Archive Result

19961119GRAABWL23

Tape 24 side A of 11/19/96

There is no such negativity which cannot be purified. Period. You do not have to believe it. I have very strong logical reasons to support that. Everything is impermanent, so it is changing, it is changeable. We are all impermanent. If you don’t believe it, look at a photograph of yourself which was taken ten years ago. Our deeds, our actions, are also impermanent. You may think it is karma and therefore it is permanent. That is definitely not true. Karma depends on conditions to ripen. So you can purify negative karma. However, if you do not purify negative karma, it remains. It will give you negative results. If you purify, you neutralize the karma and then you don’t get the negative results.

All the Buddhas of the past have purified their negative karmas and that is how they have become Buddhas. If you keep on carrying negative karma with you all the time you cannot become a Buddha. There is no Buddha with negative karma. If you were to try to work out every negative karma, until they are all finished, you would need zillions of years. So the best way to handle it is through purification. You can purify it because it is impermanent. We talk about that all the time. By now you should know it. Every negative karma that we have created we can purify. There is no such thing that cannot be purified.

I shared with you the story of Angulimala, the guy who killed 999 human beings in a week during the Buddha’s life time. If he could purify, why not you and me? We can purify whatever we did wrong. Purification is one way to get out of our negative karmas. We need to accumulate great positive karmas and eliminate the negative karmas. Otherwise it blocks [the development].

So this second chapter is totally devoted to purification. This chapter tells us all the different ways of purifying. Not only can we purify our own negativities, but we can also help other people to purify theirs.

Lets say a friend of ours dies. You cannot deliver enlightenment to them. You may not be able to guide them properly. That depends on the level of your spiritual development. If your development is good, you may be able to guide the person. As a matter of fact, if you do not develop to that level, you will not be able to lead people properly. That is an important thing to remember.

We talked about making offering as a way of purification and we always talk about the four powers. Do not lose that. Whatever detail of purification this book will offer you, the principle of purification lies in the four powers. Do not forget that. What are the four powers?

Aud1: Power of the base, power of antidote action, power of regret, power of promise not to commit the negative action again.

R: What is the power of the base? It refers to whom you have hurt through your negative action. It has to be either enlightened beings or non-enlightened beings.

Aud2: As the power of the base you take refuge to the Three Jewels.

R: And how do you recompense persons you have hurt who are not enlightened beings? What do you do for them?

Aud3: To beings who are enlightened we take refuge, to beings who are not enlightened we develop compassion and love.

R: Basically, when you hurt somebody you have to recompense them, pay something back. To the Enlightened Ones you take refuge and for the non-enlightened ones you develop love and compassion. What else can you do? It does not work according to the American system where you sue somebody and make an out of court deal in which money is paid.

The other powers are regret and antidote action. You can say mantras, meditate or whatever you do. Finally you undertake not to repeat the action. On top of that you do whatever these verses here tell you.

Verse ten

To the very sweetly scented bathing chambers

With brilliantly sparkling crystal floors

And exquisite pillars ablaze with gems,

Having canopies above aglow with pearls,

First you construct the room where the enlightened beings are going to have a bath. If you are wealthy you can build one, but otherwise you mentally create it. The place you are going to create is very beautiful. I have to remind you again that this text was written for the traditional Indian style of taking a bath. In those days there was no bathroom for every bed room. It was probably a general bathroom. If you look at the great Indian palaces like the Taj Mahal, you see that they had a great separate bathroom, like a swimming pool with fresh water running through the palace. Very similar to that description is the bathroom you can see at the Red Fort [Dehli] and other forts in India.

I think they must have been afraid of the smell, because the first thing here is that you have to provide a house with a good smell. This also talks about the four doors of this house and the gardens with all sorts of flowers. In the middle of that is a big bathroom where you are going to offer the bath. The whole thing is totally visualized. The water is being poured by wonderful, youthful people, whether men or women. They will come and pour the water which is also not ordinary water, but scented water.

