Archive Result

Soundfile 19971023GRBHLR

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Birmingham, MI

Topic Lam Rim

Transcriber Janet Bourgon

Date April 12, 2021

Does anyone of you, what did we, what anyone of you remember where did we stop last Thursday? Anyone of you. [Audience response: we did 3.] Today we did. All right. Before we sort of really talk, oh I see, so we talk about the position of the body and the mind, we did that, right? I would like to, once again, remind you, the power of mind. Mind you I’d like to remind you how much the mental power makes difference each and every individual’s life. There are certain people who said nothing else make a difference except the mind. That may be or maybe not true. But mental power is so powerful and so important. So everything is really, very, make big difference. How your mind has been handled by the individual. Suffering, pleasure, all of them is actually a perception. Well I’m not here to tell you that suffering’s not suffering, you’re crazy. I’m not telling you that. But it is actually very much a mental perception. When you look at the people, when people have some difficulties, they have actually mental, physical, emotional difficulties, and they exaggerate so much, so that the person thinks almost, I’m the only one who has been sort of buried under certain layers on the earth or something. And on the other hand, there’s certain people who say well this difficult has comes, but it is impermanent. It goes away. It doesn’t stay there forever. And understand this is this and that. And if you compare that two person, there’s always the same suffering, same problem they are going through, but experience of the suffering is big difference. People who think I’m hopeless, helpless, I’m buried under the seven layers of earth. And that suffers tremendously. And yet on the other hand, same persons suffer slightly different.

0:03:06.3.

Suffer the same thing, but lighter, much lighter. It is only because of the mental perception. So mind makes a hell of difference in our life. It’s not the only factor. There the physical, emotional, all of them there. But it makes a lot of difference. And so as the suffering when we look make difference, anything what we do, anything what we act, anything what we perform, whatever we do, the mind make difference. So even we make our work spiritual, or otherwise, it also depends on the mind. The mind is the most important in there. I repeatedly told people here, 90% of the time we will neither do great positiveness nor we do bad either. If you look in your own life, just review a day, what we did. Like yesterday, or the last week, even this week, if you review it, you’ll find that all the time because we’re not that evil person so we don’t do that bad either. So we’re not that great level yet, so we don’t do that great either. So mostly what we do is sort of, whatever we did is, I don’t know, a middle level. I don’t want say mediocre, but sort of you know average is better that way. But so much positive as positive, not so much negative as negative. But sort of average. So such average things that we do all the time and so how we can make that into a positiveness? It is the only your mental power that makes difference. That mental power, setting up motivation for the living, for the day. Motivation for the week. Motivation for the month. And particularly for the day. And that was the most important, one that everybody can simply do that. It’s not difficult. The moment you woke up, be grateful in life, be in life. And think, well I dedicate my day, for today, to benefit all beings. Benefit myself.

0:06:00.1.

And benefit others. And that sort of mind set up makes all other things are different for the day. So, if you like to, if you go things like this, stages like this then definitely pure mind is absolutely necessary. Without which, whatever effort we put in, it’s not going to be effective to us. It will help something, but not so good enough. So we have to have a very strong mind of pure motivation and a pure mind. Okay, now what is impure mind? I like to mention that a little bit. Now for example, some people may think, hey, this is great spiritual thing. And I’m going to be the great one. I would like to be a most powerful person, that I can put my finger out and change people into whatever. Dogs or cats or something. Or, I’m going to be great spiritual person, wherever I touch my hand, I want everybody heal it. All right. And I just said that sort of mind isn’t pure mind. And you can be surprised. In my opinion it’s not pure mind at all. Because even healing is not pure mind at all. You know what is behind that mind? Me. I want to be the outstanding healer. I want to develop that power that I raise my hands and everybody heals. That is a problem. If my agenda is not there, you simply wanted to be helpful. Simply wanted to be the, what you call it, messenger. Simply wanted to be a filter, channel, whatever. And in that manner if you’re thinking, then it’s right. There’s no problem. But when you think, I want to be this one. Sort of if you sit down and take that mind into pieces, pieces, then probably because I, and I am looking for power. And I am looking for fame. That’s a problem. Then you may think in mind, well, I want to seek enlightenment. What about that?

0:09:00.5.

