Archive Result

19980312GRNY 16th October 2021

The essence of Tibetan Buddhism into very practical way of dealing which we normally call the Lamrim, which is somehow, we made them even sort of easy way to handle so that we get the 64 steps, which we called the Odyssey to Freedom. So there are 64 steps. Did you get that paper? Okay. And the 64 steps. Lori, you can come up here. There is empty space. Maybe you want to come up here or . You want to come here. Marco, you can go there. That’s better. You want to seat on the chair, Annie? Or come here. Anyway, we have these 64 steps, we called them the Odyssey to Freedom . So there are a lot of reasons. I wont go in there. But that’s what we are going over. So now, I believe the last Thursday when I was here , I believe we talked about the, I think it is the face the inevitability of death, right? We did that. We talked about death. We talked about dying and what does death means to individual. And all of those we have covered quite carefully. And now then that means we are left with the , I think we reached to the level , wonder what happen after death. Is that the point where we stopped, right? So that is 23?

So, 23. Wonder what happens after death. Basically, you know, all of those are part of our life. We go through that. Even death. You may think I am crazy if I said even death is part of life. But it is. It is because we go through and experience. Now up to here, I can almost give you a very strong logical reasons, logical points why this is happen, what have happen , why as you have known and seen, can give you. Now after death, I cannot give you any sort of any black and white proofs as we tried to show you earlier. At this moment , it is not there. However if we begin to. (0.04:06.4) Now it is working. Thank you. So, we can sort of think about it and we can give some kind of logical understanding and a little bit of reasoning but really don’t have a , sort of black and white proof because we not met anybody who come back. Say, hey, I just come back from past life or next life. We never met them. So it is very hard to normal western scientific mind . It is hard to put that way. However, we have seen a number of people who are dying. We witness that all the time. We also seen and we almost know these people just don’t disappear . Just because they die, they do not get lost or disappeared. It is not like candle light. When the wax is finish , the candle goes away. It is not like that. It is continued. Almost all the traditions , even you look at, somehow, even the accept orders does not accept reincarnation . But they always talk about the something thereafter. And I have to give you from the background of Buddhism and that of Tibetan Buddhism. So, I am strong believer of reincarnation. And I have to. Otherwise, I will not be Rimpoche and I wont have a job. So I have to. That’s suppose to be joke. It is very interesting, what really happens after the people die. What happens. The body, through which we identify people. Our sort of basic identity that we have , is gone. And even if you are there somewhere, how do you know , this is me. And how do we recognize them. Do we carry the same characteristic of the individual? In may cases, they don’t. And I was very surprised. I was not surprised when people talked to me and got big surprise. You remember this Lama Yeshe who was the early part, in the sixties. He worked very hard to develop Buddhism in the west and various centres and all these. And then they got Lama Yeshe’s reincarnation from Spain, right? From Spain, I think it is Spain. And then the people who had been working with him before, many of them , expected the same old Lama Yeshe will come and continues the talk and what they have and they expecting same old character , what the Lama Yeshe used to have it. And then suddenly they realized this young little boy who has , who totally different from Lama Yeshe’s character. And some people get very shocked and surprised and told me, how does that happened. What has happened. And that’s not the question as what has happened or it is not the question of how does that happened. So, what happen is when we separated our consciousness and the body. We called that death. It is really separation. You know I used to say the body looks like rented apartment. And we are there occupying the apartment because we need a place to stay, it is good . It serviceable, it is warm. It has water, it has a roof and it has heat, right? When that becomes unserviceable , we have to leave. There is no way, even though we want to. We want to hang on. (0.09: 04.7) And nobody wants to die. Everybody would like to continue and hang on . But no matter how much we want to hang on , we cannot. We have to go. The going is , again, I used to word, we have to go. When you said go. There must be somebody who is going, right? Somebody , there must be a goer, a comer and all these. When you to go, somebody has to go. That somebody is the individual. Going where. No where. You can’t say going up, going down. (0.09:42.2) Possible. Actually what’s happening is , going out of the apartment. That rented apartment . The connection between body and mind. Connection between the physical entity or identity and the internal entity are broken. It becomes separated. And that is the actual death. So, what’s happening is there is a tremendous shock, the person receives because disconnecting. Even we get a little cut, we know how much we get screaming , yelling and all these, right? That’s a little cut. And then here you cut a lot, not cutting the flesh outside but the connection the entity inside and external identity, the physical body, we are cutting. We cutting the air connection. We are cutting the earth connection. We are cutting the water connection. We are cutting , what is it, fire connection. So all these basic four or five elements in our body, in which we depends . We are separating them by the time. Even before our consciousness is already gone. So, that’s why , that’s why the Tibetan Buddhist today, I am sure there are lots of other Buddhists do. I know only Tibetan Buddhism , that’s why I saying that. In the tradition , when , the normally, when the external things are, external signs of existence is gone. That does not mean the individual person is dead. So, there is a difference of timing between what we call it, brain dead and the individual really leaves out of the body. There is a time gap. It differs. It really differs. There is no certainty of time but there is a time difference. Some people, 58 hours or 52 hours . Some people immediately. There is a big difference is there. And when you observing