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We have different problems, just because we are human beings. If you are faultless you will not be a human being. So each and every one of us has faults and qualities, all of them are there. Now the question rises? What do we do? Naturally, we try to make ourselves better all the time, more compassionate, more caring, caring for yourself as well. A lot of people like to forget about themselves, thinking, “I am there for this and that and sacrificing themselves, which is also not great. Maybe it’s the bodhisattva’s way. I have nothing to criticize, if you can then that’s great. That’s what Buddha said bodhisattvas should do.

0:03:43.3 On the other hand, as I mentioned the other day, we have that great life, which can make a lot of difference. I talked to you the other day, the points we are talking about here are called Odyssey to Freedom. Traditionally it’s called Lam Rim in Tibetan. I changed that title because the moment you say Lam Rim, people don’t know what it is. Someone will say that it is some kind of Buddhist philosophy, someone else may say it is a way how they talk and teach. So we are losing the principle. That’s why I changed the name and we made the 64 steps how one can develop.

0:05:15.6 If you look at that Odyssey to Freedom outline, I think it is N. 17: embracing human life. This is the point where we are too. We talk on the basis of this and on the basis of the Foundation of all Perfections combined together. Embracing human life really depends on the conditions and opportunities we have. If you look in the traditional Tibetan books they will tell you that you have 18 different qualities: 8 leisures and 10 endowments. They count them. But the bottom line of what they are telling is that you have the opportunities and the conditions are right and if you cannot take advantage of the opportunities and conditions then when it’s too late it will be too late for a while. “For a while” really refers to a couple of lifetimes. That’s a moderate way of saying, but it can be a couple of thousand lifetimes too. I am talking with the background of reincarnation.

0:06:59.2 If I don’t do that I won’t be a Rinpoche and then I don’t have a job! So I have to accept reincarnation, to maintain my job (laughs). I am talking from that background. All the different lives we can look at, from mice to cockroaches to anybody, all those sharing the environment with us. Your pets, like dogs and cats, compare what you have and what they have. That is the reason why we have to appreciate and to really recognize the value of human life over any other life that we may see or hear.

0:08:05.3 The United States is a wonderful country and also very interesting. A lot of people are so interested in extraterrestrials, like in “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”. People are very interested, thinking there is wisdom and knowledge and information and scientific development. But we forget that we have the wisdom, we, the human beings, have the best wisdom available. Every single thing, if you compare, whether scientific or spiritual development, it is coming out of human life, unless you want to say that Einstein was not a human being. Then it’s fine.

0:09:12.9 But no one will say that, unless you are crazy. If you are crazy you must think, “He is an extraordinary person, so he is not normal and has to be something fantastic and maybe he is an angel or something” and you build that up and begin to believe it. It’s possible, but it actually shows the individual is crazy. Sorry, that’s how I look at it. Maybe I am too harsh. But we are human beings. Even Buddha – an enlightened being. Nobody disputes that, sure he is an enlightened beings, but also he was a human being, an Indian prince. I am not sure. I don’t know much about the Judeo-Christian tradition at all. I shouldn’t say much, but from what little I understand, do you say Jesus Christ was a human being or not?

Audience: Yes

Rimpoche: Okay, thank you. Did he have human parents or not?

Audience: Some say one was human but the other not, the Holy Ghost.

Rimpoche: Ah, like the Tibetans, one parent was a monkey, the other a spirit. The spirit got involved with the monkey and the Tibetan race came out of that. True, they say that. I don’t know if it’s true, but the history runs in that way. Some kind of spirit was too tired to live in the caves up there, so got involved with a monkey and then that little baby was born, half human, half monkey. Anyway, whatever we have is human achievement.

0:11:41.0 Definitely, the quality of being human is something each and everyone of us has and we don’t appreciate it, we take it for granted. If you get some kind of illness and there are complications then you begin to get afraid, “Oh, am I going to die?” and at that time you may begin to appreciate the life, because you are afraid of losing it. Until then, you take it totally for granted and don’t count it. The most valuable thing we have is our human life.

0:12:22.2 Not only just to be alive but also the capacity you have, the mental capacity. I am not talking about the physical capacity so much, unless you are in sports or a boxer or something, but it is really the mental capacity. This mind we have, if we use it properly, it can not only make a difference to ourselves, but we can affect millions of other beings. Each and everyone of us has that possibility. That’s the reason why Tsongkhapa says that human life is more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel.

