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19980326GRNY 8th November 2021

To get a better life. To have lesser sufferings. Which we now call Odyssey to Freedom and we try to combine these points that we raise. Almost a slogan that we have . 64 we have them and we combine them with the Foundation of Perfections. That we have been talking. So this is going to be middle of it. If you are first time here , you may have a little difficulty to figure out what’s going on because it is in the middle of things. All of you have that little piece of paper call Odyssey to Freedom ? Everybody have it? They probably need over there, some. Do we have it? Alright. I am sorry not available. But next time , will be there. Can you share with some people , look together and see. Okay. Where you going to seat now? You might come over here, both of you . All three of you. Come over here. Would you come over here and seat here. (0.01:36.5) Can I borrow yours? Where are we?

Twenty eight, finished. So we are at the level of thirty one. It is interesting. It says no, what can help and harm in life and death. So we talked about death a number of times. And we also talked rebirth and we said , and I told you, if you can remember, all those six different realms. And we talked about he hell realm, hungry ghosts, animal realms and all these. Animal realm we see it , by our own. We can see it and it is there. We can see it, right? So it is there. Hungry ghosts and hell realms, we don’t see it. So we don’t know exactly whether it is there or not. Lot of people would like to say on a psychological level, it is there. Actually we don’t know. Can you manage there or you can come over here. There is one place, here. There is one place to seat so you can seat. There is one here. You can get into that corner. Thank you. If you are going to get more people, where are you going to put it? So people say , and I would like to discuss this. This is not the usual part of the traditional teachings but over here, people would like to look, all of them , as psychological realm, somewhere , psychological point of view, it is there , otherwise it is not there. And people said that very often. But, it is very hard to say. No one can really say it is not there. I keep on telling you the other day, if you remember. I said Buddha has provided us a map. Map of all the existence like the six different realms. And Buddha tell us, here’s your map and there is information. Then if you take that route, it will lead to here , if you don’t take, if you take this road , it leads to here. Here is the map, and you are responsible , whatever you want to do. It’s for you. Remember I mentioned in that way. And I was thinking if Buddha happens to be a Caucasian and people would have bothered, much easier. That’s a joke. It is half joke. But for us, it is really a map that Buddha has shown. That’s why I had over here. Avoid hell rebirth, avoid hungry ghosts, avoid animal rebirth. So, no one can really say it is not real at all. I said this today because a number of friends in Jewel Heart who have a number of years, might not , some even five, six years and they are still like to think , that is the real thing but it is the psychological level we have that. It is true, psychological level , we have it. That doesn’t mean we don’t have actual hell realm, actual hungry ghosts realm because , just because we don’t see it. That is not good reason not to have it. So, that’s the one point that I would raise here and you like to think about it. You would like to put it some thoughts in it. It seems I am giving you a little back news. Particularly those coming from Catholic tradition, hoping there is no hell realm in Buddhism. And here we are, talking these. Avoid all these. So, what really happen. What can help and what can harm in life and death. This is very important question. What will help me in life or even after death. We always talk the same dharma thing. The Buddha’s discovery of a helping individual and helping others. How does I help myself and how can I help others. These are the two most important questions. How can I help myself is through to recognize my negativities. The bad things I have done. The bad I indulge in and I make others to do. And recognize that is not good. That is not good for me , for him , for anybody else. It is not good. But I have done already. So what can I do. Don’t do it again. Really that’s true. Avoid negativities. That is what Buddha said, right? You have done before, sure . That is nobody who has not done anything wrong . You will not find. Wherever you look. And if you are going to look, best is Clinton as role model, you are not going to find there , either. You not going to find there either. That’s right. So, wherever you look, there is nobody who did not make mistake. Everyone of us. Even Buddha before become a Buddha, million of times, that he made a lot of mistakes, everywhere. (0.09:40.5) But , once you make mistake, that doesn’t mean it is the end of the world. It doesn’t mean that. You can always correct. You can always purify. This is in our life , we have to understand that. We can purify and we can correct, particularly any negativities that we have create. There is nothing that you cannot purify. Nothing. Not a single thing. Everything you can purify. How, is a different question. Different question. So, you can purify. Anything that we did wrong. Even Hiltler can purify his deeds. Can. Of course.