In your visualization you have that wonderful bath place and the whole Supreme Field of Merit - all of them come by and hang their clothes on some kind of long rope - like a clothes line. I don’t think they had clothes hangers, but you would just hang your clothers over that rope. Then you visualize that the whole Supreme Field of Merit walks into the actual bathroom totally naked. They get into that huge bath tub and water is being poured and they are getting washed.

While visualizing that, you are supposed to say the next verse:

Verse eleven

I beseech the Tathagatas and their Sons

To come and bathe their bodies

From many jewelled vases filled with waters scented and enticing,

To the accompaniment of music and song.

It is thus not only the offering of the bath, but also music. The reason why you are visualizing all that is because in reality you are not going to be able to bring Buddha down here and wash him. You don’t do that at all. Although there is nothing to clean from the body, speech and mind of the enlightened beings, I as an individual have obstacles in my body, speech and mind. By preparing this bath for the enlightened beings I purify obstacles in my body, speech and mind. I wash them away with enlightened beings’s nectar-like wisdom and blessings. You may be offering a bath for the enlightened beings, but what you are actually washing away are the obstacles of your own body, speech and mind. That is the simple reason why the bath is included in purification.

In the Buddhist tradition people will pick up a mirror, show that to the representations of the enlightened beings on the altar and then pour some vase water over the mirror. In this way you are washing the reflection of the enlightened beings which you have captured in the mirror. If you see monks during ceremonies picking up a vase and pouring water all the time, that is what they are doing. In this way they are offering baths to the different levels of enlightened beings such as the gurus, yidams, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Dakas and Dakinis and Dharma protectors. They do it individually as well as collectively, that is why it can be a long ceremony. In a simple practice, this little verse eleven will do.

To summarize again, cleansing activities are part of purification. In the old Indian culture they used kusha grass. For whatever reasons, the Brahmins think that kusha purifies negativities. If lower cast people come and touch the utensils of a Brahmin, he has to sleep for one night in the field of kusha grass. They think it is purifying them.

After washing, you don’t leave them there. You give them a towel.

Verse twelve

Let me dry their bodies with incomparable cloths

Clean and well anointed with scent,

And then may I present these Holy Beings

With fragrant garments of suitable colours.

These towels are clean and again well anointed with scent. I think they must we very worried about the smell! Maybe it is the Tibetan butter smell.

It is the first time that I teach this practice in the sutrayana. You have to visualize. If you just pour water, it does not work. So in your visualization you have that beautiful towel which is actually made from very precious, expensive material and is scented. With that you wipe dry all wet parts of their bodies. Actually you are supposed to use the mantras OM HUNG TRAM HRIH. This is for the five important focal points of the body. The reason is that you not only dry the body but also wipe away any dust that may have been left over after the washing. Again, in reality it is your own dirt of attachment, anger, hatred, jealousy. The enlightened beings don’t have these. By doing this practice, we remove them from ourselves.

After that you don’t let them run around naked. They may get into trouble. You offer them new clothes. The quality of the clothes has to be the best. They should be light, soft, of different colours which suit their bodies and they have good smell. That is what you offer. The old clothes which they had hung on the laundry line, become like light and dissolve to yourself. That is how you obtain their blessings.

Another very important point that is made is that the bath water is fresh. Some other traditions, particular certain Indian traditions, may even ask you to take a bath in their old, dirty bath water. The junior practitioners are taking a bath in the used bath water of the senior practitioners. In the Buddhist tradition it is so much emphasized not do to that. It creates negativities rather than helping those people, unless you really have very high spiritual development. Then you have the capability to cure and purify others by anything that comes from your body. If you know how to do it, do it. If not, don’t do it. If you do it, do it at the risk of getting yourself into heavy negativities.

Verse thirteen

I adorn with manifold ornaments

And various raiments fine and smooth,

The Aryas Samantabadra, Manjugosha

Avalokitesvara and all those others.