0:13:15.3 That’s the reason why. It is so important. We have to recognize it. By recognizing, what do we do? We try not to waste that. After all, we are not stupid. You know why? I am thinking in Tibetan. Maybe that doesn’t make sense to you. There is an example. A teacher asked somebody, “Do you know any stupid person?” The person says, “There was a stupid person who found a bag full of gold dust and he took that on his back. He did not know whether that was gold or not. Somehow it was something different. Also there was a hole in the bag. He carried it around and by the time he reached somewhere, somebody recognized all the gold had leaked out from that hole. So that is an example of stupidity, traditionally.

0:14:25.7 If we waste something more precious than gold dust, then we are definitely stupid, no matter how educated we may be, because really that is waste of time, opportunity and possibility. I am still looking – I shouldn’t be – but I am still looking from the reincarnation point of view. Why? Because this is the life where you can make a difference. It is the junction where you are going to turn right or wrong, up or down. This is the junction where you are going to take the right or the wrong highway. That’s why this is so important. It is the junction because at this level we can understand, at this level we can think, at this level we can analyze and at this level we can turn our own mind to whatever you want. And that’s what Buddha did.

0:15:44.3 That’s why Buddha became a buddha. He didn’t become a buddha just by sitting there, like in the image. The image shows that Buddha just sits there, smiles a little bit. Even if somebody comes and drinks the offering bowls he will keep on smiling. If you take away the flowers he will keep on smiling, someone puts flowers there he will be smiling the same way. Why? Because that’s not a human being. That’s the thing. So by sitting there he did not become a buddha.

0:16:27.4 By analyzing the mind, his thoughts and how does that influence his way of thinking and behaving and functioning, by correcting his negative habits, Buddha became a buddha. His message is: I did that, why don’t you follow? You will have the same results. Many people would like to say that the spiritual development is not scientific. People like to say that. To me it is very scientific. It is based on the perfect logical reason and experience gained one after another when you do it the same way. It doesn’t matter if you are man or woman, eastern or western. It doesn’t matter if you do this in Bodhgaya in India or in Gary, Indiana. If you do the same thing you get the same result.

0:17:51.4 I don’t want to claim that religion is scientific, but it is based on solid reasoning that is proven to be correct by the experience of the Buddha and many other disciples. This is the path we follow. Buddha himself said, “Just don’t buy it because I said so.”

At the time when Buddha was alive 2,500 years ago people did buy gold and before buying it they would cut the gold, burn the gold, rub it against some stone and only when they were convinced it was gold they would take it and give you whatever they had to give you. Maybe there was money in India at that time. I think so. There were the so-called Kashapanis, right? Was metal or wood?

Audience: It was cowry they used at that time but there were also coins.

Rimpoche: Anyway you could get food and so on by exchanging that.

0:19:33.1 So when people bought gold, they cut, rubbed and burnt it and when it was confirmed it was gold then they bought it. You don’t buy it just because someone tells you it is gold. That’s what Buddha said. He said, “I talk to you on the basis of my personal experience. You take the information, cut, burn and rub it with whatever you have to do and when you are convinced then you take it and it will help you.” Buddha never said, “Because I said so you have to believe it.”

0:20:14.4 That vocabulary does not exist in Buddha’s teachings. He does talk about faith, but intelligent faith, logically analyzing, being very critical of whatever you can and finally when you are convinced it is true then spend your time on it. Not only time, but spend your life with that. Make a difference to yourself and others, millions of others, actually. That capability is in our life. That’s why I am saying: the opportunity is there. The conditions are right. Such opportunity and conditions together is very rare, extremely rare. So it is important not to waste that.

0:21:29.0 When I say not to waste it naturally you will raise the idea: What I am supposed to do? Say prayers? Say mantras? Do circumambulations or prostrations?

Atisha, the great Bengali saint and scholar, came to Tibet in the 1100s. The Tibetans asked him, “Can I do circumambulations?” He said, “Yeah, that’s very good, but I wish you would do a good Dharma practice.

