Archive Result

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Birmingham, MI

Topic Lam Rim

Transcriber Janet Bourgon

Date Feb. 21, 20211:21:04.41:21:04.4

0:00:00.0

Good evening everybody. Do anyone of us remember what did we stop last time through the Odyssey to Freedom? Can somebody remember that? [Audience response] Just we had covered sacred environment? That’s it? Right? Okay, so, just need to know one little thing. It’s that such a thing called sacred environment. Is it necessary? And that we have to raise the question. And normally, I used to say no. I used to say you can do anywhere meditation or do whatever you want to do. It is because the individual makes the place and environment sacred. It’s anyway true, but on the other hand, it might not be great idea for people who are first-time doing it. People who are doing it first time, so the sacred environment is necessary. Bottom line of the sacred environment I would look as you arrange it such a way that you feel comfortable to, you feel comfortable to be able to meditate or practice. What ever you want to do. And that is important. Particularly clean, neat and tidy. Because in a filthy place, it is very difficult for us to sit there long time and meditate, or read, or think, or analyze. And thinking of inviting all the enlightened beings in the filthy place is, instead of creating a good karma, it may be creating a difficult, bad karmas, too. So therefore, bottom line is it has to be nice and cleaned. So cleaning is extremely important for us. Normally, you know, we will pay no sort of value for people who cleans up the house. They probably say the house- keeper’s job or the janitor’s job. Or something, I mean we may even, in some cases, we may even look down at it.

0:03:07.1.

But the truly speaking, if a housekeeper or janitor, who knows what they’re doing, is probably a very, if you know what you’re doing, it can be very, very profitable job from karmic wise. Not from moneywise, but from karmic wise it can be very profitable. Because cleaning, cleaning is one of the most [? 0:03:38.1] we have to have it. Most of our disciplines that we do, it begins at tidying up your room, and bedroom, or whatever, you know. And pick up those blue jeans on the floor and socks flying here and there. So you’ve got to pick them and tidying things. It is the beginning of our discipline, from our point of view. But from the karmic point of view, if you’re thinking and I’m going to clean the place, clean it so that people who are using that environment, whoever comes down to hear, will have a good and nice atmosphere. Or I’m going to be, the place is going to be clean. Place is going to be pure. And if you’re a practitioner, and this is where I’m going to invite supreme field of merit, or the enlightened beings here. So I’m going to clean this. And if you keep on doing that way, the cleansing is, it is, when you look at it, somebody’s cleaning. But what you really doing is you’re creating a tremendous amount of purification and merit. Especially when you know how to think and how to use that. There’s always the stories are valuable. One of the story was those, during the Buddha’s lifetime, there was a guy who had been, so we say, sort of so stupid. Doesn’t know anything. Couldn’t remember a word, and couldn’t figure out anything. So when there’s no knowledge, there cannot be any practitions. And practice begins with knowing what you’re supposed to, at least, we don’t need like a scholarship knowledge, however we need what we’re doing, what we’re thinking, and how should we put our thoughts, how should we, what should we do. And that much knowledge, that much information is necessary. That is the true way how Buddha started. Buddha himself been learning it. And so he called them discovery. Because there is no teacher who tells him do this, do that, do that.

0:06:02.2.

And thereafter it has become information giving. You know Buddha discovered, and then he shared the information, we picks them up. And that information is on the basis of how do we conduct our life. So the information is the first step. So during the Buddha’s lifetime, all that people he shared his path, is sharing the information. And that is how it begin. And when Buddha was tries to pick up this little guy, and try to tell him, just say clear the dust and clear the dirt. And he doesn’t remember at all. I mean they probably try 300 times, and couldn’t pick up at all. When he remembers the clear, then he forget the dust. And when he remembers the dust, he forget the clearing business. And then same thing with other. Dirt and clearing. And then Buddha said, “Well I have something else for you to do.” [? 0:07:14.3] Can you clean the shoes? Shoes are those people who are meditating round. He said, yeah, I can pick up some cloth and wipe their shoes off. Yeah, why not? It is sort of more sandal than shoe at that time. So I can wipe them off. And then Buddha told every meditator there, the moment you see him coming and cleaning your shoe, you keep on saying it. Clear the dust, clear dust, clear dust, keep on saying. So his job becomes going round every meditating people, and they leave their shoes outside. So they go inside to meditating, and they see it when he comes their clean shoes. So they say, clear dust, clear dirt. So he 24 hours a day bombarded in his eye, ear, clear dust and clear dirt. And took him couple months to pick up. Even after that. So one day he learned say clear dust and clear dirt. One day he learned. The moment he learned that, and then Buddha snaaid, now you don’t have to clean shoe anymore. So what do I do? You go out and sweep the temple, and going sweep the courtyards and all this. And so then he… But you have to say clear dust and clear dirt. Keep on doing that for long time. And then one day suddenly what happening is, he’s doing purification. Purifying the negativities that we have. So one day suddenly he realized, what had I been saying clear dust, clear dirt? What does that mean? And then he began to say, oh, it’s not the ordinary dust I’m talking about it. I’m talking about the dust of attachment. And when I’m clearing, I’m not clearing the floor, the dust off the floor, but I’m clearing the attachment out of my mind.

0:09:12.8.

