Archive Result

19980713GRAABWL

TAPE FOURTEEN (07/13/98)

..joy and happy all these twelve weeks that I have been away. Each and every one of you have participated very well, and few people who have requested to lead they also have done a great job. I hope there will be more people who will do the same thing in future. So actually I am looking for people who will be able to teach Tibetan Buddhism. They have done great work and I sort of very much encouraged in the sense of people leading in the discussion group. There are more but I only have room for twenty two people. There are more people who can do which means whatever efforts we put maybe the last seven, eight, nine, or ten years or maybe thirteen, fourteen years, all of them are not been wasted. It has not only help the individual themselves and they are in the position to help others, which is great indication. I am really happy and I thank you for doing that. And also people who have participated, they have given tremendous encouragement for these people, as well as you get benefit yourself. This is because you be able to deal with your own life and handle all this. So the first and foremost, I like to say thank you to everybody.

And then, secondly, I have to talk to you about my trip, rather than talking to you about spiritual path. Maybe they are inter-related. As I always do when I go for a trip and come back. First I went to Holland, where the Jewel Heart Holland is. They have a very strong program. They always have a way of functioning. They will restrict the number of people who come, so that they can take care of them. That is how the Dutch functions themselves. As far as I am concern, I just let the people in whatever the area is to do what they want to do, at least how they meet and what they do-the administrative part. I never interfere you know. The teaching part is my job and that is what I do. Anyway, they have a very strong group now. It is about a hundred, and they have a program everyday. I have been wondering how they manage. They have it everyday including Sunday. They have all different courses going on-Senior Lam Rim Course, Junior Lam Rim Course, Medium Level Course, Three Principal Path Course, The Foundation of Perfection Course. And all these they move from one to another, and they have Vajrayana. Even then on top of that, thangka painting , language course,medical study and all sorts of things. And now they have a teacher's training course going on too. All of them are very busy almost everyday. There is an even Open Meditation on Friday nights. Open Meditation means the room is open and anyone can come and meditate but there will be no instructions. There will be one senior meditating there and if nobody comes, he or she will just stay there for two full hours. They make it a principle that whoever is responsible shall stay for two hours even if no one turns up, so that the opportunity for people to meditate is available. The Holland Jewel Heart is functioning very well.

I did three different teachings of which all are interconnected. One was a five days workshop. Basically this is open to everybody. And then there was four or five days of teaching. And then at the end was the Heruka Initiation. That was how I concluded my work in Holland.

Then I took off for three days in Taipei. I went to Taiwan because I don't want to go to Malaysia from Europe because the six or seven hours difference made difficult. So I went to Taipei because that is also the only place where we do not have anybody or Jewel Heart. Also I like to see Taiwan, and later on I went to China.

On the fourth day, I went to Malaysia. The day I arrived, I started teaching that night. That is normally scheduled that way, that is why I want three days in between. Anyway, twenty two days teaching in Malaysia, Singapore combined together. They are also the same thing, same old people in Malaysia. I have made restrictions in Malaysia because it was Lama Chopa teaching. So only those who have received Vajrayana initiations. Even then there are forty or fifty people there. At the end I did Vajrayogini Initiation too, and a couple of White Tara long life initiations in between. That is exactly what happened in Malaysia and Singapore.

Then I went to Beijing. Now is the complicated part. It was sort of funny for me because I have never been to Beijing before. I came out of Tibet in 1959 or kicked out or ran out, I don't know. Since then I never went back to China. Last two or three years we planned to go and a number of people wanted to go with me, especially late Allen Ginsberg really wanted to go with me to Tibet. And then Philip and Francesco Clementi want to go there and stayed for a month. We never got the reply from them, so we did not go. This time I try to go and asked the visa from China through a friend in New York who knows the people, and got it straightaway. I could not go then, and second time when I asked, they said I do not need a second visa. They extended the old one. So if you know somebody there is no problem whatsoever.

