Archive Result

19960924GRAABWL

[Tape 18 side A - 09/24/96]

As you know, this teachings are not a one or two night affair, but a long, continuous teaching on a quite long text. What you receive here is material to think. Some other time I mentioned the practice of cleaning as one of the best ways of purification, remember? Yet the meditation room is not being properly cleaned. It is left to two or three people and after some time nobody does it. So cleaning is a good purification practice. We always tell you the story of one of the arhats called ‘Small Road’. He was so stupid that he could not learn anything. He had been kicked out of all these different schools of learning in India. Finally he went to his own brother who tried to teach him whatever he could. But even he could not help him at all. So his brother thought to himself, ‘Is it better to be kind and gentle with him or would it help him to be a little wrathful?’ So he came to know that he should be wrathful. Consequently he beat him up and threw him out of his place, where he left him on the roadside. Buddha came past and saw him crying. Buddha asked him what the matter was and he said, ‘I am so stupid, there is no one as stupid as me in the world. I have been kicked out of all different schools of different traditions. Finally I went to my own brother and he kicked me out too.’ Buddha then said to him, ‘Come with me.’ He said, ‘No. My own brother could not keep me, how can you keep me?’ Buddha said, ‘Your own brother is only an arhat, but I am a Buddha.’ Then the guy said, ‘Okay, but first give me the commitment that you will not kick me out.’ Buddha said, ‘I can do that.’ So then the person said, ‘Now, what do you expect me to do?’ Buddha said, ‘Just sweep the floor.’ ‘That I may be able to do.’ Buddha said, ‘But when you clean the floor, say to yourself, ‘du pa tri ma pa, that means ‘clear the dust, clear the dirt’. Buddha told all the monks, ‘Repeat these same words every time you see this man, because he forgets. When he remembers dust, he will forget clear and when he remembers clear, he forgets dirt. When he remembers dirt, again he forgets the word ‘clear’. So the monks around there repeated those words whenever he was around. So while he was sweeping, he heard them saying that and remembered, ‘Oh yeah, that is what I am supposed to say.’ He almost got the idea that this must be some kind of mantra, as everybody was always saying it. But after some time he actually remembered the words. The moment he had learnt them, Buddha told the other people that they did not have to repeat them any more. Then one day, he picked up the meaning behind these words. He found out, ‘I am not cleaning only ordinary dirt, but the dirt of attachment. I am not cleaning just dust, but the dust of anger.’ That is how he developed and finally became an arhat.

So the method he used was sweeping, cleaning. Cleaning is tremendously useful. In India the Brahmins have to use kusha grass for cleaning. When they think that they have obstacles, whether mental, psychic or sacred, they always go to the field of kusha grass and sleep there. So cleaning is extremely important. Even those who were highly developed Mahasiddhas - if you look into their biographies - there is always a lot of cleaning, clearing and washing involved. Some were laundry men even. That is a method of clearing the ignorance which is the obstacle of wisdom. The antidote of ignorance is wisdom. To sweep away your ignorance, one of the methods is dusting- particularly the meditation room where you obtain teachings, the monasteries where the monks and nuns are, clearing the place of your own spiritual master, the temple, the road side, etc. This is one of the best ways to clear obstacles. We have provided you the opportunity to use a vacuum cleaner here and if you don’t take this opportunity, it does not make a difference to me at all. If you look into the Japanese or Korean traditions, if people were given such an opportunity, there would be ten people pulling the vacuum cleaner around. We however have difficulty finding one person to pick it up. This shows how ignorant we are. I have probably said enough. But it is really true. And when you use the vacuum cleaner, don’t just think, ‘I am cleaning the dirt people have brought in on their shoes’, but think that you are cleaning your ignorance, anger and attachment. That is the best way to do it. But if you don’t want to, no one can make you do it either.