And that’s, that is absolutely true argument. However, the question remains, would you like to seek enlightenment for who? For what? And none of the true Buddhist people will not say, I just wanted to be enlightened. They will not say that. There’s sort of such a way, I don’t know whether they think that way or not. But they are well-informed. They say, I’d like to be enlightened for all beings. For benefit all beings. It’s sort of like a parrot being taught how to say good night or something you know. In that manner we say it. So that’s that. So sometimes people having mind when you simply say for benefit. They think it’s all okay. So whenever you get this I, the big I agenda over there, it’s a problem. The whole spiritual path, what does the spiritual path is supposed to do, the spiritual path is supposed to do that uncontrollable, that I, to be making it tamed, and nice and wonderful. That is the whole purpose. Whole purpose. When we say it is benefiting the individual self, when we say it’s something improvement, when we say self liberated, what self are we talking about it? What is the need we’re talking about it? We’re talking about that individual, uncontrollable me, the I, the uncontrollable. This is our problem. And people deal with that. And when you try to deal with that, you’re working for spiritually. And it’s not necessarily you be able to manage all the time. That’s not the point. When you try to deal with that, sometimes you manage. Sometimes you don’t. You burst out. That’s okay. It’s perfectly okay because we’re human beings. We do that. If we are not human being, we won’t do that. Right? The difference between the animals and human beings.

0:12:02.9.

That human beings we express a lot of our feelings. And all this. But the point is this big uncontrollable I that we have been, have been sort of dictating our self. Not only for long time but it’s really for life after life we have been doing that. So therefore occasionally things comes up, well, it’s been over looking for me. I’ve been treated badly. I’ve been sort of treated like doormat. I’ve been this, I been that comes up because we’re human being. Sometimes we lose it. We get burst into air screaming. And that also because we’re human being. It’s okay. So what is not okay is going beyond that and hurting. That is not okay. The moment you hurt somebody, we’re creating negativities. We have to restrain ourself from there, happening that. So whatever basic problems that individual may have, it is clear to the individual, him or her self, nobody else know. So it is good idea for that individual to acknowledge the, your own problem. And when you make the motivation, and sometimes to remind yourself, I will not let myself control by this anger or attachment, or jealousy or whatever. In the morning. Particularly if you’re having a strong problem. Problem, of course sometimes it’s very strong. When it’s strong there, you know it’s coming, you know it’s going to be, so you say I do not want to. Give yourself a commitment. And seek help from the supreme field of merit, or from the object of refuge, or from the enlightened beings. Help me not to have that. So I like to commit myself not to do that. Help me to make me through. So that’s how you set up the motivation. It’s very important because motivation makes total day difference.

0:14:59.6.

Even you cannot say this prayer that what we say, or that type of any other prayer, or even you cannot sit down and meditate, even you can’t do that, but to be a nice person. To be a person who is accumulating tremendous amount of positive karma. To be a person who cuts down on all the negative karma. And that is good enough to be a perfect spiritual practitioner. I’m not saying, those who are saying sadhanas and mantras and all this, I’m not saying that they don’t have advantage. They do. But at the same time, even you can’t do that, and that is very good way of keeping oneself easily, smoothly with the spiritual path. After all, it is the action that counts, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional. The action that we take, that’s the one that counts. Nothing else. So to make our sort of you know neutral actions, which we have 90%, to make it a positive, the motivation does. So very simple way. And that itself will build a tremendous amount of positive karma. And when you calculate them day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, in your lifetime, it becomes worthwhile. Very worthwhile. It makes hell of a difference. Very worthwhile. If there is. You know in Tibet they used to say, I think it is the telling stories to the kids. At least I used to hear when I was a kid. There is somebody called The Lord of Death. So when you die you go down there, and he will order [0:17:23.5] you. And much positive you have. How much negative you have. They will order it. There is a mirror and they will show in the mirror. Maybe Tibetans have no idea at that time about computer, right? So as much as we like computer, he has his own, I don’t know, big IBM computer or something. So when he press that, when he punch, and then the total can comes up, whether it is negative or positive. They used to tell us that story, but it sound very much like even in the Judeo-Christian sense. They’ll tell you the same thing. Called judgment or something, right? Is that called judgment?

0:18:01.4.