0:22:05.6  

Somebody else said, “Then, can I prostrate?” Atisha said, “Good idea but I wish you would do good Dharma.” “Can I say mantras?” “Good idea, but I wish you could do Dharma practice.” That’s what Atisha said to the Tibetans. Finally they asked, “Then what is Dharma practice?” He said, “Work with your mind, train your mind, because your mind is the governor of your actions.” Right or wrong? Right, unless you are crazy and only act only on what your mind wants to act. Am I wrong? No, I shouldn’t be, because it’s me! – Just joking. But the truth is that mind controls most of our actions. Anything physical or verbal, whatever we do, it is the mind which is most important and it controls from there.

0:23:59.2 When we talk about karma – and I did talk that last Thursday too, right, basically the real Dharma, when we look into ourselves very carefully, the spiritual practice, whatever we do we really have to have something solid. We cannot just have wishy-washy business. Why? Because we involve ourselves and spend our whole life on this. So it has to be something solid. In our level, you and me, what solid can we have? All things you have, all the different things they talk about, including fortune tellers, I am not saying they are wrong or lying, but they don’t have solid ground – most of them. Some may have a very strong, solid thing, but most of them don’t.

0:26:32.5 They have a certain kind of karmic power, a certain kind of spirit comes and talks to them and it’s only that. They don’t have anything within themselves. That’s one thing. Another point is love and light where you don’t have anything solid. We cannot really afford to spend our life on that. The only solid thing that I can consider solid at our level is when we can create perfect karma – forget about perfect – just good karma. That is bound to have good results. Traditionally we have to say that Buddha said so. Today we don’t have to. We see it for ourselves. When someone is doing good they are going to get good results. We see this, it is no longer a mystery. When you do something funny you get into trouble.

0:27:43.8 We really see it. It is also an example of how the habitual patterns push you. Sometimes you don’t have much control over yourself and habitual patterns will push you. So we have enough trouble with Jennifer Flowers and if that is not enough we need another job and if that is not enough, then (laughs) whatever. Just making job, I am a Clinton supporter, but really, even if it is with your own knowledge and understanding, whatever it maybe, still some shadow pops up right? If there is no shadow we cannot say there is form. Some shadow pops up. That is the habitual pattern, that is how it works. Because it is a habitual pattern.

0:29:32.8 It is addiction. When you get into trouble you can’t say, “This is my addiction”. You can’t do that, right? The same thing with karma too. When you produce negative karma you can’t go and say, “Hey, that’s my habit, that’s my addiction.” People will be happy to help you, whatever they could, especially when it is addiction. They are happy to help, but then we have to do the correction. Nobody else does. How can we correct? Where does the command order of correcting that come from?

0:30:24.6 From within you. Your mind is the level from where you issue that order. Your mind is the one that passed that resolution and makes you follow the resolution. That’s how we correct our negative addictions. Even those AA program, the 12 step program for alcohol addicted people, is also training your mind, trying to get you off that addiction. Take this step first, etc. That is exactly how you train your mind.

0:31:11.4 At the same time they will help you with physical symptoms, like withdrawal symptoms. Whatever they can help you with they will do that together, because we ourselves are two pieces put together, the physical part and the mind. Together that becomes the human being. If you are missing one you are not a human being. If you don’t have the mind in here this body will have a different name. Nobody will say this is a human being, they will tell you something else. If there is mind without physical body, then there is no identification, you cannot identify. So human life depends on both of those combined together. But who is more powerful? Which one makes the difference? It is the mind, not the body.

0:32:12.2 The mind makes the difference. That’s why the spiritual path to me is training your mind in a proper way so that you do no longer produce negative karma. When you have no negative karma, where is the suffering going to come from? No way. That is the solid path I am talking about. That also goes for good and bad. Good karma is good work and brings good result. Bad work brings bad karma. How can you judge good and bad? That’s another difficult point.

0:32:49.1 People make a lot of excuses and assumptions. Certain traditions, even Tibetan traditions, are willing to say that if you are doing something for the benefit of let’s say the teaching of the Buddha or something, some people will probably be able to adjust by whatever means they do it. They think the means justify the ends, which I think is very wrong. Very wrong. The ends should not justify the means, because our karma, our responsibility, is the individual action. That is the individual responsibility. When I do something wrong, when I hurt somebody that is my wrong action and I am bound to suffer by getting hurt or even worse. So right or wrong is extremely difficult to figure out but all of Buddha’s disciples, what they really rely on, the line that you draw is whether you are hurting anybody or not. That’s where you draw the line.