How far have we got? Verse thirty-one? That is good, at least we are past verse twenty-eight. It seemed that we were talking about that a lot and then the next time we talked it was verse twenty-eight again. We did verse thirty-one, and now we are on verse thirty-two. Those of you who have the book, read these verses and those who cannot afford to buy it, at least borrow a copy, xerox it and read it. It is good to have it. You know why? If you read it again later at some time in your life, maybe not immediately, but in five, ten years or so, you will begin to remember what you have heard at this moment and what you have meditated on after that, what the effect on you has been.

I would like to clarify verse thirty-one a little more. Actually it is telling us what a great being the person who has bodhimind is. For example, in our usual world, if somebody did something for someone, even if it is ordinary, people will praise that person as a worthy person who keeps his or her word and repays the kindness given to them, who does not forget and repays others’ kindness. Such a person is considered to be a good person in our society. This is true. On the other hand, if you do good to somebody all the time and they still do not appreciate it, but turn around and become your enemy, that is considered to be a bad person in this world. Now focus that on the bodhisattvas. If you have the bodhimind, that is the ultimate love and compassion and nobody has to ask you to help a person. Without any request, without any invitation, the bodhisattvas will go out of their way to automatically help the person in whatever way they need assistance and do their utmost possible. That must definitely be considered a great being. Not only are they persons worthy of praise, but even Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and even the gods - that is the ‘small ‘g’’ gods, will all praise such a person, because this person is honest, appreciates somebody’s help, is gracious. Therefore the bodhisattvas are great persons worthy of praise. In other words, if you want to become a great being, the method is to grow the bodhimind with you. If you can become a bodhisattva you will be a person who is fit to be the object of such praise.

What is bodhimind? I keep on telling you that all the time. It is the ultimate love and compassion, unconditioned, unlimited. Whoever has that, such a person is called a bodhisattva in the Buddhist terminology. Who is eligible to become a Bodhisattva? Everybody, every person. It is not some kind of Buddhist hierarchy, reserved for some privileged persons called ‘children of Buddha’ or something. No. Everybody is eligible, as long as they have the basic development of Buddhism 101. If you remember, this here is Buddhism 102.

Buddhism 101 is teaching you to look inside yourself and see how you are functioning, to see what is your condition, how these neuroses or delusions develop within you, how they grow, what makes them grow, how they are functioning. Watch how they come up. Talk with your friends about how you get angry. Just say for example, ‘John, tell me how can I make you mad?’[laughs]. In that manner you see how anger develops , how attachment develops. See this within your own mind. Observe when it develops, how it acts on you, when it is active, what can you do, how can you prevent this thing happening to you. This is extremely important. These are preventative measures. It is very important. However, we are not in the position to do that right now. We can only do it in the aftermath. You have got angry, and during that period you don’t even want to talk about it. That is also fine. Shut your door, turn your phone off. Whenever you feel ready, come out, connect your phone, open your door and talk about it. You can look back at what happened, what has not happened, what should have happened. You don’t even have to talk to anybody. It may make you more mad. But think about it. Through that you are getting closer and next time, when you are in that period of anger, you may be able to recognize it. Afterwards you may be able to correct. Gradually you may be able to recognize it while you are angry. Gradually, you may be able to prevent it before it arises. You will say, ‘Oh, yes, I can smell the anger.’ Then you can prevent it. All this is Buddhism 101 level.

