Archive Result

Soundfile 19980122GRBHLR

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Birmingham, MI

Topic Lam Rim

Transcriber Janet Bourgon

Date 04/30/21

Most of you been here one time or another. I think there’s a lady over there at the corner that two people need it there. I’ve been doing here quite a while actually. Actually quite a, you know when you look back, quite a number of times we met in this place and then very short, little short time somewhere down in the Southfield, right? Somewhere. Yeah. And what we’ve been, what we have been doing for all this, and what we try to accomplish, and what is the purpose of it? I thought that’s the question we have to deal today. It is a little hard for me to say. But each and every individual, in my opinion, has to answer same question for yourself. And then find out. And why. What are you doing? What is it? So of course simple answer is I’m trying to develop spiritually. Something like, simple answer. To some people will just say, yeah. But then you know, I mean for me, I raise the question, so what do you mean by spiritual development? What happens? How you function? And what make difference? And how does it make difference? All of those I think one has to raise. And I try to put up lot of thoughts on that, and I try to visualize or pretend that I’m myself is a completely a stranger to this Buddhism, completely. A just a, a guy in downtown Detroit. And try to look in that and see, what do I see in there? And what do I get it? How can I communicate it to this? And it is very interesting, very interesting. Number one, and but people will just simply say a spiritual path. Or people will just simply say Buddhism. And more or less people don’t understand what really Buddhism is. Many people do not. But they talk about it and they talk as though they know Buddha himself. Been a good personal friend or something.

0:03:00.7.

But we really don’t get. And sort of the spiritual too. So spiritual thing. So it becomes all kind of anything, whatever. Nonscientific—should I say that? Non-materialistic thing. Anything whatever it might be, it becomes the spiritual path to many people. Anything is not mechanical, or something materialistic. If anything which is not materialistic, it becomes spiritual path. Is that correct? It’s a big question. I can’t say it is correct. I know, I cannot say. It’s not correct because a number of people have its own [? 0:04:01.5]. A number of teachers have its own way of putting, one way of presenting, and one, its own way of leading the people. And so but, what little I know of spiritual path, and I don’t think that is the spiritual path at all, to me. When you look at the human beings’activities, I mean sort of when you look at it, you have two types of activity, whether it’s physical or mental. So the spiritual practice is become totally mental. I mean there may be physical contributions, but it is the mental thing. It is nothing but mental development. And when I say mental development I’m sure you have different ideas. Well-educated. I’m not talking about that. Yeah I can say it. Well-educated, not in terms of school education, but in terms of knowing. Knowing. Well-knowledge person. So to me the spiritual development here is really the mind level. The level of the individual mind and becoming sort of [? incredible? 0:05:42.0] level of understanding. And adjustable, adoptable, peaceful, joyful.

0:06:00.0.

The Buddhist tells you it’s all knowing, enlightened. So when you begin to look at all knowing, it’s not possible. It is a gradual process. No one ever becomes enlightened overnight. Nobody. No one can ever become enlightened overnight. It is very gradual process. Not when you put efforts it brings the individual closer to that, to the enlightened level. So how does one individual bring to the closer, to the enlightened level? It is simply really three steps. Three points actually. Point number one is the recognizing the present in life conditions, shortcomings, and capabilities, wonderfulness of it. And using that. Really trying to get our self free. Free from the negative emotions. By reducing the negative emotions within our functioning, we gain the positive development. What don’t work for positive development, will work against negative emotions. And then, when it’s effected, when it’s reduced, then the positive thing is automatically comes in. And to me, the spiritual work, spiritual thing is to make the individual, to make it better person. To make the individual overcome the negativities. To make the individual to remain as positive as possible. Positive nature. And for you, when I use the word positive loosely, you may think very positive. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about actually non-virtuous and virtuous points. And sometimes those terminologies are, some people don’t like it.

0:09:00.0.

But sometimes useful. Useful. So the really, the spiritual development or spiritual whatever, work or efforts, is always looking within yourself, not looking outside. If you will look outside, we get into problem. It is always within the individual. Same as the evil, or devil, whatever you may call it. Also you cannot look outside. It is within ourself. So basically the spiritual, what should I say, spiritual seeker? Or whatever. The person who’s working for the spiritual path. And if you look very carefully, and that is really this within us, that negativity. And positivity that within us. We try to sort of struggle and fighting among ourself. That’s what it is. It is the fighting that we have between the, let’s call it non-virtuous force and let’s call it virtuous actions. So we do have that struggle all the time. And sometimes our mind is such and they will support the virtuous action. And people like it. People enjoy doing it. People like to meditate. People like to be positive. People like to help to each other. And all of those things going on. And that’s getting support to the virtuous side within you. Sometimes people have bad thing. [Laughs]. [? It’s okay. 0:11:08.1 (I think directed to someone in the audience.)] Sometimes people have bad feelings and feel bad about yourself. And feeling bad about other things, other beings, and especially fed up within yourself, and think you have enough of yourself. And all this. And all that [? repeated 0:11:33.2] what’s happening is we’re giving support to the negative force within us. So that is also within ourself, but we don’t exactly know what we’re doing. And we just simply do it for the sake of doing it. Oh, I feel like doing it. There’s no reason why you have to do. And no reason you just let it go. No control for whatsoever. It’s just like a, what you call it, loose cannon?