And so does the hatred. And so does ignorance. So that’s, that is the how, what had happened with this guy. So I just sort of mentioned it very briefly. There’s a long story in that. It is valuable in the Liberation in the Palms of Your Hand. Right? [? Miller 0:09:41.1] You’re expert on that. I’m almost I say you know what page? On what page? [Audience answer] Anyway, so the, really the first thing in our sort of disciplined way of functioning our life, is the cleansing part of it. Even in usual American culture. Also so when we get up in the morning, we take a shower. And brush our teeth, and take a shower and all this. This is usual, right? So all of them can be done as a cleansing, as a hygienic treat, no, what you call it? Hygienic? Hygienic what? [Audience] Hygiene. Thank you. Hygiene activity. At the same time you can make it positive too. The same as sweeping the floor. And washing the negativities. And those of you who are Vajrayana practitioners, you can have that showerhead functioning as a some kind of initiation deity, and pouring water and receiving initiation. And cleansing inside, outside and everything. Which you know separately. And even you don’t have Vajrayana practice, but simply it is the water represents purification. Basically. I mean over here the water’s so bad. So we don’t know exactly whether it is good water or bad water. Every water you have to think twice, whether it’s polluted or what. But in traditionally, [? 0:11:35.7] good old Tibet. Which is not so much developed with what we call the modern development. Or, is it industrial development. We don’t have that. And there was two things.

0:12:02.6.

One disadvantage, it is Chinese called Tibetans so bad word, and so dark, and so stupid. So we call that five qualities, and one of the quality is so bad word, so filthy. And so dark. And so, one is, so barbarian. So those are our qualities. And so that is the one disadvantages there. But at the same time, there’s a tremendous advantage. Advantage is the water is pure. The air is pure. The place is very sacred place. And it is really truly, if you look at today back it is, you cannot say the picture called Shangri-La by, who is it? [Audience] James Hilton. Yeah, picture called Shangri-La is not very far away from the truth. So it’s that much pureness is there. And the water is known as purifier. And no matter whatever it’s dirty there within the 5 to 6 feet, the water itself purifies all this, whatever impure within that. And that has been able to function in Tibet because it’s next to the biggest snow mountain in the world. And whatever the water coming there is all pure. And when it is a lot of them are pure, little impure thing can be overtaken and purified by the pure thing. But over here, when you dunk too much in the water, then the water couldn’t do anything. Impure becomes much more than pure, so the impure thing overpowers almost the other way. Impure things purify the pure ones and made them impure in that way. So but water itself, represents the purity. And that’s why, that’s why a lot of traditions, they use water for blessing. Sprinkling water, or dipping in the water. And making you drink water and all this. And holy water business is both East as well as in the West. We have that. So it’s because the quality of the water itself is purifying. So we can use that. And when you’re taking shower, then you’re not only taking a shower, but you use the purification period. And particularly, if you add a few mantras there, it’s even better. Even you can’t, just as well as you’re working the external dirt out of the body, you’re also washing the internal negativities from our mind together.

0:15:14.6.

So let us take the bath together with body and mind together. That’s mind having its own bath. And let our body have bath. So even taking shower or bath can be used as a positive thing. So instead of time going, it’s become neither a virtue nor non-virtue. It can made very positive. And also the beginning of creating a sacred environment, if you want to do practice [? 0:15:47.5], it is the beginning. And not only your body, but also your [? Purse? 0:16:00.3] where you’re sitting. And that is very important because if you are nice and clean atmosphere, you feel like sitting, you feel like doing. And if it’s bad and terrible atmosphere, you feel like running away. You don’t want sit there anymore. You just sort of, you’ve got to get out and do things. So that is normal everyday life level. In the sacred part of it, the sacredness is works with the mind. The mind receive a certain feelings which makes you feel good in their and that makes you, let’s you do more in the, and even not more by time, but positive powerfulness. So it makes big difference to the individual. So the sacredness is the normal cleansing, and plus mind cleansing. So this is becoming important. And I keep on saying for years, it’s not that important. And because it may be true, for those of us, like me, who been able to [? 0:17:13.9] born in Tibet, that in old Tibet. And for 20 years, in that old Tibet, I’ve been brought up. So every environment, whatever, I’ve been able wherever you look, one is pure. Two, it is also so much spiritual oriented. So that you really don’t have to have a separate place. You could do it everything. And sort of, but in the West, particularly people who try to work, try to help them self, the sacred environment really helps lot. So, that was important. So we mentioned that first point.

0:17:59.0.

Now, second point is arranging symbolic offering. Offering, is again, it is also important thing. It is the activity of generosity. And generosity, you know the generosity can be two ways. Two, one, generosity, be generous to those who need it. And another thing is be generous to your supreme field of merit and to your own supreme field of merit. And if not supreme field of merit, then at least to your own sangha, to your own community, to your own family, to your own everything. That is the important part of it. Generosity. Everybody knows the generosity is great and good thing. We don’t even have to worry about it, talk about it. Everybody somehow knows that generosity is important. But I like to share a little bit with you. And so according to the Buddha, I mean, minimum [? Tibetan quote 0:19:14.4]. Even Buddha says, the comfort that what we can get in our life, is also, it is necessary of helping a [? 0:19:29.2] in there. If you’re completely poor, and if you don’t have a place to sleep, or if you don’t have food to eat. So, if you’re homeless, and if you are in the street, and it’s not going to be that comfortable. Is it? No, it is not going to be that comfortable. Though they may like to be there. Some of them. You know, some of them don’t want you to come around there at all. But it’s not that comfortable. So the comfort of every human being is also, depends on having a little bit of… You don’t have to be Rockefellers, or Donald Trump, but you can, you have to have a little bit thing to pay for it. Right? So Buddha says, minimum [? Tibetan quote]. So the human comfort is always connected to the wealth. And if there’s no wealth, there will be no comfort. So the wealth is the, to become a wealthy, the Buddha says cause of becoming wealthy is, be generous. Generosity causes being the wealth. In a way it’s true. If you spend more, you get more. But if you overspend, you get into trouble. Right? So, I mean, the ones that spends the other’s income, if you’re thinking that way, it has a lot of meaning in there.

0:21:00.6.