Then Buddhism 102 is when you recognize and acknowledge that this is your condition. Don’t sit there thinking, ‘How can I get rid of that?’ Don’t keep on thinking that. Think, ‘What about the person that I love, the person that I care about?’ So the way to get out of your problems is by looking at the person that you love and care about. We talk about love and compassion, saying that we have to look at all sentient beings as our mothers, but the way and how you do this is simply one by one, a person with a face and a name, then with the person you care about - your lover, your companion, your parents, your children, these are the subjects on which you develop your compassion stronger. These are the persons we do it with first. It is great to think about all sentient beings, but normally it ends up me, the big, fat guy looking at all these nameless, faceless dots that fill all of space. Then whatever you dictate to them, they will follow. But then, one day there is somebody with a name and a face who will say, ‘No, that does not sound right!’ Then you freak out completely and say, ‘You are not supposed to say that! You are supposed to follow exactly what I have told you.’ So you are dealing with persons who have names and faces. Sometimes, if you enjoy that, you can do it with nameless, faceless dots who are listening. You can dictate to everybody. If you enjoy that, you can do that occasionally. But in the actual practice think about a person that you care about, a person you love and care about, the person that you spend time with for eight hours or twenty-four hours, a person you love, who loves you and who irritates you and whom you irritate. That is the person for you to exercise with and practise love and compassion. Remember, this is training your mind. Actually, you are not going to put some kind of superficial influence in your mind. A lot of people may tell you to develop some kind of superficial mind with which you can sit in front of the Buddha and everything is wonderful and great. You can burn incense, some nice music is going on somewhere and you feel uplifted from your usual mind stream. I am not criticizing that. That is one thing. But is that alone capable to develop the individual? No. It is a great thing to happen occasionally. It is wonderful to have it. But is that alone capable of developing the bodhimind? Is that alone capable of delivering the individual to the Buddhist goal that you want to reach? Definitely not.

It is funny. I just had a request from Tricycle to talk about this very argument. We said no. They wanted to have two different viewpoints. One person was supposed to say that it is good enough and then they wanted me to say that it is not good enough. I said no, but somehow that brought me to mention it today. It may be able to bring you a little superficial feeling for a short-lived period which may have some nice influence in your life. That is okay, there is nothing wrong with that. But is that enough? It is not. Will it help? Yes. Will it be capable of delivering the goods? No. This is a great life, and it is extremely important and capable, in the spiritual and in the material sense.

There is no other life with that capability. Look at the cows, the dogs, the horses, the monkeys. Look at all the different creatures around. None of them is capable of thinking the way human beings think. None of them has the capacity of human beings’ understanding. Our problem is ignorance. So what we need is wisdom and we need compassion. Ignorance is the blocking point for us, because of not knowing, wrongly knowing. This is the obstacle. That is why we create negativities. Negativities give us negative results. It is the karmic law. To cut the negativity we need wisdom. This good feeling is not capable of cutting the ignorance at all. Not only this good feeling, but even love and compassion is not capable of cutting ignorance. Buddha himself said, ‘Love and compassion is not the direct opponent of ignorance. Therefore love and compassion is not capable of cutting it. For that you need wisdom. Wisdom does not grow from good feelings, nor does love and compassion. It can also not grow out of sitting meditation alone. You sit there nicely and wonderfully until the cows come home. That is the good old American phrase. While you are sitting there, no negativities will arise directly, but when you get up, the negativities come up. When you talk to somebody and they say, ‘No, I do not agree with you’, then you say, ‘You are not supposed to say that, you are supposed to listen to me’. These are the points. These are the main reasons why these things are not capable of delivering the goods. That is why great teachers, the Buddha himself followed by the great Indian masters, have talked about the two truths, the absolute and the relative truth. They have given the example that we are like the birds. When they want to cross the ocean, they need two wings. With one wing they will just circle, they won’t cut across. Likewise, in order to deliver the goods, in order to cut our neuroses, to free ourselves from them, we need both wings, the wing of the relative and the wing of the absolute. The absolute is referring to wisdom, the relative is referring to bodhimind, compassion, love and so on. That will give you the power to move across. You can make your journey and cut across the ocean. Imagine, an aeroplane with one wing! Will that fly? That is exactly what it is .

So sitting meditation alone is not capable of delivering the goods. Good feelings for short periods are not capable of delivering the goods. Is it good? It definitely is. Will it help? Definitely. Is it enough? It is not. If you are interested in making the spiritual path develop with you, if you are interested in cutting the neuroses in your own mind, you need two. Without two legs you cannot walk. With one leg you can hop, but how far can you get! What you need is the relative and the absolute path. What we are doing here is the relative path, love and compassion. You also need wisdom. We are going to talk about that in chapter nine of this text. In that chapter you will find there is a very interesting dialogue between you - and you.