the person. The physical body of the individual . Physical body of the individual and then you can really see it. Whether the person’s internal elements are completely disconnected with that consciousness and that the consciousness left the body or not. That you can definitely see it. See clearly with our usual ordinary eyes. For example , a year ago, when Allen passed away. Allen Ginsberg passed away. And I was there. After they put off all those machines around, and remove whatever, the oxygen, whatever it is. They are all removed. After that when you looking at it, he is there. You can definitely , sort of see it. There is a whole thing there. It is there and I told Philip , Philip Glass. I said, Philip, Allen is sill here. Even I can figure out that, he said. Even I can make out that. So, there is the time difference from our point of view, when you looking at individual dead and the usual declaration of what brain dead. Is it brain dead? Brain dead and all these . There is a difference. The difference is , in the body itself. There is two. There is internal body and external physical body. The external physical body cuts off the relationship, so you don’t feel cold, there is no pulse movement. There is nothing of that moment. It is gone. After that you have internal body relation disconnected. During that the internal body, internal, I don’t know what to say, some people like to call it sacred body. But whatever we are talking about , really , truly the centres, channels , the energy body , and all those. Chakras and $all of those. We are talking about that particular sacred part of the body. So that has internal connection. That internal connection also withdraw and person going, individual going through, symptoms of death, disconnecting. Symptoms are mostly internal ones. Mostly feeling of whitish as though your are seeing some kind of moonlight , somewhere. Reddish , as though you walked in dark room with hand full of burning cigarette throw in the air. Traditionally in Tibet, there used to give handful of burning incense. So in America, we can have a handful of burning cigarettes. It is the same thing, same spark whether it is incense or cigarettes. It is the same spark, right? Followed by darkness. Each of, there are a lot of those things we mentioned and talked and actually shared very carefully and . I like to share a secret here. When Allen was passing away at the, not at the beginning, sort of within the week, we know he is going to go. So, I was hoping he will have a very smooth going and maybe he confirm all these signs that we are saying. He will indicate yes or no. But very unfortunately he had a stroke and unconsciousness but that might have been better for him . But we don’t get any confirmation. That’s my regret. But alI these feelings, what we described are , I think everybody gets that too. That’s true. After that you , some kind, really fall in some kind of darkness. You don’t see any thing, you don’t , nothing. Sort of suffocating. The moment you begin to have suffocation, then you like to get out of it. So, the mind of going out, it comes automatically, because you started suffocating, you wanted to get out of it. But actually, actually the darkness period and the wanted to get out of it, these are sort of actual period of death. (0.18:21.2) And death itself is a very very subtle mind. It can neither be positive nor negative. This is very important point, people have to remember. Why? Because since the mind of death is itself, neutral, so it depends what previous, what immediate before that. Whether it is mind is positive nature or negative nature, will make a difference to this. That’s why it is always very important to keep the mind very positive as possible. As I mentioned to you, I sure I did, the Tibetan tradition is when somebody is dying, they even bring a Buddha image or Buddha picture. Or they light butter lamp. All these they do. They try to bring the individual person’s mind as good as possible. Thinking about the Buddha. Thinking about compassion. Thinking about love. Thinking about emptiness or wisdom if you have understanding. If you don’t, even those things . They sort of 22 or 23 different. One is 11, another is 12 or 13, I forget. So anyway, there are 22 or 23 different thoughts that you can engage immediately before that subtle mind taking over. So, that way, influenced and the chances it will connect a better future life because we have a tremendous amount of karma. From the karma point of view we have a tremendous karma, good , bad, you name it. There is a tremendous . But each and every karma, to be able to materialize , we need the conditions . The when the conditions are right, karmic materialized. Here, what we are doing is , we are trying to make a good condition so that good karma will connect. Are you with me? So that is important point. And we all, one time or another , we all going to go. At the same time we going to see one of another , our friends going to go. One by one. And there is no way in this world that we remain forever. (0.21:12.3) Nobody does, right? Nobody does, only kids becomes older and older becomes , kids becomes young and young becomes old and old becomes what? Clumsy old man or whatever. And then finally you get out. That’s the no matter how wonderful, beautiful it looks , but in reality , at the end we all go. No question. And by the time we go, who is responsible . Me. The only person who is going, nobody else. Remember when we talked about death. During the death you can’t take nobody. The Chinese old system, they may bury huge amount of what is it, those tombs that we have discovered. Huge amount army and horses, all of them buried together. But they don’t go, right? They don’t go. It is only the thing. You know Tibetans have a interesting saying. So if you a king, you have to leave your estate, and if you are a beggar, you have to leave your begging bowl and stick. Stick that protects you from dogs. The Tibetan beggars have two things, hand implements, one is begging bowl and one is the stick. If they don’t have the stick the dogs may bite you. So that’s why they carry a stick. So when the beggar , he leaves, he or she leaves this stick and bowl. And when the king dies, he leaves everything and go. That’s really what death is. This is a big transaction. Big transaction from the life that we are so use to it, that we are so looking into it, so cherish , very materialistic . And from all these angles, we plan it, we do it, we work it, we make it sure , we buy insurance and all of those. All of those. From that all of a sudden we transacted into something we don’t know. It is unknown.