But however, the generosity [? Car] is the is the direct cause to become a wealthy. So, that’s why the generosity is important. And that is something we’ve come to sort of accept in both, whether it’s Eastern tradition or Western tradition or whatever it is, nobody argues with that. Everybody is very happy with that. And they commonly except that. Right? I don’t know why. Maybe the churches and temples get more money. That may be the reason. I’m just joking. Don’t take it seriously. My habit is always joking. Okay? Okay. But that joke. But the really thing is, to be generous is very important. It’s a practice. It needs even training your mind. Training yourself to be generous. Training your, learning that you don’t feel the pinch. And try to let it go. Try to give it. Try to be helpful to anybody. Whatever you can. Try to share it. Even you can’t give it, just share it. Just try to share it, you know? Or even you have two shares, be able to share the other one with somebody who badly need it. Or somebody that you think deserve it. Even if only two [? 0:22:32.8] shares. And then share your music. And share your art. Whatever [?0:22:41.6] just share your art. Share your poetry. Share your anything that, or whatever you, whatever helps anybody to relieve a little pain from that heavy pains that we call true. Whatever it may be. It is generosity act. So the generosity is so important with us. And then here the opportunity to be able to make it. Offering to your supreme field of merit is almost a limitless opportunity. But, how much we can offer? What we can offer is always limited. Right? Always limited. And offering also needs like an art of presentation. I’m just saying simply thinking of water offering. We do that water offering. And we give that is traditional Tibetan where some people do a thousand cups every day. Some does a lot of them do hundred bowls every day. But, then five, six, seven almost everybody does. At least a glass of water. We do that all the time. You may drink the water later, but beginning you put up as offering. That’s what I do. Wherever I learned it somewhere. And a glass of water is there always.

0:24:13.1.

But when you need it, you may drink that. Borrow it from there! But, glass of water. And, it is more quality, it is better. But I was just thinking, but you cannot buy one of those jars of water and put it over there and say, “here’s your water. Enjoy.” You can’t do that. Right? So you have to put them in the glasses and put them nicely. Because the art part of it. Art part of it makes the people, from our point of view, we feel we did something, rather than leaving the whole gallon of plastic jar over there. And we present it. And then from the receiving point of view it also has nice presentation. Look at the Japanese food, right? And if you really look at the Japanese food, the quantity what they give you is extremely little. There is nothing, virtually. You know, it is truly less than half of the portion of normal American restaurants give you. But somehow they know how to make it looks so interesting. Even the decoration, they sort of show it in such a funny way. Put out there with thing and decorated with cabbage and ginger and all this. It looks something very pleasing, and you eat that and you also feel satisfied. Even though it’s a tiny little thing. But that is the made by the art, where the art presented, you know? So art makes presentation of art different. And offering, not only we offer, but what we offer is for pleasing it. So that’s why the art of the presentation is also important. At the same time, at the same time, how much we can offer is very limited. And therefore whatever we put it up, whether it is glass of water or piece of flower or light or whatever. Whatever it might be. Whatever it might be. Whatever it might be, it is very limited. Even it a thousand cups, even it is whole area to filled up with flowers. Even then, it’s very limited. And also it is mind training. So therefore what you really learn from your mind, multiply that. Multiply whatever we have.

0:27:16.4.

If you have one glass of offering water, becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight, and that way you can fill up the whole space with a completely this offering that you whatever you put in there with effort. It multiplied. Filled whole space. If a tiny little, if it’s a tiny little flower, a beautiful little sunflower, but one sunflower becomes hundreds and thousand of them and multiply and whole space filled up. And that’s why we talked here. Arrange symbolic offering. But the actual offering what we do is mind offering. So the mentally you can be very, become very generous. Even you, even you don’t have a dollar in your pocket. Even you don’t have a penny in your name, but still you can be very generous by making those mental offerings. And that is okay. And it is done number of times. And it is done almost all the time by all the practitioners. However, however you can be very stingy and have mentally making big offering, big generous, and physically completely stinginess. Cannot work well.

And for example, the traditional Tibetan teachings will tell you, when you want to be generous, you have to be generous. When you want to give vegetable, give the green vegetable. Don’t give the yellow part of vegetable. And when you want to give butter and give the good butter. Don’t give the blue part of the butter, when it’s getting bad. So this is not generous. And maybe saving food, it may be. That’s a different issue together. But from the generous point of view, from the point of generosity, that is wrong activity. From the point of generosity, right? [Asking Audience 0:29:36.0] Or, generosity point of view? Either way. Okay, thank you. Because I don’t speak English well. So that’s the problem. So you can arrange mentally, and even those of us who have succession yoga, you know [? Tibetan quote 0:30:00.0]

0:30:04.0.

Those who are [? owned] by people or not [? been owned by people] and all this you know. What, how do you say that? In English, I can’t say that. Can anybody say it? In succession yoga you have those. The long one not the short one. Short one should have it, isn’t it? The mountain the something you have there. Land Jewel. What do you say that? [? Audience reply. 0:30:36.8] Yeah. Land Jewel what? [? Audience reply] Yeah all this, Thank you. That’s what we needed here. Because you can, you can, the sun and the moon and everything you can offer. And then you may said, how can I offer moon if I have nothing to do? It belong to NASA. I don’t think it belong to anybody. We all have a common share in that. And so, so that’s what a common karmic share, at least. Every single great thing in the world we also have a tremendous amount of share by, of us. We do have right in there. Not only that, in everything. Even the between those, you call galaxies? Between the moon and Mars in the star system. Whatever it is. And all of them are interdependent system. Is all interdependent. You know. When we talk about interdependent in this within the world, people get into, we begin to get shock. But forgot about the world. The whole galaxy those, all each and every different, so what do you call those? Moon and stars? [Audience reply: solar system] Solar system. Thank you. Each and every different solar system also has a dependent relationship. All of them is totally dependent. Buddha keep on saying that for 2500 years. How much the dependent nature there. And today we begin to realize the way and how the butterfly flies in China, makes difference here in Detroit. We begin to know that. Scientifically. We begin to acknowledge that. And Buddha keep on saying that. The whole solar system. Not only one, but the total different solar system has interdependent relationship. They go through circle. They go through. And there’ll be time they’re dead, and there’ll be time they’re born. And each and every one of those solar systems, there be time living beings there. There’s a time that nobody’s there.