Lets go back to verse thirty-one. When somebody repays someone’s kindness, you consider that person a nice guy, a person worthy of praise. If you become a bodhisattva, there is no question that you become a person worthy of praise. Not only that, you become a role model for others. Through that, you are helping others. You do not necessarily have to become a big teacher. You don not necessarily have to become a bishop or cardinal or pope or Dalai Lama. But simply showing other people how one can handle certain problems when they come up, that itself is helping others. Becoming a role model for others is a great deed. As I said before, you don’t sit there asking, ‘How can I do it?’ That invites depression. Why? Your mind is focussed on yourself and you are desperately looking at how to do it, adding up pressure after pressure. The problems become so big, they are exaggerated. They will become huge monsters. You will feel that you cannot even breathe. You feel that you are under a layer of five hundred huge monsters or something. The moment you shift the focus from yourself to others, thinking, ‘The people whom I care for, they also have the same problem, how can I help them?’, you are actually pulling the carpet from under the feet of depression.

It was embarrassing for me, but I had to learn that from a neurological surgeon. I needed to have a neurological surgeon to tell me that Buddha said that love and compassion helps people to get out depressions. Actually the focal point shifts from yourself to others. That is the key, I believe. This neurosurgeon told me that this is how it is. I asked him, ‘And it really works?’ and the said ‘Yes, it does.’ And he started quoting so many doctors who wrote books about it. There must be something in it. And Buddha has been saying that for two thousand five hundred years, screaming at us, ‘The moment you learn that you have to get out and obtain freedom, don’t sit there and focus on yourself. Shift the focus on the others; this is the time to shift the focus from Buddhism 101 to 102.’ So there must be some reasons, if even the neuroscientists say the same thing. The spiritual path and science will tell you the same thing. There must be some reasons. It must be worth trying. After all, we all go through that. So often we don’t want to talk.

The next verse will tell you that not only do you become an object of praise but also a great benefactor. How do you like that? Normally we think that only millionaires can become benefactors, nobody else. But that is not true. Verse thirty-two should tell you that.

end of side A of tape 18

Tape 18 side B - 9/24/96

Verse thirty-two

The world honours as virtuous

A man who sometimes gives a little, plain food

Disrespectfully to a few beings,

That satisfies them for only half a day.

Verse 33

What need be said then of one

Who eternally bestows the peerless bliss of the Sugatas

Upon limitless numbers of beings,

Thereby fulfilling all their hopes?

The world honours as virtuous a man who sometimes gives a little. What is a little? A handful of food, a couple of bucks, a couple of old, used clothes. The manner of giving is also not very respectful, but rather more like ‘Yecch! Here you go!.’ or like, ‘It is of no use for me, maybe it is useful for you. Take it!’ This is disrespectful giving. Another example is if somebody forced you to sit down somewhere and eat some food, whether you like it or not, forcing you to empty the whole plate, saying, ‘It is good for you, you cannot get up until you finish that!’ That is disrespectful giving. A lot of people do that, we know. Some people will do it, because they really think it is good for you, other people believe it is disrespectful to the food, if you don’t finish it. They think it is a terrible thing to waste food, therefore whatever they put on your plate, you have to finish. People do that. I am not aware of any negativities that you may get if you do not finish your plate. However, I am also not against those who tell you that you should not waste food. I have great respect for it. I am not sure if you get negativities for wasting food, I am not sure. I don’t know.

Audience: If every person wastes a little, then it builds up.