When His Holiness, Dalai Lama was visiting Israel, in Jerusalem , and somebody asked, does Hilter has Buddha nature, goodness within him. He said, yes. In Jerusalem. But this is the reality. Even he, after all these , he could purify if he wanted to. I did not say , he did purify. But, he did not, right? We all know that much. But he could. So, no matter how heavy , so heavy negativities you may indulged, after that we can purify based on nothing. There is nothing that we cannot purify. This is one very important point we have to 4remember in our life. We think once we have done, done something wrong, then I am finish . I am doom. I have no opportunity. It is not true. I am simply not saying it is not true. I have strong reasons why it is not true. Because we change . We are impermanent. We change. We change ourselves. We change our environment. We change everything. Day by day. Minute by minute. Week by week. Month by month. We change. We change our physical appearance . We change our mental attitude. And we change everything. That’s what we do. So when we change, then , that also changeable. That negative karmas that we created . That also changeable. And the way and how we change is through purification. Anyway what I suppose to say here. No one can help. All the positive karma that we have, helps. Help us to get better life. To have lesser suffering. To have a meaningful life. All these are positive karma. And harm is the negative karma. Very simple. This is Buddhist principle. Buddhist principle , is you are responsible for your own deeds. Nobody else can impose you, anything on you. Whatever you do. You are responsible. Nobody else. How you make your responsible. Because whatever you do, that shapes your tomorrow. Your tomorrow is shaped by you. Nobody else. So, that’s why since you are responsible to yourself, that idea, that point what Buddha has clarified to us is the fundamental basis on which we talked about karma. If you are responsible for your own deeds, then we don’t have to talk anything about karma. It has nothing else to do. Somebody else makes the decision for you and give you judgement and we just simply have to wait. That’s not the case. What the Buddha experience tell us. Tell us , you are responsible for yourself. So, therefore karma becomes important in our life. Whatever we do, we have the same experience. If we are harming anybody else and we get harm ourselves later. Sooner or later. It may take a hundred eons or something. Doesn’t matter. (0.16:03.0)`I don’t remember the words exactly. Any karma that we have created . No matter it may take hundreds of eons to develop , to get the results . However when the conditions are right and you going to have the result, whether good or bad, whatever it is. That’s the Buddha’s understanding on how we have been responsible for ourselves. So, that’s how our karma works.