0:33:06.2.

And all this. Same thing what had happened in our live solar system. It happened to the same all different solar system. Same thing. And it is a great thing. Scientifically we can begin to see it. At least there something else, besides us, you know. Otherwise, you would look at the moon, and I don’t know what you, I don’t know. I used to think, I used to know, not know. Used to think there’s some kind of a rabbit sitting in the moon. There’s a Tibetan children’s story. The children were taught looking at the moon and say [? Tibetan quote 0:33:51.0]. So you can look at them and say, “Uncle Moon, give us bread.” Taught for the child. So I keep on thinking there’s some kind of rabbit looking, look like rabbit, right? And the rabbit looked like one, and so somebody from that give the bread. That was understanding of I. I have full moon. But remain in there. But when you look in the Buddhism, they will tell you it is another planet. It is another solar system. And it is close to you. And it is completely interdependent. And they will tell you hundreds and thousands of different solar systems, if you look in the Buddhist cosmologies. They tell you that. Hundreds and thousands of different solar systems. And how much interconnected each one of them. So interdependent relationship is the basic fundamental functioning of our life. Whether it is between the two individuals, or between the group of people, or between the nations, or between the solar systems, or between animal and human beings, or between environment and human beings. Between the earth and water. Between the fire and air, and within the element itself, it’s very much interdependent, each other. So they depend to each other. Very much. So that’s why we have this common cause. The common cause give us common share. Common right so for us. So therefore anything, that’s why in the exercise of generosity, I’m just adding the word exercise. Let’s say it’s a mental exercise of generosity. You can pick up the nice beautiful Yellowstone Park, or what is that [? Lake Tahoe 0:35:47.1 ] as long as it’s pure now. And we can pick them up and make offer to the supreme field of merit. You don’t have to give it. You don’t have to sort of right and sign it, as we always do. Everything, whatever it might be, it’s in black-and-white and signed and sealed and witnessed and what else do you do? Stamp and notarize and all this.

0:36:14.3.

But you don’t really have to do that. It is the mental exercise, so you can pick them up and give it. And not only give it, you also have to think by giving it, they have accepted. They have accepted. Serves two purpose. One purpose is purpose of generosity. And training your mind, let things go. Let things go. Don’t get the pinch all the time. Don’t get pinch all the time. Right? We do that all the time. If you have a little nice jacket, somebody, some friend, we’re not going to, many of us may not give it to the homeless people in the street. Many may do. Many will not. But if you have a friend who wants to have the jacket, who like that jacket, or so cold, or you just can’t help but give it. And then you don’t get it. We feel pinched, right? We feel, I shouldn’t have giving that. Now I can’t even asking back. It’s embarrassing. So I shouldn’t, that pinch we have. So that pinch is the, actually the pinch of attachment. However working with the lion of stopping being generous. Sort of miserness comes in there. So training ourself to be free of that pinching. So first mind level. And the Buddha talks about bodhisattvas do not hesitate to give your eyeballs if somebody ask. And they did it. Many of them did it. Many of them did it. But we cannot. We cannot. And we also told, Buddha also said for us, don’t do it. If you do it, you have downfalls. The same way, because for those who been very well trained, have received training and well-trained themselves, for them to give you eyeball is as easy as you give the yellow vegetable out of your fridge. That’s easy is that for them. For them, it’s okay. For us, it’s not okay. So it’s sort of you have to go steps. You know I’m always talk to you, Buddhism has all the steps. And have to be training gradually gain. So it is not possible for us, and we should not, and we will not. And we give our eyeball for nothing. I give you one example. There was a great and learned pundit, and scholar and saint who went to South India in southern part of India for sort of meditation in the mountain. And there was a debate going between Buddhist and non-Buddhist and [?0:38:57.7] anti-Buddhist or whatever. Big debate going. He has to go back to lead the debate.

0:39:04.9.

And on the roadside, and he receive, he saw a somebody who is begging for him. And he say “What you want?” He say, “I want your eyeball please. May I have it?” He say, “okay.” Took it out. And he took it out and give it. And with great hope that eyeball will be very useful for him. Very useful for him. And after giving it with so much pain, and turn back and started looking with the other eye. And this guy took the eyeball, put in between the two stones and crushed it. And so he feels so bad. He feel so bad. So he feel so bad, and then what happened? Somebody appeared there, I forgot. Somebody appeared there, but he’d been healed. However, if he has not regret of crushing, he would have he would have gained both eyes back. But however because of the regret that he had, he lost something. It should be also in that Liberation in Palms of Your Hand. Should be. Maybe not. So I think the [? Aria Dowa 0:40:15.9] is the name of that teacher. So that happens. So the generosity is important. And when you do, when you do, when you become a [? 0:40:28.6], when you act as generosity, most important thing is there should not be any hope of return. And that is very important point. If you give it, you give it, afterwards you regret. That I give you the eyeball crushing example. And another one is, another one is you wanted to give, but you wanted to have a something. Something in return. You want receive something. And is very American. We normally say what’s in there for me? Right? And that is very American. But on the other hand, on the other hand, it not become generosity. If you are cleaning up, if you’re linking it up with some kind of hope of return. Or maybe the name. Maybe the fame. Maybe you hope, you give money to build a hospice or something said, and there you hope they will put in memory of so and so, your name. You know, sort of with the hope, that is the human nature. Actually not so much the American alone, it’s just human nature. Even in the very highly spiritually developed society like Tibet, it also a human nature. We always look something, even after we died. We want to look back. So we leave, try to leave something behind. Right? We try to leave a book behind.