Rinpoche: Yes, Mao used to say that in China. If every person in China wasted one grain of rice, this would become like ten million ounces or something. He used to say something like that. So I do have great respect for people saying we should not waste food. You know why? Because half the world is hungry. However, your left-overs cannot reach those people either, really true. When I first came to America I thought that the daily food wastage from New York City alone would be enough to feed all of India for a day. However, it will not reach there. It would cost more money to get those left-overs to India than it would cost to feed those people anyway. That is how karma works. You should also appreciate how fortunate we are in this part of the word. People do not appreciate. If you go overseas to India, China, Africa, to all these places, you will know how lucky we are. We are very fortunate. Who did it? You did it yourself. Your own deeds have brought you here. Not only are we lucky in the material sense, but also in the spiritual path. Where else in the world is there a place like the Unites States, where you can see all kinds of spiritual paths? They are available, advertised in the Yellow Pages. Even Jewel Heart is in the Yellow Pages. Unfortunately they put my personal address in there. We are also fortunate if we are able to pick up all the best methods from those spiritual paths and - mark my words - don’t mumble-jumble them all together but find the best techniques to cut down the negativity. Never look at it as a wonderful presentation, but as which is the best to cut down negativities. If you can cut down the negativities within you, then whatever comes out of you [when you teach], whether it is a good or a bad presentation, it will help the other person. If you don’t cut your negativities, if you are always looking outside, then whatever comes out from you, even if it is a great presentation, it will not help at all. Maybe it will be great entertainment. That is not worth it. Better stay at home and watch the Jay Lennox show. So always look inside, make a difference to this one, pointing your own finger to yourself. The way to make a difference is by cutting your ego. The symptom of cutting your ego is whether your neuroses are going down or not. That is the symptom of hurting your ego. Your ego will fight back. It will insist. Your ego will bully you, it will beg you, it will cry on your shoulder. But this is the opportunity for you to get rid of it. That is what Tibetan Buddhism is all about. Really, the main aim is that. If you can take it, it is yours. If you cannot, that is that.

Back to the verse thirty-two, ‘The world honours as virtuous a man who sometimes gives a little, plain food disrespectfully to a few beings, that satisfies them only for half a day’. That means that somebody feeds you for just one meal. If somebody takes you out for lunch or dinner, you will say, ‘Thank you very much, I am grateful’, especially if you don’t have any food yourself or any money. Then you will feel that it is great. Even if it is offered disrespectfully, it is considered a good deed.

Then the next verse says,

Verse thirty-three

What need be said then of one

Who eternally bestows the peerless bliss of the Sugatas

Upon limitless numbers of beings,

Thereby fulfilling all their hopes?

What is peerless bliss? Do you all know what bliss is? There are some pagers who give you a noise signal and there are some that vibrate. That must be the bliss! Buddha says that we consider all the changes in our lives, as long as they don’t bring us severe pain, as joy. Everything, any feeling that is different from the usual, as long as it is not severe pain, we consider to be joy, having a good time. Just because you are feeling different than usual. You label it, ‘Ha, nice, beautiful!’. Then you perceive it as beautiful. You say, ‘Hmm, great!’. You are not lying, but Buddha said we have never known what really true joy is. We have never experienced and never seen it. Therefore we really don’t know what true joy is. That is why we don’t have any idea what really bliss is. The bliss of the Sugatas is referring to the ultimate joy. Sugatas are the enlightened beings. When we have no idea what joy is, there is no question that we cannot expect to know what ultimate joy is. One of the reasons why ignorance is able to fool us is that we consider any change to be nice, pleasant and different. If we knew that things just changing does not mean true joy, there would be no way for ignorance to fool us. There would be no way that we would have dissatisfaction in our ordinary, normal joys. That is why we are never satisfied with that. We always want more and different experiences. At the same time you get lesser and lesser feelings about it. That is because it is not true joy. Do you get the message?

The bodhisattvas who try to help all beings actually do so by helping them to cut down their neuroses by becoming examples, by giving messages, by sharing, leading, pointing out, by pushing in that direction. At all sorts of different levels you do that. That is how you are helping others. Are you with me?