So I went from Singapore. I was expecting Beijing to be huge developed nation. I was expecting a beautiful and maybe modernized , maybe not like Taiwan or Singapore, but something reasonable. To my surprise, it is an unfinished airport. It is small, really strange unfinished airport. I change the Singapore money into Chinese yuan in the middle of the night just before I got into the plane to China. All the money that I got has Mao's head as the picture. I feel 'yuh' but I have to carry. It was rather strange for me having the Mao's head on the notes. And then without any difficulty or any problem they straightaway let me in. So I went to Beijing and spent about two weeks there. I stayed in a very nice hotel. But the human mind is so funny. I think on the second night or something, I remembered Richard Gere's Red Corner. So I thought I better be careful with my hotel doors and locked all of them, and wanted to put the chair behind it. And then I thought to myself if the soldiers come with the gun and kicked the door at night and take me away, the chair is not going to do any good. So just forget about it. That sort of how psychologically it is working though there is no sign of anything. But still I was afraid. There is some kind of intense heaviness in the air. That is totally psychological. Nobody was chasing me, nobody was following me. And yet psychologically it felt strange.

First of all the hotel I stayed, everybody speaks English from the waiter, to the guard and porter. So you don't really see big difference inside there. And then second and third day I went out and tried to see. It is not the old Chinese, truly speaking. Old Chinese they will say everything 'mei youi' meaning there is nothing. If you asked somebody they say no all the time and they don't even care. That was the attitude of the Chinese before. And today it is completely changed. When you get out of the hotel, there is a taxi waiting, sort of officially acknowledge by the hotel. At the same time there will be another group of taxis waiting there. They will scream from there saying that we give you ten per cent less or twenty per cent less or thirty per cent less, wherever you go. That is the number one change. The second thing what I noticed is another huge difference I was looking for certain things and normally they say no no we don't have it. Instead they say I don't have it but somebody else have it, so I will call you tomorrow. They called me the next day and told me they don't have it but somebody else do and they would call me the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow they called me and said they have it here, should I deliver to your hotel or would you come here to buy. That was a big shock for me. Normally they would just say no, it is not there. That sort of thing is going on in China. In short, it was ten years back New Delhi. It was exactly the same thing they had in the capital of India ten years ago. There are tremendous amount of bicycles and lots and lots of cars, and terrible traffic jam. And then there are people moving on horse cart, and bull cart and plus those people at the hotel doors trying to cheat or steal something. Everything is the same, even the attitude. It was exactly the condition in New Delhi ten years ago. There are also tremendous amount of rules there but nobody cares about the rules and everybody breaks every law. As long as you don't interfere in politics. If you try to involve in politics you are in trouble, absolutely. In the political sense they will only have to praise the ruling party,nothing else. If you don't want, you just shut up, and don't say a word about politics. Historical questionable, to certain level yes it has become part of history;to certain level it is sensitive. So you can't talk about history either. If you talk about great emperor this and that, that is fine. But other than that, it is quite sensitive. And economic point of view, people in the rural area and people in the urban area, there is big difference. The Chinese population is 2.5 billion. Supa says as we are speaking it is increasing. When you look at those, number one, there is a huge gap between the city people and the rural village. In almost all the cities, people are after money and wanted to make money no matter what it may take, right or wrong, legal or illegal. As long as you are not touching sensitive area, even smuggling is okay. In the rural area, the living standard is so simple. I tried to get round to a few villages near Beijing. I couldn't get into anybody's house, but they are very poor. I don't know whether it is poorer in India or China, but they are very poor. And there are few people working in the cities and living in the villages. They look like little lords in the village.

My brother has a friend, a Chinese photographer and he is married to a French woman. He is working in the city and lives about two hours away in the village. They drive so it is okay. I was invited to their house for dinner because I wanted to see. They have three or four servants but all the houses nearby look really poor. The urban area is extremely poor. And I really don't think they really care what's happening in the center. In policy as long as they have enough to eat. That is why the majority of the Chinese don't bother. They are only scared they lose their pants. That is really true. You know why? One thing this is a group and we are just talking about it. I am not a political analyst, but I was watching those political analyst who are China experts, one thing they never said which I thought is absolutely true during the 1940s before the World War Two and after the Chiang Kai Shek period, a lot of rural areas they don't have shirt or pants to wear. One family had one pants and one shirt. When one family member went out, all others had to wait until he came back. So now they have the pants they are afraid of losing the pants. It is really true!