0:12:00.0.

And that’s have no control whatsoever. Just let it go. And that’s what we do mostly. Mostly we do. You know why? We do that mostly because it’s become habitual for us. Always. Just people have habit of has to do something different. Or have to feel bad about it. Have to just change about it. You know? All this, and without any thinking, without any reasoning. We just simply do it for the sake of doing it, or whatever the reason might be. We do that all the time. And when we’re doing this, we’re giving support to the negative force or sometimes positive force too. So what do we do? Bring awareness. Awareness of what are you doing, and awareness of the consequences that you are liable. So when you don’t have the awareness, and then the consequences comes up, and then it becomes difficulty. And I was just before coming here, also watching television and talking about the President Clinton’s latest things were on there. And you have the awareness, probably it won’t be there, at least in the White House. [Laughs]. But when there’s no awareness and these things comes up, until the consequences started [? 0:14:08.0] realize what’s going on. This is just a brief example how we do every day, every part of our life, everything whatever we’re functioning, we don’t. We don’t have any awareness. We let some kind of, what do you call it, instinct [? Instant 0:14:30.7] take over. Or without just thinking, sort of automatically doing something for the sake of doing it. So but what we’re not realizing is whether that leading the individual and what’s happening. And awareness becomes so important. Many of the Buddhist meditations, if you look in Zen tradition or Theravadin tradition all these and they have all this just sitting meditation. And all of those sitting meditations is only one purpose.

0:15:03.3.

The purpose of bringing awareness. Purpose of bringing awareness to the individual. That’s why all this major, sort of they spend times, you know days and months and weeks. You know there’s a tradition, they have this [? 0:15:34.1] means you’re sitting for whole month, and then [? 0:15:39.0] you’re sitting the whole day. Sort of just sitting meditation all of the [? 0:15:45.8] and also they do this week long sitting and all this. Try to bring awareness to the people. And lack of awareness, we all have that. We all have that. No matter how much we’re educated, how much we’re careful worker, whatever you might be, lack of awareness is tremendous within us. Most of our negative karmic force that we get help to that negative karma is from the lack of awareness. Period. Because we’re not aware of it. And lack of awareness makes that. So the number one step when you look in the spiritual path, bringing awareness is going to be a number one step. Awareness. Awareness of your thoughts and your mind. You don’t have to recognize your mind. I’m not trying to tell you you recognize your mind. It’s very difficult to recognize your mind. But awareness, what’s happening, what sort of thoughts there. And it is like a very wild monkey. The traditional example is like a wild monkey. The wild monkey. And if you put the wild monkey in the museum, what’s going to happen? You know that. So, I mean the traditional example is you put the wild monkey in temple. That’s it. From one image to another image, the monkey will jump over and knock down all the offerings of the water and all these, and all these fruits available. And all this sort of thing they will do. And same thing. Same thing our mind is doing within our temple, the head is our temple. And if you look there, it jumping from one thoughts to another, knocking down, damaging different or maybe helping, and all sorts of things. That’s what the monkey does. And our mind’s doing the same thing. So therefore if you begin to recognize how your mind functioning, and try to bring the mental awareness of your thoughts. It is important.

0:18:10.8.