Yup! So I don’t think there is somebody so really give you this order and that order, but the really thing is, is if there is, if there is something is total calculation, is to be doing there, and then you have a lot of positiveness. And earlier, [?? 0:18:24.0] Lama’s Tibetan teachers, early earlier, before and in between 11 and 1400, they’re called [?0:18:32.3] lamas. And what they used to do is they use to wear pebbles, you know little stone pebbles at night and see how much, you choose a color, the one color they call it positive, another color they call it negative. And they wear and in the evening, before they go to bed they wear in the evening. And what how they do is they go back. There is no other work, right? And there’s no television to entertain, so they have nothing else to do. I’m joking, huh! But really what they do is, is they sit there and and review the moment you open your eyes and then go back and see what did I do? What did I think? What did I do? What did I think? When they find one positive, they put one thing, one negative they put another one. And at the end they will weigh, and which is more. It’s always negative is the more at the beginning and at the end there always the positive more. That happened. Because that, because bringing awareness. One--understanding. Two--awareness. Three-- you’re adopting that. So that is how it becomes. That’s, I mean if there is such a thing called judgment, then these are the points you’re going to look in. Future depends on present action, and that’s why makes a difference. That’s why this is really important. Otherwise, if that future doesn’t depend on the present action, then it doesn’t matter. We can do anything we want to. Nothing going to happen. Right? If you keep on going to hurt people, keep on hurting it as long as police doesn’t get you, law doesn’t get you, then you’re okay. But it’s not. It’s not. There’s something beyond the police. Something beyond the law. Something court. There is something what we call it karma that is extremely important. In the Buddhist teaching, the Buddha’s experience is karma is so powerful. Almost just like God in the Western tradition. Karma is that much powerful. It’s really! I mean if you listen to the same thing in the West, it says oh God giving, and God took it away.

0:21:07.7 .

Or God did this. And all this and that. And the Tibetans will say, oh karma did this, karma is giving, or karma took it away. Karma this, karma that. It’s very similar to that. But then the difference comes, who controls karma? Who creates karma? That’s, in what Buddha says is I’m the one. Not Buddha himself. Each and every individual. Each and every individual is the creator of your own karma. And that’s the reason why in Buddhism you are responsible to yourself. I shouldn’t say in Buddhism. But in the Buddha’s experience, what Buddha shared. Buddha’s discovery. The most important [? 0:22:09.2], is one is responsible for oneself. Nobody else. No one can do anything for your own karma. Not Buddha. Not other enlightened beings. It is only our self. When we created cause, we will have result. And when we not created cause, no matter whatever happens, we will not have result. This is a basic important principle. That’s how we become responsible for our self. That’s why I said action counts. That’s makes all difference because what you do. And that makes the difference. So to make it the neutral turns into positiveness is motivation. [Tibetan quote 0:23:32.4]. So it’s one of those Buddhist slogans. They said everything is result of its own cause. Buddha discovered that. If you’re a spiritual practitioners, here’s the key how you work with yourself is the causal [?0:24:08.2].

0:24:08.2.

That’s what it is. That’s why people goes on and tell you there is no instant enlightenment. There is nothing called instant, instant spiritual development. There is nothing of that sort. It takes time. It takes energy. People work with this. So making yourself a better person, kinder, nicer, responsible, is a spiritual path. It’s really! Truly speaking, like for me, the Buddha is the example of the most, I mean the best person. As a person, as a human being. Human being. Why is this become good and best? Because of the kindness. Because of the compassion. Because there’s a lack of anger, lack of attachment, and lack of jealousy. Actually lack might not be right, but so maybe I’m using the language wrong. But that’s why it’s become good person. Even in our ordinary level, is that person is good person, will say yes, he’s good person. Any problems? Well, well he had strong attachment, he can’t let it go. Or he has strong anger. Can’t let it go. So we can see in that as an example even in our basic ordinary life, all our [? 0:26:03.6] neurosis we bringing them as disqualification of a person who be a wonderful being. Don’t we see that? We do see that, right? Every day in life. So by that we understand, free of those neurosis are considered [? 0:26:22.3] better person. So the Buddha becomes ultimate, sort of an outstanding example of what’s really called a nice human being. Because he cut down, cut down the neurosis, and totally controlled by compassion, and love and caring. So spiritually following true, truth, bottom line, really forgot about the rituals, forget about it any what you call it, traditions.

0:27:07.5.