So any change they are scared. They are absolutely scared of losing their pants. So the rural people, it is the students, the intellectual people, and the business people and city dwellers, they really wanted change. But the rural area has tremendous reservations. This was what I saw, and maybe I am absolutely wrong. All the experts are definitely right, but nobody mentions that, That was amazing to me. Even if you look at 1989, the student thing, they sent the army from Beijing, and army in the city refused to shoot. Then the rural army came and shot indefinitely anybody who came by. All of those are very strange thing in there and I really hope they will change that. And I think I am right, I see this Xiang Zhe Min guy, the President. He go to the rural area in army uniform and gave lectures and talks to them. Somehow people has to pay their attention in the rural areas and they are there. They are conservative simply scared of losing their pants. That's what I really think it is. So they think now we have of us has pants and shirts to wear, and if they make changes I may lose that. I think that's what they are afraid of it.

Then I met a couple of my good old friends. When I was young there was a rinpoche. He happens to be in Beijing. I have contact with one rinpoche who is the Secretary General of the Chinese Buddhist Association. When I was in Beijing, I called him, and he invited me to see him. I have two brothers who came from Tibet with me there too. Then he invited me to go to his office. His office happens to be the training center for young incarnate lamas. It was established by the late Panchen Lama. There are fifty young incarnate lamas receiving the training, including that new Chinese Panchen Lama. He comes occasionally but his case is totally different. But the Panchen Lama that Dalai Lama recognized is not there, not part of any training or teachings. But they are all together in the same area.

When I went in there was this huge sign at the door saying 'Forbidden for foreign nationals or citizens'. I was wondering whether I could go in. So my brother was also not sure. We went in, and there was a guard, and asked, are you the two people from Tibet? And he said go when my brothers replied yes. I went there ten times, and that day they were very busy. The Panchen Lama recognized by the Chinese was arriving for some initiations and they had selected almost five outstanding teachers from the Yunnan province and Chinghai province to give teaching and initiation to him.The five were sitting and waiting for him. The security was so tight. The head of the school, another rinpoche, suddenly popped up. When the Secretary General asked to be excused because I was visiting, he said he also wanted to see me. So he saw me too. He told me that the security for the Panchen Lama is as tight as the President of China. They are afraid something is going to kill this guy. So even they come and get teachings and initiations, there is no regular set program. So some day they will be present and some day they don't. And when they do, they have to do everything quickly and then he goes away. So the teachers were sittting there and waiting whether he is going to be present today or tomorrow. So they said they never come between nine and five. It is the teachers' job be there waiting ready to go. On the other hand, all these other lamas are getting all these different initiations and everything. And that is one way little bit hopeful. And I talked to these two rinpoches and I said, how many incarnate lamas you have from Tibet proper rather than non Tibetan speaking area like Yunnan. Both of them told me we have big problem fromTibet proper. Everybody we taught will be useful for this training are never allowed to go. And any useless one, they will send their names. So they said we do not take their names because the names we send they did not take , and the result of that is forty eight of the incarnate lamas are from the nearby chinese areas, not from Tibet. And in the Yunnan and Chinghai provinces, if you teach Buddhism there is no problem. There is a problem, it is illegal but nobody takes action. So you can do anything you want to. Even in Beijing there are groups of people following Tibetan buddhism. Bakula Rinpoche who came here two years ago, being ambassador to Mongolia, went to Beijing to give Heruka Initiation and Yamantaka Initiations and there were three hundred or four hundred attending, it is all underground, all illegal. So Bakula Rinpoche goes there very often. It is illegal but nobody takes action, as long as you do not touch politics. But then the Indian ambassador gives initiations.