Since I have been talking about karma here, I don’t think I have karma somewhere else. Well, we do have a few of them there, continuously. So, few of them there continuously. So it is okay. How can we help ourselves at the time of the death. That is a big question. Big question. At the time of the death, it is so much things going on within ourselves. So may things going on . You know what I mean. You sick, you got pain, and you got , too much drugs , you have been drugged. Unconscious and so many things. So, it will be a little difficulty for us to be able to help ourselves at that time. Though we would like to help ourselves but will be a lot of difficulties. So, in order to , either avoid or even if it happens. To be able to focus by yourself , for that reason, we do the practice. We do practice everyday. We do practice. Like the little thing , is said, before the starting here. Few mantras and seven limb offering and all these. That is simple little, what we call it , practice. Giving ourselves , a slightly, training to focus our minds on certain things. On certain things. And training ourselves to be able to think very positive nature. And when I said positive nature , you know, some traditions teach you to think about only positivities and nothing else, negativities. Tibetan Buddhism is extremely , the most important positivity , we can ever think about it. I was talking to some friends of ours. And a woman named Aura who has been working with me a long time. I was talking to her and I said , Aura , what is this positivity relation business? Some positive and she said, Rimpoche , you are not going more positivity than the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. I said, why? She said, here you visualize yourself in the for m of total enlightened yidam. So, how can you have anything more positive than that. (0.20:06.3) I have nothing to say. Probably that was right. But the main point here is, training your mind. And thinking not so much positive that I am a yidam and this and that. I am not talking about that. Whatever the level you can think, you know, normally you read the Vajrayana books or things like that, they will tell you or focus on clear light or focus on emptiness and all these beautiful names will give you there. However these beautiful names are accessible to certain very specific , few , better developed persons. Then not to all of us. Whatever we have , whatever level are, we have to focus on that particular thing., Always said, we really we really bite what we can chew. We don’t want bite something you cannot chew. We bite what we can chew. So, whatever the level might be, so compassion, love or even you look through here , form 13 to 31. Any point, whenever you are focusing ,wherever you are beginning to become familiar and whatever you feel you are comfortable , you can focus on that. And each one of these steps , are capable of delivering your better future life. Each one of them. You don’t have to search for something else. Number of people keep on asking me . Oh my friend is dying, so what can I do? I will simply say. Do your usual thing, nothing more. If your usual thing, every day you do, if that help. Then what are you wasting your time for? So, that’s a very important point. And each one of those steps from 13 through 31, or 13 to 30, whatever those are there. Wherever you are focusing, wherever you are meditating. I am giving this as a meditation base . You think each point, you meditate. Try to understand. Try to analyze or investigate and then get some meaning out of that. And try to internalize that. This is true practice. Whether you are Buddhist or whatever you might be. There can be very very good Buddhist, they can think themselves as Atheist or whatever . So they can be very good Buddhists. Is really true. These are the points where you can think , investigate and internalize. And that will change your attitude towards your life . That will change way and how you deal with people. That will change way and how you function within our life. That’s how it make a difference . But if you look at this as some kind of book novel , whatever it is, then doesn’t do much good to you at all. So it is, if you treat as a book mark, it is, and will become a book mark. If you treat this as sort of guideline, it is , it will become guideline and it is a guideline. If you look as a principle , how we conduct our life, and it is become a principle and it will help to conduct life properly. (0.24:23.0) So this is this. So, don’t leave it on the words. Words doesn’t mean much unless you investigate, try to understand , investigate. And I emphasize so much here for people to investigate on this. I can very easily say, hey meditate and seat down, nicely. We can seat nicely, comfortably, meditate , do nothing. Don’t put any efforts. Just keep on seating there and with nice , big smile. Even the temple is burning with fire, you still smile. And even the offerings is eaten by dogs, you still smile. This is the traditional Tibetan saying. So, you can seat like that. It is not big deal. It is easy . But that’s not going to help us. That is not going to help you at all. When I said that is not going to help you at all, sometimes people misunderstand me. So when I emphasize on this , investigating business because this has to be your own knowledge . This has to be your own quality. This has to be your own way of functioning. And how you can grab that to be part of your life is by understanding and then investigating. If you don’t investigate , then anybody can tell you, hey you are wrong. If you don’t do this , you say, oh, am I wrong? What , why I was it five years. But you don’t even know you are wrong. So, investigating by yourself is so important. So, then whatever it is, good or bad, it is your own. (0.26:34.1) And you sort of, it is like a critiquing, bringing all the critical points in there and try to find out within you and then you begin to get some understanding and some realization, then you check that with those experienced person. Their experience and mine are they tallying or contradicting. If they are tallying, then it’s fine. One or two or three , it is working together. It is okay. If it is not tallying and is contradicting then some , something wrong. You again do the investigation. And finally when you really find a very important point. Don’t have to be big sentence . Maybe just a little slogan. Or maybe just one word. Yes or no, whatever. All of those type of things. And then you focus on that. And that is how it becomes part of your life. This is so important. Otherwise we will be dependent of love and light. Love and light is a good thing, no doubt. I have nothing against it, but I have to tell you . Love and light is love and light. It is good when you are there, you are happy. You smile a little bit and that’s that, right? And you do where? And your life will go where. The darkness will come over. And your laugh will go away and you have, negative emotions will rise. Emotional pains we will experience. But this way, when you really find out, investigate and when you understand, that’s exactly way how you cutting down your negative neurosis. You cannot cut down your anger (0.28:47.3) You can reduce the anger by love and light. But you cannot eradicate anger by love and light. You can eradicate your anger by analyzing , investigating and understanding. And it is stable. Nobody can change that because you knew it with your own reasons. So you have your own understanding and that stands for . This is a very important point. Buddhism has been in this country for last three decades? Maybe a little more or less. More or less it came in the form of meditation. Am I right or wrong? So it more or less came as a meditation because it is the easy to adopt. And easy to present. It is easy to adopt and it gives you a lot of good mental relaxation. So, that’s what happened. When you try to go deeper within yourself,. Try to help yourself and try to help others. That you care. So you needed more than that. You really need more than that. So you don’t have that it is very difficult to help ourselves. When it is difficult to help ourselves. In life it is more difficult to help ourselves at time of death. Truly speaking the positive karma that you carry will help you. The negative karma you carry , it will harm you. So, what are we suppose to do. We are suppose to purify all the negative karmas that we have. We try to gain much more . Collect the goodness as much as we can. If you move that way, that will also help. Or from the Buddhist point of view , at the time of death, if you are thinking, you are focusing on Buddha, on Yidam or on your own Guru, that will help. But to be able to that, you need to train yourself. Then they tell you, number 32. Take refuge. You know that. I took refuge to India in 1959. (0.33:02.7) When I got kicked out from China, Tibet by the communists. Sorry. Caught me right there. When I was kicked out from Tibet by the communist China in 1959. You have no other place to go. So you take refuge to India. And that’s it. So, please help me, allow me to stay here, help me and I will follow your laws, I will respect your laws. That’s how we take refuge to India. So, similarly here you say, look, I would like to help myself. I really like to help myself. But I might not have time to do, helping myself. I am trying now but I did not have good , sort of time, I don’t have so much of experience. I don’t have so many information. I couldn’t focus much. So, if , suddenly, something happens, so would you help me. Can you give me a help. Can I rely on you. That’s simply. May I be able to rely on you. So, that’s actually, it is, can I rely on you. That is the question here. So, we go and tell Buddha and say can I rely on you. So, Buddha will say, sure you can rely on me. And then , also has to tell you. Yes, you have to rely on yourself. Truly, if you are looking back. Let’s say the word Buddha. So, what does that give you a picture. The moment you say Buddha , what picture do you get in your head. Most of the people , I feel, a image of Buddha or painting , or photograph or poster or tangka or some kind of a temple, or something, that sort of, whether it is a antique, bronze or stone, old Indian stone. All that sort of picture we are going to get it. And if you are getting that sort of picture ,we all do. I don’t think we are looking at the Buddha at all. It is a image of Buddha, a representation of a Buddha. We are looking necessarily at Buddha at all. Well, I can’t say at all because you say, well that image may have wisdom beings in there and all these complicated questions you raised. If you do, I have to say sorry. Sorry, but I am not wrong. Still I say sorry but I am not wrong. What has to affected to us is really trying to connect. Connect, not necessarily the historical Buddha. The Buddha that came 2500 years before to India. We are not necessarily trying to connect to that. That is a representation. Actual Buddha within ourselves. That my own little baby Buddha who is going to be mature one day. And who is going to be fully functioning as a Buddha. That’s what I needed. And that’s what I am trying to connect. When you take refuge, you are not only rely on the historical Buddha who is representing enlightened beings but also connecting your own future Buddha. This is the true refuge. True protector to ourself. It is the Buddha within ourselves. We keep om telling you as a human being in our nature , we have good nature. Good nature we have. That , why we call that good nature. Because that nature can develop and become a better , and a better, and a better and finally enlightened. And that is within ourselves. No where external at all. Nothing. Nobody can give you that. Only you can earn it. And that’s why connecting the baby Buddha within ourselves in that fully enlightened beings, bringing them up is the actual dharma practice we have. (0.38:34.2) So the moment you say Buddha, you must think both ways. Historical representation and Buddha within ourselves. Try to link them together. Give the hand of the historical Buddha for that little baby to walk with you. That’s what we should do.

