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Odyssey Cleveland 19980912grcl

Well, did we come last month? Probably not, right? No we did not. Thank you. During that period we had summer retreat and it went on quite well. We emphasized talking more on Buddhism and psychology this year, rather than Buddhism and Buddhism as a practice. It was important, we need to realize how we function within ourselves from the psychological point of view, even the neurological point of view. What did we learn? There is a body and mind connection. We talked about the body mind connection and the mind functioning.

Where did we stop last time? She said actually according to the traditional plan we are on the point embracing human life, but what we talked about last time is the principal consciousness. That’s what she told me. Am I right? In between that, after the summer retreat I also did a workshop along with with Terab Tulku in America for a weekend. It was last weekend. Last weekend we did a workshop and they call it unity in duality, which is the body mind relationship actually. That’s what we did in America Institute. And Monday we had a fundraiser dinner in New York for Jewel Heart. It was very successful. About one hundred fifty people had attended in Francesco Clemente’s studio in New York for Jewel Heart. It was very expensive, quite good and it was interesting food. Diana, the Jewel Heart executive director, said to me I don’t know how good the food is going to be, so for you, Rimpoche, we are going to have Tibetan momos. I said I don’t think we should go out of the way to get momos made by a Jewish caterer. It was quite okay. Actually it was quite interesting, Indian food and Tibetan momos, all kinds of food provided by a very expensive well known Jewish caterer. It was quite interesting. It was two hundred and fifty dollar plate and dinner, you know and there were one hundred fifty attending.

I was told I was supposed to say a few words and then dinner. I did not know what to say beside thanking everybody. During the daytime I called Diana and asked what was I supposed to say. She said thank you everybody, but what was I supposed to say? She said when I get there I’ll talk to you. She got there and said you can do that, you do that all the time. So I said all right, thank you. So I got up and thought about it. I couldn’t just get up and say thank you, thank you and sit down. That wouldn’t do. The thought came into my head, some people asked we have a conversation going on within Jewel Heart. A number of people are talking about it. We need to have a brochure for Jewel Heart. We don’t even have a brochure at Jewel Heart actually. When the Dalai Lama came to visit in Ann Arbor in 1994 we don’t even have a brochure within Jewel Heart. Jewel Heart doesn’t even have a brochure. A number of people were talking about having a brochure for Jewel Heart.

One of the people told me one of the most important things that happened could have been the coming of Buddhism to the West. It could have been one of the most important things that happened in this century. I said that. Then I said we are very proud and happy to be a part of that most important event in this twentieth century. I talked about that. Then the thought kept on popping up in my head, there are a number of different groups, groups of people, a number of different teachers, a number of different centers, dharma centers, cultural centers, and all kinds of things are there participating in the activity of developing Buddhism in the West. So what is needed at Jewel Heart, (10:00)why Jewel Heart? We have two hundred and fifty dollars each person and you have to say why Jewel Heart? That’s why two hundred and fifty dollar dinners for each person. Mostly it’s all Jewel Heart members. One hundred and fifty were there in New York, not all of them, but most of them. So I had to justify why Jewel Heart. I’d been thinking about it.

I thought about it. What does Jewel Heart do that’s different than any other center or cultural center? We have to justify a $250 dinner. In general we need to justify ourselves. What we do is slightly different from any other dharma center. It is the style what we function. The style which we function is totally different from any other dharma centers. We don’t put up big flags, we don’t put up a those big throne when those big lamas come, and folding hands and bowing down, offering scarfs. We don’t do that. The way our dharma functions is different from the traditional Tibetan orthodox style. We also say a short prayer in English so people can understand. Are we the first persons to do that? No. (?) had done that, but she also had a little style extra which we cut out. He removed himself from the Traditional Tibetan Buddhism. She somehow introduced something in that made it a different style some Tibetan and some Chinese. That’s what it is, he himself told me personally.

I came to visit and we spent so many times together in Delhi. There was an English woman lived in India. She later married a huge Delhi guy, a huge Delhi guy. A huge person. It’s a funny thing, he became a party member in India. Later he became a teacher, a Hindu guru himself. We called her Manny Pedme and Manny Pedme became a Buddhist nun. We spent in Manny Pedme’s house for about a year, or maybe a half year, maybe a year and a half. I don’t know how long. We spent time together. There was very limited room so we had to sleep together in one long bed. She has a little balcony, so she closed the balcony in Delhi. She had an Indian government official’s quarters, which is two bedrooms and one living room. She had a big family. One of her sons is a movie actor now. That bed room was totally occupied, (?) Rimpoche and I came. She had a long sort of bench type of bed, which we had to share on the closed balcony.

