don’t get upset with this person, but you get more upset with that person. This is the real mindfulness, this is how you really observe.

Usually, you think mindfulness is when you sit in some corner and count your breath: one , two, three and observes how one breath comes and then goes, and tickles you at a certain spot, etc. Of course, that is mindfulness. But why are you doing this? Because it trains you in how to watch your mind. The earlier Tibetan masters used to give the example that the mind is like a naughty monkey in the temple. If you let a very naughty monkey loose in the temple, what will it do? It will jump all ove the place, drink the offering water, knock down the lights, break the incense, eat up the fruit on the altar and mess around everywhere. In the same way, our mind does not stay focussed on anything. It will be here, then it will be there and all over the place. This happens to us constantly. Right now, you may be listening to me, you may be focussed, but with a subliminal mind you may be thinking something else. You could be thinking, ‘Where am I going to go after this, for a coffee or to a discotheque?’ You may have a date and think where you are going to take her or him? Or you may be thinking about your work. That kind of mind is there, but there is really no mindfulness. Mindfulness is actually looking after your monkey! Watch where your monkey is going, what mischief this monkey is up to. Some monkeys are more steady and stable than many other bigger monkeys. So with good mindfulness you observe, ‘Why don’t I have a better tolerance towards this person? Why do I have more love or caring for this person?’ You will come up with a variety of reasons like ‘Well, I have a very strong attraction to this person, so I have a tremendous tolerance and caring for that person’. This situation is most probably attachment! Physical attraction, mental attraction, emotional attraction, attraction to somebody’s character, or simply attraction to somebody as a person, all these are most probably attachment, outright attachment. You have greater tolerance for somebody if they are your friend, you know each other. The other way round, you try to justify that you did something for that person, because they did something for you. It is ego-service. When you start thinking, ‘I am doing something for this person, because he or she is a wonderful human being’, then we are getting somewhere. This is how you watch your mind, it is very simple.

In short, with the caring and loving, you have to watch if you are not seeking anything back for yourself. In the normal American way we say, ‘What is in there for me?’ So when there is no ‘Whats in there for me?’ and yet you totally care for that person, then probably this is not ego-service. It is pure love, pure compassion. When that becomes bigger and better, you will probably care for everybody, every human being, no matter whatever their skin color or race is, or whether they are short or tall, fat or thin, black or white, yellow or green, you will have the same feeling equally towards any human being. When we talk about bodhimind or even great compassion, the object of that is all sentient beings. So from that level on the object is all sentient beings. Then the aspiration or the perception of the mind to care or to give and develop, that is where the difference between compassion and love comes in. When you get the focus on all human beings, we are getting somewhere. When we say that bodhimind is very far away from us, it is because of that reason. If you train your mind to be able to look at a room full of people and try to develop that compassion, try to develop that caring and love, it will make it very easy to develop.

When you look at a room full of people, you will probably have various feelings towards different people. You may decide that ‘Yes, I am okay to care for this person, but not for that person.’ The simple reason could be that ‘He let me down’, or ‘She stood me up’. It could be any reason. It could be ‘This is a terrible person, my friend told me about him’. All these reasons will come. Many times these reasons are also true reasons. However, a bad personality, the short temper or the jealousy of a person, if you really look through - beyond the face and the skin of the person - that person is really driven by his or her ignorance. It is not really the fault of the individual. Truly speaking, it is the ignorance of that person. To be able to see that, that is a great mind, that is a great being. When you manage to build up your compassion towards that room full of people, then you can go on and build it up for everybody. Finally, you will be able to build up that great compassion even towards a person who hurt you, hit you and hates you.