But in Tibet proper, the situation is terrible at this moment. It is bad because they associate Buddhism not as Buddhism, but Lamaism. And the rulers, the power in Tibet, even call it Dalaistic, or Dalaism. So they associate any buddhism practice with the Dalai Lama and so become political. Not only political but separatist and this and that. So the situation is really bad. And the people that I met, a number came from Tibet by the morning flight to meet me. And listening to those people they said in '87, '88,'89,'90 and up to '91,it was very relax in Tibet, as it was in China. After 1993, it becomes tighter and tighter. That is what is going on in Tibet at this moment. It is very tight in Tibet. In Beijing as long as you don't talk politics it is okay. In Tibet, you don't talk about politics and Buddhism then you are okay. So it is almost to that situation. It is sad indeed and that's what's happening in Tibet.

And especially last year, three most important teachers in Tibet died. One is the Lamrimpa,one who sits in meditation, and Tony told me, he read in the internet, he walked through the wall. And during the Cultural Revolution he did not eat at all. And Kunga Rinpoche whom Jewel Heart tried to support and bring to America, Los Angeles, . We supported him there but he died there. And there was one who taught very well, called Geshe Wangchuk. His car fell down from some mountain top and he died. So three important teachers died in one year,plus they had these difficulties. It is very dark in Central Tibet. The head of the school I mentioned earlier, he himself gave the Kalacakra Inititation last year in inner Mongolia. That is part of China, chinese Mongolia. And he said there were two hundred thousand people attending. He gave twice. One time is two hundred thousand people, and the second time is thirty thousand people. Rinpoche asked what happened. He said they received once and were happy and wanted to come back. So they have no problem that side. There is another rinpoche called Kuntangza. He gave Kalacakra four years ago in different area in Amdo. They said six hundred thousand people attended. It was sort of little valley they occupied and put loud speakers on the hilltop, and that is how they manage. And then they are scared of reporting to the Chinese that there were six hundred thousand people,so they reported there were two hundred thousand there. But among themselves they agreed there were four hundred thousand definitely there and sort of reduced fifty per cent. And then some Norwegians who had some kind of machines they carried and could check the population. And they reported there were six hundred thousand people there. So the Chinese government asked about the difference, and wanted to know how many came. So they said, it might have been four hundred.

So in one way that is what is going on. On the other hand in those areas where these lamas are giving initiations and teachings, all the monasteries are run by the monks of the monasteries. They have an executive committee which functions all the monasteries, and all those people are elected by the people who are connected to the monasteries directly. Nobody appoints them. But in Tibet proper,and every head of the committe been appointed by the Governor and they are not allowed to elect. And they bring from different areas the anti buddhist, or real strong communist, and make them head of all these big monasteries. That makes another difficulty. So this Chuze Rinpoche, the rinpoche who is giving Kalacakra in China,and I told him,( he goes to Tibet often he said) if you go to Tibet would you give some teachings? He said he will be happy to give teachings but somebody has to request him because he is not going to sit there and said he is going to give teachings and you all come. After a little while he told me it is very sensitive in Tibet, and he explained to me about the head of administration of all groups been appointed and are all anti buddhists;most of them are real communist of the Mao leftover. He said it is very sensitive but he would try whatever he could in Central Tibet.

That was about it in China. And everybody was looking for Bill Clinton to come that time when I was there. Everybody - taxi drivers, and vegetable sellers, people at friendship shops- everybody talks about Bill Clinton, and Michael Jordan. They came to know I was from America, and many of them asked me whether Michael Jordan was coming with Bill Clinton. That is the city area but in the rural area, nothing.

Then I went to Mongolia. It is about two hours so I went to see Bakula Rinpoche who is still there as Indian ambassador. He was very sick last year. By the time when I got there, first he was on the wheelchair, then he was on the walker, and by the time I was there, he was walking with a stick. Rinpoche looked very thin and very old. He told me my own age this year is eighty-two (exact words translated from Tibetan). But he is very strong, very healthy and giving lots of teachings in Mongolia. Not only be an Indian Ambassador, he built a monastery of his own and goes there every Saturday to give teachings, and there are about forty monks.Incidentally Bakula Rinpoche's monastery is the only monastery in Mongolia whose monks are monks. Another words, all monks are true monks.All old Mongolian monasteries, all monks are married. Though they are following Gelugpa system, they are all married. I went to the biggest monastery, the Ganden Te Cheling, and Bakula wanted to send a message to inform them I was coming. I told him not to and wanted to just be a tourist. They were having a prayer meeting. When I walked in some of these older monks started looking. They noticed something but I am not sure. Their wives were on the last row and the kids were running in between. But that is in the Mongolian tradition for five or six hundred years. And there are lots of monasteries in Mongolia. The big difference between China and Mongolia ,there is no pressure in Mongolia.