So I spent time with her. She was here in Kalorama. When he came to Kalorama he told me to come over and visit him. I was very busy. So I planned to go there next year, and she treated me very well. She said I don’t have a Tibetan Buddhist background. I am half Chinese. I said I don’t want big thrones, umbrellas and banners and that kind of thing, so I try to be modern. But you can’t be exactly sixties. It was sixties time so I have to be something against that culture, something against hippie culture, yet working along with that. I don’t want it to be the traditional. So she said well you can mix British way and Chinese way and that’s the style. That’s what he functioned and he cut out Tibetan words, ornaments and try to do a lot in English.

At the time that was very useful, so I tried to cut out as much as possible. But still there was a lack of translations available, good translations available. We try to use as much as possible in English. So the point for me is we are not bringing a culture that is so foreign to us. We are not bringing that. We try to bring the essence of the Buddha’s teachings, somehow woven within the fabric of American contemporary life. So I said that is the unique quality of what Jewel Heart does. So I did mention that. Some people liked it and some people didn’t really like it very much. They even told me,“Oh I tried to do the same thing.” Whatever it may be. So that’s what had happened. I shared this story with you, and also you know I showed the difference of Jewel Heart and a lot of dharma centers. There are a lot of dharma centers, a lot of them, a lot of gurus, a lot of centers and it is slightly different. That’s why I wanted to share that with you. It is easy for me to say what happened in last Monday, so we talked about it. She played nice music about twenty minutes.

Having said that and having talked about mental functioning already, what does the principal mind do, and how those thoughts pop up and how the principal mind accepts or rejects thoughts, ideas and how do we function thereafter. It is the fundamental basis in which you do Buddhist practice. To me Buddhist practice does not really depend on reading and prayers, or saying mantras. The essence of the Buddhist practice is actually training your mind. It is really true. There is nothing else except training your mind. It is simply training your mind. Don’t think about simple mind control, that type of thing. (20:00) Don’t think about it. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about training our mind, how Buddha trained his own mind. His own mind was just like our own mind right now. Each person training his or her own mind. It is just like that. It is very tricky, very funny, very interesting, very wonderful, it is crazy, it is all of those.

If you look at our mind and how it functions today the traditional Tibetan teachers will give you the example of you let loose a monkey in a temple, exactly, right? If you know of these old Tibetan temples they have a two or three story image of Buddha, as well as all kinds of Dalai Lamas, all kinds of offerings and instruments. You let a monkey loose in there they will jump around, knock this down, throw all these out, eat all the fruit and throw them out, and do all kinds of things, right? Exactly our mind functioning in that manner in our temple, our own personal temple. That is how our mind is functioning as a monkey.

Unless you tame that monkey and let the monkey function properly. The monkey has a tremendous intelligence, perhaps one of the most closest to a human being. I remember a few years ago there was a volunteer woman who was training a companion on television all the time and she talked to the companion back and forth. They have almost that intelligence. That intelligence can be utilized, make best use of it, if it is able to be trained. If we are unable to train, we go crazy, right? Same thing with our minds, that’s what it is.

So Buddhist practice is actually training of our mind. Training the mind how we can perceive, think, and how it affects to ourselves. How it affects to the others and functioning according to the karmic system. If you break karmic law then you are gone out of it. Even if you are good, if you break the karmic law people get mad at you, right?

I’m thinking of Clinton. He’s good. He’s a very good president. He did great work for our country. Mind you a few years ago we were talking deficits. During the last election Bush said he doesn’t have any experience running a government. He said are you talking about running a triple billion deficit? I don’t have that experience. That good president, no question. Look at the civil rights movement. He has done a lot for them. Even today black people are standing behind the president, everybody saying he did good for us so we also stand behind him. He was also great for women in one sense. (Laughter) Then on the other hand it’s also true the Monica Lewinsky business was totally stupid. It was totally stupid, a ridiculous thing. So everybody got mad at him. He kept saying no, no, no I didn’t do it, but he was lying. So that’s it. That sort of thing happens, that’s what it is. I was arguing with Yael last night about that. Yael kept saying I don’t want to hear any more about it. Why I keep on saying that? I don’t want to hear any more about it. You see the headlines Clinton may be impeached. You will see that. A lot of people got mad at him, not because he was a bad president, but because he was stupid. It’s really bad, what’s happening. I wish I could get in his head and find out what it is. He can’t say no. There is a weakness there.