A few days ago I was in Chicago and the Dalai Lama was giving a big lecture. There were about four thousand people there in the Madonna temple. So His Holiness told a story about himself which surprised me. He said when he was young, there was a monk who came to help him say his prayers, rituals, etc. So when His Holiness left Tibet, that monk was left behind. He was tortured. He was not a famous, learned scholar, or respected monk. He just happened to be a simple guy who simply knew well how to recite prayers. Probably he was good at pronouncing the rituals. So he used to help the Dalai Lama with that. So he was put into labor camps, etc. Later, when the situation relaxed, he was released and he came out of Tibet and stayed with the Dalai Lama. He told the Dalai Lama about his experiences in the Chinese labor camp. He said, ‘Normally it was okay, but on some occasions it was very dangerous.’ So His Holiness thought that there must have been some danger for his life. But when that monk explained further he said, ‘No, there was the danger of losing my compassion towards the Chinese. There was a big danger sometimes.’ So the Dalai Lama said that when he heard that he was shocked and this guy became in his eyes huge, much bigger than before.

That is true and it becomes possible when your mind is trained. When your mind is not trained, then forget about being put into a labor camp and being hit, but just somebody giving you a slightly different look will make you snap, ‘What is the matter? What did I do wrong?’ Right? We will probably go to that extent. Just because of a slightly different look.

I thought it would be good to share that story with you. It shows what one human being can achieve, without any... no that is not true...without much difficulty. The way how to achieve that is by looking at the people as human beings, as just another human being, full of suffering, anxiety, pressure, desire, anger, hatred, jealousy, fear, afraid of losing something. When we can really see that person as we can see ourselves, then it can really begin to draw a heart felt caring towards that person. In other words, we try to develop love and compassion towards another person not because that person is beautiful, not because they have a beautiful body, hair, mouth, voice, etc. Then it becomes attachment. We care because that person has pain, suffering and misery as much as I have myself.

We are now actually in Buddhism 102. In Buddhism 101 we learnt that we have all that. As much as we have realized this, we have to recognize it in other persons. If you can do that, it is the beginning of training the mind in that direction. And at that level it is not even love and compassion. It may be, but ...it is my habit to put down the qualities that we have. That does not mean that I like to push people down, so you don’t have to cry, but at that point you getting somewhere.

At that event in Chicago, Richard Gere was there too. He gave a speech as well. At first he talked like a Hollywood guy, but after a little while he changed his mind and opened his heart and talked. He said that he noticed that whenever he did something for himself, he did not get any happiness, joy or satisfaction, but when he tried to do something for somebody else, he began to get some satisfaction. He said that he learnt that from Tibetan Buddhism, from His Holiness and all the other teachers that he had been around. I thought that was a great message. If you keep on thinking, ‘How am I going to get it? How am I going to do it? I want great bliss, I want this, I want that’, you will never get it, never. When you begin to see that just as you yourself are having difficulties, others have that too, and when you start caring about it, that is the beginning of experiencing joy and bliss yourself. So it is not the question of ‘How can I get it? I, I, I,’, but you have to think, ‘How can I help, how can I do something?’, that is what brings joy.

Such a mind, gone beyond the ordinary level, with the focus on all sentient beings, with such a mind you are then seeking ultimate enlightenment. Even praying in this way is [bodhimind], ‘May I become fully enlightened for the benefit of all beings’, without the ego hiding somewhere inside, without any pride hiding somewhere inside, without self-attachment. Is there such a word?

Audience: You could say ‘selfishness’.

Rinpoche: Yes, selfishness is involved too, but what I mean here is beyond selfishness. What I am trying to say is that you pretend that you are working for all beings, wanting to benefit all beings. You are cheating yourself, because from deep down you are pushing your own image up in front. It is ‘I who is doing it’. You feel like a tall person among the short ones. That is a Tibetan saying. That is slightly cheating yourself. There is a deep attachment to yourself deep down somewhere. This is not coming out, but hides under layers and layers of make-up like ‘for the benefit for all beings, its not for me, man’. There are all sorts of layers like that and you can peel them off and find that deep down underneath there is that self-attachment. This is more than selfishness. Selfishness is not that bad in that it is open. This here, however, is hiding, it is cheating ourselves and we do that very often. We say that everything is fine, but in some corner of the mind we say ‘But I will be the one’. There are two ways how the ‘I’ comes in there. One way is where I am not seeking anything in there for me. I don’t want a name, prestige, popularity. I am not seeking anything. I could be seen as a doormat, yet I am doing it. When you get the honesty of that mind - and only you yourself knows that - then it is free of self-attachment. Then, if you are seeking enlightenment for all beings, you don’t even have to say ‘for all beings’, because it is true, you are really seeking it for the benefit of others. That is when it becomes precious and even a simple prayer is what is called ‘aspiring bodhimind’. Such a mind alone can drive you away from samsara and give you a great result. When you actually function with that mind, when you act, when you have the venturing bodhimind, you are bound to have continued, great benefit constantly with you, all the time.