I think I will try to jump the next verse, just reading the names of the Bodhisattvas. I am not going to cover more than that today, since it is the last day for this in the year. There is nothing much to explain about offering the clothes and ornaments, except where are these clothes and ornaments coming from? They are nothing but our own positive karmas actualized. They become these extraordinary clothes and jewels, etc. You offer them to the enlightened beings in order to benefit yourself and all other sentient beings. The enlightened beings gladly accept these things and experience pleasure. Let me just say ‘pleasure’, I don’t want to call it ‘bliss’ [in this context].

There is nothing difficult to understand in these verses. It is part of the purification. Are there any other question?

Aud1: Earlier in your talk today, you were starting to make a point about whether one had to be enlightened in order to lead others to liberation.

R: The point is that if you don’t have any development within you, you cannot help others. We know that very well. Atisha said, ‘

Unless and until you have any development within yourself, there is no way you can help others.

Do you really need to be an enlightened being in order to help others? If you can become an enlightened being, that is great. But even if you are not an enlightened being, whatever the level of development you have, with that much you will be able to help others. So in order to help others you have to have some kind of development within you, whatever level you have that much it will make a difference to others.

Aud2: Did you say that we should not visualize the Buddhas in the bath, but that we clean our own obstacles?

R: No, you have got that wrong. You visualize the Supreme Field of Merit. That means the enlightened beings. Don’t call them all Buddhas. That is my personal feeling. To say they are Buddhas becomes very specific. So they all come and take a bath. You visualize giving a bath to them. But what you are doing in actuality is through this visualization you yourself are getting purified. By the way, when you are giving clothes to the Supreme Field of Merit and someone in there is a monk, you don’t offer them jewels and different kinds of clothes, but you just give them monks’ robes, yellow or red. If they are lay Bodhisattvas or Buddhas - enlightened lay persons - then you can give them all kinds of different clothes. In the traditional Indian texts the dresses described would look almost like clowns’ dresses. They are all multi-colored, bright things.

Aud3: Following from the previous point, if one is not enlightened oneself and can only help in a limited way, is it possible to ask the enlightened beings to help?

R: Why don’t you call the enlightened beings? Yes, you can pray. You can seek their help, but you can only help according to the level of development you have. The knowledge, the know-how, your spiritual development. If you know how to reduce your anger, you can show that to others and help them. If you know how to eradicate anger and ignorance, you can show others. If you do not know, you cannot show that to others. If you don’t understand, you cannot teach. Likewise, if you don’t have the development within you, you cannot help others. As much as you know, that much you can teach. In the same way you can help others according to how much development you have.

Aud4: Again, to clarify the first question, you had actually started to explain how one can not only purify one’s own non-virtues, but also those of others, especially when a friend dies. However, you did not explain how to do that. Could you elaborate?

R: I see. Tibetan Buddhism offers tremendous ways how to help third persons. Basically, all the techniques how to help third persons are coming through the Vajrayana, not so much the sutrayana, actually there are almost none in the sutrayana, except prayers on the Theravada level and development of love and compassion and the dedication on the Mahayana level. In Vajrayana there are tremendous ways of doing that. I am not going to go into detail about the phowa, the transference of consciousness.

Basically, there are activities you can do to purify others’ negativities through rituals such as chang wa. It is a purification ritual. You invite the consciousness of the [deceased] person in front of you. There is a detailed way of doing that, but in principle you invite that person in front of you and give them a complete initiation, in particular the vase initiation. What does the vase initiation do? It is mentioned in the long dedication prayer of the Yamantaka sadhana. There are a lot of techniques of transforming negativites. The five skandhas, the five neuroses, are transformed. You do that complete process for the consciousness which you have invited in front of you. Does that work? That is a big question. It is taught and practiced. We do it all the time. It is almost a complete self initiation. The power of the initiation is to purify all broken commitments and negativities. Even if you cannot transform [the aggregates], you have the opportunity to purify.

end of side A of tape 24

side B of tape 24 of 11/19/96

...it would be better if you can do it yourself. You would not have to depend on a third person, but be able to help yourself. That is how you purify yourself and try to get the people who are dying into a pure state, free of negativities. Whatever you can help, that is good. Do not contribute to raise their attachment, hatred or anger by yourself getting angry, attached or hateful. It is important not to do that. It is easy for me to say that, but hard to do when the time is pushing us. We automatically get it.