The second dharma. The word dharma. I am sure many of you are familiar with the word dharma. So, when you talk about dharma , so is that dharma means? What picture do you get? Think within yourself. Don’t tell me. Just think within yourself . What picture do you get? Books? Teachings? Tapes? What else? Think about it. Actually there is a information part of it and the development part of it. Information part of it , all these teachings and blah,blah, blah, the books , all these are information part of dharma. That’s not important one. The important one is the spiritual development within yourselves. Spiritual development within yourselves is the important dharma within ourselves. Spiritual development within ourselves is not love and light. It is not a joke. It is a very serious matter. Very serious point which had overcome one’s neurosis. The anger, the hatred, the jealousy, the attachment. Each one of those neurosis when you have overcome those. And that point , that is the true development within us. We do measure the spiritual development of the individual. How much the person is clairvoyant, we do not measure the person of the spiritual development. Whether that person can fly in the air. All, the birds are flying in the air, so what. Big deal. It is not. We do not measure the spiritual development whether you can remain under the ground. We do not measure by how much we can remain the under the ground, All the worms remain under the ground. Ad the moose too, right? That much how we measure spiritual development. We who received Buddha’s message and we who have practice in Buddhism for thousand of years, and they tell us where and how your measure your spiritual development is how good you are. Goodness. How much goodness you have. How much anger, hatred, jealousy you have and how kindness and compassion and all these you have. And when you are transiting from the neurosis to a positive good emotions such as compassion. Switching from the negative emotions like anger. How much you have done. How much you are able to transit. And that is the way how we measure. Whether the person has a good spiritual development or not. Rather than whether that person is clairvoyant, whether the person is talking to ghosts or not talking to ghosts, or whatever. You know, you don’t talk that way. We don’t measure that way. We measure how serious that person is, how much negativity that person has cut down. How much love and compassion is developed. That is the measurement of spiritual person. Whether your spiritual development or not spiritual development , you are going backwards or forwards, that is how you measure the person. That also to yourself . Don’t try to measure something else. None of your business. You cannot be judgemental to other person at all. (0.44:30.7) You can do any judgement you want to yourself but not to the other person. Because you don’t know the other person mind at all. You may think you know. But you don’t . You may not think that you don’t know . You may think you may know enough of yourself. But you do know. If you don’t know you don’t have it. You know a number of people asked me , is it possible that I have a great spiritual development but I don’t know myself. So I said, well if you don’t know it, you don’t have it. That’s what it is. So, it some kind of hidden treasure behind your subliminal mind , somewhere. You don’t have that. It is if you have it, you know it , if you don’t know it, you don’t have it. As simple as that. So you can judge yourself. You cannot judge others at all. Buddha , himself said. If you are fully enlightened one, then you can definitely judge anybody because you are able. It is interesting. The other day, I don’t know whether I talked to you or not. It has been a couple of weeks ago. A friend of ours, person who have been with Jewel Heart for practicing for a long time. Eight, nine, ten years even. So called me early, not so early, 7.30 in the morning, and I am fast asleep. And I woke up. I picked up the telephone . I know who the person I am talking. I am half asleep. And then person saying, I shouldn’t ask you that question. And I said, what? I shouldn’t ask . I am so embarrassed to ask you that question. And I said, you woke me up and say what you want to say. You woke me up already, right? I am half asleep. She said, is the enlightenment, is it really real? Is it really true? And that question hit me. Nobody ever asked me that. And I never have that thought in my mind because I was brought in environment, good old Tibet. A pre 59 Tibet. That is (0.47: 17.9)? On top of that. So, I thought about it. And I said , no we don’t . We don’t know. We really don’t know. To be able to know enlightened beings , you have to be enlightened. Until then, we don’t know. We really don’t know. Ut one thing we do know, it’s the quality within ourself. We have been improving our quality , day by day, week by week, month by month , year by year. Whether it is due age or maturity or your practice or whatever it may be . We see improvement , all the time. We have not reach to the utmost level of enlightenment. (0.48:13.3) The quality improvement. We have not reached there yet. There is still a long way to go. And by the time when you reach to that level, I believe, that’s call enlightenment. You know what I am talking about it? You didn’t know what I am talking about it. Very good.