Mental awareness of your thoughts. So you begin to find a way, whether you been positive or negative. When you have this mental awareness of our mind thought. I’m not suggesting here to block all your thoughts and try to sit idle. I’m not. I’m suggesting to try to find out what your thoughts are and what they’re thinking about it and what they try to make you to do. That is the most important thing. Most of the negative karma that we produce, we call it karma right? Negative karma that we produce. It is followed by the negative thoughts that we came up. It’s never came up without thought. It came some kind of negative, or habitually without thinking. Habitually do that. [0:19:09.4] One of them. So if you’re aware of that, then you will know how to slow it down. That’s important, especially in that spiritual path. It is the mind. It is not physical. It is the mind. And where and how you train your mind is the key. It’s not the key, how you pray. It’s not the key, how you sit. It’s not the key, what kind of dress you wear. It’s not the key, how you pretend to be. It’s not the key, whether you have mala, I thought I had mala what I got key [0:19:50.5]. [Laughs]. I think I’ve got here. I mean it is not the key. It doesn’t depend whether you have mala in your hand or not. It depends how you think, how you function. So it is, to me, the bottom line will go spiritual training, spiritual development, is all depends on the mental training. Again, when I say mental training, I’m not talking about [? Super 0:20:19.2] mind control type of thing. I’m not talking about it. I’m talking here, bringing awareness of what we’re doing and based our spiritual development on karmic system. You know what I mean? Karma. That has a guarantee. All others doesn’t really guarantee you so much. All other. I’ve been, I sort of talk the same thing on last Tuesday. But what really happens, you know all those great magical things, you know mystical things. And all of them as simply doesn’t have that much guarantee at all.

0:21:03.7.

We simply put our faith and that sort of thing and that’s what it’s all about it. Nothing, nothing practical, black and white, we cannot see [? say? 0:21:19.6]. I said the same thing last Tuesday. I said when somebody’s dying, then they’ll say, well so and so dying, can you do something? And I simply say, I shall pray. I mean that’s all I can do. But do I know my prayer will working for that person? I don’t know! Nobody came back and told me, hey, your prayer worked. I don’t know. Supposed to be. Who knows? Right? And so that’s the point, and we cannot waste our life, our life for something which we are not really sure what it is. It’s all the traditions are great, whether it is Buddhism or Judaism or whatever. Christian, Judeo-Christian tradition or Hinduism, whatever. They’re all great, no doubt. But for me, as the individual, I will not waste my life unless and until I’m sure what I’m doing is right. And I’m going to get the benefit of it. It’s not easy to put our efforts in these, what you call it, spiritual path. If you look then as in some kind of entertainment or something, then it’s okay. We can go and see movies. Doesn’t matter. If you waste, we waste three hours. If you go and see [? 0:22:59.4] movie, three hours you know? So that’s V]it. If you waste, you waste three hours. It is not right but it’s only three hours. But when you do the spiritual path, if you waste your life, it’s a big waste. Big waste. So therefore what I learned as a kid in Tibet and what I did, is mostly I made sure whatever I put the time in, I put in the right thing. And I knew it is right. I have to know it. I have to sort of have a guarantee. What else can you get it, beside rely on your karma? It is so, in one way it is so simple. In one way it is very complicated. Believe me, I’m not against any mystical thing. No, not at all. I also know how to play the mystical path very well if I have to.

0:24:04.9.

Really, I know how to do all this. But helping the individual, helping the people, people getting in the spiritual path, is really you can’t, don’t go in that matter, unless and until you really know what you’re doing. And so it is sort of bottom line guaranteeing yourself to be doing right is based on your function on karma. Whether you’re creating a positive karma or negative karma. The positive karma gives positive result. And negative karma gives negative result. That’s what Buddha said. But not only Buddha said, we know it by our self. Today we can see when you do something good, you get good result and when you do something bad, we get bad result. It is absolutely clean and crystal-clear to us. And that’s what makes sure what [? 0:25:10.7] spiritual path. Whatever you’re doing is that’s what it is. Positive karmic creation will guarantee you that positive development. Nothing else can guarantee that. We can pray, and whether our prayers going to be answered or not, who knows? Who knows? We can meditate and sit without moving for 48 hours. We can develop that capability too. Maybe weeks and months together before do that too. But that also does not guarantee the positiveness of good future and good development. Doesn’t guarantee. So the only thing, and then, you know I tell talk to people, I say people don’t fly in the air. Lot of people fly in the air, not grounded. That means, you know, you been flying up there somewhere. There’s no place where you really put your foot down. Not grounded. It is because many people are like that, you know. Oh spiritual, great, how wonderful, meditate beautiful feeling, wonderful things, and you know sort of high in somewhere. You can have that high in somewhere by smoking dope, too. Or drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol make you feel nice or funny. Both together and make you, put you to sleep too.

0:27:01.3.