0:42:01.4.

So that people can read about you. And read your work. We can leave children behind so that you can still look back through children. My children. My grandchildren. We will like to build up institutions so that it is my institution in there. Like, I’m sure Henry Ford is looking back here for all the different Ford Motors here. So anyway, so that’s sort of a human nature we have that. But, that is the, that is the bad point of it. And when you wanted to be really true generous, you want to be generous. You wanted to be, give it to whatever, whatever it is. You give it to that person or the institution or whoever you’re giving, just give it and let it go. Let not have the pulling. You know? [? Blank section 0:43:05.2] And the aids that US aid, the helping poor people, whatever they did. Comes tremendously, it’s great help. I mean there’s no question. It’s a tremendous help. But after a little while, Indian government decided not to accept any more. Then you know I was talking to a friend of mine who’s in a foreign office guy. And I say what happened? He said the pull is so strong, and we can’t take it anymore. So it somehow you hook with a give something, you keep on pulling it. You know, pull according, it is the normal politician’s do. It is normally whole world does. I’m not saying it is wrong. But that’s not generous of the being generous. You know when you want to train our self, our mind to be able to let it go. To be able to let it go, all our basic attachments. Whether it is shirt. Or whether it is shoe. Or whether it is million-dollar. Or whether, whatever it might be. We needed training of the mind. The mind be able to let it go. So let it go means you don’t feel pinch when it’s went. You know, all I should’ve taking it back. You know I should’ve kept half of them. Or should I take it, how do I take it back? Or you know, all this pinch that we feel, which is the pinch of neurosis that we have. And we act according by the control of neurosis. And then we, after that we like to receive those symptoms. So when you having those symptoms, we did not really let them go. If we let them go, it doesn’t matter. It’s almost like, okay, forget it. So the arranging the symbolic offering is the, the offering is important.

0:45:05.0.

It is act of generosity. But it should not be like take a jar of water and say, “Here is it. Drink it now.” You can’t do that. So the present with art. And so that’s why symbolically arranging the offerings. Then goes to the next position the body and mind. And this is important. Particularly people here. And some of you know very well, but many of you don’t. Never been exposed for this. So it is necessary sometimes to talk to you. Normally I try to skip those, because it comes at the preliminary level, or whatever it is. Anyway, so the position in body is important. Actually, each and every 64 still here is very, very important. There’s nothing which is not important. But the one or two could have skipped here, but I noted that. But most of them are absolutely very important point. A position in body is, if you look at that, there is two-ways. One, a very traditional way. Very conservative way of looking. The very conservative way of looking is you sit with cross leg, which in the West you call it Lotus sitting, or Lotus style, or what you call it? [Audience reply] Lotus position. The Tibetans used to say vajra position. It’s almost the same thing, whether it’s vajra or Lotus. Lotus is female, vajra is male, whatever it is. So, doesn’t matter. So, sitting crossleg. Keeping your backbone straight. And that has some value. You know, backbone straight makes your, the nerves go straight. When your nerves go straight, the air or the energy traveling through the nerves go straight. You know, if you have a pipe you send water, and if the pipe zigzags, the water has to go zigzag, right? Or if it’s straight, it runs straight. And that’s like that. So keep our energy flow straight. And when we keep our energy flow straight, and our mind focusing also can be straight. It help, because there’s a tremendous connection between the energy that we use and the mind. Sometimes even they refer the energy as horse and mind as a horseman. The horseman rides the horse all the time, right? When you don’t have horse, you don’t call horseman. You just have a walking man not horseman, right? Maybe. If you’re walking with horse, would you be horseman?

0:48:01.3.

Maybe not. Maybe it is, I don’t know. But anyway, normally when you say horseman, is man on horse. Right? So likewise energy and mind follow the same way. Man on the horse. Horseman. So combined together. So when the energy can flow straight without any obstacle, mind can concentrate straightway. So, and also there’s like a keep your two shoulders straight. Keep your head slightly down and look two eyes, a lot of people when you say meditate they close eyes. It looks easy at the beginning but in long run for you it’s better that you open eyes and look straight from your nostril, tip of your nostril about four or 5 feet that way. And that is the, Buddha recommends that. That’s like seven of those. One is keeping your cross leg, sitting straight, keeping shoulder level, and just leave your lips and, what is it, tooth, just leave it as usual. And put your tongue, the tip of the tongue at the back of the upper teeth, touching the gum little bit. What else there? [Audience response 0:49:38.5] Yeah that is where your eye, what where your focus was left. Breathing normally. Okay? So anyway, did I get seven there? Maybe not, so but there’s seven of them. It’s called seven [? Sanskrit or Tibetan term, 0:49:56.0] style. It’s seven style of Buddha’s way of sitting meditating. But for us to be exactly like that is very difficult. So you have to be making ourselves comfortable. But you cannot lie down. Instead of your meditating, you’ll go to sleep. So don’t lie down. But sort of, like Alan, Alan Ginsberg has poetry on that. That makes it easy, if you don’t know how to meditate. First thing for you to do is sit on the ground. The ground is not there, sit on the chair. Right? First thing you do, keep your backbone straight. Now I forgot, I’m sorry. So that business sort of, its called “meditation on rocks ”. Right? Meditation Rock. On rock, means you can drink with it! Meditation Rocks.

0:51:00.7.