Last week end I was in New York at Jewel Heart. I spent two days there, Saturday and Sunday. We spent time on questions and answers. We talked about Buddhism 101 and then Buddhism 102, talking about love and compassion. We talked how we can recognize what love and compassion is. We not only gave the definition by words, by discussed it in the form of questions and answers. This has been very helpful there, as far as I am concerned. I would like to share a little bit from that discussion. We identified what idiot compassion is. First we talked about compassion on a very gross level. For example you see a dog run over by a car. The lower part of its body is smashed, the upper part is still intact. The dog is alert, yet in great pain. It tries to move its body from the road, the upper body trying to drag the rest of the body from the road. Imagine that picture and the feelings of that. See yourself jumping into that picture, trying to help, trying to pick up the dog and move it. This is the gross level of compassion. We feel the pain, we have to do something. That is gross compassion. It is good compassion, no doubt. But it is not good enough. You need subtle compassion. You need subtle compassion to yourself first, then to others. If you don’t have subtle compassion to yourself, you will never be able to be compassionate to others. Never. If you don’t know how to help yourself, you cannot help others. Take it from me. Compassion is also to yourself, recognizing your own difficulties, your problems, then seeking freedom from those problems, having the desire to be free of those pains and problems. This is compassion for yourself. But do not go to the extreme of self pity. You have to draw a line in between there. If you try too much to have compassion for yourself, you may fall into the pit of self pity. You develop compassion for yourself, then switch over to other persons. Develop compassion to another person and then extend that to yet others. That is how you expand it. You are first, then the person you care for and love the most, and then others. Don’t yet try to handle those whom you hate, because you may begin to say, ‘I don’t care about them.’

The recognition of compassion and love is important. That is a subject you should always think about and analyze and try to get information about.

To come back to the Bodhisattvacharyavatara: The person who takes you out for lunch is considered a benefactor and an object of respect. But here the bodhisattvas try to help countless beings, as vast as space and for countless eons, trying to treat them to the best ever possible happiness - the bliss of the Sugatas. That definitely has to be a great benefactor. So if you can benefit other beings by any means you are a benefactor. So here you are trying to benefit all beings with that great motivation, with the dedication of selflessness. As long as you have any selfish interest, you have a problem. Even if you want to help people and have the best idea ever possible, you will not be able to help people on the spiritual path if you have self interest somewhere held deeply. That is one of the biggest obstacles

There are two important points. I like to share these here, although it is from another source. The Gyalwa Drikung pa, who founded the Dkrikung Kargyu tradition, has some very interesting things to say. He mentioned five points. Of these I would like to quote the following two:

Your spiritual master is like a snow mountain. If that snow mountain does not receive the guru devotional respect of sun shine, you will never receive the blessings of the stream of rivers that are flowing down from it. It is important to put the focus on that.

Even if you have the horse of the bodhimind, but if you don’t have the bit of altruism, there will not gather a lot of people around you and you will not be able to help them. Therefore one of the main points is to have an altruistic mind.

Self interest here is in the sense of trying to get fame, wealth, trying to become somebody big. These are the normal, mundane, selfish types of interest. If you have them within you, you will never be able to help a large number of people at all. In order to be able to help a large number of people, you should totally detach yourself from that sort of self interest. Seeking a name, fame and building up wealth, all this you have to totally detach yourself from. These are the qualities. If you have them, you will be helping a lot of people. If you have an agenda behind that, you may become a great scientist, a great professor, but you can never become a great spiritual teacher, friend or guide. Somewhere this self interest is inside, twisted. You may or may not recognize it.

Tsong Khapa, who lived from 1347 to 1419 in Tibet, became very popular and hundreds and thousands of people followed him wherever he went. One Sakya lama asked him, ‘What sort of ong du practice do you do that enables you to accumulate these large numbers of people?’ Tsong Khapa said that he did not have any ong du practice at all. He said,

It is only the guru devotion and the perfect dedication. These are the keys to helping all others.