So that are not spiritual thing, and it will not guarantee to yourself that I will be okay. And not only I will be okay, I’ll be able to help others way and through which I can [? 0:27:26.2] and through which I developed. So it goes back to the, what makes me suffer is my negative karma. What brings my negative karma to me is my negative emotions. My anger, my hatred, my jealousy, my attachment, and especially my ignorance. My ignorance. Ignorance of not knowing what I’m doing. Or ignorance of wrong knowing. So all of those. And these are the points in which we have negativities. That’s the real cause. So the spiritual practitioners whose job is to challenge them, to challenge them to this points. It is big challenge. And when I’m talking like this, you may be thinking, oh he’s sort of talking, narrating whatever, you know? I’m not. I’m try to provide you for material to meditate. Okay, meditate is funny word. But material to think. Material to think and to analyze within yourself your thoughts and your motivations. And try to recognize how that mental monkey of yours is playing inside your head temple. [0:29:08.6] Recognize that. And when it’s getting bad, awareness will bring that, awareness will recognize, acknowledge, it is getting little wild. You may like to give, you may like to ground it for a few days. You know like the kids they do grounded, so you cannot go out. You cannot [? 0:29:38.8] whatever. You may like to grounded your mind for a while. And somehow that’s where, it’s just like your training kids. And when the kids doing something wrong, and what you do, you ground that person, right? And grounded person they don’t like it. I would be happy if I’m grounded there, you know. [Laughs]. Quiet and don’t have to race around, and don’t have to talk to people.

0:30:07.2.

Be great! But the kids don’t like it, right? So then the next time when they do something wrong, they probably think, well am I going to grounded? So better not do it, otherwise I be grounded. The same way, to bring awareness to your own mind. Hey, your mind’s playing this trick and if I follow that then I’ll be grounded. So that helps to strengthening awareness. And that automatically helps to shy about those things that we habitually do. So that is the beginning of, I don’t want to use the word control, but the beginning of the management of our mind. Really. When you look very carefully that, to me, it is a big thing. The spiritual thing is the really a very good management of the mind. How you manage your mind. That’s what it is. Because it is only the mind that make difference. Any action that we take physically, it is followed the mind. Mental thing. And when it’s not followed that thing we call that person crazy. There’s no coordination between mind and body, right? So doesn’t have any action, and the action doesn’t have anything behind. So it is as good as a robot or a crazy person. Completely mental person, you know. Not half crazy. We all have little screw loose. But it’s real, absolute crazy. So when you are not crazy, when you’re functioning properly as a human being, that mind which pushes the physical thing and we do it. Right? So therefore, it is the mind which is most important. And if you know how to manage your mind when everything’s okay, but when we don’t know how to manage our mind then it becomes difficult. Sometimes our mind managing our self. Sometimes no control. It’s becoming loose cannon running round and all of those. And to me, and I’m almost willing to say happily, you know, to say the spiritual practice really means learning how to manage your mind. Management of our mind.

0:33:02.2.

Because to become a positive, to be [? 0:33:11.9] in positive karma, is our own action. It is me who can make a difference to me, not you. So you can make a difference to you, not me. It is become responsibility of me for my action and you for your action. There is nothing in this, as far as Buddha’s concerned, there’s nothing anywhere that somebody else is responsible for somebody else’s deeds. Whatever I do, I’m responsible. Whatever you do, you’re responsible. Your karma, you pay or enjoy. My karma, I pay or I enjoy. That’s that. That makes it each and every individual is responsible, whether you’re couple or twin sister or twin brother, or whatever you might be is nothing. It is the individual who is the responsible. So the responsibility of the individual, how to look at the responsibility, how to function, how to make it’s, it is how your mind carry on. How you train your mind. It is the really mind. During the Buddha’s period, Buddha’s lifetime, there were traditional Indian school called Mind Only school. And that’s accepted school. But it’s not only the mind, but they go to that extreme. There’s nothing is matter, only the mind. So they call it Mind Only school even. One of the greatest Buddhist teacher, Buddhist teacher after Buddha, is Asanga. Asanga is who created this Mind Only school and it’s tradition. Whether it is mind only or not, what makes difference to me is the mind. Nothing else. Nothing else. Most of our physical actions been followed by the mental, whatever you call it, desire or mental command or mental planning.

0:36:01.3.