And all this is simply that when try to make the individual better. And that is, that is ensuring the positive karma. And the consequences of that positive karma, what does the self benefits? And self benefit, no suffering. No suffering comes. That is our own benefit. And that’s why it is spiritual path. It is, that this is the way and how we should do. Whether it is Eastern tradition or Western tradition, or that ritual, that this, that that, all that, all of them are helping. Okay, fine. No quarrels with that. But the basic goal is to make the person better. Cut down on the anger. Cut down on attachment. Cut down on jealousy. And cut down the ignorance, because ignorance is the biggest problem for us. That’s why Buddha said all troubles are coming out ignorance. Ignorance is big problem. Big problem. Both not knowing, as well as wrong knowing, both are big problem. Even not knowing is even better than wrong knowing. Wrong knowing at least, not knowing at least you can hear it, and heard about it, and think about it. But the wrong knowing is much worse. Then plus that we have nature of human being. We have a little stubbornness. And if you don’t have stubbornness, you’re not a normal human being anyway. So add up our stubbornness and the wrong knowing adds up, we get into trouble. Otherwise how does [? 0:29:16.8 name Ungulimala] work? Remember the story we share all the time. There was a guy during the Buddha’s lifetime who killed 1001, what is it? Not 1001 is it? 999 human beings a week. So it is the wrong knowing. Some crazy guy told him, if you can kill 1000 human beings a week, and put on, everybody you kill chop their thumbs and put through this rosary and wear it and come to me, I’ll liberate you. So the guy did. Up to 999. So no, sort of you know, normal human being with human sense would never do that.

0:30:04.9.

But when you have the wrong information, and wrong knowing plus stubbornness, make the person capable of killing that much people, yet with the idea of thinking that is spiritual work for that guy. And he thinks, I’m getting liberated. I need only one person here. If I get one more, I’ll be liberated. And that is because of the ignorance. That is a big example. But all others, we can see every other things are here. In the society today. Whatever’s happening in the family, in the society, in organizations, and even individuals, everywhere we have that problem. And that is the ignorance problem. It’s wrong knowing. So it is important to be an open mind, but you don’t lose your principle. You maintain your principle. Don’t be very stubborn, but sort of go accordingly. See how much reason behind that and what is really make sense. In that level, you have to be open. And if you don’t have an openness, then you’ll only become my way is the good way and yours is no good. Right? And that’s the cause of all the trouble when we see among the children, between the children and parents, between kids and parents, between the individual people, between the families. It’s all because my way is the only way. There’s no other problem, believe me. My way is the only way. It’s behind there. [0:32:08.8] That’s ignorance. And not knowing is another problem. When you really don’t know what to do and what not to do, and anybody can tell you anything. The guy comes and tell you, yeah you can kill human beings like 1000 a week and you’ll be liberated like this. And you probably think, it may be true. But here you don’t think that way, but they did 2500 years ago. They did. That is the lack of not knowing. So it is so important to have some knowledge, some understanding, what is really true spiritual path. If you look in the United States today, if you look at it, how many people really knows about spiritual path?

0:33:05.3.

They’re talking about it. I’m not talking about those yuppies. I’m simply talking about even among the hippies, who would like to be spiritual, like to follow spiritual path. I mean it doesn’t matter yuppie, hippie, you know that. I mean really those who claims to be on spiritual path, just watch them and how many really know what they’re talking about it. It’s very little. Very little. Anything nonmechanical will become spiritual. I heard people tells me eating brown rice is spiritual practice. Or drinking grass juice, wheat grass juice, is spiritual practice. People do tell you that. It may be healthy and it may be natural, but I don’t see what is the spiritual in that. And not only that. A lot of people, a lot of people went to all sort of things[0:34:14.9] and we consider them as spiritual. It’s because we have lack of knowing what really spiritual is. And we all interested. I mean at least people in this room. We are all interested in spiritual path. But what is it that you’re interested? Really. So what’s happening? So what’s happening when people like me from East comes out with some kind of name and title? Then I’ll come here and say, hey you should do this, you should do that, you should do that. And you may be thinking, yeah well he’s a Tibetan lama. He’s an incarnate lama. Yeah well maybe he’s right. That’s what he’s telling. Then somebody else will come, no, no, you should do this, you should do that, you should do this, you should do that. I’m, well maybe true, but so-and-so said something, something, but this one says, blah blah. I’ll follow that one for a while and see what happening. So the individual, no matter whoever comes and talks to you, and [? 0:35:23.3] the individual. And individual will function just like a flag. That’s what I call it. Flag, you know? Big flag. What happens the flag will put it up, and then depends which direction the wind blows. If the winds blowing from the west, the flag will go right extreme and go [making fluttering noise 0:35:46.2]. Right? When the wind changes, they go all the way right up the [? 0:35:53.2] and then [making fluttering noise]. So that is the, that is what we call it, you’re not having your own principle.