Verse eighteen

And for him, who has perfectly seized that mind

With the thought never to turn away

From totally liberating

The infinite forms of life,

Verse nineteen

From that time hence,

Even while asleep or unconcerned,

A force of merit equal to the sky

Will perpetually ensue.

By this time you are totally dedicated. You are not going to turn away at all. You have developed that mind with which you are going to go all the way out to liberate all beings. You are going to be the best servant of all sentient beings. When you have come that way you don’t just care for one or two, but for all of them. So from that time onwards, even if you do nothing, but just go to sleep, or when you are unconcerned like when you get drunk or when you don’t pay attention, or if you are lost in some football game or if you are high on marijuana - I am not encouraging drinking or smoking, but I am giving you some extremes in relation to the word ‘unconcerned’ - [the bodhimind is still there and you develop merits.] I am looking here into a commentary that also talks about ‘whether you are eating, drinking, walking, standing, sleeping’. It is taken from one of the sutras where Buddha had advised a king. Buddha said,

‘You are a king, you are busy, you have a lot of work to do. You cannot devote your time to meditation twenty-four hours, like the monks and senyassins do. Therefore, you do not have much opportunity to meditate and practise. You should therefore develop this mind. Once you have developed this mind, wishing to become fully enlightened, with strong faith in the Enlightened beings, with strong desire to become an Enlightened One yourself, not for your own sake, but with total dedication, if you do that, then you can do whatever you usually do. You can take care of your royal activities, such as walking, sitting, moving, having fun, being involved in games, eating, drinking, making judgements, etc. This is the way to handle all of that without losing your kingdom, without losing your kingdom’s activities and with your own spiritual development building up together. This is what you should do.’

This is what the commentary says on this particular level of benefits. This quote from the sutra that I read is actually not in relation to verse nineteen, but verse seventeen. So even just aspiring to become a fully enlightened being can do that much. If you then have the venturing mind, there is no question about the benefits. That is why they bring the examples of going to sleep, drinking, etc. At that level it does not matter, whatever you do, you are constantly building up a tremendous amount of positive karma like the sky. The sky is the limit. And Buddha does not lie. If he lied, he would not be Buddha.

So there is a lot of ways and means how we can handle our lives. We want this, don’t we, in the year 2000! We won’t have much time. But we all want quick spiritual development. His Holiness said in Chicago that people asked him for the quickest method of spiritual development. He said, ‘I think the next question will be, ‘What is the cheapest way!’’

There is no cheap spiritual development and there is no quick spiritual development. Instant coffee is not good. We all know that, right? Although we may enjoy looking at the commercial of ‘tastiest choice’, however, it is not that great a choice. Instant things are not that good, and there is no instant enlightenment at all. But this is one of the best and quickest ways to get to enlightenment.