That is the problem of the untrained mind. The mind is not trained strong enough to resist temptation. The mind is not trained enough to say no. The mind is not trained enough to be able to be decisive. It is not appropriate here to say, but I can’t help it, I keep on thinking about a few years ago, Jimmy and Tammy Baker were in trouble two years ago. Do you remember? It was during that period, Alan Ginsberg was in Ann Arbor. He was doing some kind of poetry workshop in Ann Arbor. It was called spontaneous poetry. I was sitting there and all of a sudden Alan turned to me and said Rimpoche what are you thinking? Say it. Then I realized I don’t want to be landed in Jimmy Bakers shoes. I said, “Alan I don’t want to be in Jimmy Baker’s shoes.” He said oh great. He said the trick to that is don’t hide anything, no matter whatever may happen. He said avoid wine, women and song? Another “w”he said? No something, three of them, money or what, something? Whatever it is be open and absolutely don’t hide anything. That’ll be fine. I wish he had told that to Clinton. (30:00) Now I’ve lost what I wanted to talk about.

If you’ve gone beyond karmic law not only do people get mad at you. In a way it is silly. It is definitely not against nature. It’s not against the constitution. It may be breaking constitutional law. It is technically not against constitution. Actually it’s nothing against constitution, it’s nothing against people, it’s nothing against public, it’s nothing against nation. It is a silly bedroom activity. But it happened to be in the Oval Office. Even if it is silly, people get mad, especially if you try to deny and went on like that. That is the major thing. Even I get embarrassed whenever they show that Clinton thing. But that’s what reality is. So if you did not respect karmic law, people get mad at you. Even if you become brilliant, even if you become wonderful, even if you become highly developed spiritual person, you go beyond karmic law and then you may try to cash out, something called crazy wisdom, or skillful means. It just like Clinton’s “ is but is not”, or the definition of sexual relationship according to law, whatever. It all becomes the same thing. It really doesn’t stand. That’s why it’s so important to go according to karmic rule, not only people’s perception of it, but even from the individual karmic consequences point of view.

That is why we are sort of against the idea of crazy wisdom, misusing. If you have crazy wisdom you may have a brilliant way of dealing with it unlike anybody else, without damaging anybody else. Anybody else’s role model, anybody else’s way of functioning and you can do that. That’s the reason why I don’t wear a monk’s robe. In Tibetan tradition, some incarnate llamas, whether you are Gelupa, Nigma, Sakya or whatever the tradition may be. That’s why we see a number of those incarnate lamas like Kungin were healers. I saw him in New York too. He was a healer. All of those. Not all wear robes, even Kala Rimpoche. A few months ago there was a story about a woman who had an affair with Kala Rimpoche. I don’t know what it is. About 20 years ago I saw Kala Rimpoche and I began to look at his monk’s robe. First time I saw Kala Rimpoche he was up there on a big throne wearing that robe. I look at his cloth. To my eyes he’s not a monk. He’s wearing a monk’s robe, yet with this and that, which indicates it’s not. (35:00) It’s not very clear in the Western eye. Things like that. Why did I say that? They are wearing a tee shirt and something fancy, look different, like that. I don’t want that crazy wisdom business comes up and look different.

Looking at Jewel Heart we don’t import a culture that is so foreign to us. I think it becomes important. It becomes important because what we want is Buddha’s wisdom. What we want is Buddha’s personal experience how he overcame those negative emotions and difficulties. In the Buddhism tradition, how does one individual overcome? How do we make ourselves a perfect human being? We need that wisdom. We need that living tradition. Yet we don’t want to import a culture which is so foreign to us. I believe all of those will become part and parcel of it. If I were truly a monk and wearing a robe it’s a different story. If I am not a monk and wearing another robes it is different story. I’m not here. That is why I change my culture and wearing that way, so that’s what it is. Otherwise I couldn’t help, but I don’t want to copy Michael Jackson. One, I can’t afford. Two, I don’t think it serves any purpose at all.