Earlier, we focussed on the person who is going, but what about me who is left behind? That is also a point we have to think about very carefully. Allen [Ginsberg] had an answer for that. In one of his poems he said, ‘Sangha Death, we work it out’. There are ways how we can work it out. It is however most important not to contribute any negative karma to their situation by getting angry ourselves or by developing attachment. These points we can take care of without being involved in Vajrayana.

Aud1: If you do not have any development, but you encounter a lot of people doing stupid things and dying young and you find yourself helpless, but you know that all these enlightened beings are there committed to helping, there must be something that can be done?

R: That is why I mentioned to you the Vajrayana part. There is an army of enlightened beings wanting to help, but it also depends on the karma of the person who is dying. There are however stories like that of Avalokitesvara who showed up in the hell realms and said, ‘This person is mine, I am taking him or her’. There are similar stories about Hayagriva and others. Basically it depends on karma. This depends on the conditions. The army of enlightened beings is there. If the conditions are right, they can help, if not, they can do nothing. The conditions depend on yourself, not others. That is why it is important not to contribute negative things in the presence of someone dying.

Aud1. Is there any particular practice that could provide that link [to the enlightened beings]?

R: You can pray and dedicate. Don’t think of the usual prayer you do when you go to church, but there is real strong prayers you can do. And you can dedicate your positive karma to them. That will be a great help. It is sad indeed seeing the young kids getting involved with the wrong crowd and dying. By getting angry with them, that is not going to help. Again, it is important not to contribute our two cents worth of anger here.

Aud5: Can you give any examples?

R: It is a two way thing. By not participating in the sort of behavior which you think is creating the trouble, and helping others and yourself as much as you can, that is okay. But thinking, ‘This is a terrible thing, I do not want to have anything to do with that sort of crowd’, that is wrong. If you think that they are behaving wrongly and you acknowledge that, this is fine. But if you think the people are wrong, then this is bad.

Aud6: A question regarding offering your body to the enlightened beings: will they like it?

R: I don’t think they will take your body. If they take it, tell them that you want to take it back. Tell them, you cancel it [laughs]

Aud7: You talked about killing and how various factors have to come together to make that a complete karma of killing. What about if someone takes their own life?

R: It applies equally. It is equally negative. Whether you take somebody else’s or your own, it is equally killing karma. Particularly for a Vajrayana practitioner, not only do you get the karma of killing a human being, but also the karma of killing a yidam, an enlightened being. Don’t ever think, ‘It is my life, I can take it.’ Nor is it all right to think, ‘I have brought this life into the world, so I have the right to take it out.’ That also does not work.

Aud8: When you kill yourself, it cannot be a complete karma, because at the end of an action you have to be satisfied about having carried it out. How can you be satisfied that you have killed yourself?

R: Good point. It is true, you may not have the satisfaction. But though you die, you don’t completely disappear.

When you think about killing, don’t just think of killing human beings, but also bed bugs and fleas that bite you all the time. I mean killing a human and killing a flea is not equally strong, but it is the same killing karma, just not as powerful. People do that. They chase the mosquitoes and when they have got one and squeeze that little blood out of it, they go ‘Ha!’ and they are satisfied with what they have done.

Aud9: What about psychotic individuals who cannot form the same intent?

R: I believe, lack of sanity is not an excuse for karma. It may be in the criminal or civil courts, but not in karma.