So, that’s that. We go to the unknown. When we get to the unknown place, what happens. If it is the Tibetan tradition they will talk to you, I said some around here. What did we say? Contemplative bardo. There is something call the bardo. Nobody seems to be translating the bardo into English language. But it is state in between. A state in between the death and the rebirth , it is called bardo. In between , hanging in between. Have I seen the bardo? Have you experience ? If you ask me that question, I have not. Even I suppose to have it but I don’t remember. I don’t recall. As President Reagan said, right? I don’t recall. But . man y funny things here, you know. According to what I know. What will happen . That individual, the individual, whoever is going out of this life and begin his or her bardo. Bardo does not have a physical shape as we do. They don’t . They don’t have , they do have a mental body. They have a identity. It is mental body . Not a physical body. (0.25:26.7) It is a mental body. Recognizable by the bardo themselves. Not necessary by our human eyes. Or people are great spiritual high people , they may be able to see it. Maybe able to know it. Because like a Buddha and all, they call it all knowing, they have to know. But otherwise it is a totally different. It is a mental body. It doesn’t depends on any physical activities at all. In our case, when you have to go from one place to another place, we have to drag our body. In my case, when I have to come from Michigan to here today, I have to drag my body. Otherwise I can’t get here, right? So, it is true. I can’t leave my body there and come here. Then I will be dead, right? So, that’s , we have to drag our body, that is what it is. But in bardo, the bardo person, the person in bardo who does not have the physical body, who has a mental body. So the mental body works as the mind works. The moment you think, whatever the thoughts comes up. When the moment the thoughts comes up and you are there. Because it is mental body, you don’t have to drag anything. You are there. You can seat here and think , Lhasa in Tibet, we are there. Think Beijing, we are there. Think Hong Kong, we are there. Think Tokyo, we are there. So, this is the mental body has that totally different function. And so we may think it is sometimes, it is also a great way to think. Maybe it is good. Just to think to get it over there and be there and be part of it. Did you get that clear? It is a mental body. (0.28:09.5)

So when it is a mental body, there may not be tangible , physical shape. And the color. There might not be. Might be, might not be. Are you with me . This is what we have to think carefully. After Allen passed away, number of months later, I met a number of different Buddhists and non Buddhists spiritual teachers. And quite a few of them told me “ Oh, you have done great job. I met Allen in bardo and in somewhere else and they started talking to me. Some of them are really respected persons, really , really well respected persons. So what I did is , I don’t know what to say. I put my head down. I put my head down. They started to keeping quiet very fast. So luckily. And this is one incidence that come out in my head. I just shared with you. But in my thoughts , unless you are a great being. Really all knowing, how do you recognize this is the person you are talking about? Look different. The physical look is completely different. And probably the physical shape . According to the Buddha, you almost receive a similar body that what you are going to get in your next life of middle age, like physical shape. That’s what is going to be. So that was suppose to be. So, how do you recognize? Are these people are telling lies? These thoughts came up in my head. And no, they are not telling lies. They are telling truth. And then , how , these are my own thoughts within me , it goes on and back and forth. Very respected people, really, really respected people. One after another, keeps on telling me. So I don’t know the answer. I don’t know the answer, but my presumption, what I perceived out of those. A number of times , a number of people will project certain things, right? You presume and we project. And we project and that our own projection will perceive and perceive as a reality , sometimes. So, certainly, specially when you are meditating. Or you are saying prayers. Or you are doing mantras. Or you are standing or seating in front of a very holy person. Or temple, or holy places and all of those. Suddenly you project something and you perceive something. And some incidence takes place and we project, we perceive them as a reality and true. You know what I am talking about. And that may or may not be true. So, we strong question. Really have to be careful. I am not undermining psychic people. I am not saying the psychic people are wrong. I am not saying that they don’t know. I am sure they know and that whatever they tell you, sometimes becomes very correct. And they do. But I was looking how does that functions? So, I think it is a projection, perception and taking that combined together and that’s happening. So, is it 100% correct. It is not. It is 100% wrong? It is not. It is not. Now, you may think what happen . There’s power there. There is another power . Is that power coming out of spiritual development. Power coming out of spiritual development. And that spiritual development power will really, clearly see it. It is different. Different whatever majority of people talking,. He’s there, she’s there . I saw it in the camp, and all these. There is a big difference in this. So, I think you need to be very much aware of it, whether it’s coming from a true spiritual development or is it coming out of simple projection. (0.34: 07.3) And there was a great teacher in Tibet called Dubdo Dorje Chang . Dubdo Dorje Chang is well known to be psychic , like that. nd I forgot , which Dalai Lama is that , whether it was fifth or seventh. Maybe it was seventh Dalai Lama. And there was two or three other great teachers together. So Dubdo Dorje Chang was asked by the Dalai Lama, seventh Dalai Lama , said, told him that people talking that you know , you are what you call it clairvoyant. He said , well yes, people tell me that. Well I have a question. If you know the answer I will give it to you. He said, okay, what is the question. He said, what do I have in my pocket. What do I have in my pocket. You tell me , if you are right, I give it to you. So Dubdo Dorje Chang sat like this, a little while. Then he said , you have a coral mala in your pocket. Mala made out of coral. Coral mala in your pocket. And then he said, how many there. How many beads there. He looked through for a little while and he said. 110 minus one. 109, right? And then he took it out, count it. It was 109. So, he lost the mala. And then he asked him. How do you know exactly. So, he replied. He said , I see, when I started to looking at it. I see a bell. You know, you ring bell. I see a big bell. And within that the hole in the bell. Within that , whatever I am looking, I can see the picture. And when I started looking at the numbers, I see the numbers. Numbers I see, all I this. That is what I mean, directly knowing and spiritual developed person, who really knows. They will know what is in your purse. What is in your pocket. And all others, when you don’t know that. The all others are mostly are perception and perception that you accept. I am not saying it is bad. I am saying one shouldn’t do it. I am saying one has to very careful. One has to be very careful because there is a total whole thing, there are different things. Sometimes, it is your own spiritual development that you try to, you may not be able to see directly as that one. But you getting. Sometimes there is a lot of different spirits goes here and there. They try to say good things and bad things and try to give you good information and bad information and they have their own agenda. We don’t want involve in that. So, our spiritual development is really. Again , repeat . The basic development for us is making ourselves a better person, better, improving , better. Bringing ourselves a level wherever the total enlightenment level is. Bringing to that. (0.38:09.8) That is the spiritual path, that is the spiritual development and that is spiritual reality. Otherwise all of them have advantages and disadvantages. We have to be very careful.