0:36:00.4.

And that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Be very open-minded but don’t lose your own principle. And how you get your principle is that you have to study yourself. Study. I’m not talking about like student type of study. I’m talking about think and analyze, and think what you’re sort of perceiving, projecting. You’re thinking, is that the right way or the wrong way? And there’s nobody who can tell you this is right. And there’s nobody who can tell you that’s wrong. But if you can trace yourself, you can trace these give this causes, this difficulties. These causes hurting people. This does this. This hurts me. This hurts her. This hurts him. And if there is sort of causing harm and hurting people, you know it’s not good. And if that’s helping people, helping me, helping the others, then you know it is good. And that’s some kind of basis on which you have to go. Otherwise, somebody else tell you it’s good, you think it’s good. Somebody else tells you it’s bad, you think it’s bad. And that is no principle. And then mind you, and each and every, almost every human being in America, the American citizen, are educated people. They’re not like the traditional old 16th century the Tibetan nomads. They are all educated people. You have very sophisticated mind. Very intelligent mind. Very intellectual mind. You have to make use of those. To yourself. For your own benefit. For benefit of everybody that with your family, will and yourself, and friends. You have to make use of your intelligentsia over here. Otherwise what is the use? There’s a tremendous amount of education in, among the people. Among the public. They’re all educated. But very little people will use that education. Whether it is, and it’s true, whether it is spiritual, or material, or politics. Whatever. We use very little our own human mind. Right? If a lot of people tell you Bill Clinton is bad, we will think Bill Clinton is bad. A lot of people on the other say oh he is great. [? 0:38:55.3] Oh, he is great. So we’re not using our own mind at all. At least we can judge.

0:39:02.2.

At least things are coming out. We can judge. Well, yeah, mistakes are there. And good things are here. There’s a way. And that is our judgment. It’s our responsibility. Not the, what is it, three second television people. We’re sort of really submitted ourselves to a television report or NPR report. And that is how we, how we completely don’t use our mind to our, just sort of very simple, normal, [? 0:39:43.0] politics. Or even making money. Even your work. That’s what it is. And so the spiritual, when you’re interested in spiritual, we are interested to have person become spiritual person. And using your mind, using your understanding, we’re not interested to create spiritual robot. You know what I mean? Training is good. But sometimes when you over-train people, you know if you try to talk to those, the telephone things, or anybody who pick up the telephone thing, and no matter how much you talk to that person they will give you the same reply as though there is a tape recorder. Tell you the same thing. You can’t talk to them. You can’t negotiate. You cannot do anything. They just give you the same old answer which they been told to do it. So if you, you can sort of, you know, human intelligence has been, what you, what should I say? Underestimated, or reduced to some kind of robot-type of functioning. Which is not very nice. And it is that, if you function that way, you cannot function in spiritual path. And some people may think, say this is different. This is material. This is spiritual path. Mind you, the traditional Tibetan teachings will say. Okay, let me tell you that little different. There was a very wonderful guy slightly like behaving a little crazy. And this is true example of crazy wisdom. It’s also the founder of one of these outstanding Kagyu tradition called [? Tibetan 0:41:49.2] tradition. He’s the founder of that. He runs around in the street of Lhasa carrying a bow and arrow at his back. Wears a funny dress.

0:42:00.0.