(End of Side A)

Side B

It is a very beautiful place. It is one open dessert, green dessert. There is no tree, maybe one or two, but they said in July, October, September, it is totally green. When I was there, it was middle of June, it was brown completely. They said they did not have rain for a long time. The day I came, they had rain and they were very happy. They said the day after tomorrow would be green, but it was still brown. Buddhism is freely practised in Mongolia. It is no longer a communist country. But also very difficult too. It is completely land locked and to my surprise it is very beautiful, very open and you can see miles and miles not a single human being. And suddenly somewhere appeared a pickup truck . And up there somewhere there is one little field. It is such an open and beautiful place. The sky is crystal clean blue, just like it used to be in Tibet. And I met a number of Americans at the hotel I was staying. I asked them what they were doing. They said they were from the mining company. They were mining uranium, gold, platinum there. They must be digging a lot. Probably a few years time that will be gone. That was the sad part in Mongolia.

And it is funny too. Now that they changed from the communist to sort of democratic country, the funny thing is the President is thirty-one years old, and the Prime Minister is twenty-nine and all other cabinet ministers are less than twenty-five. Not only that, they function and plan like a student idea like they want something but could not implement it due to lack of experience, or money or functioning. So the public demanded that they should have a new election which is not due for three or four years. So they are going to have election next year.

Then I went to Beijing and flew directly to Detroit. So now here I am, and the whole story of what went on.

As I said earlier, everybody did great job and I thank you. But the whole thing whatever we have been doing, is the purpose whatever we are talking, learning, listening, practice, meditating -whatever you do, you have all these choice for your spiritual path. You can learn, you can practice, you can meditate, you can analyze or you can just believe it. Everything is fine.

Normally I don't like believing system at all. I hate to believe; it is me personally. I don't like it. But the teachings from Tibetan Buddhism, even you believe it is not going to let you down. It is because we have checked it but it is the Buddha who has shared his personal experience which has been confirmed by many great teachers in between. Therefore it is safe, and that's why I used the word 'believe'. But believing is the last thing to do. You don't really want to believe it. Unless you are very strange like some believers believed no matter what is happening. Even when you see it is wrong, you would like to believe that way. That is strange, that is different. Normal people like us, when you try to believe something, and somebody else tells you are absolutely wrong, then you begin to think am I wrong, or what I did? This is the problem. That is why I don't like the believing system at all. But if you can't do anything else, just believe it, you are safe. That is all I can say.

But the best thing for you is to pick up the points, information and to analyze by yourself. As the students do their homework and understand, the same way here. I don't like to call them homework, but do analyze. Think about it. By analyzing you begin to understand what you are doing, thinking, or talking about. You begin to understand how that affects the individual. And once you begin to understand and get it, and then you have to meditate and concentrate. That is how you change your normal habits. Otherwise we can't change our habits. Our habits are so strong. And when you have a very strong habit of attachment, and attachment will go everywhere. So any single person you see, attachment will go. Or, any single beautiful thing you see, attachment will go. So it has no control, and you have no control because you have been guided by your attachment. So does the anger. And if you are irritated, it becomes anger, and then hate and it keeps on burning within you rather than clearing. So these things are the points you have to see.

The total Buddhist practice, what did the Buddha really share? Buddha never said if you sit there, I will bless you, and you will get it. He never said that because it is not going to happen. Blessing is there, yes but blessing is blessing. Blessing is not scientific. The blessing may make some difference, or a little bit easier, but it is not going to deliver goods. So does miracle. Miracles do happen. All the time it is happening. It will make life a little easier, but it never delivers the goods. So it totally depends on ourselves. I am responsible for my deeds totally. Whatever I do, good or bad, I am responsible. So actually speaking, you are the one who is really governing your life. You are the one who is making it right or wrong. But the real point is you are responsible to yourself.