end of side A of tape 12

Tape 12 side B - 07/30/96

It is a perfect way how we can go and do our daily chores. We can be on the job at 7.30 or 8.30 in the morning. Many people can not get off work before 5 pm, or some will even still be there at 8 pm, 9 pm or even burn the midnight oil. We do that day after day, week after week. When we have to do that, we need such a path, where even the usual thing, the usual work can go on and we simultaneously build our spiritual development. You are building positive karma within you. This is like as if you were putting a big investment into something like blue chips. Then you are busy doing something else and yet it still keeps on building. Your money is working harder for you. You see, I have seen the commercials! This is exactly how your spiritual path is working harder and better for you while you are engaged in daily chores, working to pay your bills. That is what our need is in the year 2000. This is right in front of us. Somehow we have to find it. I am sure that many of you have this a number of times. I am sure many of you have read the lam rim books ‘Liberation in the Palm of your Hand’, ‘Essential Nectar’, ‘Treasury of Dharma’, ‘Anthology of Well-Spoken Advice’. But somehow you have not picked it up. It looks like you have not highlighted this. You are still looking at ‘Transforming Negativities’, you are thinking of how to accomplish that, how to get to the benefit. You think that somewhere there is a hidden treasure. But it is not. The hidden treasure is right in front of you. You have read about it a number of times. You have heard about it a number of times, but you have forgotten to highlight it. Now, please do not forget. Use three, four different colors to highlight it.

In my personal case, I have not read the Bodhisattvacharyavatara much. The lam rim I have read a lot. The teaching on the Bodhisattvacharyavatara I also only took once myself. I did read the commentaries, like Khen po Sham pön’s and Gyal tsab je’s, but now, that I am going through it again, I can hear much more, I can highlight better. That is what is happening. The hidden treasure is right in front of you. Don’t miss it.

Those of you who are seriously doing it, please read the commentaries by the Dalai Lama (Flash of Lightning in the Dark Night)and Geshe Kelsang Gyatso (Meaningful To Behold) as well as the book itself. We can study both those commentaries together, they will not contradict each other [laughs] .Did you get the joke? If not, it does not matter. The ‘Flash of Lightning in the Dark Night’ title has been taken directly from one of the first verses of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara. I remember I explained it as a glimpse of something beyond our human realm and level. You can see how just a few words can have so much meaning. Think of the rare opportunity of this precious human life, like you have a long, dark night and there is one little flash. Another interpretation I gave was from the point of view of the experiences we had in the sixties. That was also like a lightning in the long, dark night. It has shown us that there is something beyond our material world. People had a glimpse of a life beyond that. I read it that way and explained it that way and this is also true, particularly in this country. Today’s interest in spirituality and going beyond the material world would not be there without all the different revolutions you had here in the sixties. A lot of things happened. That is the collective karma of the people in the West. Those of us who immigrated to this country and those of you who are born here earlier, now, later. The collective karma has made that possible. It also brought a lot of trouble too, but at the same time a lot of openings. That was the positive part of the culture of the sixties.

Audience: Wasn’t there anybody at the time when Shantideva was asked to teach as an insult who saw him as an extraordinary being?. What happened to their compassion?

Also, you have given the example of that simple monk who said that there was a great danger that he might lose his compassion for the Chinese in the prison camp. You said that His Holiness was surprised and that because of this in his eyes this guy had become big. Was there not a wisdom that would have known that this person was great? Also you said yourself that we should look at everybody as our teacher and not make them big or small. Can we really enter the path in the desire realm?

Rinpoche: I don’t know if I have the answer for all those questions. As far as Shantideva is concerned, there have been a number of people at the time who knew exactly what Shantideva was up to. Otherwise they would not have sent him there. There were a lot of people who knew him and a lot who didn’t . Probably, as usual, those who knew kept their mouth shut and those who did not know were at the executive level and therefore decided to build that huge throne. It is simple and always true and that is what happens. Those who know keep their mouths shut. That is the normal, nice way of keeping quiet in the monastic environment. If you have a lot of ideas, you will become very active with those. So a lot of them did know exactly what was going on, but just sat there pretending to know nothing. That is what obviously happened at that time.

Now to the second part of your question. I am sure the Dalai Lama knew that this guy was a great being. But the Dalai Lama appears as an ordinary being, just like you and me, with his nose this way and not that way, with only two eyes, not a thousand. Therefore he has to behave like a normal human being and as such was surprised and shocked and said that this guy has become bigger for him. I don’t really see a contradiction in that.