Number of people who died and when they die, sometimes they remain in bardo . The bardo’s life . The duration of the bardo’s life is seven days. Every seven days, they will die again. So, seven times more, that is the maximum. That’s why the 49 days after passing where people becomes so important because you get out of bardo, every seven , die once and take rebirth. You can . After 49 days there is no room for bardo. It is just like, you have a welfare here. What you call unemployment, what you call it. And some weeks later you can’t get anymore, right? Is it seven weeks later? You can’t go back. The same thing. The bardo has the same period. That’s why 49 days is important. Then what happens. After that what happens. So, according to the Buddha, it gives you really map of samsaric existence. It’s call it six different realms. Buddha call. And the Chinese tradition will give you ten, right? Ten different realms. Six? Chinese is six. So when the Chinese scholar says it is six , it must be six. I thought the Chinese has ten different realms. Anyway, so you know, they will talk about it. Things that you don’t want here tonight. That is the hell realm. Hungry ghosts. Animals. And then humans. (0.40:22.5) and demi gods and samsaric gods. Small g gods. These are the six different areas where you can go, according to the Buddha. So, it is interesting for me. It interesting for me, why Buddha keep on talking about the hell realm. Why Buddha keeps on talking about the hungry ghosts. And all of those. There are two important points in these. One important point is all of them , all the different hell realms and this and that. And all of them are psychological level , we can see it , we can feel it. We experience a number of times. The sufferings that we go through. We feel, it is real hell. Don’t we said that. The real hell. So, we do go through , a psychological point of view. Psychological, we do personally experience that within this life time too. It is not necessarily that within this lifetime, we experience the sufferings of the hell realms, hungry ghosts or animals. All these we experience. And outer, external , future lives, it also separate from this existence. Separate this , what you call it, universe. There is a separately, I mean, can’t say separate. Within this universe, within every , within this space , in between, somewhere, those, physically there is a hell realm, there is a hungry ghost, there is animals realms there. They are all there. Animals we can see , right. The dogs , cats and all of those, are the animal realms. The cows, buffalos and horses, fish , all these, are animal realm. Animals, we see them. They are not human beings, they are animals. But we don’t see the hungry ghosts. It is beyond our ordinary human eyes . Out of our ordinary human eyes perception. We don’t see the hell realm people. But what Buddha was trying to tell is , hey , I knew these are there. Try to put up map and saying that. So, I went through after death , these are the possibility , where I went through. I had these experiences, so I am showing you, if you get there, this is what happening . This is what happened. That’s there. Just like map. If you haven’t go through city. (0.43:49.0) And when you wanted to go to the city there is a map. You looked at the map . You said ah here is the museum , here is the hospital , here is the train station, here is the airport . When it is hot, the temperature goes between this to that. When it is cold, it is below frozen zero, blah, blah, blah. We see that all the time. And that is exactly what Buddha has provided this for us. The unseen, unable to perceive . Unable to obtain direct knowledge, he has provided a map. Saying that there is a hell realm. There is a hot and cold. Both of them there. There is tremendous pain and suffering . Suffering ? (0.44: 50.9). Nobody can do almost anything. They may be able to help. They may be able to harm. But they cannot make you right or wrong. They cannot make you good and bad. It is only you can do. They can help to make you good. They harm to make you bad. They do that. But they really cannot make ourselves good or bad. It is our own hands . It is our total prerogative. Prerogative is the right word, right? That’s it. If that so, whether we are going to take rebirth in those lower realms or those upper realms or whatever we are going to do, is also in our own hands. Nobody else’s hands. So it is in our hands. So, we have to make the choice by ourselves. And we work accordingly. That’s the reason why Buddha provided the map. Not to threaten , not to develop fear. Not to develop fear but there are possibilities. And consider yourself. And you have to make the decision. You have to work. And nobody else can do. Ya, we try to pray. We try to do all these when people pass away. But it is second person working in connection with another second person. And right now, if we can do something. It is in our own hands. The first person working for the first person. It makes a hell lot of difference. And that’s why Buddha gave those maps, saying after that, there is a possibility of this , this , this, this different types of lives there. (0.46: 55.6) And we do see animals with our own eyes. We pet them, we teach them , we make friends with them, we negotiate with them. And then we also have cole roach? , to be negotiated as well, and mice as well, right? All of those we have them. We seen them, right? And the cole roach not going to be cold all the time. The mice not going to be mice all the time, right? So it is different beings that comes in, circles around. We happens to be human beings at this moment. Happens to be . By sheer luck. Truly speaking. By good chance , we happens to be human beings. And if something goes wrong, we could have been cole roach too. This is interchangeable . Number of people will say we are human beings, we are going up and up . We are not going to go down. So, the Buddha’s map provides a circle. It is up, down, up, down , it’s a circle. So , circling means , it means circling. So, it’s going round. So today’s cole roach will not necessarily be tomorrow’s cole roach. Today’s human being not necessarily be tomorrow’s human being. It could change. But it is the same person, same being. Not the same mind. But here, it is very clear. Mind alone might not be the being. The consciousness. There is something call the individual. Sometimes people tell me , how can you said that. Buddhism is the religion that accept there is no self. It is true. There is no inherent self. There is no inherent existence, self. However we continue. So the Trungpa Rimpoche use to use this word. Continuation of discontinuity. It is very interesting word. And it is true. The life will continue, one after another. But is also discontinuity. So many discontinuity continues together. Number of Tibetan teachers used to give example of the mala. You know, the mala, the rosary , you put though. There is a rope in the center. One after another mala go. Some people would say , ice could put together, melt together but I thing Trungpa Rimpoche’s continuation of discontinuity is the best explanation in English. It is continuing as it’s discontinuity . Because individuality different. Every minute , every second, it is different. Yet there is a continuity. So that continuity , basically if you look at it, yesterday’s me and today’s me and tomorrow’s me . Last me, this week’s me and next weeks’s me. If you look at this, you see this. You are not going to say , I am the yesterday’s me. You are not going to say , I was the yesterday’s me. You cannot say you are yesterday’s me, can you? I was high yesterday. I am , today and tomorrow I will be, right. So again, there are different points. So, but, yesterday’s me is not today’s me. For sure. Yesterday’s me was identified with the particular time period called yesterday. So, but it is me. Again I have the responsibility , I have the continuation and I have , it’s me , in one way, right? We can see that very easily. Basically that is exactly how change of the life between the previous, past and future and the present life. It is exactly changes , exactly as we changed yesterday , today and tomorrow. Or, it also looks like the awaken state and the sleeping period and the dream period. Take the dream and take the sleeping time , take the awake state. Again the sleeping person, the dreaming person and the me. So there is a separation as well as unity and oneness. And that is exactly the past , present and future lives functions that way. Does that make a little sense? Elizabeth smiles, so. I almost Nancy smile. I believe that is the direction through which you look, you will better, you will be able to understand better about the past, present and the future. So, when you have that. That life is, that particular life is governed by something . When you have today, tomorrow and day after tomorrow and next week. How do we live in there? We live in there according to the plan that we made , according to the preparations that we made. We live according to that. We live within that plan. That plan goes through. That’s exactly what we do, right? That’s why we have datelines, appointments and this thing and that thing and all of those are the framework what we are doing. Very similar to this. The karma we create is the basics of the framework we are making, the appointments and whatever you have to do. All of those are the karmic ones , is the one we are doing. So when you get through it. When the time comes, right. Even whether you like it or not, you have a commitment, you have to go, you have to get there, whatever it have to takes, right? So likewise the time goes, and the individual will driving through. And we experience whatever we have, prepared for that. (0.54:31.7) And that’s what Buddha meant, we are responsible tom ourselves. So, if you don’t wanted to make sufferings in the future life, it is time for us at this moment to crack right now. Right now. That’s Buddha provided this map and Buddha tried to explain it. That’s what it is. Are you with me.