And puts it up to here and walks around. Sort of a homeless type of guy. Walks around. And crazy. And I’m sure dirty. And I’m sure filthy, too, hygienic wise, you know? Got to be. And so he goes around and actually, actually it’s a great being, you know. Really wonderful being. There was an old woman who died and she has a very, very beautiful turquoise, very beautiful turquoise. And she wears the turquoise on her hair like this. And just before she died she took the turquoise out, give to the family, and told the family, give it to that person and ask him help me to go to pure land. So the family looked through and they thought this is very expensive turquoise. It’s really good. So we don’t want give him that. Instead of that, they give him something else. And they found him roaming around the street and they call him, and so give him something else. And whatever they give, he look at it, he look at it, he’s not thinking this is the one. He started throwing in the, instead of giving back, started throwing at the sort of sewage thing goes through. Started throwing whatever they give him, started throwing back. And then finally they talked and they said, I think he knows. Better give him that. So then when he give him that, he said oh, [? Tibetan0:43:39.4]. He says, the little turquoise should go in my, the what you call that? You carry the arrows, you know Native Americans do. Quiver, okay. The small turquoise goes into the quiver and the old lady goes into the pure land. That’s what he did. And he throw like this again, whether it’s going to the quiver or went into sewage. Who knows? And they don’t really have a thing. So he goes round like that. And one day, he happens to meet an old lady. And happens to be Tara’s manifestation.

[0:44:25.9 On fast forward or something??? I tried slowing the speed to 25%, but it still sounds like a Martian talking, and I can’t understand any of it.]

0:45:00.2 Still unintelligible.

0:45:06.2 Now playing normal.

Well, in the first place she didn’t let me even sit in the room. Second place now she’s giving such a terrible tea. So he said, what is it? What did he said? He said, there’s not a smell of butter or something. And he says, not fit to be drinking by human beings, so therefore I throw at the wall. So he throw the tea at wall. Then she immediately picked him up and said [Tibetan 0:45:40.8]. So he says, you don’t even have the smell of normal human good character. Good, normal human beings’ behavior. How can you be a spiritual practitioners? So there’s no room for you. Get out. So he kick him out. That’s it. So that is exactly what it is. Spiritual, if you don’t have a normal, good, basic human qualities, you’re not going to build any spiritual path at all. Number of us will think, spiritual path is something that’s not depend on the human way of functioning. Specially where the society functions. Where the how things functioning. We think spiritual path is totally something else. Strange, somewhere else. That’s not, I believe it’s not true. And this is great example where they say, if there is no normal human behavior there, how can you have been spiritual practitioner? Get out of my place. That’s what she said. So the spiritual interested person, the really spiritual development is making the individual better. This is not philosophy. This is not a story. This is the reality. After all, the spiritual path is those people who meditates. Those people who do this, who does that. What are they doing for? What they doing for? They’re doing for the individual to make better. They’re doing it for cutting down the neurosis. They’re doing it for separate the neurosis then your own self. Making self pure, free of anger, free of attachment, free of ignorance, free of hatred. And that is spiritual path. Why it’s spiritual path? Because of that.

0:48:00.7.

All the result that coming there after to you is a very high level that we don’t, we never knew already before. We never knew. A tremendous amount of goodness comes follows that. And that’s why the true spiritual path is cutting down our neurosis and building up positive karma. Nothing else. All other things, initiations, empowerments, retreat, and meetings, and everything is to build that up. They’re all methods. They’re not essence. They’re all method. If you go to the Zen tradition, they will tell you sit without any thinking. Sit, sit for 48 hours without thinking. So if you can do that you’ll be okay. So all this is method. Why do you sit? Because you watch your mind. What are you watching? There’s no thiefs coming in there. There’s no robbers coming in there. There’s no security risk there. But simply you are watching because whether you’re getting the negative ideas in there or not. And when you moment, the moment you notice negative thoughts, you try to remove that. And that’s why you sit. That’s why you watch. Why do people take initiations? Initiations gives you empowerment of cutting down the negative addictions. And that’s why initiation you. Why people say mantra? Because mantra pure, some of them purifies negativities. Some of them give you protection in mind. The word mantra really means protecting one’s mind. Mind. Mental protection is mantra means. Bottom line. As a bottom line, if we doing the translate it, [? Not sure I got this right? 0:50:09.3] it won’t, it becomes something else. And Vwhen you go down and really say at end what does meaning is, protecting mind. So that’s why right from the beginning I said mind is the most important. And it is. And that is how we deal with mind. Spiritual path is always something to do with mind. Nothing else. When the mind is worked well with the spiritual path, then you can work other parts of the individual, like the body or speech and all this can be utilized as in the spiritual practice. Because mind is working. Am I talking nonsense, or rubbish, or whatever? Basically that’s what it is. True spiritual practice is making the individual better person.