Having said that, what is the way you how you train your mind? Actually if you look into Odyssey to Freedom, what number is it? Seventeen. Can you read it for me? Does everybody have that or not? Who doesn’t have a copy of Odyssey to Freedom stuff? Do you want a copy? Did you see seventeen, Embracing Life?

I? I didn’t get it. Up to here one through thirteen it is more or less preliminaries, how do we handle. Thirteen to here it is explaining and trying to talk and explain to you the guru business, important business. It is very sensitive, very important business and has tremendous advantage, and also there is the downside of it. That’s why we have so many points here. We are supposed to have covered so far. It’s never going to be perfect.

Now from seventeen onwards it is the beginning of training the mind. Actually, it is really it is start embracing human life. That is how Buddha trained himself, he began, so we try to follow footstep. We follow Buddha’s path, nice way of saying it. In normal American language we are copycatting Buddha and what he did. (40:00) He first started he put his path, tried on himself, saying am I awake? Am I awake? That is the question he asked. So we could do that ourself. Train the thought on yourself, saying am I am awake? Don’t tell me what you think. A number of people will have good answers. A number of people will have embarrassing answers. Sit by yourself and ask the question, “Am I awake?” If you answer yes, you are great. You have no problems. If you think I’m not, but I’d like to be, I should be. We are here to tell ourself do not deny our problems so we can overcome. The moment you start raising questions ask yourself am I awake, give yourself enough time. You get answers. No I’m not. I be angry, I be mean, I am a jealous person, I am this, I am that and all these points will come up. It’s good they come up, let them come up. Don’t cover it. Don’t say that is not true, I am a good person. I am a human being, I am wonderful. That won’t help. Let them come up.

Then ask yourself, “Why am I like that?” I be mean or I couldn’t forgive that person. I be mad at it, all those reasons. If you begin to look into those reasons, it’s very interesting. You find I’m not really bad. That’s why Clinton is such a good example. Right now most people are mad at him. He lied. If you really search in your mind, unless you are against Clinton from the beginning, I’m not really angry at him. He did a silly thing. I don’t hate. And most of our things are like that, especially yourself. I really don’t hate myself. Though people like to say I hate myself. We say that often, but we don’t. We love ourself. We love ourself so much we cannot be mad at ourself. So you begin to really look and you get the idea I’m not worthy. The idea I am not worthy really doesn’t have strong standing behind that. It is simply emotion that passes through. We sort of get irritated with ourself. We are never really thinking I’m bad. We never give ourself the opportunity to look in the quality of our thinking, we never did.

If you look at certain traditional teachings, not necessarily Tibetan Buddism but also others, Hindu teachers, many of them tell you (45:00)stand in front of the mirror and take off all your clothes and look in the mirror. Maybe you see an extra lump here or an extra pouch here or there, but look at it how basically beautiful human beings are. How wonderful you are. The truth is you are a human being, a human being who can think. That’s true, isn’t it? A human being who can understand, who can communicate to yourself and to others.

There is this tremendous quality we have, understand, think. It is because of the body what we have that has capability from the connection between mind and body we have, mind and body relationship makes our life different. Not mind alone. So when you have a cockroach’s body, you have a mind that can function at the level of a cockroach. When you have a monkey’s body you have a mind that can function at the level of a monkey’s capability. When you have a dog’s body, you have a mind that than function at the level of a dog. When you have a human being’s body you can function as a human capacity. It is the mind body relationship that makes difference.

So today we are in the body of a human being as I mentioned to you who can understand, who can process ideas, who can draw conclusions, who can communicate in detail, very graphic. Actually it is photographic. Right? Am I right or wrong? Thank you. Really, that is the human capacity communicating in detail. We can do that in a positive way or a negative way. It is a human quality, which we may want to do. It is mind who dictates. And how we do it, it is a human capacity utilized. So when you look at ourself and we think I’m not good enough. I’m terrible. I’m bad. All these thoughts we have are very bad. These thoughts are baseless. You have some superficial base, which can not stand for a true reason.