As for the last question: Can you really enter the path in the desire realm? Sure you can. Not only can you enter the path in the desire realm, but you can attain enlightenment - even in this particular life. That is according to the Vajrayana, through the Vajrayana practices. The hardest part is the beginning. We are struggling, we are sort of really there. It is now a matter of clicking. Once it begins to click, it goes, even if you go to sleep, drink, walk, eat, shit, stand, sit, whatever you do, it is constantly functioning. It is a matter of clicking now, I mean you are quite there. We are quite there.

Audience: You may do something for somebody without expectation. That person says that they will do something good to you too, but that does not happen, like birthday or Christmas gifts. What is that?

Rinpoche: That is treating human relations and spiritual practice as business: I do this for you, you do that for me. That is the usual American life-style. You have the saying, ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch’. Probably that is the business-minded, materialistic influence in human relationships and the spiritual path. That needs to be cut through. ‘Cutting through spiritual materialism’ - it could be talking about this subject in that book [by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche]. Very soon we are going to touch on the subject of generosity. If you are going to engage in any generosity, it should be totally based on not hoping for any return. There should be no attachment. There should not be any thought like ‘If I do that, what will you do for me?’ That is a business deal, not generosity. Americans are used to this. I should say, ‘We Americans are used to do that. But that is business-influence. I am sure you people have been brought up since childhood in that manner. It might have even been projected for you as being spiritual. Who knows. To me it is the business mindedness getting into the picture. You should not think, ‘The other people should do it’. That is their own obligation or spiritual duty. But if they do or don’t, it should make no difference on your side. Then you are happy. Otherwise you will be unhappy, because your ego will say, ‘I did not get reciprocation’.’ The ego will be upset, unhappy, because it did not receive reciprocation. That is the ego pushing. That will bring unhappiness. It will cut down your joy and happiness.

Audience: After studying Dharma for a while, I think in general I wish people more happiness than I used to and get along better with people. But every now and then a name comes up from the past and I see how I get furious and that anger seems to wreck everything I tried to build. It is embarrassing.

Rinpoche: I really appreciate that question. It seems that you have touched an old wound. If you did not touch that, it probably would get rotten, get infected and would create trouble. So it is great that you could feel it and great that you could say it. Don’t feel embarrassed. This is family, we work with that and share that. That is not a problem, you don’t have to be embarrassed at all.

Audience: Thank you.

Rinpoche: Don’t thank me, I am not even through yet! It depends how much you can work with it. You have to raise the question: are you ready to forgive? Are you willing to go beyond that anger? Then there are ways and means of meditating. Or do you have to let a little bit more time pass in between? These are the two points I can come up with in my head right now. If you are ready to give up and let it go, you have to think, ‘Why was I angry? Why has that anger been raised now?’ If you ask that, you will probably find out that you earlier on had left a situation without clearing the anger. You just left it, dropped it, did something else. You may have been preoccupied or forced to leave it. So it is unfinished business. That is where your anger is hitting now. What were the reasons why you have got angry at the time, whose fault was it, yours or hers?

Audience: Mine.

Rinpoche: So are you angry with yourself?

Audience: Yes, it is strange.

Rinpoche: I don’t think it was your fault. Definitely not. It could be your anger’s fault. It could be your attachment’s fault. It could be your jealousy’s. Think about that. Whatever it is, it is the anger within you, or the attachment or jealousy within you, that is the cause. So direct your current anger at anger, not at yourself. The anger is the trouble, not you. You are not anger. You may be an angry person, but you are not anger. The anger is a mental faculty. It comes up within you and changes your personality. You remember the example I normally give? It is the lamp shade and the light bulb inside. Changing the bulb into one of red color will make the clean, crystal-clear lamp shade look like a red lamp shade. But it is the bulb, not the lamp shade. Anger is a mental faculty, it pops up like toast from out of a toaster. That is the problem. It is not you. Can you think on those lines for a while? And then talk to me next time when I see you.

end of side B of tape 12