0:51:00.9.

Develop a little more kindness. Little more understanding. Becoming goodness. Being a good person. As I tell you, Buddha is the ultimate example of being good person. So following that, and that means you have to make our self good person and reach up to that level. I’m sorry I’m not, my job not demystify the spiritual reality. But it is sometimes important, because it becomes so mystical thing and people hype that, and people enjoy that, you know, some kind of mystery hiding behind, and certainly going to appeared, and something else will happened. I don’t think it ever 0:54:01.4does, and it will never be. As long as you keep on thinking, it is sort of a mystery over then, something let’s hope for the best, and let’s do whatever we could do and let’s hope for the best. It’s something we’re looking for the some mystical thing will come and hit on our head and get into trance or something. It never happens. It never will be. The true spiritual practice is making yourself a better person. It’s bottom line and it is very grounded [? 0:52:37.5]. All these methods what we’re going to talk to you, talking to you, is the way and how you help to make yourself improving. Some kind of a little ad here. Some help here. Some help there. And these are the suggested ways. Actually what you’re doing is training your mind, to tell the truth. And this is not a simple mind training, but actually training, it’s gold mind training! [Laughs]. Or platinum mind training. That’s joke. [Laughs]. But the truth is you’re training yourself. And no one else train you. You should train yourself. What are you training yourself? Try not to get upset. Learn how not to, how to be little kinder than what we are. Learn how to be compassionate. Learn how to care. Caring. Compassion. Loving. And that’s, that’s really what it is. And cutting down anything goes against that principle. Love and compassion. Anger goes against love and compassion. We all know that. Right?

0:54:01.4.

When you’re angry, you’re not going to share love with the person who you’re angry. Right? They will definitely tell you no, no, no. Even you go there and say, no. Am I angry with that person? Right? The anger will yell and scream. So you see the anger and compassion doesn’t go together. It is opposite. And sort of love. Love and anger doesn’t go together. Love and hatred doesn’t go together. When you hate somebody, you don’t love. [Laughs] Is that true? Maybe you have both. Love and hate go together. I don’t know. Maybe you don’t have complete hate. Maybe you don’t have complete love. Maybe that’s what I meant. Playing trick. Turn by turn. Maybe, but really, truly, if somebody hates somebody, you don’t develop love to that. And even you force yourself loving that person, you always have difficult. You have set back. Because your anger will, your hatred will tell you, I hate that person, screaming there! Screaming there. That’s why. So that’s why, that’s how you see it. How these two goes against each other. So cutting down the opposite of that, is improving this one. That is very, very true. Cutting down the hatred helps develop compassion, love. And if there is hatred, and you try to develop love and compassion together, very difficult, with the exception of one or two people may be able to do it. But mostly it’s difficult. So really, truly spiritual developing person really meaning cutting the causes of suffering, which is negativity. And building positive karma as much as possible. Bottom line, that’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. And keeping that in principle, whatever you have to do it. Do it, and that’s fine. If you lose the principle, you’ll lose it. What you need to know is what’s your principle. What you want it. Do you want to be an angry person, or do you want to be loving person? When you asked that question to yourself, by you, without anybody else present, your answer’s going to be, I want to be a loving person. Why? Because me, I, do not associate, don’t want associate with bad name, that is angry person.

0:57:01.0.

So I always like to associate my name, myself with good person. So I always wanted to associate with love rather than with hate. Because that is, again, our habit. That’s again, our addiction. Self becomes extremely important in our mind stream for long, long time. So anything that self associating with bad, you freak out. So therefore you choose anything the good one. Yet what we do is exactly opposite thing. So the spiritual path is recognizing what you want it, and try to keep that your principle. And work towards that. Meditations are all for this. Saying mantras all this. And going through with this and getting information is all for this. When you be able to do that, that is you internalize the spiritual path. And that’s what I call it. Remember? I said, collecting information, analyze them, and internalize them. Three steps. One – collect. Two – analyze. Three – internalize. That’s what it is. That’s only what it takes. Anyway, what I’ve been talking today, I’m still emphasizing the position of mind. Is this the last Thursday? [? Audience answer: 0:58:45.2. Next week is the meditation…] Okay. Well if it’s the last Thursday, then I probably should try to, oh. I should try to cover these fourth and fifth. At least the fourth. Envision supreme field. Envision supreme field. So if you, there again, if you’re going to work with your self, you need help. You can do yourself. You should do by yourself. You are the only person who can make a difference to yourself. However, you also need support. If you don’t have the force behind you, it is difficult to achieve. Anything. So, support is the supreme field. Field is, you know, when you grow corns and when there’s good field you get good corn, and bad field, bad corns.