So when you looking at the spiritual path, we’re looking at mind development. Not an educational type of thing, but how one can make a goodness of one’s self. Really. That is grounded, when you can look, when you begin to judge your own action on that basis, then you’re grounded. When you don’t judge your own actions in that ground and you think, ah, something is happening somewhere and I’m sending my good thoughts to you and you’re sending your good bad thoughts to me and blah blah blah. And all this. And then it’s not grounded. It’s flying in the air. That’s what I’m telling. Because sometimes I tell to the individual when they ask me, well don’t fly in the air. Just get grounded. And I can’t tell any individual, you’re not grounded because you’re blah blah blah. I can’t say that, right? People may get upset or they may involved in fighting. Who knows. So you don’t want that. So group like this, I can tell you because it’s not directed to any individual, but it is generally what it is. When your spiritual development is not based on the karmic foundation, what guarantee do we have? On another, forget about guarantee. But what do we know? What do we know what works? What doesn’t work? Look in even the Buddhist tradition, there are a lot of them that will sit there, and sit there for hours, maybe days. And if you just sit not thinking anything, any thoughts that’s coming up try to remove it, not thinking anything, what do you gain out of that? You may gain a little bit of mental stable and that is benefit no doubt, but it’s not worth to waste that much time. To gain spiritual development you need two things. Two thing: a stable awareness is one because those meditations, sitting meditations will bring stable awareness. But at the same time you need a subject, subject on which you will like to think. You not only recognize the mind, alright, you keep on watching your mind, what it’s thinking. Any thoughts coming up started removing, removing, removing, and then what you left with empty hat.

0:39:01.8.

You don’t want that. It’s fine you remove it, but you have to replace something else. And there you have to put the wisdom. The wisdom is the one. So these are the two main things: focus and having the wisdom. If you don’t have one of them, you will not manage. Period. If you cannot focus, then there’s no base. When you talk to crazy fellow, yeah, some crazy fellow you talk to, it begin with a nice conversation. And you look and you may begin think, yeah, that thought’s sensible. And suddenly you realize it’s talking absolutely nonsense. Right? I mean, nothing, that’s the way if you try to talk to crazy people. But the Tibetans have saying, crazy person is not crazy, but those who are talking to crazy person is crazy. Traditional Tibetan saying. It’s really true. I’ve been watching somebody yesterday in Jewel Heart, yeah, within the true, you know I mean it’s absolutely wrong somewhere. [0:40:26.2] So that is the very vivid example of lack of awareness, because you don’t have anything focus. It all goes. Whatever it comes up, whatever thoughts comes up, you know whatever you think or whatever picture that you seeing or whatever, you just go for that. So that is the example of if you try to do the spiritual path that way. And then it is lack of focus. It’s like a crazy, crazy person. If you have a focus, alright, you have a focus, then you don’t know what to do with that. It’s lack of wisdom. So it is really important to bring the focus and wisdom together so that you can guide your mind. You cannot force your mind. There will [?? 0:41:29.2]. You can suggest and when they don’t accept, let it go. And then gradually it will work with you. Let it go, you know? Or what did they say, catch take a bite to, if it holds let it go [0:41:48.5]. Right? What is it? Is it eeney, meeny, miney, moe? It’s really true in that way. If it started getting against, you can’t force it. Let it go.

0:42:02.3.

If you hold, let it go. Let it go. And then work again. So simply what you’re trying to do, you try to cut those negative emotions. That’s your aim. Number one aim in the spiritual path. The purpose of your spiritual practice, cut down your negativities. Negative emotions. Cut down your anger. Cut down your attachment. Cut down your jealousy. Cut down your ignorance, the most important of all. Because of the ignorance we have hatred. Because of ignorance we have attachment. Because of ignorance we have jealousy. Because of ignorance we have pride. All of them. All of them because of the ignorance. So cut down the ignorance. And way to cut down in ignorance, build understanding. Building knowledge, understanding and that cuts down the ignorance. And concentrating on that, change your habitual way of functioning. And that is how you improve yourself as a better good person. Better human being. And great spiritual being. Doesn’t have to be Buddhist. Doesn’t have to be Catholic. Or, what else? Protestant, or doesn’t have to be, those people in Salt Lake City is what? Mormons. Yeah. Doesn’t really have to be anything. Just be yourself. Just be yourself. And look in your emotions. Look in your emotions and see how it functions, how it affect our self. This is how Buddha developed himself, and that’s how he shared his own development with everybody. The bottom line is the mind, and make difference to yourself is the mind, try to guide your mind in proper way, not out of it. [0:44:49.1] So it is a great thing, people who talks about the path and the present and the future life and all this and that. It’s great. And leave them there in their greatness.

0:45:02.9.