0:34:43.8 That includes yourself. There are a lot of gray areas, which are difficult to say [anything about] at a blanket level, but right or wrong should be based on whether you are hurting or not hurting others. Any kind of violence, even passive-aggressive actions, are wrong and negative. That hurts people. A lot of people say, “So and So is losing their temper, but I stayed cool. While I am staying cool they are getting more and more angry.” What is that telling you? You pretend that you are great, but you are really being violent, passive-aggressive. That causes more pain to the other person. Traditional Tibetan teachers used to call our tongue a sharp weapon that cuts the heart into two pieces – not physically, but you can say the most painful words every possible to that individual and that comes from the mind. All of them are commanded by the mind. Whether it’s at the head or the heart. I am confused, I still don’t know. I am trying to see a connection between head and heart and see what is what. But I am confused.

0:36:46.5 But what I am not confused about is this command order being issued from the headquarters of mind, whether it is at the heart level of the head, I don’t know, but that’s what’s happening. Why is that issuing the orders? Because of our habitual patterns, our addictions. In the name of helping, of saving, of service to oneself we do this. This is our usual habitual patterns. That’s why we don’t have to know how to be mean. We don’t have to learn how to get jealous. We don’t have to go school and learn how to be jealous, do we? We don’t. We do it automatically.

0:37:48.5 That is negative habitual patterns or addictions. So when you are training your mind you are trying to change those addictions. And that is real Dharma. That’s why Atisha said, “That’s good, but I wish you could do some Dharma.” “Saying prayers is good, but I wish you could do some Dharma practice.” “Oh, it’s good that you are reading, but I wish you could do Dharma practice.” For every single thing that person raised Atisha kept saying, “Great, but I wish you could do some Dharma”. That means changing the mind, training the mind in a positive nature. When you keep on training, I have no experience of being enlightened but you can see it quite clearly, you don’t really have hatred to anybody then, really. When I was here last time somebody tried to interview me and the subject was: when you hate somebody, what would you do? I had to search almost throughout my life to see where I had hatred, but I couldn’t find any hatred.

0:39:32.2 I am not blowing my own horn, but I couldn’t really find it. They asked, “What about the Chinese, when they kicked you out of Tibet?” I watched my mind and what perceptions my mind would acknowledge and my mind really thought, “Oh those poor guys”, not in a passive aggressive way, but really truly. These people are “poor things”, because they were ordered to do it. They did not volunteer to kick us out. They have been asked to shoot and chase us out or whatever it is. They were following their orders. Then you go through the commanders and so forth and they all have their reasons and then you go up to Mao

[0:41:02.2 - recording faulty, inaudible, super-accelerated]

0:43:09.2 ….the same thing and that’s the reason why some traditions tell you to sit there, don’t move, don’t think. It is to bring your mind level from that extreme to somewhere in the middle and then turn in that way. That is the best way, because you are the one who is responsible. You can make a difference to yourself, you can deposit your own positive karma or you can write off all your negative karmas. You can do it. That’s the best.

0:43:58.4 If you can’t do it, when there are conditions where you can’t do it, then you go and pray. That is the next best thing available to us. Then you request somebody else to do that for you. But how much can they do? Again, that depends on us. That’s why every prayer doesn’t get answered. You can do and pray and pray, but not every prayer is answered, because the conditions that affect that are not there. It is not the fault of God or Buddha, it is not the fault of the person you pray to but it is the fault of the individual, unable to provide the conditions.

0:44:51.8 Karma is something very strong, yet it is dependent arising. Karma depends on conditions. When the conditions are not right, no matter how much karma you have it will not materialize. Karma depends on conditions. It is not independent, it is dependent. When that is dependent that will give you room for miracles. It will give room for you to pray. You got to pray just to make it today (laughs). That’s what it is. The first thing is that you can do it by yourself. Then if you are incapable of doing that then the second thing is you rely on somebody else to do it for you. Which is better? All of you are intelligent, you know it. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your life. I should say: meditate. But I don’t want to say it. Think, analyze your thoughts, analyze the actions you take, followed by your thoughts. Try to understand, think within yourself, look inside, see how your thought influence your actions. Where are the thoughts coming from? What causes them?