Let’s say you are climbing mountain. You climbing Mount Everest. Climbing, you are going up. So the more you go, you become higher and higher. And at the end you reach to the peak. It is good metaphor or not. But when you reach to the end of that you reach , going to reach to the top of the mountain where Sir Hilary and Tenzin Shado reached there, whenever that was. And so you have reached to the peak level. So, the same way, improving our quality day by day, month by month, and ultimately you reach to the top level. And then you have found enlightenment and that we know. We know we are improving. We know we have the capacity. We know we are moving and we see the difference of our way of dealing with our life between ten years ago and today. Or a year ago and today. Even a week ago and today. Because of your own knowledge . Personal information, meditation and all of them. You see the improvement, don’t you? If you are seeing the improvement , you are not working hard. That means you are not working hard, you are doing anything. You simply looking through a exhibition. If you are doing the window shopping. You are not seriously looking. If you seriously doing something it will make a difference to you. When it is making a difference to you , you are seeing the improvement within you. And that , when you reach the end of the improvement, that is call enlightenment. There is nothing such a strange thing call enlightenment, something that pops down. You know what I mean. It is sort of gradually developed within individual and one day you find over there. That is enlightenment. But you don’t that yet. But we still know we are going towards that direction. And we are improvement. That will tell us there is a way you can go. I mean, you can improve and you can reach to the end level. I am talking this out of dharma. The true dharma is whatever the spiritual development within us is true dharma. And Buddha also tells this. Call this medicine. Buddha , himself refer to the Buddha as a doctor. And dharma as a medicine. So who really cause your illness is the medicine that cures you . Not the doctor. The doctor may diagnose and gives you the medicine. I mean , if you eat the medicine , it will cure you or kill you. Whatever now it does. So it is the medicine that makes the difference , not the doctor. Also when you take refuge to Buddha, dharma and the sangha. The dharma is the one which makes the difference , not the Buddha. Of the historical Buddha. Doesn’t make much difference. (0.52:40.1) It only represents nice, good looking fellow over there. But what’s make the difference is the truly, it is the dharma. It is like a medicine.