It’s none of our business. Neither to criticize or no to praise or anything. That’s their business. And nor does the all other things. So really concerned for us is making sure what makes difference to us is building the positive karma and cutting down the negative karma. Karma is also name. Just using as a thing. Positive action and negative actions. And now one thing I’d like to share here, people may say, how do I know what is positive action and what is negative action? I don’t know what positive action really is, but I do know what negative action is. So you can judge from there. The negative action means if you’re hurting anybody, if you’re hurting anybody, your action hurts somebody including yourself, whether it is violent way, or whether it is passive aggressive way. People do that all the time. Lot of people. Says oh, he was angry or she was angry and I sat there and he couldn’t bear that I’m not angry. You know? People say that all the time. Don’t you hear that? Do you hear some people say that, right? Actually what’s happening, try to prove that you’re superior than that one, and that one getting angry and all this with tears, and you’re sitting there saying, eh, eh, eh. And that is, you think it’s great, but not. It is terrible. You know what it’s called? Passive aggressive. Passive aggressive is a violence. You hurt people. You hurt yourself. You hurt other person. And that is negativity. That’s not great thing at all. When we think, I’m superior. I can do that. I can sit there and laugh at the person. And the other one will cry and do this and that and all this. It is hurting. It is negativity. Because we think it’s not hurting because I didn’t use my hand. I didn’t punch the person, or didn’t scream. I was calm and cool and made her cry. That is negativity because you’re hurting. If you’re hurting somebody including yourself, then it’s negative. If you’re helping somebody, or everybody, or a lot, and then it’s become positive.

0:48:06.1.

Including yourself. Do not discard yourself out. That’s not right. So the bottom line, what I really like to say here, don’t look at the spiritual path some kind of mystical thing. Some kind of mystical thing. The Tibet is full of mystery, but still don’t look for that. Look really solid ground for the individual which makes sure that whatever the time you put in, you are doing the right thing. We have a positive karmic result, positive karmic builds up. If we have that, we have right. We guarantee. The mystical things can follow later, not immediately. No matter, we talk mystical things, you know what Buddha’s really talking about it? He said, three countless eons later it comes. Eons, not year, not life. Eons later. So therefore, you know, we try to get in the mystical one right now and try to see and, you know. Oh yeah, I get this vision. I get that vision. I saw stars, clear light. I saw all this. I’m sure you did, but doesn’t bother me. I don’t care. Truly. But if I see you cutting down on your negativities, improving you’re as a good person, a better person, goodness of the human beings, then you’re doing something right. Then you are on the spiritual path, whether you’re Buddhist or not Buddhist, or atheist or whatever may be, because you are responsible for your own deeds, according to Buddha. You are responsible. You can make a difference to yourself. No one else can do it. Even we’re talking here, I’m talking like funny things here. Talking here and try to give you material to build your wisdom, and material for you to meditate, material for you to analyze your mind. Material for you to see what your mind is really up to what, and how you can handle your mind. What makes you, how you can make your mind a positive mind. How you can make your mind will create only positive karma. How you can get yourself free from the anger. How you can get yourself free from attachment. All of those. It’s that you can do to yourself by looking in.

0:51:00.8.

By watching it. By acknowledging. Any negativities that comes up, do not deny. Do not deny. If you deny, you deny. No matter how much you deny, if it’s true it’ll pops up all the time, just like we see in the television today. [Laughs] Right? So don’t deny. Acknowledge. Bring awareness. And then one thing I want to like to share with you. Some people will say, oh I’m working with my karma because people are suffering, say I’m working with my karma. And that’s, I don’t buy that a bit. Not at all. That’s not the way how you work with your karma. You say, oh I create a negative karma so I have to suffer, and I’ll suffer and I’m paying my karma. How many times you going to do that? A number of people will say, it’s good learning experience. Sure. How many times do you have to learn? That’s not the way. Definitely not the way. To work with karma means to purify negative karmas and to rebuild the positive karma, making sure you don’t suffer is how you work with karma, not suffering with karma and, you know, it’s karmic consequences yeah I have to suffer. So then becomes endless, bottomless pit that you remain there all the time, it’s because you’re working with your karmas there. That doesn’t do any good. That’s not the way. That’s not the way. The way and how you work with karma is not to create extra negative karma. So that whatever problem you have, you can cut it out and discontinue that and you will continue with joyful level of life. And that’s what it is. That’s what it counts for. And way and how you do it, again by watching your mind. Bringing awareness and working against negative emotions. Working against anger. But you cannot work against your anger when you’re angry. Lot of people will think, well, I was angry so how do I work with my anger? Nothing. If you’re mad, you’re mad. Forget about it for a while till you recover out of your madness. Because if you try to work against your anger when anger’s peak level, you going to be defeated by your anger.

0:54:07.1.