0:46:55.9 Is it automatic? Mostly it is automatic, because we are so used to it. When you are used to it you don’t have to put in any efforts. It comes like this. We are so used to it. When someone boos you, you don’t have to think twice to use the f-word, right? It’s automatic with us. That’s what I mean. We are well-trained in that. Very well trained. And now you are trying to change that. I am not saying it is easy. It is difficult. Going against our usual habit is extremely difficult. It is swimming against the current. However, one can do it and a lot of people have done it. That’s the real Dharma, that’s the real spirituality.

0:48:01.4 It doesn’t matter whatever tradition you follow. That doesn’t make a difference, the bottom line Dharma is that. The bottom line spiritual practice is this: cutting down your negativities. Even Buddha himself said it. Somebody asked him, “What is Buddhism?” He said,

Dig pa che yen mi se zhing

Gyal wa pun tsum tsog pa gye….

Avoid all negativities

Build all the positivities you can

And watch your mind

That is Buddhism

0:48:37.9 Different people do different translations. You can see them in Dharamsala, when you go to the Dalai Lama’s temple. It is written in Tibetan and totally different translations are hanging there. If you look in different books, each and every professor like this here will write a different translation. (laughs). I don’t know, but that is the bottom line Buddhism.

Buddha himself said: avoid negativities. How can you avoid them? By training your mind. How can you build positivity? By training your mind. With every action we do we are creating some kind of karma. Whether you make it positive or negative is in your own hand. Am I saying too much on this? Okay, that’s the bottom line and that is what you can do by yourself. And the time has never been better.

0:49:46.3 The conditions are right, you have the capability and you have the information available. That is very important. Traditionally they say that the teachings of the Buddha are still alive. What they are really telling you is that the live information is still available for you. If you don’t have the information, what will happen? Nothing. A lot of people meditating in the West just sit like this, right? [demonstrates]. Why? Because they have no information to think, so they just sit. Might as well sleep.

0:50:37.9 Or smoke grass and get high. (laughs). So Buddha calls that information you take in

The “best lamp to clear the darkness”, meaning clearing the ignorance. What ignorance? The ignorance of not knowing how our mind is functioning, how mind commands our actions. That’s the ignorance.

0:51:36.6

Tö pa ti muk mi se drö me yin

Kum bu la sok min je nor ji chog

It is the best wealth you can have

No thieves will take it.

Tom par gyu che mi gyu da wa yin…

It is one of the best friends you have

No matter how poor and weak and lost you may be, your own information that you have will not let you down.

Kun du mo me tang jung tsön je yin

It is the weapon you can use against the ignorance.

So, knowing is also very important. Everybody cannot become a professor like him [points to person in the room], we are not even talking about that. But everybody should have enough information about “what am I doing for me?” You hear that all time time, everybody will tell you, “Don’t do something which you don’t know what you are doing”. Sometimes they tell you, “Don’t ask questions that you don’t know the answers of”, but…

0:53:02.3 Audience: Then why ask a question, if you already know the answer?

Rimpoche: That’s right, but you really should not do something if you don’t know what you are doing. That’s what I call ‘flying in the air’. When you know what you are doing then you are grounded. So that’s your spiritual path. It is not anything else. It is in your own hands, your responsibility.

Tsongkhapa’s teaching of Lam Rim which we are doing is totally based on that. They will give you point 17: Embrace your Life. When you look at it, that’s your life. I am sure, who doesn’t embrace life? But there are plenty of people who think, “I couldn’t do it, I am hopeless, I am helpless, I am down”. It’s true in one way, you are absolutely right, but on the other hand, you can help yourself. You can do things, make yourself free. In order to make yourself free, another thing is: you can use love and compassion, to make yourself free. Did I confuse you? I hope so. Use love and compassion to make yourself free. People do that all the time anyway. But the moment you look at love and compassion, you will have some shift in your attitude, in your thoughts, a shift from me and ‘what can I do?’ to ‘what can I do for others?’

0:55:23.9 The moment you get this shift from me to others, caring about them, then you are uplifted. Your depression lifts. Buddha kept on saying that for 2,500 years, but I, this fellow, this stupid one, did not hear that. I met a neurosurgeon who told me, “Rimpoche, the best way to treat depression is the love and compassion that you people talk about”. I said, “How?” That is the stupid person asking. The answer was, “Depression is based on the person thinking: what can I do? What can I do? I, I, I – it is totally based on I, I, I. The moment you shift the focal point from I to others it removes the red carpet from under the feet of the depression.”