1:00:00.5.

Likewise, supreme field the best support where you can get it. And doesn’t matter who ever you want put there. Doesn’t matter. I’m talking from the Buddhist point of view so, because that’s the only thing I know. But even Hindu thing, too. So that’s only I know. So from the Buddhist point of view, and from the Buddhist point, we use Buddha. Buddha. Not necessarily historical Buddha as such. But it’s also linkage with the future Buddha and my Buddha. Buddha within me. And since Buddha within me is not matured, so we use historical Buddha’s description to be envisioned in front of us. Envisioning is extremely important because people do set up alters and temples and this and that. And that’s fine. Great. Wonderful. All great. Wonderful, no doubt. But what I’m doing is I’m training my mind. I’m not training my eye. I’m not training me to go to temple. I’m not training to look in my altar. I’m training my mind so that I need my Buddha. My Buddha that’s connected with my future Buddha within me who’s also connected with all the enlightened beings. All these enlightened beings. And that’s why envisioning is more important than looking at statues or images or tankas. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to have them. You have it. It’s great. But most important thing – envisioning. If you cannot visualize, that’s also fine. There’s the field energy. If you can visualize, it’s good. If you cannot visualize, field energy. And once you have that as sort of your helper, protector, supporter, and source of force that help you to go through. And then you make a request. If you don’t know how to, I mean if you don’t, if you don’t have something to read, doesn’t matter. Talk to them person, like a person. Hey, I need help. Could you help me? This is what I would like to achieve. Help me. Just talk to that person. Talk to. It’s important. But then don’t talk when you, you know, don’t talk too much. Other people will see, who was talking gone crazy. [Laughs] You have to make again judgment over there.

1:03:00.0.

You have to know how much you can talk to. [Laughs] Should not produce the [? 1:03:13.0] story. I think that’s it. And so have a supreme field, and think and make a request. In principle, in life, try to be good person. Try to be kind person. And you’re going to lose here and there for sure. After all, we’re human beings. Right? And if somebody says, somebody boo you, you’re going to use F word straightaway. Without any hesitation. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. But what does matter is try to recognize that and try to change. Try to change. Doesn’t matter if you recognize week later, even then doesn’t matter. But, you know, try to cut down that slowly. Cutting the addiction is difficulty. Extremely difficult. But if you have a strong will, you can do anything you want to. This is a human quality. If you have a strong willpower, you can do anything you want to. It’s a human quality. So make use of the quality what we have it. And cut down as we cut down the [?? 1:04:36.1], you should also cut down the anger, hatred, jealousy. All this. And that’s only you can do. Nobody else can do. You don’t have to go and tell people anything. You don’t have to admit, but you know it, you recognize, acknowledge. And say, hey, you’re here. I did not recognize you before, because you’ve been hiding under the big I. The big director from there. It’s sort of marched into the bodyguard of the big director. Sort of went in there. It’s always that way. It goes under that sort of bodyguard for the big self that we think it’s important within us. So once you begin to think, begin to recognize, you’ll see. You’ll say, hey you are, you, I’m recognize you. So, wait a minute, I have to deal with you. [Laughs] That’s how you catch. And once you caught them, and keep on recognizing. Awareness and recognition is the bridge between the positive and the negativeness before we transformed them into positive. So I thank you so much. And we are sort of hoping to go through with this.

1:06:00.5.

But we have come up to fourth level and even you do that much and with a little practice that we give you, for daily practice, if you do that, it will help you. Then occasionally we’ll meet again, but we still, if you want to come up to Ann Arbor, we’ll still be meeting [Discussion of future meetings].

1:07:00.6. Everybody for being here. I do hope it has some help for you. And your goal is to improve yourself. That’s your spiritual path. Don’t think of some mystical thing up there. I’m becoming Buddha. I’m becoming this and that. That is longshot. Our really true goal is make ourselves better. Okay? Thank you.