And for that moment you just divert your attention. Don’t deny, but divert your attention. Can work against. But don’t deny. Diversion is not denial. You recognize your anger’s very strong, so let’s not do anything for that. Think about something else. Go play shopping. Go for dancing. Or go to bar, whatever. Whatever you do, you know? So divert, take a dive. And when your anger is not strong, it’s this time you work against the anger. Recognize fault of anger. Recognize what anger makes the individual feel. How do you feel? What anger makes you. What do you lose if a minute of anger comes up? What do you lose? What do you pay for it? You pay your peace of mind. The peaceful mind whatever you have to get, you pay that. [0:55:23.8] Anger deprives your peace of mind. That’s what we pay. Recognize those. Think about those when the anger’s not very strong. So normal awareness of anger is not good. Normal awareness of hatred is not good. Normal awareness of attachment is not good. That helps people stabilize. I don’t mind sharing with you, last week The Tricycle, the Buddhist magazine from New York, tried to interview me. And tells the question, that sort of very well known woman magazine editor who tries to interview me for that Tricycle magazine. And the first question she asked me, she asked me, what do you do when you developed hatred? How do you act? I started thinking within me and I don’t have an answer, because I looked through briefly my sort of, you know, 58 or 60 years of life. I could not recall the hatred. I could not.

0:57:02.5.

And after a little while, she said, what a nonsense. What about the Chinese that kick you out of your own country? And I don’t hate the Chinese. To tell you the truth, I don’t hate Chinese. I wish I could, but I don’t. On the contrary, many times I think they’re right. [Laughs]. Which may be terrible for the fellow Tibetans if I say that, but I don’t hate. And then they told me, yes, I know your mother has been tortured by, there by that, and finally got killed. I still don’t hate. Maybe I’m stupid person. I started thinking and I feel very sorry for my mother, of course. But also equally feel sorry those people who are doing those. Equally, so I never, never got hate those people. My brother who came from Tibet a few years ago, about eight or nine years ago, ’88, in the India, and told me these families our relation, [0:58:23.3] and this and this and this this individuals who did this to the mother, that to the mother, this to the mother, that to the mother. So I’m try to think about it. And he came to visit me last year and I even forgot those people’s name. And he was started talking something and I thought are you talking about it? How can you forget these people? Blah blah blah. I told you 10 years ago, did this, this and that. So that’s it. And so really, truly speaking, and if you going to really search within me, I can’t find the hatred within me. It’s not that I’m great. No. I had the opportunity to look in my mind and deal with those negative emotions. So when I’m try to search back, I don’t find it. Temper tantrum I had. I scream, but do I mean anything. None for whatsoever. Those who know me, they know it very well. I may scream and yell, and I may say, ah [?? 0:59:38.8]. All this you can do. And then sort of it becoming sort of fashion for me, you know? I have to do that, but do I really get angry? No. I don’t. It’s sort of, sort of performance for me. Really! Performance for me. So that is another thing.

1:00:01.5.

Similarly attachment, it’s also become the same thing. Same thing. Fear, that’s another point. When somebody’s screaming at you and using F word, your glands will arises, [1:00:22.5] and that person’s going to be physical or what? And that lasts a few seconds, a few minutes. 2, 3 minutes later, it’s gone. I’m not afraid. I’m doesn’t have that much fear. If things worked out, fine. If it doesn’t work out, fine. The sky’s not going to fall down. The ground is not going to break. You’re not going to be, go down in between the ground. That’s what I think. May be terrible way of thinking, in one way. But I don’t have those negative, mental, emotional pressure that people go through. I don’t. It’s not my achievement. Nothing, but simply I don’t. And that’s why when I first came over here, I walked through a jungle of emotion. I couldn’t understand what’s going on. It took me years to understand the mental suffering in the West. What you have tremendous, simply because I want to be right. I want to be, not the best, but I want to be the good one. And there the big I within our self. We are protecting that. If I don’t, I’ll be doormat. If I don’t, I will be this then. I may be bullied. I may be bulldozed. I may be overpowered. I lose my dignity, and all of those that I will try to protect something, and that is making us all the negative emotions suffer. Negative emotional sufferings, all these are [? 1:02:14.3]. And that’s where the I, the ignorant one. And we look that as a precious. I have little article, written a few years ago. I Rimpoche I call it. I the precious. I the precious makes you, me to suffer all the time. And that is how our mind’s functioning now. And when you want a mental peace, mental development, these are your problems, and this is how you look through. That’s what you do. All other things, saying prayers, saying mantras, doing rituals, all thing, is all totally different.

1:03:11.4.