0:56:48.6 In order for this stupid fellow to hear Buddha’s message, I needed a neurosurgeon to tell me in English how to analyze. But it is good, better late than never. And it is really true. When you really have compassion and caring so much for others, then you yourself is not so important. So you are not the basis of all the thoughts you draw for you. It shifts. So the Three Principles, the more you think about them, the more you see how important they are in your spiritual life.

0:57:41.8 The first: seeking freedom, the second: love/compassion and the third: wisdom. When I am telling you the information, there is the wisdom you built in, on the basis of the information you get. So that’s how you practice your spiritual path. The things I am talking here I better say because I am not used to saying it. I am not just simply going bla, bla, bla. I am trying to give you materials to meditate. Every talk, every word that I say, examples that I use, the jokes I am trying to utilize, all of them should be used as reminders. We can remind ourselves of how our habitual patterns work, how our addictions work, at the expense of President Clinton.

0:59:04.7 You will remember that. It is the subject of all the news. That’s why you will remember. So I am providing you with the material of how to work within yourself. Then once you begin to work you also have that working system organized. If it is not organized you will not have a good effect. You may have one effect here, one effect there, but that doesn’t really lead you to the total goal that you really want to reach. So then the organization is necessary. This book mark here is the Odyssey to Freedom, with 64 steps. They are not steps that you can physically climb. They are steps how to train your mind and bring yourself to the different levels. That is the level on which we judge what level the spiritual person has reached.

1:00:17.2 When you don’t have any checks, counterchecks, cross-checks and critiques and you just simply sit there [then that is quite pathetic]. I was shocked when I first came to the United States and there was some group of people who were interviewed by a television station in Detroit. Each one of them were saying “I am God.” There were seven of them. Maybe they believed it, whatever the reason is, but we all know they are not God, including they themselves.

1:01:02.7 If you are God you should not have any limits. As long as you have limits you are not God. You know that. Within you there may be buddha nature. Sure, everybody has that. But you are not Buddha. By having buddha nature within you, you are not Buddha. If you are Buddha, then everybody must be Buddha right from the beginning. Then that Buddha must have fallen down and become this person. That’s not true. Then Buddhahood has a fall back.

1:02:04.4 One of the reasons in Buddhism [for following this path] is that there is no fall back. Buddha guarantees there is no fall back. The basis of that guarantee is analytical meditation, not concentrated meditation. By analyzing thoughts, ideas, watching with a critical mind and improving objectiveness, that brings the ‘no fall back’. Not falling back doesn’t come by just sitting. Buddha says all the time, “If you just keep on sitting and watching you reduce the negative power but you can never eradicate that.”

1:02:55.0 So the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism is that Hinduism will emphasize very strongly the sitting and concentrated meditation, which goes up 17 levels, to the four form – and four formless realms and all this. There are lots of divisions and it goes up 17 levels. Buddha says you can do that but does not recommend that. He says that the moment you gain the power to focus your mind [switch to wisdom]. Right now we don’t have any power of focus at all. If you try to think about this one you will probably think that one, before you even realize. That’s how our mind functions. So the Buddha wants you to learn focus. Then, the moment you learn how to focus, use analytical meditation to see how the nature is working and go against habitual patterns.

1:03:58.8 What is supposed to be continuing, pick that up and develop it and what is supposed to be cut, cut that down.

Chö je ten pai je dro wa

Same ne ngul che ma to chir

Dü je mi gre tsa chin du

Se la da ne tob par je

The quality of Buddha is not to go up to the sitting level too long

But use wisdom and cut ignorance, because that is the root of all

The suffering that we have.

Yours, and mind, and everybody else’s, that’s the ignorance. So Buddha recommends to challenge the ignorance, cut it and destroy it. That’s how you liberate yourself. By cutting ignorance there will be there will be no negative thoughts and no negative production, so naturally you get to be free. What else?

1:05:05.1 That sort of thing, when you deal with yourself, working in this life you are grounded. And when you are not doing that, then although it is wonderful, but it is just love and light. This is the opportunity for me to criticize love and light. But then when I am talking about Vajrayana I have to bring love and light back and say that light comes and liquid comes and purifies and bla, bla, bla. But here it is the other way round and this is the foundation. It is true, right? When you go into Vajrayana you have to say the light comes from the object of refuge together with nectar and washes all our negativities and all of them are there. But when I have to emphasize this grounding level we criticize all of that sarcastically.