So what makes me responsible? It is my deeds, my acts, my thoughts. And where are they coming from? How do I act normally? I have an idea first, then I translate the idea into action. Don't we do that? We think we need to get up then we get up. We think we need to put pants on, and then you put on. And if you think you need to take it off, you take it off. So the idea comes first. Idea or thoughts. And that makes the individual act. So a number of times, with or without realizing, noticing the ideas come up, we will function automatically without even a second thought. We just do whatever comes on our head. We normally do that. Lots of people do that. The difference between a fool and a wise, lies there. The wise person normally can see these different ideas and then see whether can do or cannot do, implement or not, or good or bad, and then function. Unless you are thirty or thirty-one years old president of a country. Otherwise you do that. A lot of us, the fools, we don't think but just act. So there will be lots of good actions and bad actions.And each and every one of them when we execute it, we are creating a karma, whether it is good or bad. That is how we created karma. And that karma is what I am responsible. I am responsible for the karma. When the good karma materialize it will give you nice, comfortable, good life; the bad karma will give you miserable, horrible, difficult life. That is how Buddha sees we are responsible to ourself.

So whenever we want to have something good for ourself or for the group, or family or for everybody, the way and how is on the actions we take. It is any mental, physical, spiritual, emotional actions that we indulge in. The actions that you take is the idea comes up and between the implementation and the idea, that is the room for you to see, filter, accept or reject. A number of you probably think when I have that emotional problem, I don't want it but I can't help it, it is there.

Sure, you can't help it, it is there because it is our habit. We are so used to it, so it looks like automatic. Because we have been doing that so long, carrying those negative emotions. Unnecessary depressions all these types of things. For no reason you get depressed and sad and all of them, because we are so much in the habit of doing that. This is our habit, habitual pattern which is leading to the negativity, negative actions.

So when you are a spiritual practitioner, what you do? You intervene in that. Don't let it run through without any obstacles. Those negative emotions, try to put a break wherever you can. At the beginning level, it is not that difficult. When you are getting really seriously in that, you have a lot of problems too, stronger problems. And after a little while, you will conquer the problem. That is the normal procedure. At the beginning you think I don't want to think about that, or I want to forget about it but still I remember. Better late than never. So then try to put that thing and it will work. And when you begin to take it seriously, the problem on the other side gets much stronger . It is not really stronger, but they push lots of negative forces. It is almost overwhelming, and becomes difficult. But that moment you have to put your efforts together and try not to lose the ground. Hang on there and keep on working. It will make the difference.

So in essence to me the spiritual practice really means our habit of doing the negativity is changed. Change that habitual pattern of running into negativity. That is the spiritual step number one. And I don't go for worshipping and praying, singing and chanting, mantra saying. They are all fine, good and it has its own purposes. I have nothing against that. But the real spiritual path is to make the individual different. Different than whatever you were before. Try to improve that. That is the essence of the spiritual practice to me. Nothing else is.