And now you said, alright, right now we have to do. Right now. Right now, we said. But what . What do we have to do. What we have to do. That’s the most important point. It is a very , here to remember. Buddha himself said. Avoid negativities as much as you can. Keep on accumulating the positivity . Positiveness. And most important of all, watch your mind. The Buddha said that’s Buddhism. Buddha himself said , this is Buddhism. I told you last time the Tina Turner’s story, right. I did here, right? So it is true. As in one way, Buddhism extremely simple. Just go on collecting positiveness. Just don’t have, avoid the negative things. Avoid killing, avoid lying, avoid cheating , avoid stealing, avoid, what you call it, people are when people together they create rumors and make fights and . Gossip is not that bad. Diversify , divide, gossip is not that great, but not so bad. It is very hard , some people cannot shut their mouth at all. They have to . I am sorry. So really, truly, keep on collecting goodness. Building the goodness as much as possible and avoid all the harming. You know what makes it negative. What makes it wrong is when you are hurting somebody, including yourself. When you are hurting by your action. That shows you it is a negative. When you are hurting, when you are not helping anybody , it is neutral. When you are helping it becomes good, positive . Very simple in one way. So keep on collecting goodness . That is basically Buddhism. According to the Buddha, it is really true. The Buddhism does not demand you , come and worship Buddha. No , it never said anywhere. You may take refuge in Buddha. It may become a method of something. That also , to help you, give yourself a commitment. So that it may help you, it may push you, it may encourage you, Simply. It is not Buddha wants somebody to come bow down there and burning butter lamps or the joss sticks. No, it is not. So there is not a really. If you really look into Buddhism very carefully. You know, one way, it is extremely simple. Simple, avoid negativities, and keep on collecting goodness as much as you can. It is really simple. It is not depend on ritual, it is not depend anything else. It depends on the personality , individual person, how you think , what do you do. Now, the teachings what we talked here. The spiritual path that we tried to share. It is a part of training your mind. What you really need to do is keep on collecting goodness. (0.59: 34.9) Because it is karma. Because you are responsible to yourself, so you have a lot of goodness, you don’t have badness , so you don’t even have to worry about it. Nothing pops up from nowhere. Nothing landed down from nowhere. So all our , even future lives, if there is . Even future lives , is not going to pop up , not going to be landed down. Be prepared. So the reason why Buddha prepare those maps is there’s possibilities, it is in your hands . You take care. Take care. Here is the map. That’s what Buddha said. Are you with me? So, this is map. This is the map. Take care yourself.