I’ll use a legal term here. They are not countered by a counter argument. One sided report, it has not gone through cross examination. The reason we think ourself think I’m not good. It has not gone through a cross examination. And even you put it through examination, it will shake, it will fall. (50:00) It cannot stand by itself. It is interesting, the Buddhist philosophy. It was reminded me by Kejup Tota(sp?) philosophy. When you are talking about it, it came out of my head. It is so important. For example, the definition of existence in Buddhist philosophy. The definition of existence is actually method to, acknowledge by a person’s mind, rather than on the basis of the Clinton “is.” It is acknowledged by a person’s mind. When you have a mind that, due to any other reason that comes up, sees that it does not exist, which cannot stand on its own. So that is the definition of existence in Buddhist philosophy. It’s not enough, you are there. It has to be acknowledged by a person’s mind in addition to that, then you exist.

And it’s important. Important in our practice, important to our thoughts, to our understanding of ourself. When I keep on thinking I am bad. Why am I bad? You know all our monkey tricks we play are known only to us. We know Clinton’s monkey thoughts. But ourselves, our own monkey thoughts at that level it’s not. It’s a habit. Even if it comes up, even if you try to put it under the table and sit on it. If we really examine it carefully, thinking about human beings. If you truly look in there, we are not bad at all. We have a tremendous amount of quality, even from the capability point of view.

In short, let me just give you a brief stupid idea. If you don’t follow it fine, but what I do personally. I imagine myself personally as a dog. I see my limitations. If I am cold, I can bark, bowwow bowwow wow. I can only howl. If I’m hot I can howl. If I’m hungry I can howl. If I’m sick I can howl, nothing else. I don’t have the capability to communicate. Then I look at it, hey I imagine I’m a dog, but I’m not a dog. I’m happy to be a human being. I appreciate my life. I appreciate human quality that I have. I can think. I can process my thoughts. I can understand. I can communicate to you. I can talk to you, telling you that I imagine I am a dog and I see my limitations. I visualize myself being a dog and if I am sick, I visualize I become alive. (55:00)But I’m not.

So visualization is a very important technique. The Buddha used it two thousand five hundred years ago. I begin to hear on television I think about a month ago somebody has discovered how wonderful visualization is, a scientific discovery, some guy in Pennsylvania discovered that. Truly speaking it is very very important. It makes a big impact. It is true. How much visual and hearing and reading understandably makes impact. That’s why television makes such an impact. Then look at newspapers and radio. Visualize impact makes a big difference. That’s why they wanted to put Clinton in front of a grand jury rather than using a transcript in the internet because of the impact on people and the mind. That’s what it is.That’s why visualization technique is an extremely important technique for us to train our mind. Some people may think visualization is a Vajrayana training. True, but we may use it anyway. You can do that as a human being. It’s true, but you can use it anywhere. You can visualize you can fly. Even you see a big bird we have better, we have airplane. It is true, it is reality. Not that we are free if problems. We may get caught in Nova Scotia. If there was no airplane I would not be here today. That’s what it is. So embrace human life, number seventeen.

Not that. If there is no other question, so embrace human life. The most important thing is not to reject. That problem is so common in the West. So don’t push yourself or dismiss. We may not have that problem so much in the West as we do in the East. Every letter that I get probably. I have hundreds of those letters, saying that I am worthless, useless human being, almost subhuman follower of yours, disciple of yours. All the time. They try to push themselves, half is culture and half they will think they try to be humble, humbleness. But what really happens is you consider yourself a sub human being. That problem we don’t have here, but we do have another problem. We try to make ourself a bad human being, which you are not. Just because we have crazy thoughts, crazy ideas, we act crazy.

We look at Clinton and we can see he is acting so stupid. (100:00)Each and everyone of us can sit here and say how can he act so stupid, how can he act, such a stupid. He’s already in trouble with Jennifer Flowers. How can he do that? We say that, right? But if you turn the table around and ask ourselves, some of us may be even doing the same thing. We hide it. We are good at hiding. But other people are good at finding. So that’s how it is. It’s there. But that doesn’t mean, that doesn’t make us a bad person. We may be stupid for certain actions. All right, let me just say doesn’t matter, so quiet. Does that make you incapable of making decisions? No, I don’t think so. Personally, in personal life everybody makes a lot of mistakes. That doesn’t make individual incapable of making decisions. Okay so it is important not to reject and not to undercut ourselves.