And what is dharma again? I said spiritual development. What is that? How do I get it? By cutting down my negative emotions. By eliminating negative emotions totally from me. That’s why I am getting the dharma. Why negative emotions has to be eliminated? Because negative emotions make us do wrong things. When do wrong things we create wrong karma and then we have problems. So the root of the problem , the suffering, the pain that very famous Buddhist first Noble Truth, the truth of suffering is actually from the negative emotions. From each and every one of us. From that negative emotions it comes. Not from not anywhere else. Not third person is giving. Not the second person is giving. Though we like to blame them. Or have them blame. But truly it is our negative emotions. That is the , who really does that. So, that’s why it is not only important to reduce , but to cut and eliminate totally. Really. (0.54:26.7) This is Buddhism. What we are talking about . It can be any other Yidam. This can be anything. This can be Christianity. It can ne Judism. I don’t know. But to me it is. This is the real star. When you cut that down. You see the difference within you. You don’t work to develop for positiveness. You don’t work to develop positiveness. You don’t have to put effort to gain those spiritual development. You put effort to cut down negative emotions. The spiritual gain will come automatically to you. As a consequence of cutting down negativities. People will tell you , you can cut your negativity . You can do purification. You can do Vajrasattva `recitation for 100,000 times. You can prostrate, circumbelet, mandala offerings. All sorts of good and bad, can’t say bad. All sorts of funny things they tell you. It is true. It also helps. But the real thing is we are intelligent , educated . Well. I don’t know whether it is 20th or 21st century, whatever , of educated human beings who have a wonderful mind, who are brilliant, most of us, including myself. Including all of us. So, we can do this by investigating . By analyzing, by understanding ourselves , really we can catch from the root and eradicate. We have the capability. We can do it. We do have that. You don’t have to think. Even your old, you don’t have to think I am old and I cannot do it now but I hope to do it in future life. Don’t ever think about that. That is the mind which will destroy you. Earlier, Tibetan teachers used to say, if I have 3 months to live in life, I will make sure my future life is perfect. I will go with a guarantee. (0.57:28.2) If I have 3 years to live, I will cut the samsara completely. And if I have beyond that, I will make sure I am fully enlightened. So that’s what it is. You don’t have to think. Well, I haven’t done yet and now I am old. You don’t have to think . I am sure nobody will think. If you are not thinking that way , great. Congratulations. If you are thinking that way, it is too bad. You should not. Because every minute, if you make the effort will make a difference. You might not be able to be fully enlightened. Even we have a whole life in front of years, say 100 years. It is hard to become fully enlighten. But whatever the time we have , we can make a difference to ourselves. Better. Are you with me. Thank you. That’s what it is. That is the dharma . Dharma in which we take refuge because that dharma cuts the negative emotions directly.