I don’t know where I ? Or avoid, see I have these twenty five, is it. Twenty five , avoid hell rebirth. Avoid hungry ghost rebirth. Avoid animal rebirth. Remember limitations of a human rebirth. Okay, that is twenty eight. Human is a good rebirth but there is a lot of limitations, right? We talked that very often. We know it. The limitations. Not only we talked but we experience it all the time. And the mental, physical, emotional limitations. How much we have. Really a lot. Avoid , what is that, demi god rebirth. Avoid samsaric god rebirth. Do I have to talk to you about the demigods and the samsaric gods? I don’t think it is important. It is there. According to Buddha it is there. Let them be. One thing I would say, I will tell you. The samsaric gods is suppose to be extremely good and joyful. Very joyful , really joyful and wonderful . It is almost top most example of material joy. It is suppose to be fantastic. But it is only suffering they have. That suffering is knowing where to be going to be the next life. Seven days before they die. So they have extremely sad and miserable thing. Sad and miserable thing. It is almost that sometimes it is funny. One of their suffering is , this is samsaric gods. They are suppose to have flowers in their own bodies. Sort of natural born flowers, they carry around. And when they know they are going to die, the flowers start going and that is the signal for them. They feel very bad. Terrible and try to hide some corner. And most of your friends will abandon you at that moment. They will not come near you because they think you going to go and your sort, terrible , dirty, whatever it may be . So you are not going to go there. Some very very close friends will bring a little piece of flower on a big long stick and throw at you wherever you are. So, that’s sort of things they do. It is also give them more miserable suffering. Otherwise it is fantastic. Or are great , what you can think. Never get older, never get you know, all of those, whatever our dreams are, they are all there. However , within that lifetime, how great it might be. Within that lifetime, that particular life, one can not get , one cannot ground the spiritual path. One cannot gain the spiritual path at all. Simple reason. The reason simply because they will not understand suffering. There is no understanding of suffering. Therefore they cannot grasp the 4spiritual path. Spiritual practice is the anti suffering, Antidote. Since they could not recognize suffering, they could not obtain antidote. So, human life becomes much more important in the spiritual path even than the samsaric gods. Why? This is the life where we can figure out and experience pain, suffering, joy, bliss, whatever you can say. We can experience, we can feel it and we can understand and we can work. That’s why human life has so much more important than all these up there, those guys. That’s the thing. That is another reason why human life is so important even though if you can ranking them by joy, humans becomes third. But it has that value. And what is that for. (1.06:16.9) That value of feeling , understanding of the pain and joy makes the individual who can catch , to be able to catch all negativities in future. Because you don’t want to feel, experience . You know. You said that I have been there. I know. We normally said that, right? And when you don’t know or when you know it, sometimes go and when you don’t know now, we call them out of touch, right? If you are out of touch with the suffering, you cannot work against that. You cannot. Neither you can work for yourself nor you can do something for somebody else. That’s why it is so important to recognize. Buddhism map is really great one. It really shows you what’s the possibilities, how it works and how you can avoid. And when you try to avoid, they will also show you this is the highway, this is , what you call it, local . Is there a name for that. Whatever they said. This is interstate highway, this is a state highway, this is a county road and all of those. They will show you. That’s what it. So, I was hoping this Odyssey to Freedom which is a totally based on traditional Lamrim, hoped to be a interested highway , what is , 94 comes here. 95. I don’t believe it is a plan , right. It is not a plan. I don’t know is the plan right. So it has to depend on the interstate highway. We only know how to drive. We don’t know how to fly. Though Vajrayana suppose to be helicopter or jet or whatever. So, but that’s what it is. So how to avoid all of these. Is avoid negativities , keep on collecting goodness. That alone , avoid negativities, actually. We don’t have two things. Here I am saying avoid negativities, build , collect , who wants goodness. But if we keep on collecting goodness, it automatically cuts down the negativities, right? In place of doing negativities, you collect goodness. So the bottom, it says, collect goodness . You will be okay. That’s that. As simple as that. (1.09:25.0)