So that’s true fact. One should sit on the ground. Ground is not there sit on the chair. That’s fine. And so because you can’t keep crossleg on the chair, some people do, which is not very nice. If you want to keep your, if you want to keep your cross leg, sit on the floor. Get a cushion and sit on the floor. But don’t try to cross leg on the chair and then break, break my chairs. So then I can’t send them bill, so that is my problem. That’s why I don’t like it. So sit, I mean whatever, bottom line it is more, whatever is comfortable for you. Whatever is comfortable. Making sure it doesn’t cause pain. Making sure it doesn’t cause injury. Making sure it doesn’t threat your life. That’s what the Buddha says. So in threaten to your life, then they will said, protect from tiger, protect from this animal, that animal, it goes on for hundred pages. But bottom line is make sure it is not threat in your life. Sort of sit comfortably. And you don’t want additional pain, you know? People are not used to sit with crossleg. And if you want to sit long time, then it pain you, right? Then your knee and then everything, and makes it uncomfortable and miserable. And we have enough trouble, why add another one. Even those of us, those who like me, who used to it sitting, so almost for 60 years of life, and I can sit. If I can sit, I can sit like four, five hours, or six, seven hours. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t give me any pain at all. But when I get up, I have terrible pain with my legs, you know? I can’t even walk for a while, so it is a problem. So there’s comfortable, what ever is most comfortable for our, so that is the actual position in the body. The bottom line is make yourself comfortable. But don’t be over comfortable and go to sleep. And positioning mind is the most important. Are you sure I didn’t talk this year? Oh. I keep on thinking I did talk. Position in mind. You know mind is the most important thing. I remember as my young age in Tibet, when the communist Chinese came in, they came in 1950 or 51.

0:54:01.2.

Not as they say, 49. That’s also wrong. It’s 50 or 51, they came. And we stayed with communist Chinese for nine years hoping to get some kind of understanding, and some kind of hoping to find room for both. And so the most clashings that we clashed with the Chinese is the whether the mind of matter, or the matter of mind. Really. For Chinese it is strictly, completely, it’s communist. There’s no room for any spiritual path at all. Whether it is Hindu, Buddhist, or Judeo-Christian, or Tao, or Muslim, whatever it might be. There’s no room for spiritual path at all. I mean, this talking about it eight years. That’s true eight years. True eight years. Not only, almost they don’t accept good and bad. And every single thing has to be measured, and material development. How much you can make it. How much still can you put. How much grain can you put. How much, how you save. You know. They used to say, if you throw one piece of rice, what is it 7 million or Chinese or something. And if one throws one grain of rice wasted, there’s 7 million grains of rice wasted. It’s very materialistic, completely. The materialistic idea over spiritual, and over mind. And mind power is totally ignored. Completely. And mind has no room. If it’s education, it has to be materialistic educate. How to make more money. How to build more bombs. How to be, how to get faster in the space. Or how to, that is the only question they’re concerned. So the real clash difficulty, I mean I’m talking about my own personal point of view. I’m not talking about Tibetan political point of view. Tibetan political point of view we have to say, you been tortured blah blah blah blah. [?? Background static. 0:56:35.7] But what my true experience in difficulty is whether the mind is more important, or the material is more important. That is the question. For communist it’s money. And material is much more important than mind. For everybody, including their own leader except Mao himself. Because they worshiped Mao’s book, right? [??.0:57:02.1 ]. Red book, worshiped that. Sort of you know they memorized that and they chant that in the morning. They chant that in the evening. It is the whole country

0:57:10.9.

is chanting twice a day, the thoughts of Mao. It is absolutely materialistic viewpoint. How to, the aim of the society is how to build bomb. And survive it. How you become rich when you steal. How you build your measure on the basis of steel. And bombs and weapons. Destructiveness. And so all this. And that was the thing. So it is extremely important that mind can overpower all of that. All of them. It’s not easy. The mind is not like, there’s a, the mind is not like this atom bomb, or something, you can throw it and do it. But it has tremendous power over even atomic bombs. So that portion cannot be ignored completely. And it is important to recognize how mind is important. Particularly it is important for the individual. Each and every one of us. Where is our happiness? Where is our suffering? Where is our misery? And all of them coming out of our mind. How, and how we perceive. What you really get is hurt [?0:58:47.7]. Is where and how we perceive. It’s absolutely true. It’s not that, it’s not that what the people throwing at you. It is how we perceive. And I’m not sure, whether you people have seen a few years ago there’s a movie came called “Little Buddha”. Remember? And that little Buddha, the life of the Buddha in India. And just before he become a Buddha, and all sort of devils came in and started throwing weapons at him, and they all become a flower. Remember? It’s like arrows and all sort of things comes out. Knives and, and within certain environment it changes into flower. And that is the perception part of the individual. Somebody’s throwing the weapon from there, and then somebody is perceiving is receiving as a flower. And that is called transformation. It is the mind power has that. It’s really true. The mind power has that.

1:00:01.9.

I just remember a story told to me by Ram Dass. And saying that once he was, when he was experimenting in Harvard. He got wrong calculated. It happened to be Rosh Hashanah, Jewish holiday. [? Conferring with audience about spelling of holiday. 1:00:32.9]. Okay. And he got the date wrong. But then it happened to be the date he has to go for family dinner. He cannot miss it. But he’s not out of the trip yet. I mean gives me long story how things, you know, cutting his, shaving, he cuts here and there. And when he’s driving, [? 1:00:54.9 ] going like snake. Cut all of them out. And the bottom line the story what was really sort of interesting, he said, he went his brother or his sister, I forgot. But his brother or sister. The parents sitting on the head and tail of the table, and two of them sitting across. And I think he’s called brother. I think so. So he says, he look at the brother and said, brother is throwing both little darts. You know the British game, they throw the darts. It’s like little darts throwing at him. You know. He say all the darts are coming. So he, instead of, he sort of when the dart come he pick it up and put it on the plate. He keep and put on plate. He sort of, due to the chemical influence, he’s having that sort of hallucination, whatever you call it, right? So we all know that, what it is. Anyway. So but he has mind power, so not hurting him at all. Then shooting arrow from there, but he’s not getting them. And picking them up and leaving on plate. And wondering should I eat these or should I throw it back? Or what should I do? So that’s the, that’s how you can perceive it, of course it is chemical thing is there, but at the same time you also have a strong mind power and understanding and spiritual power both together. Appeared to be able to pick up that. And incidentally, I saw Ram Dass three days ago, when I was in California. San Francisco. And he had that story, you all know that, right? And so but he doing fine. And I went and saw him, and it’s a funny thing. And a friend of mine in California called Ram Dass and saying that I’m coming to see him that day. So he’s at very fine [?1:02:57.6] looking forward two o’clock or something. So two o’clock I’m coming. We told them two o’clock.