So what would you do? We can visualize ourself in a different life.Visualize that and think how wonderful is a human being, that I am a human being, and I appreciate it and I enjoy. Draw a strong conclusion. Actually if you visualize yourself as a dog and visualize your capability, and visualize yourself as a human being and visualize your capability, that is your analytical meditation. Actually you are doing analytical meditation. At the end I’m happy I am a human being. You may thank god I am happy, I’m a human being. That will be your conclusion. Then you can focus on that, and that will be your concentrated meditation on this particular point. It will be very effective to our mind. Number one, whatever happens I am a human being and I will be able to handle this. Two, it gives you a tremendous amount of inspiration. When you train your mind, you need any inspiration you can get. After a little while, you get inspiration you need from wherever you can get it. This is good inspiration and number two I can understand and can handle it because I am a human being. I am a human being and can handle it. And if you don’t believe, how do other human beings handle it. Look around the animals, dogs, the cats, the snakes, the insects, the birds, those who live in the forest, those who live in the water. There is a reason and compare with ourselves. That’s why you say human beings are capable. You just discovered it, I’m a human being and not hiding in the forest. I’m not a monkey in the forest. Human beings from two thousand five hundred years ago are almost like a special type of people. Human beings are survivors, that is in our genes. If you threaten me with a weapon, I have a weapon too, I surrender. I don’t know why I said that, but that’s what it is. So under seventeen you draw a conclusion that I’m a human being. I am capable, and I am happy to be a human being. There is nothing that I cannot do, actually. Whatever conclusion you can draw, you draw that.

Then number eighteen. Understand its value. This is extremely important, that value what we have. I don’t want to talk about the material, we talked about that earlier. I am talking about the spiritual path. As much as we have the capability to work in the material, we have the capability to work with our spiritual path. In the spiritual path whatever we can contribute to ourself, there is a big difference in what we can contribute to ourselves than what monkeys can contribute to monkeys, and dogs can contribute to dogs and insects can contribute to insects. When you have a better capacity, you can make a bigger contribution. So human beings can make a difference. Even among human beings big difference. Right? I said this before. Clinton made a big mistake here. He had a big capacity so he made a big mistake. I had a similar problem and I asked for advice and he said if you lie people get angry. Keep your mouth shut. I said before Clinton should have asked for his advice. Then other human beings would not get angry, so keep your mouth shut. They would say he made a big mistake here. He had a bigger capacity and that’s why it was a big mistake. Right? And if you do something good it has a bigger benefit because you are more capable. So (110:00) as a human being we can do different in our spiritual path, much more than we could do as a dog or a cat.

And that is the spiritual value we have as a human being. Whoever we are, we are better than that. Buddha used to give example, of elephant imprint and compared to insects and other animals because the elephant is big and heavy and has a huge imprint. The Buddha used that very often as an example. It is true. And Clinton is not president today. There is nothing there. He’s some guy. If something happened, not a big deal. It wouldn’t matter. It would have no impact at all. But as president you have the capacity to do that. If you do something good it makes a big difference. If you do something bad it makes a big difference. Human beings make a big difference compared with any other life. It is an opportunity for us to make a big difference to make a big push up in our spiritual life. It is also a danger to make a big mistake in our spiritual life too. We have a good advantage and a good disadvantage. That is exactly what we have to think. Why we think this? If we have a bad imprint on our mind it will make a difference. Because of a bad imprint we have to be more careful. It will help us to change our addictions. It will help us to change our addiction to our attachment. It will help us to change our addiction to our anger. It will help us to change our addiction to our jealousy. As I said a number of times people’s karma is nothing other than that of changing our addiction to our negative emotions. Negative emotions are the cause of negative karma which is the cause of suffering. We try to free ourselves by working at the causal level. That’s what I meant, working at the causal, changing our addictions.

You may be thinking what does a human life value have to do with my Buddhist practice? That’s what it is. What does Buddhist practice have to do with human life is to help you change your negative addictions. That’s why you are recommended to meditate. That’s why you are recommended to analyze. That is the only way actually. Only way underlined to change your negative addictions, to make it positive. To make yourself free of those negative addictions. Only by analyzing, by concentrating is the only way. I don’t mean Buddhism says that’s the only way. Don’t misunderstand me. No matter whether you are following Christian tradition, or atheist, or scientist, this way is the only way you can change your addictions. That’s why it’s here. (115:00) It not only gives you an explanation. It’s not only a pop talk, but also helps you to make it happen. If Clinton kept on thinking I am positive, I am president and Monika Lewinsky had been kept out, he would have been better off. He would have said I am president and didn’t listen, just like that. Are you with me? That’s why this whole thing is important. That’s why we recommend people to meditate on that. Understanding it’s value. Traditionally they give you eighteen different qualities. Read about it, read the book and they give you eighteen qualities. They tell you and you say do I have that? If I am a dog to I have that. If I am a cat, do I have that? I’m happy I’m not. Accept each of the eighteen as valid. They call them endowments. The most important thing is understand, process, change your mind and communicate. Accept that and remember elephant imprint.