The Sangha who is helping , support. Traditionally , Sangha meant more than four Buddhist ordained persons. Whether it is more than four monks or nuns. Traditionally. That is called relative Sangha. Not an absolute sangha. Absolute Sangha is no matter what you may be, man, woman or black or white or yellow, or green. Is there green person. Or purple person, whoever might be. If you understand the true meaning of life. If you be able to solve the mystery of life, really you begin to truly see it. Truly see it. True meaning of life. That reminded me very funny advertisement I saw, probably a year ago. There is a Canon fax machine. I am sure you people , may of you have seen it. They have some kind of orange dress, monk living up in the, some kind of Himalaya , snow mountain up in the rocky somewhere. His fax machine was broken . The Canon guy comes and called him Dalai Lama. Dalai . Then he asked by the way what is the meaning of life? And he says, I will fax you. Give me a number and I will fax you. So, when I said true meaning of life, I just thought that. Otherwise I will be giggling myself. So, whether it is the true meaning of life or the mystery of life which we will solve, we understand what it is. And that is the famous Buddhist wisdom. They call it emptiness. And the moment you hear the word emptiness too much. Everywhere. Everybody talks about it. But the moment you think about emptiness, you thinking about zero and looking into nothingness which is all totally wrong. All totally wrong. Emptiness is existence. Really true. I really don’t want to talk that. It is not my subject tonight. But want to make sure become a perfect sangha is when you understand that. No matter you are a man, woman or dog, cat or whatever you may be. If you can understand that , you are true Sangha. In the west, we call it people like us, such as yourself who are interested in the Buddha’s message, who are interested helping yourself, who are interested to helping each other, other person togetherness , we try to work and that group of people we call them Sangha, because we have a common interest. Common goal and that is helping everybody including ourselves. Do not exclude ourselves. That is very important. We are working towards that direction. And that’s call a Sangha. It is a community which is support each other. Which sort of , you know, help each other. When somebody is breaking down or having difficulties. Try to bring them in the path , together. So, we meet here. This is Sangha and each and everyone of us, came with interest. That interest is helping ourself and helping all other beings, whatever the way we can help. So the helping is not a distance. It is near you. It is within ourselves. Within this group , people in this room. Whatever they needed help, we also should try to pull together and help. Help them to do what to do what you need to do, to develop yourself. Help them when they feel bad. Try to bring them in. Try to relief their pain. And that is the job of the Sangha. That’s why people take refuge in Sangha, because you become object of refuge. Because you may be in position to help. And the groups help is actually, is the . Where does the group comes from? And lot of individuals put together makes group, right? Some people think , well, it is group job, there should be group leader, and group leader’s job , and I have nothing to do. That is wrong. That’s not participating. (1.04:26.5) That’s you are withdrawing yourself from the Sangha movement. You know what I am talking about? So, bring yourself in. Bring your friends in. Try to do something good for change. Why not? So that’s what it is. Then you are within that community. So you receive help by helping others. Did you hear me? You receive help by helping others. This is absolutely true. If you keep on alone. What can I do? What can I do? What can I do? You are not going to get anywhere. You are going to have full of depression. That’s that. What can I do? What can I do? What can I do? Can I get up? Can I seat down? Can I shave my head? Can I run to the forest. Can I run to the Himalayas. What can I do? Can I go up there? Can I go down there? You make yourself absolutely crazy. And finally, you get depression. Sao, instead of that. Can I help you? Just instead of that. Can I help you? By helping other person, you are helping yourself. Are you with me? This is absolutely true.

Okay? That is take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. There is absolute result nature Buddha , Dharma and Sangha within ourself and relative representing enlightened beings that represented by Buddha Sakyamuni and his spiritual development and his quality . So basically, I think that’s about taking refuge. So what Budhha telling you here. If you cannot help yourself at all, and if the time death comes before that. Take refuge. Another words remembering the quality of the Buddha, remembering the quality of the dharma and remember the quality of the sangha. And with the hope, ourselves will process that quality very soon. And if you die, that sort of mind, you are sure your future rebirth will not be bad one. That was Buddha’s sort of , one of the guarantees they give. That’s why immediate level what you have to do is taking refuge. And that is from the Buddhist point of view. And if you raise a question. Can I become enlighten without taking refuge to Buddha. Sure, you can. But you will not be able to obtain enlightenment without taking refuge,within you. You will never be able to do it. Whether you call that Buddha or whatever you call that. Person within you. And without taking refuge to that, you can never become enlighten. Are you with me? So this is important. Taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the way. However that is not the only way. People may think, it has to be Buddhist, right, in order to become enlightened beings. I have to say it. No. It is not necessary. What is important to be a good person, who will not indulge unnecessarily. Basically every human being are good in nature. Particularly in my personal experience . People in the west are very very nice nature. Whether it is due to economic reasons or whatever it is. I don’t know. They are not so witty , they are not so cunning. They don’t want to cheat you for a nickel. People don’t want to do that. And in certain areas, they would love to cheat you . They will not be happy if they cannot cheat you about a nickel or penny. If they can cheat you for a penny or a nickel , they will be very happy. That I am able to cheat him. (1.09:30.7) Actually the person is cheating himself. So, in that way, if you look into the west, what’s the economic reasons or whatever the reasons maybe, people are much kinder, gentler and honest and nice.

So we have that good nature and can be developed. That’s your internal Buddha. That’s how you become a Buddha. That’s the mind how you become everything. And I talked too much. Now the next will be , consider positive action will bring positive result. You know that. I don’t have to tell you, right? Good. I am to cut down here. You know why? It’s getting too hot. And is so difficult for so many people to seat that long. (1.10: 42.4) So, I should give you some question and answer if you really want to. Let’s say three. Three questions. If anybody has.