1:03:01.6.

Then he called back and saying how many retinues there? So no retinue, I’m alone. So anyway, when I went up there and he’s on the wheelchair, he says “Hi!” And he speaks fine. He speaks very fine, and he says, he said, “well I cannot move my, the right hand and that leg at all. That cannot work.” And he said he has difficulty. His mind is as sharp as usual. Absolutely. Absolutely clear as usual. But coordination between the mind and speech, there’s a little problem. Speaks very slowly and doesn’t get word sometimes right, or sometimes. That difficult was there. And I told him, you speaks much better English than I do. He started laughing. And it’s really doing fine. And then he told me, he said, he doesn’t have any pain at all. No pain at all. And he said my biggest problem is to convince my doctor that I don’t have pain. And the doctor says, you will have pain. You should have pain, so take the pills. And take these, and he said I’m telling him no, I don’t have pain. So he said I can’t convince my doctor that I don’t have pain. And that was one of his biggest problem now. But he said I don’t take those drugs. And leave them there. And then doctor comes and you still haven’t taken. You will suffer. And he said it goes on and comes back two hours later. What you doing? Okay. Goes back he said. So he said his biggest problem’s to convince doctor, to tell them he doesn’t have pain. That’s good news. And but it is really sad indeed that, it is really, you know one way very nice to see him. On the other hand, such a nice person, who had done so much to so many people. Who have touched life of so many people. Yet having that difficulties and the handicaps. It is sad indeed. Actually the past year, we lost so many of that type of people. In that category. With Jewel Heart, we lost Allen. Allen Ginsberg. And then of course [? Question to audience. 1:05:55.4], William Bross [?] and Timothy Leary. All of them.

1:06:02.0.

Gone. Almost [? 1:06:03.9] Ram Dass has stroke. And all of them within one year. And, except Bro., William Brose. And I have to, I been the last person talking to Timothy Leary. And when Allen died, I happened to be there. Now I saw Ram Dass. So I don’t know what it is. Anyway. So sometimes that things happened, within the one year. And all of those things happened. So, the openness and superior-ality [?1:06:42.2]. And openness. And liberal. Liberalness, do you say it? All of them are one of the great quality of American life. And I look at them as [?1:07:00.3]. So anyway, yet we’re still here and functioning. And as Allen has poetry, we said, what is this? Sangha dead we figure out. Right? Didn’t he say that? We worked out. Okay. I think that is basically each and every individual is responsible for each and every individual person. And whether you want to be good person or open person, or you want to be close minded person, or you want to be bad person. Or whatever it is, it is the individual. It is nothing, no government can tell you what to do. Definitely no. Even they try to do it, but definitely, they can take our money in the form of income tax. But that you have to give, otherwise you get into trouble. But they can never tell you what to do. And it is only we can decide what to do. No spiritual teachers, no spiritual leaders, no spiritual traditions can tell you what to do. It is you the individual who what would you like to do? You have to do it. You make choice. You’re the one who’s responsible. Nobody else. Nobody else. And if you go along with bunch of people, who just, without doesn’t know what they’re doing, and we will landed in trouble. But everybody individual is responsible. I was very happy, actually. I saw a performance by a Russian woman who acted, you know, who performed in America. It is an Institute in upstate New York. It’s called Omega Institute. Normally Ram Dass does retreat there for about seven or eight day. 10 days.

1:09:01.6. [Static background noises ends shortly beyond here.]

And so normally people who attend Ram Dass’ retreat come, like seven or 800 people. Normally. And this year they continued the retreat, but he can’t, he’s not there. So number of us been requested donate our time. So I went there. Spend weekend. And during that, that Russian dancer presented one of the show. And there’s music and she goes and acts like a monkey, and goes around and climbing on the tree, and sort of you know like that type of thing. And then at the end she said, so the conclusion she said, and there was group of monkey, there’s a leader. And the leader looked in the water. It’s normal our usual story. However, where she put it, it makes it very effective. And the leader looked in the water and saw lake, and saw the reflection of the moon. So leader said, oh my God, the moon is falling down in the water and we got to take it out. And he goes and called all the monkeys round. And so all the monkeys [?1:10:14.0] need to support their leader. So then all the monkey goes near the river and they started climbing from a tree. And one holds the branch of a tree, and the other one holds one hand with one leg, and other leg, and finally the one supposed to be reaching in the lake and taking the moon up by the hand of the monkey, how they make the arrangement. And they keep on going and suddenly branch broke and whole monkey fall in the river. So that’s the danger if you try to follow people. So you know you have no idea who you’re following. Right? So it is very important that individuals, who should be able to make your own judgment, it’s your responsibility. When the monkeys fall, all the monkeys fault. Right? It’s not only the leader’s fault. Maybe the leader be sitting out there watching. Who knows? But whole monkey is fall. So the consequences of the wrong decisions will be ours rather than anybody else’s. So that’s why it’s so important to be individual responsibility. So how to make it individual responsible for individual? Is rightness is through the mind power. So the mental positioning is the most important in our daily life. Forget about meditation. But in our daily life, having a correct mental attitude, mental mind position. Positioning our mind is the most important.