That is why Gyalwa Drikungpa, the founder of the Drikung Kargyu tradition, made these five points called nga de. It is not necessary to talk about the three others today. The two we did mention are guru devotion and the total altruistic mind. If even when the methods and the mantras are perfect they do not work with the individual, it is due to lack of guru devotion. If even when you have wonderful things to say, somehow you don’t get to communicate them to the people, it is due to lack of bodhimind, lack of love and compassion. There must be something wrong deep inside. Search your mind, review your mind and if there is any self interest there, cut it out and try again. It will work differently. That is all I have to say to you today.

Audience: In order to fulfil your spiritual goals, you need both, bodhimind and wisdom. However, it is the wisdom that ultimately delivers the goods. So why don’t we perfect our wisdom first and reach the enlightened state and then perfect the bodhimind?

Rinpoche: I do not know the answer, but I like to try this: Wisdom alone is incapable of delivering ultimate enlightenment too. You can develop wisdom first and then go to the bodhimind. This path is for the genius. I am not saying that you are not a genius. But someone who is, may be able to develop wisdom first and bodhimind later. If you do that, you reach the third path straight away. It is like a helicopter who flies over the first and second path. This path is available. It happens, but it does not happen to us. It does not happen to us, because although we talk about wisdom and read about it here and there, we don’t get it - even though for example a few people told me during the summer retreat that my talk there about wisdom was the clearest they had heard and absolutely clear and wonderful.

I am going to cut my own lie here. That is a Tibetan saying. It means I am going to bust myself. In that summer retreat I did talk about wisdom, but what I talked about was the emptiness of an independent, permanent self. True, this is emptiness. But is it the best emptiness? No. This is how I am going to bust myself here. First I don’t even know the best emptiness. Then, even if I did, it would not become clear to you at all. So if we talk about emptiness on a very gross level, it is clear. As somebody told me - in that talk during the summer retreat it was crystal clear. I am happy with crystal-clear. That helps tremendously. But it is not the ultimate emptiness either.

Audience: During last fall you talked about the five paths. There you said, ‘Don’t have doubt, hope and fear’. How without hope can we then develop the altruistic mind? Where do we get the inspiration for it?

Rinpoche: If we could have a Buddha, some enlightened being, right in front of us as a role model, that would be wonderful, it would make it tremendously easy for all of us. Unfortunately we are a little bit too late to see Buddha appear as Buddha. The role models that are supposed to be around here these days have a lot of faults. This makes it very difficult. We talked about that in New York last week. A guru is a guru, but the guru also has a lot of problems. All the gurus have problems here - there is one scandal after another. Maybe they are human beings. That is why. If there was a perfect role model, it would be great. But we don’t have that. But whatever it is, you can get a small inspiration from gurus, from the sanghas. You have got to take that. The most important thing however is that unfortunately nobody can do it for you. You have got to do it yourself. Can we go without hope? I doubt it. We need hope until we become fully enlightened. Until then we have to keep our fingers crossed. In the West, however, keeping your fingers crossed means doing nothing, just sitting there. But that is not right. You have got a lot of things to do. In training for the altruistic mind, begin with visualization, begin even by talking to yourself. Begin by correcting your motivation in the morning. Try to remind yourself of this motivation three times a day and three times a night. Try to constantly do that until it becomes habitual for you. When it has become habitual, then you are trained. That is the sign that your training has achieved something. You have not reached enlightenment, but your mind has been trained to be altruistic, to be helpful. This itself is a gradual process within the individual. By having that altruistic mind, you are moving closer to enlightenment. You are pushing yourself, you are also helping all others. That is all I know.

Audience: What exactly were the three levels of suffering you mentioned in your last talk?

Rinpoche: I am just going to give you their names. [First there is the suffering of suffering].Then there is the changing suffering. This looks like joy and bliss, but it changes into suffering. Then there is the pervasive suffering. We do not acknowledge that as suffering at all. It is pervasive. I am just giving you the names.

end of side B of tape 18