Audience : During Lamrim I get to the point about no one can help in life and death. I always think in life compassion can help you and love can help you. And I see how being kind to people can help you in your life. When I get to the death part, and I think clarity, bravery, seeing things as they are can help you. And I feel that, I understand that , recognizing which we have been now, wisdom. I don’t totally understand how compassion can help you in the death process as you are no longer interacting with anyone else. So, except for compassion for yourself , there is not really, at the moment of death, your body is immobile. I don’t understand how compassion can really help you. Intectually I can understand how clarity, bravery, non attachment . I understand those things but I don’t get love and compassion affects , positively affects your mind in death.

Rimpoche : I think it is a very good question, don’t you think so? It is a wonderful question. But you have to know the nature of your mind at the time of the death. What kind of mind you have. Do you have the clarity ? Possibly not. It is extremely subtle mind. Subtle. Very very subtle mind. Extremely subtle. So, therefore I don’t think it is capable of making judgement. Making decision and making any thing. Unless it becomes very subtle, it will not be able to separate from our identity , that is the body. When it becomes very subtle level, it becomes neutral mind. Neither positive nor negative. And that neutral mind, what is created , what is influenced by. That is the important. When that is influenced by love and compassion. That mind in that period , that moment , goes into the nature of love and compassion, even though you not thinking somebody else and loving somebody else , and compassion to somebody else, though you are not thinking. You total existence at that moment is called your consciousness. Subtle consciousness. It’s a truly become compassion, truly becomes pure love, love free of attachment. If you bring love with attachment, you get more trouble than help. But it is pure love , free of attachment and compassion. Then whole existence of you , whole your environment, whole your existence , whole your identity , whole yourself becomes that. That’s how it help. Not it is focusing from this level to that level , thinking, no. It is becoming of it. I was just thinking of anesthesia, but that doesn’t work very well. What did you say.

Audience : I was thinking, so, if you do that , assuming dying you are thinking about , that will assure your possible rebirth is not as good as you want to. The recognition. I know it is difficult but if you could recognize that will give you

Rimpoche : May or maybe or maybe not. It depends how much you can put efforts. How much you able to practice. How much you used to it. If you are used to it, that , instead of becoming just compassion alone, it may becomes clear light. It becomes clear light. It is not obtain clear light. It becomes clear light. And if you are so used to it, not so used to it. That’s why I said, right from the beginning you bite whatever you can chew. Even if you cant do that, you just remember your own Guru, Yidam or Buddha. And that will also help. That will change you come of it. Different. Lady over there. (1.15:40.0)

Audience : What happen if we die unexpectedly.

Rimpoche : Same thing. Whether you die expectedly or unexpectedly. That doesn’t change what happens to the individual. If you die in acci

dent or something. And then the procedures that you go through might be a little shorter than the usual ones. But it so all things will come. Boom, boom, boom. Doesn’t make a difference And if you die violently or something. That makes it a little harder. But if you are used to it. You are okay. Used to it , not in the sense of dying. But if you are used to it, the practice. You know, the more you think everyday, and whenever you have difficulties , we automatically link up that from our thoughts point of view, psychological point of view. Anybody we, will, if you try to hit a child. They will say . mom, right? Even us, older ones, you sometimes says mom. So we used to think that way whenever the emergency comes, you think of mom, straight away. Very similar to that, whenever we have difficulties, we have think positiveness and that will ensure us.

Rimpoche : Yes sir.

Audience : The question started off this general notes. The first question

Rimpoche : Dimintre.

Audience : And relates to the image of the Buddha. When you asked about the image, I have an image of , a wonderful golden statue. (1.17: 39.1) The question is , why am I being a human being, why is it so difficult to see the positive , to see the instruction of the Buddha inside? All the Buddhas inside? Why would my mind not getting the positive like this gentleman that gave the positive , compassionate to myself. Not to say anything, he did anything wrong right there. I, too, do something like that to negate my own possibilities. Why

Rimpoche : Two reasons. One is ignorance . Number one. To the ignorance. Number two, is the addiction to the negative emotions. These are the two very simple , very solid reasons. And that’s why we need to cut down the negative emotions. If you do that the ignorance goes down. And you will see within yourself . You illuminate within yourself. And thank you. And you are the last question. Illuminating.

Okay. Thank you so much and we will be here Apr 9. And that will be sort of the last for July 15 or something around there. It is July 16, I will be here ( 1.19: 32.6)