1:12:01.8.

Where does the kindness and compassion comes from? Where does the love comes from? Where does the anger comes from? Where does the jealousy comes from? They’re all from our mind. The seed of the kindness, the seed of the compassion, little more than seed, or sort of, the anger is sleeping within our mind. Anger is asleep within our mind. Hatred, jealousy is within our mind. What are you going to take it out? How you going to proceed? What are you going to do? This is our own responsibility. When I say we are responsible for our self means that’s how we look in the mind positioning. As a Buddhist, as a Mahayana Buddhist, Buddha recommends whatever we do, we do it for the benefit of all beings. At least from our mind point of view. The mind training goes that way. Everything, whatever I’m doing, I’m doing for the benefit of all beings. Even those, what do we call it, awareness meditations. Or mindfulness meditations. Or even walking meditations. It is always like this. It is I’m picking up my left leg up, for the benefit of all beings. I’m putting it down for all sentient beings. I’m picking my right leg up, and left leg up, and so and forth. I’m opening the door of liberation to all, for all, the sentient beings. I’m shutting the door of the suffering to all sentient beings. Even Buddha shared that as a basic mindfulness even. In that way. Because of that, the mind is so important. So I thought I did mention here, but if I’ve not mentioned it is always important to remember in the morning. In the morning. In my case, I’m grateful that I am alive. I could’ve died last night. But I didn’t. [Audience: you did mention it, Rimpoche.]. Did mention that, so I don’t want to repeat. That’s what I keep on thinking, I did mention. But then you know I travel so much and you know one night I’m in San Francisco. And another night in Los Angeles. And next night in New York, and now I’m here. So I don’t know where what I said it. That’s another problem of mine. So that’s why I ask somebody to remember where we are. Otherwise I having that problem. Anyway, since I mentioned here, be grateful where in life, and make a commitment, that I will not going to waste my time.

1:15:02.5.

Particularly today, I’m going to be helpful to all sentient beings. If you know somebody who’s known as all sentient beings. Do you know somebody who’s all sentient beings? But try to be helpful for the others. So that sort of attitude, whatever I’m doing today, I’m going to be helpful. I may have to do nice things. I may have to do not so nice things. But I’m doing it for the benefit of all beings. For the benefit of other beings. But the benefit of me. For benefit of others. For benefit of me. For the benefit of all of us. And sort of that mind give you tremendous power, of power over negative thoughts. So it’s by nature, it is not negative, negativity. It can become a positive. That’s one of the Buddha’s discovery. And that’s very, I think I remember that I did mention to you. Because, and that is the beginning of the spiritual path. How you going to set up yourself in the mind position. So all of us try to be kind and compassionate and loving. And also bring a commitment within your self. Try to be helpful. Try to be helpful. That is the most important thing. Otherwise, everything we do, we try to, we have selfish interest inside. Even person like me, here, sitting and talking to you, that’s preaching to you. We also, [?]1:16:41.5 ] we also have interest of the name, the fame, money, you know, all this comes in in our usual habit. And when you have that, even we are talking about [?1:16:55.7], we’re wasting time. So, it is so important to remind ourself that always nice, kind, compassionate, dedicated. And that is the force of our life. Sort of you can recharge that every day, every hour. Any, like you know, maybe twice or three times, maybe six times, maybe three times you have to reinforce that. But at least a daily recharge, and you function in that way, and in that principle you function. Then, I think we’re quite okay. But on the other hand, sometimes something can go wrong to so many people, does happened. But even that going wrong thing it comes in, even then, and you never give up the idea of compassion. Loving and compassion, never give up.

1:18:01.7.

But not to be idiotic compassion. Idiot compassion. There’s something called idiot compassion. Right? So it is very important not to be that. Compassion with wisdom. Love with wisdom. That is how we live our life. That’s what Buddha said. And that’s what the Tibetan great teachers and great practitioners try to live their life in that way. That’s what I pray, that I will live in that way. I can’t say I live in that manner, but I pray to be able to live in that manner. And I will urge you all to do the same thing. And if you do that, sort of really we covered halfway through the spiritual path. It is the mind game-- game, is a bad word, but it is a mind game, and it depends how you play. We know lose, it is the stake. And spiritual path is that. And there is the, but then you may think what about worshiping? What about the miracle? Yes! Miracle, worshiping, saying mantras, everything, everything has a room for it. However, the most important thing is working within our mind. This is not psychology. This is not philosophy. This is Buddhism. I like to make that clear. Thank you. So do you have any questions anywhere, or should we close the shop? So thank you. But, I was about to say I got up this morning at four and try to catch a plane to not be late here, because the second plane I have to catch from New York is either six in the morning, or six in the evening. If I catch six in the evening I’m going to miss this, so I said thank you [?1:20:13.9], okay, go ahead. [Audience question: what do you think about when a person, whenever they try to meditate, they fall asleep? And they’re not even tired.] Because you get up at four, so you fall asleep. [Audience: what do you do about that?] It’s one thing, you know, there’s so many Tibetan meditators, or teachers or you know, they get up like four or five in the morning and then they doze off at eight or nine! Sitting up. They will do that all the time. It’s not unique Western problem if you think that way. It’s not. The point is you’re sort of beginning to get some relaxation of body and mind, and so you become comfortable.

1:21:04.4.

And you become over comfortable and you falling asleep. So it is nothing wrong. Is it good? No, it’s not good. But well it’s happening, yes. It’s going to happen with everybody. It had happened, it’s happening, and it will happen. So what you do, wake up! That’s all. Wake up. Do whatever you need to wake up, you know? Put some Tiger Balms or something. That’s sort of really waking it up. There’s a lot of ways and means of waking up there, you know. But we talk next time. It’s okay? Thank you. Thank you so much.