Basic foundation when you establish, everything can work. When that basic thing is not established, no matter whatever you do. You may say 13 million mantras a day, nothing will happen. Nothing. Same old person, with the same old thought, with the same old negative emotion and you become a little mean than before. That’s all you get. It’s not going to help you. Not going to help others. Not going to have anything. Though you pretend to be in spiritual practitioner, yet that not affect a single thing in your own mind stream. Your anger will be more. Your fear will be more. Your attachment will be more stronger. Your confusion will be even more and that cause you fear. It is not bad idea to sit down and sometimes think, when you die what’s going to happen? When I die, what I’m going to experience? How I’m going to look in my life backwards, and how I’m going to look my next life forwards? And the basis of that calculation is only on your karma again. Because we never know exactly how it is really going to be the next life. We rely on Buddhas word, of course. But we don’t know exactly how it’s going to work. It’s not blanket everybody will have the same old thing together just like anybody else. No, it’s not. It’s individualized. So what’s going to be my, if I cannot really have a picture unless I look in my positive and negative karma? And that’s why I said, spiritual practice must be grounded and guaranteed that something whatever you do, will have affect for our self. Forget about the next life. Forget even this life, even what’s going to happen tomorrow, what’s going to happen next week. What did happen yesterday? What did you do with last week? What bad affect you? Think that. That alone will show you. Well, it’s great that you people are interested in spiritual path. And many of you have come number of times and listened to me. And we talk about it and by now you have some ideas. Quite a number of you must be for the first time here today? So if you are looking in some kind of very mystical [?? 1:05:57.7] something, you’re at the wrong place.

1:06:00.4.

You have the wrong place. It’s not known to me at all. So it is very grounded level, wonderful, to make sure it’s good for you, good for everybody else. Then we can talk about it. And then you can think about it. I can keep on talking, but I cannot do anything for you. I can only talk and suggested and share my little knowledge of the Tibetan Buddhist practice, which is 1000 years people have been doing the practice and gaining that spiritual development. I can share that with you, but thereafter it’s your job. The way and how you [? 1:06:48.3] I cannot get inside you and do it. No way can do it. Nobody can do it. A Buddha can’t do it. Nobody can do it. It is only yourself and way you think, way you can help yourself is only thinking. I’m supposed to say analytical meditation, but which is nothing but [?1:07:11.1] thinking. Thinking and analyzing. And then every point where you get, try to pass a resolution. Try to pass a resolution, whether you can continue to carry the resolution or not. We always have New Year resolutions, right? And probably last three or four days or something. But people do it all the time and they have some help in that effect. [1:07:37.0]. Likewise here you do that every point where you do [? 1:07:42.6] started passing little resolutions. And that bring awareness in the mind. That awareness will prevent you from indulging in the hurting somebody else, negative karma. Negative karma. And that, when you been able to avoid hurting and then you gain helping. That is how you make yourself a good person. That is how you ground yourself spiritually. And then once you grounded, there’s a lot of ways and means of doing different things. But without grounding, it’s nothing. Nothing can do anything. We can do initiation. We can do all sorts of things: development practice, completion stage practice, all of them. It will be a mental, I can’t say it’s a lie, because it’s true. But it will be simply a mental movie. And it’ll be some good entertainment for a couple of hours for day. So really the important thing is grounding yourself.

1:09:00.6.

So what we do here, I don’t know I have four Thursdays or something? Right? Four Thursdays. Not next Thursday. Thursday after that. What date is it? Kathy? February 5, and then? February 5, February 19 and March 5.

So we try to at least get some grounding. You know we talking with this, that little piece of paper you have. Odyssey to Freedom. But I did that through Hartmut through last portion we do it did [1:09:54.7]. So since there’s only four days, so I’m going to focus on four most important things. Four most important things. That will be the seeking freedom, and love compassion, and bodhi mind, and wisdom. So that’ll be four Thursdays we’re going to focus on that. And at the end of that at least we hope to become a little better person. And that is, if you could do that it’s good achievement. And I also recommend you to read. There is a little, I’m sure those of you who are in Jewel Heart, you should read that Three Principles of the Path. We do have one, right? Three Principles of the Path. Two short and long versions. The problem is I don’t read English myself, so I don’t know. But I think you should read the short one. [Laughs]. Short one, so that you have those background and you know what you’re talking about. A number of people know exactly what were talking about it, and I think it making difference to the people’s life. I guess that’s it. I talk too much and I hope there is not snow or ice or something in the, many of you have come from little distance and please drive carefully. And there’s no rush. It’s better late than never, so take care of yourself, okay? Drive carefully. I’m presuming there’s no question tonight. [Laughs]. Okay, that’s it. So I do want you to think when you go home, just before you fall to sleep, think what we talk about it. And see if that make any sense.

1:12:02.8.

Or is there something good there you can pick up. Or if all rubbish, just throw in the garbage. You know that from the computer, you have the little mouse pull them out and put in the garbage. And if it’s useful, then think about it and see if you can adopt anything. And that’s how it comes. Thank you.