1:06:15.7 That doesn’t mean I am denouncing that. I have to make that clear. Among the Tibetans they exactly know what I am talking about. It is culture. In the West, unless I say it, people will think, “Oh he is anti-light. He is pro-dark”. (laughs) but I am not. This is the beauty of the Odyssey to Freedom, how one gets grounded at a certain level. Without getting grounded, if you use love and light, then it becomes just love and light. That’s about it, nothing more.

1:07:06.1 One of the great teachers said, “How is Vajrayana effective? It is supposed to be very important. It all depends on the individual, how much they have built the foundation. Whether Vajrayana is going to be effective or not, depends on how much the individual has build the foundation.” It totally depends on that. I am sorry I talked too much.

What did we do today? We told you this life is important. We gave you reasons why. We also urged you not to waste your time, which means not to leave everything for tomorrow. Do it today. And what do you do? Analyze your mind, your thoughts. How does it work? Why do we get angry? Why do we get attachment? Why do we get jealous? How can I stop that? Think about the faults and difficulties created by jealousy. Think about the miserable feelings we have to go through, because of anger. Think about the miserable suffering you have to go through because of attachment. We think attachment will bring love and joy. But what you really get is suffering and misery. The love-hate business goes together for all of us because it’s our addiction.

1:09:06.6 Each one of those negativities can bring any other negativities together. It opens the door for negativity. Recognize those, tell yourself, “I am going to take care of that.” Say it whether you can do it or not: I am going to take of that right now. It all begins right now, never tomorrow. Then on top of that, if you want to pray, great, just pray to make it today, right? I am just joking, you can really pray. If you want to say mantras, fine, say them, but get that understanding within your mind, train your mind to look in a positive way. That is what everybody can do. There is no one who cannot do that.

Then another thing is motivation. There are a lot of neutral actions that are neither positive nor negative, just simply sitting, walking, minding your business. People always say: I am just minding my own business. But minding your own business can also make positive karma if you know how to put your motivation in. It all depends on the motivation. There was a school during the Buddha’s life time called “Mind Only School”.

1:11:05.6 They considered that only the mind makes all the difference and nothing else matters. In a way they are quite right. So the motivation can make any action positive, if it is not negative by nature. It can become positive. This is very important, because we have a lot of those. We have to sit in the bus and the subway, we have to spend a lot of time in cabs, in planes and everywhere. They all can become positive, including doing your own daily chores, like doing laundry, shopping. Everything can change into positive karma, just by setting up the motivation right.

1:12:12.2 But if you have good motivation but then keep on slaughtering cows one after another then positive karma is not going to happen, because by nature that’s a negative action. As long as the action is neutral, all of them can change. It all depends on the motivation. So to me, the beginning of the practice, the real, true spiritual practice, is looking in the mind, learning those motivational powers, using them to make things perfect for yourself. And I was late today, so I don’t have time for questions and answers but I will do it the next time.

1:13:08.0 Audience: That will be February 12, at 7.30 pm and that’s also a Thursday and on the alternate Thursdays there will be video tapes of Rimpoche’s teachings out of Ann Arbor. So everybody can come for those as well at 7.30. Those are Rimpoche’s teachings on the Foundation of all Perfections.

Rimpoche: I don’t know what you have here, it used to be the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.

Audience: That’s right, that’s what it will be. If you are not on our mailing list and you would like to be there is paper and pencil at the entrance and we encourage you to put name and address on there, because we can get our regular mail of sangha activities to you, particularly when Rimpoche is coming and my last announcement is: we would encourage you to make a teacher’s contribution to help us cover the expenses of Rimpoche coming here and the teachings here.

1:14:28.4 The recommended contribution is $10. The next teachings scheduled up to now is February 12 and 26 and March 12 and 26. Those are all Thursdays, at 7.30 pm, it’s every two weeks and on alternate weeks there will be the video tapes of Rimpoche’s teachings.

1:15:19.2 Okay, so thank you so much and we do have a dedication. We use the migtsema here.

1:15:47.2 Migtsema chanting 1:18:02.5 End of file