The purpose of spiritual practice is to make yourself better, a better person, a kinder person, gentle person. That is the whole purpose. Whatever the method it takes, If it is meditation, fine. Or, mantra saying, fine. Whatever works for the individual, that will be fine. But the most important thing is you have to be analyzing yourself. You pick up your anger, recognize; or attachment, recognize. And after a little while, you will recognize the face of attachment, or anger. Even the smell of anger, and attachment you will recognize. When it comes from the distance, you begin to smell, and then you can take action. And then when you are doing that for years together,sometimes some thing happens and you lose totally. Don't worry. Lots of people normally say oh I lost. Yes, fine, because you have something to lose. So you lost, so what is wrong with that. But one good thing is you are recognizing your loss. You are recognizing it is wrong.And that itself is tremendous help. That itself is a progress. And don't worry you are lost after thirty years of practice. If you got nothing to loose, you would be Buddha by now. We are not. There is something to lose, we lose. But the most important point is don't give up. If you give up, you get nowhere. It is constant you have to go.It is the awareness in life which really counts. Not how much prayers you said, or meditations you do.They are all fine, great but the constant awareness. Our consciousness at this moment, is like a four year old monkey. It is lost in the museum,inside your body. So if you don't have the awareness, it will break anything. That is why awareness is important. It is almost the key. But without realizing, the monkey breaks a few antiques here and there,don't freak out. It is alright, fix them up. Get some crazy glue and join them together.Whatever it takes, try to fix them up. But awareness. It is exactly the same thing our habitual pattern will automatically say bad things, arise anger for nothing. Did anybody see Larry King Live last night ? Adele Charlie and Daniel Bortecelli they started getting angry and angry and finally they almost screaming each other. It was on National television. So that happens, It is habitual patterns make you do that. I always say anger changes your personality and give example of looking at the monkey backwards. It was funny and vivid what happened yesterday. They were talking about whether O J is guilty or not guilty. If you have awareness you would not be showing that temper on Larry King Live. So when you do not have awareness you go crazy and that was what happened to them. So always bring awareness. It is not so much you have to be disciplined. Discipline is one way of doing it. The whole purpose is to think differently, to perceive differently, to act differently. Whether you are going to do this by discipline or by understanding, I will choose the later one. By understanding is the intelligent way. We have tremendous wonderful human mind. You know why the Buddha tells you that only in the human life can bring you buddhahood or you go down, it is only the human life can do, and no other life. It is true because the human mind is unimaginable.You look at the human achievement. You may call it scientific achievement or Einstein's production, but it is human achievement.Each and every human being has the capacity. This might not be equal, but great capacity. If you can utilize our mind, you can make big difference.That is why human can make difference to our journey.

We take a lot of lives here and there. You know I believe in reincarnation so I am coming from there. Otherwise I lose my rinpoche title. Then the question of if you are not reincarnate lama, who are you? That is why I must protect my title and be a believer of reincarnation. I am just joking, Truly I just buy by the reincarnation.Reincarnation tells us we have lots of lives here and there. Sometimes we have been cats or dogs or cockroach or human beings. If you want to break the journey only this human life can make it. It is because of the mental capacity. It has unlimited capacity. Computers do not have mind, but it is made by human mind. That is why it does not go haywire unless you do, or make mistakes unless you do. The human mind is capable of making right or mistakes, both.

So the spiritual path that you utilize, you utilize that very mind and that very mind reverse our normal bad habits of associating ourself with negativity. Just reverse that and associate ourself with positivity. That is the key and that is the total purpose. There will be people who will teach you, or tell you how to meditate, or talk to you on the Three Principals, or the Foundation of Perfections, or Lam Rim or give you initiations.The whole purpose of all these is to make that switch. Every single thing is meant for that. A lot of people will look up to initiation and lose the ground of making this switch. People tend to forget that, and when this happens all the whole initiation and commitment is wasted. Or, maybe not wasted but the purpose is defeated.

So when you are entering the spiritual path, whatever level and wherever it comes, it is for one purpose, and that is for switching the negative bad habits. Is it easy? Certainly not. Very difficult. If you are in the habit of sleeping in the morning not getting up till twelve or one, and if you have to get up at nine o'clock it is very difficult. Almost impossible. But there are a lot of people who gets up at six o'clock too. But individual has become difficult because of habit. And if you have to go to bed early by ten or twelve, by the time it is eleven even you force yourself you won't sleep. So when you change that it is not easy. You lose lots of sleep. But it is changeable, and you know it. Just like that the negativities we create are mostly done through addiction to anger, attachment or jealousy. And that is what we need to change. That is the whole purpose, wherever whatever you do. You take initiation but do not lose your purpose. Do not lose your own point. That is important. People take initiations and they think they are in a different atmosphere, or completely different stage, so they lose the whole ground. What you call it in the normal Amreican language, 'where are you coming from' That is important in every level of practice. Don't forget where you are coming from, and what is your purpose.

(End of the Session)