Aud10: Earlier you said that is does make a difference.

R: Oh, I have contradicted myself? Now, what do I do? Lets think carefully. If you are crazy and you kill someone or kill yourself, do you have the negativity of killing? You do. But do you have the complete negativity of killing? No, you don’t, because you are not realizing that you are killing this particular person. Does that explanation save my face? Maybe I am not doing a good job tonight.

Aud11: I need some advice. I have field mice invading my house and apparently they can do big damage. I don’t want to set traps or harm them in any way. What should I do?

R: These are always big questions. You have to take care of the problem. There is no way we can always avoid negativities completely. Whatever we do we have some negativities. We cannot always do the right thing. Even when you drive a car, you are involved in killing. Being a vegetarian is definitely better than eating meat, however, it also contributes to killing, because the vegetables also do not just grow in the pure lands. So sometimes you have no choice. In this case human life is more precious than that of the mice. You have to do whatever you have to do and then you have got to purify.

Aud12: There are traps that don’t kill the mice, but just catch them.

Aud11: But they are multiplying faster than I can get them. I may have to call the exterminator.

R: Whatever you have got to do, you have got to do. Really true.

Aud12: Can you briefly repeat the purification practice?

R: These are the four powers, the power of base, regret, antidote action and not repeating. These are the basic four principles.

The power of the base means that you recompense the beings that you have hurt. Either they are enlightened beings and then you take refuge or if they are not enlightened beings, you have to generate strong love and compassion. If you just think, ‘Oh, I feel some love and compassion’, that won’t help. You need a constant push on that.

Also in particular regret is called for - not guilt, but regret. If you don’t have that, you won’t bother. When you bother then you want to do something. So what you do is take refuge and meditate love and compassion. The whole Chapter Two of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara covers purification. It is mostly about antidote actions. Then of course, meditating on bodhimind and meditating on emptiness are the best antidote actions.

In Chapter One there was one verse which says that besides bodhimind what else is capable to purify such heavy non-virtuous actions.

Verse six Chapter One

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?

That is the benefit of the bodhimind. It is the best antidote action. That does not mean that doing it for one day is enough. You constantly go on and do the purification until you get a sign of purification such as dreaming that you are taking a bath - there you go! Here we are talking about offering a bath.

Aud13: The meditation of love and compassion and even tong len, if we meditate that for a person of lesser fortune, who is benefiting, the one you are meditating on behalf of, or yourself?

R: You are pushing an important button. You are trying to benefit yourself. You are using the technique of using love and compassion instead of challenging anger with anger, hatred with hatred, jealousy. Try to meet that with compassion, love and caring. Directly you are helping yourself. Indirectly, in the long run, you will be able to help that other person too. In another way you are also helping that person directly by not challenging their anger with yours which again indirectly helps yourself too. So there is both, a direct and an indirect way of helping - in both ways. But ultimately, the mind which is dedicated completely for the benefit of others, still has to seek enlightenment for itself so that it will be able to benefit others. That is why there is also this double work - that is a terrible word.

Particularly, tong len is very important and it does help the sick people. If you are a healer, whether a physical, mental or spiritual healer, if you try to practice that without tong len, it is a little difficult. If you do use tong len, it helps tremendously. Tong len also purifies tremendously. It provides the right conditions. You can do tong len when you are ready to do it. Without the foundation of seeking freedom it will not be that helpful.

Aud14: Last week at a different talk you asked us to examine the phantasies of our life. So when meditating, I noticed that when I tried to meditate, thoughts about my career as a musician were constantly interfering, pulling me out of the present moment of just being there and breathing. Afterwards, when working, I noticed that I had a slightly different motivation for working. Is that the right way of analyzing or do you have to give up your ideas of a goal?