Can we do it? Would you like to do it?? That’s a more question than can we do it. I am sure we can do it. Number of people have done it. But why not me? What’s wrong with me? Or you may think, we are Americans, the Tibetans can do it, not Americans. That’s not true. Absolutely not true. It is Buddhism is Buddhism. And the Buddha’s teachings is like a sunshine. It is for everybody. It is not that the sun doesn’t shine in Asia and shines here only? No . It is only shine in Asia, doesn’t shines here. No. It is. So, it is like a sunshine. It is everybody’s . It does not , doesn’t matter whether you are Eastern or Western. Doesn’t matter you are white or black. Doesn’t matter you are yellow or orange. Is there orange person? Red. Okay. Really true. It is not the physical. It is not the genetic. It is not. It is the individual. Individual who have a mind, who have an understanding and who have, who wants to help themselves along with others. That’s it. So it is does not matter too much is a question can you do it. So much, there is a question will I do it. And then we will say, yes, yes, yes , I will do it but right now I have this urgent work. Let me finish this and then I will do it. Never works. Never. Never ever. And the traditional Tibetan teachers will give you the example for this. It is an old man’s beard. You know the beard we get here. Beard. And if you keep on shaving or plucking, the more you pluck, the more it will come up. More you shave , it will come more, right? That was the traditional example. Another example, they said , if you are near the ocean , the wave will go on, it will never finish. I did once in Malaysia , sat near the ocean and see how many waves going. When they gone, they go back. And sat there long time. Two hours or something, nothing going, one after another which will comes, right? So, just like that. The activities what we have , will come one after another like that of the wave in ocean. So if you wait to finish that , it never do. You have to make your mind right moment. Right that moment when you wanted to do it. And right that moment you have to actually tell yourself , I am going to collect positiveness. I am not going to do any negativities. But will you completely do it. No , no. We made our mind up and will do it , exactly opposite of what we committed to do it. That’s our nature. We do it. But doesn’t matter if you fall down three hundred times. You must get up three hundred times. Just don’t lie down there. You know what I mean. That is important. Keep on finding. Keep on continuously. You got to do that. And once you do that , and everything will be gradually be okay. Because you really made the shift . Right now what’s happening is all negativities we are so use to it. We are comfortable. It is business as usual. And we are so used to it. Not only used to it this life time. Used to it previous life time also. So we are really used to it. And so it will drag us down. And when you make that shift, it is a very hard to make a shift. But once you make the shift , the course of your journey, the direction has been changed. Direction has been changed once you started moving in that direction, gradually, you fall down . It doesn’t matter. There is nobody who doesn’t lose. People lose all the time. You may lose three hundred times ,ut make sure you get up three hundred times. Do we say, our lives doesn’t matter. I will forget now. That is not good. That will lead you down. That idea. So, maybe you get disappointed saying that I worked so hard. I tried , I can’t imagine that I lost it. People do that. But everybody do the same thing. Everybody get lost. (1.15:10.0) Not only you. We all do, all the time, because the negativities are so strong. So strong. They are fully developed. It is the peak level. The anger, the hatred. All of those are peak level within us. It is very peak level. We are expert and we don’t have to think. It is automatically comes. And when you try to change it’s direction, it is hard. It is not business as usual. It is change. But once you are able to make that shift and we are looking, we are face, we started the journey to the right direction. Then it will take by itself and lot’s of other help, different things comes in. So, now again, I said collect goodness. What is it. I mean, I don’t want to go in that way. I , basically be a kind person. Everything, everybody tells you the same thing. Be good person. Be honest and be nice . Be open. Be kind. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself. To be able to balance. You know what I am talking about it? Some people will say. Well, I have to be kind and I have to be compassionate, so I can’t , so I have to give, so I have to surrender myself. No, it’s not. That is unwise. There have no wisdom in there. So, yes, you have to be kind and compassionate but yet you must have wisdom. So, it is the essence of Buddhism is basic life. How we live. How we think. What do we do. I told you last Thursday or Thursday before that. We can make all our daily chores including doing laundry or shopping for groceries shopping. And all of them , you can make them positive, you can make in good nature. I think last, did I say or Thursday before that. I said that. I think we need to do that. If we don’t , I think we don’t have a lot of time. So, call traditional time. We call it time for meditation. So you cut certain chunk of time and seat down and burn incense and all these. That is a luxury now. That’s a luxury and basically every moment that we have , we have to bring that in. (1.18:07.7) as a , I don’t want to say it, meditative state. But, that may be give you different thing. But goodness in nature. So where and how you handle that is the motivation. Every morning, every motivation that you do, motivation. When I was a kid, about three or four and I was taught to pray in the morning. The prayer said , meaning may my wisdom eye may be open. And practice of both Sutra and Tantra teachings of Buddha may be completed. May I be helpful to all living beings. So may I be helpful for all living beings . So if you make it that in the morning. That is your motivation and every single thing, whatever you do in the day time, unless it is been influenced by anger or something else. Otherwise, mostly it will become positive karmic nature. Even you have to fire somebody. (1.19: 28.1) Fire somebody within compassion. Don’t fire with anger. So when you do this, every single thing you do becomes positiveness. We reach very far way, That is very very helpful. Well, I got a big mouth, I talked too much. (1.19:49.5) I better shut my big mouth. If you people want , if you want, if anyone of you want to open your mouth, go ahead. Whether you have questions or statements or whatever. When will I be back here? Okay, I will be back on 26th March and April 9. So, then I have to be . Apr 9? And nothing thereafter. So, I definitely will be here, 26th and Apr 9. So, after that I will be , taking, going to Europe and Asia. And I will be back , probably, September. I don’t know but we made some arrangements that you have tapes, or Thursday night, or tapes or different teachers coming and talking and all these. We can make some arrangements. Planning to do some arrangements. Some tapes that I specially made for those different dates. Do you have a question?