It makes a big difference because human beings change. One individual. Suddenly the power comes together. Anyway, it is reality. It is where we are. And appreciate the rarity. I’m not even sure I should be saying that. There is a little dog right here. We say we don’t teach a dog dharma. Reality. I know there are many human beings in the world today. How many we have? Seven and a half billion. How many insects we have? Much more. Definitely more than seven and a half billion. Could be double or triple. Does anybody ever wonder why? How many animals? How many samsaric gods do we see? The more the value it goes up, the rarer it is. In one way six and a half billions is tremendous. If we have a war with insects we are outnumbered completely. Why? Think about it, just think about a silly question.

The Buddha did give an answer for that question. The answer is because our normal addictions. Our addictions are strong to the negative. We have more negativity than positive, so that’s why there are more insects than human beings. (120:00) More animals than human beings. It is habit, difficult to get. Anyway, we have sort of accidentally arrived. It looks like effortlessly it came. Right? Bad habit to fall in love and living together and I’m born. It is a simple explanation we give about how effortlessly we came, but it’s not. We went through a tremendous amount of effort from our side, a tremendous amount of effort from the parent’s side. Not only bringing ourself and what we see, but to be a parent takes a tremendous amount of effort, karmic effort. Tremendous. That’s why there are more insects than human beings. Bottom line is a better life and a better quality. That’s why more Americans than Indians and Chinese. True. And they all want to be American. Whatever the better life we have, it’s more expensive not in terms of money, but in terms of spiritual. Whatever, it’s reality.

I think there is a parallel world, a parallel material world and the spiritual and spirits. It’s very much parallel, functioning almost the same way. The material world and the spiritual world are parallel, all of them. It is the same principle. We measure our value in the material world in terms of the green dollar. The spiritual world we measure our value in terms of positive karma, and the spirit world it has its own way of functioning. All of those three things functioning together within ourselves, all three of them functioning together within each and every one of us all the time. Not three alone, there are much more, but at least these three happening together. The spiritual world, the material world and the spirit world, all three functioning together within ourself every minute of our life, they are all functioning. So to be in this condition is rare. Buddha had been asked what test should we use. Buddha said that’s the way it functions.

There is the basic cause. The basic cause is the basic value of morality. The basic value of morality is the basic cause to this life. It’s not necessarily very dharmic, basic morality. Basic virtue, right, (125:00) not necessarily bad morality. This morality, you know when the Buddha talks about morality I don’t think Buddha is talking about sexual orientation at all. I think Buddha is talking about basic commitment, living value. That’s what it is. It’s not the Judeo Christian way, but that’s what it is. It’s not, it’s not. Unfortunately today so much, so bad is happening. I was arguing with Yael this morning. We talked about it. I’m saying you know if you look at this world and Clinton business, at first it’s entertainment, then it became sexual misconduct.

Whatever we are doing then it is the big unspoken morality issue which the country is divided, way and how we approach. Why do think Pat Robertson is busy coming on television twenty times today? Why you think the Christian Coalition people who are so busy with a campaign to get Clinton out of office? Why it is such an big issue? It is sexual scandal and all of them, but the big issue going on is the morality issue. Which way is it. I think that’s what is going on. It is entertainment, sexual, and scandal, the big issue is the morality issue. According to the Buddha, according to the training of our mind, it is the morality issue of life. It’s not the morality of sex. It’s not the morality of sexual orientation. Its not the morality of that, It’s the morality of life itself, our commitments, our honor. That’s why we are mad at Clinton because he said oh I didn’t do anything. I did something. It is the morality of life is much more important than that of sexual orientation, this and that. That’s what is going on and it’s going on in parallel. The spiritual value of the morality what I call it the morality of life, human life is more important than any other morality, whether it’s coming from Buddhism, Judeo Christian tradition, Hinduism, or whatever. That works well with your karma too. Maybe I’ve said too much. Should I shut my mouth? I think you have enough.