R: Very good question. You have recognized a fantasy. Usually, since we don’t have good role models, our phantasies center around wealth, success, name, popularity, fame, as a musician or artist, etc. This is becoming our goal. You have begun to recognize that. Is that wrong or right? This is a big question. If your motivation is simply to become well-known and extraordinarily good at it, then your aim is wrong. If you just modify that a little bit by thinking, ‘By doing that, I can become helpful and useful, I can relieve suffering from people, then that is okay.’ The purpose of the music should be

By hearing the sound, the suffering of body and mind should be relieved.

That is one of the important achievements music has to offer. If you practice music with that in mind, I don’t think it is wrong. But simply thinking, ‘I want to be a great musician, I want to be famous and popular’, is probably simply a wrong fantasy.

Aud15: My grandmother is in hospital close to dying. What can I do to relieve her suffering?

R: People raise this question very often. And very often people decide to say a certain mantra. But the most important thing is: Do not bring Buddhist pictures or mantras into it, unless the person is used to it. They may get unnecessarily irritated or afraid. So one should not do that. But one thing you can do is to provide a good environment for dying - free of anger, attachment and also fear. Some people are very afraid of dying. So don’t go to them and tell them, ‘Hey, I heard you are dying.’ That creates difficulties. You can make sure that they do not develop attachment, fear or anger. You personally may say mantras like OM MANI PADME HUNG without anybody else knowing. You can blow your breath on the person while saying the mantra, but do not do in such a big way that it draws people’s attention. Do it very quietly. You may also do your practice and meditation there quietly without attracting attention, including the dying person’s. Very importantly, you can dedicate all your positive karmas to help them. That is all I can think of at this moment.

Aud15: If you don’t have any spiritual development but you bump into people who create a lot of negative karma, should you try to avoid them at any cost?

R: I would like some answers from all of you.

Aud16: If you work with people like that you probably have no choice but to interact with them which is really hard. You may just want to run away, but you can’t. So the best is not to react or retaliate and decide to use the situation to help yourself to develop over time.

R: It is true, very often you cannot avoid these situations. Even if you can avoid one, another one will come up.

There is a story in the Bodhisattvacharyavatara which says that you cannot create a smooth ground to walk on by covering the whole earth with elephant skin. It is very hard to find enough skin to cover the whole universe. It is however easy to put shoes on your feet so that you can walk smoothly everywhere.

Aud17: In the case of someone dying, that is a very sad thing. But what is the point of focussing on that, instead of all the good things that have happened in the relationship during the life time? People often get so engrossed in the negative aspects of their experience that they fail to see the huge amounts of good things.

R: Just for argument’s sake, what is the use of thinking about the good things?

Aud17: It reminds you of your good karma. For example when you drop a rock on your toe, that hurts. But it may help to think that this is not the only thing that matters and try to think of good experiences.

R: So you forget about your toe hurting? My response to this is: Any good karma you have accumulated will ripen. It will work. I cannot tell you ‘What is the use thinking that?’ Because if you think about the good things and rejoice, you get good karma. If you don’t think about it, you don’t get that good karma. So you are right.

On balance, every bad experience shows something to learn and every good experience also shows us something we have not done yet.

To close, I would like to say that always try to have a good motivation, particularly in the morning. We talked in detail about how you can make your whole waking period and even the sleeping period spiritually oriented. Bring awareness in during the day time. In the evening, before you are going to sleep, try to concentrate on some positive karmic thing, so that when you go to sleep all your sleeping period will be positive. Try to do that as an every day practice. If you want to, you can do the short Jewel Heart practice daily or weekly. It is not a commitment, but you get the benefit, nobody else.

The essence of Buddhist practice is nothing but getting over the neuroses and trying to reduce their power. Give yourself a little control over your life through that awareness. Compassion and love is very important, you need it when the circumstances arise. When you deal with an angry person, you do not meet anger with anger. You don’t counter jealousy with jealousy. Try to have compassion and love. Or look somewhere else. That is what I would like to request you to do.

With that I would like to close shop.

end of tape 24 side B