Audience : Back when you are talking about people seeing Alan , somebody in bardo. Perception and projection. I think projection is that something in your mind , project out. Perception is when you see something is there. So, my question is .

Rimpoche : First projection, second perceive.

Audience : Question is , with somebody is dying , is there a spirit that you perceive , then maybe your mind is perceiving, body that they know. Because of your projection. But this is totally coming from , you know, perception or interacting some spirit is reaching and capturing and then projection from the mind.

Rimpoche : I believe both.

Audience : so there are perceiving some essence .

Rimpoche : That’s what I am saying. They are not lying . They are telling you the truth.

Audience : So the projecting is honest.

Rimpoche : That’s my guess. I am sorry but shouldn’t be. That’s a little judgemental. I am sorry , but . I couldn’t figure out what else could they do.

Audience : The mind, the coarse mind that I identified with now, in this body. The dyana that speaks the ego mind. It is not the subtle mind that actually goes on, is that right?

Rimpoche : It is a very interesting question.

Audience : Then what is that subtle mind ,how does one understand what this subtle mind is. (1.23:02.4)

Rimpoche : As when we look at something, our eyes sees something and that information is picked up by eye consciousness . The eye consciousness alone cannot digest the information what you see. So it immediately reflect back and give it to the gross mind, what we call it consciousness. So that eye consciousness is reconnected with that basic consciousness and eye consciousness sees and informs , reflects to the basic consciousness, right? Just like that. The gross mind will function in the dealings and external things and internal things dealings. And the gross mind, whatever comes into contact with that mind. And there it goes to subtler, even goes inside , deeper subtle mind. The reflects of that. Relationship between the gross mind and the subtle mind is the relationship between eye consciousness and actual consciousness. Just like that. They function. There is a lot of layers and layers and layers of functioning when you talk about the mind and the consciousness level. I believe there is a tremendous of layers. And finally , deep down you have a very subtle mind. And also when you go deep down you never something call this is it. That’s why they say selflessness and all these . You can go on and on and on and on , but you never going to reach and saying this is it. Everything whenever pointed out , this is it. It is gross level. That’s subtle can go.

Audience : So it keeps reducing it and reducing it to nothingness. Is that nothingness that comes on?

Rimpoche : There is a no such a thing call nothingness. You can constantly continuously go. According to the Buddha. You know those what you call atoms . You know, the atoms. Nd they said, Buddha said there is, there never be the atoms that you cannot divide. No matter you go beyond the human eye , beyond mechanical, beyond whatever, there will be never be. There will be never be. So it always pair, it cannot be one.

Audience : So the duality between the gross mind and

Rimpoche : It is not the duality. The moment the duality, whatever I know the language of duality is, some kind of misconception. Not true but something else . Though you see one, you see two and all these. We call it duality. I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. It is not duality. It is the , now I am lost. I am sorry. I am lost, really.

Audience : So the relationship is such that the gross mind is making impressions of the subtle mind as well as .

Rimpoche : Ya, I think that some of the inform , somewhere deep, deep, deep. Keep on informing something . And then you go deep and start searching. Who is the receiver here. And that goes on, you cannot really get it, this is the one. I believe that’s what it is. It is very hard , very hard to imagine. I believe that’s how it functions. Jonathan (1.27:22.8)

Audience : From the point of view of interdependence, we see how everything is connected. Sometimes one starts feeling like being , feel of us, feel like the total environment , kind of lose it, sense of self. Feel the sense of being part of everything. Is that a move towards selflessness or is that some other state.

Rimpoche : I think that is , that is the part of the , I don’t know, exercise? It is the part of exercise. When you start to really shrinking as well as looking for the dependenceness of it. The interdependenceness is so important. I think it is, you who told me first time when the butterfly flies different in China , it makes difference to America. This is exactly what Buddha said all the time. It is all totally dependant . Sort of way and how we really exists on the basis of that dependentness. And if we lose the point on which we depend , so then we lose completely. So the existence is the point on where we depend and dependness and that comes together and that’s why. So really emptiness, when the true emptiness , there is external, difficult to understand blah, blah, blah. That what we can really understand is interdependent existence. Independent existence is not there. Not anywhere. Nobody is independent. Nor environment, inhabitants. East, west, south, north whatever. South, north , east , west, definitely more clear. If there is no north, how can there be south. If there is no east, how can there be west. It really depends on that. (1.29: 36.0)