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1Soundfile 19980901GRSR

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location ??

Topic Buddhist Psychology

Transcriber Vicki Cahill

Date June 7, 2021

Since we moved the dinner to seven. I mean, it looks, it’s not appropriate to try to start at eight o’clock as scheduled. Right? What is in the schedule? So, can we consider it eight-thirty tomorrow onwards? Eight-thirty. They want the volume up. They’re all raising like that. Ok. So, can you hear me now? Well, I started spoking softer and you’re hear better. That’s good. Anyway, welcome for the evening session. Ok. So, now you have heard, whole day today for, from all. From first from Tarab Rimpoche, then Professor Thurman, then this panel and also the, both the panels. The earlier, the earlier panel and the second panel. And I believe the panel did a great job. I’d like to thank you. And those of you who just said, just said, “Oh, you’re going to be on that.” So, nobody was sort of asked. I think, you’re staying with me, aren’t you? I believe today is a schedule day. Right? So. Don’t run away. Ok. Here you go. Why are you looking at me like that? Ok. So, the idea in the evening, what we are supposed to. (feedback) What happened? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m glad everybody’s quick to cover their nose, ears. Nose. Can you, can you say something please? You didn’t

Aura: Is mine picking up?

Jonas: Yeah

Audience: Yeah.

Rimpoche: Me too. Ok. What happened? Did you hit something?

Jonas: I hit the wrong button.

Rimpoche: (Laughs) So, you purposely did it? Right? Ok. Thank you.

Jonas: ..

Rimpoche: Ah yeah. So, the idea is the whole day, the discussions and ideas whatever that we came up, try to put them in the practice level in the evening. That was our original plan. So, and unless we do that and then, it, you may have a lot of things and we may not get them together. So, putting them in practice, is probably we would like to put in, either in Odyssey to Freedom, or Foundation of the Perfections. One of those. It’s much easier to bring them together on that level. So, Odyssey to Freedom we did last year, right? So, I think everybody. Did we provide everybody copy of the Odyssey to Freedom or not? Yeah.

Aura: Is that what was, was that in the packet?

Audience 2: No, that wasn’t

Rimpoche: That’s not in the packet. So, what is, what is in the packet?

Audience: ..Lama Chopa….

Rimpoche: Lama Chopa. Alright. Pick up Lama Chopa. That will be fine.

0:04:07.1 Pick up Lama Chopa and look in the Lam Rim level.

Audience: Robert..

Rimpoche: (whispers) I told Robert to give prediction. One evening

Audience:…..

Rimpoche: Prediction.

Aura: Oh prediction. (laughs) No.

Rimpoche: 0:04:44.5 No on that(?). So, those of you who have Odyssey to Freedom, and that will correspond too. And those of you who have Foundation of the Perfections, they will correspond. And everything, really. Anything you have actually will correspond. Any practice you have, it will correspond. Ok. Huh?

Audience:….people might need the page that aren’t familiar with the.

Rimpoche: Yeah. That page is page twenty-six. And I. I know one thing before I go over talk to you anything else. I have two things I have to talk to you. Number one; there’re quite number of people here who have not been here before and they may have some difficulties of not getting, not understanding. I mean, I’m sure you’ve been benefited but may not be benefited enough. So, I would like to hear that back from you. So, any specific, particularly if you have any difficulties. I’m not talking about the food. I’m not talking about the lodging. And you remember that. The first evening, if you have a problem in toiletry, call Kathy. Remember that? So, we have that. So, there’s no problem with that. So, I’m talking about the study part and so some of you have come quite far away and if you have any specific questions or difficulties or anything, and not only some, but many of you have come from quite far away. And some of you have come all the way from Mexico or Spain or whatever. So, all of those. And that’s a little far away, then coming from New York or even California. I don’t know which is farther; Mexico or California or Seattle? Hmm?

Audience:;…..

Rimpoche: There’s a woman here from Brazil. Where?

Audience;…

Rimpoche: Where? Who? Who? Who? From Brazil? Yes, I know. I know. Who, who you talking to?

Audience:…..

Rimpoche: Who are you talking to from Brazil?

Aura: Naomi

Rimpoche: Huh?

Audience:.. Naomi

Rimpoche: Naomi. Akiko? Akiko. Naomi Akiko. She’s from Ohio, originally from Brazil.

Aura: Akiko

Rimpoche: Akiko.

Aura: Akiko

Rimpoche: Akiko. Anybody else from Brazil? Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I’m sorry Ok. That’s right. Anyway, that. Well, it’s far. So. I have no argument with that.

0:07:53.8 So, anything. That especially they’re, they’re who are here first time. Who are not familiar with my accent and who are not familiar with what we do. And anyone of those, I would really like to give you, say whatever you want to say. Anything. And you have some questions. And what about you people sitting over there? Are you ok? Huh? You people are ok? Huh?

Audience: the sound is…

Rimpoche: Oh, they say sound is not good. That side. So, where is he gone?

Jonas: Jonas

Rimpoche: Yonas.

Jonas: Jonas

Rimpoche: Yonas.

Jonas: Yonas then

Rimpoche: (laughs)

Audience: ….

Rimpoche: Yes, please?

Audience: What’s a Lama Chopa?

Rimpoche: Lama. You know what lama is?

Audience: Yes

Rimpoche: They’re living in the Peru with L L M A.

Aura: Peru

Rimpoche: Peru

Aura: Peru

Rimpoche: What did I say?

Aura: Piro

Audience: You said Piro but they live in Peru

Rimpoche: Peru, they live. And when you feed those llamas, you know. And with the. Somebody said it’s joke, joke, joke .

Audience: No, I said, you feed them, they go chope, chope, chope

Rimpoche: Oh, chope, chope, chope. Ok. You know those llamas? You know, with two ear, long neck and goes and eat chop chop chop. That’s right. And that is, feeding the llamas are called Lama Chopa.

Audience: (laughter)

Rimpoche: (laughs) In a way, it’s true. You just have to remove one “L”. That’s all. And don’t feed me too much. My sugar level will go up. Basically, you got the idea really. Didn’t you?

Audience:…..you take out the “L”, then it’s feeding the lamas

Rimpoche: That’s right. That’s right. It’s not necessarily feeding in the sense of feeding by food, or feeding thing. But sort of, you know, working with that. And the lama in the Vajrayana Buddhism, particularly. That’s.

0:11:25.2 I meant the guru devotion was subject of discussion today. So, therefore, we can definitely talk about it. And when you wanted put it on, and you have to look on the page twenty-six of this title-less white booklet. Ok? And look at page twenty-six. And verse, is it fifty-four? Through the forces of my, what is it? My making offerings and respectful request to the venerable spiritual guide, the holy supreme field of merit. I seek your blessings. O Protector, the root of goodness and joy, so that you will gladly,

Aura: Gladly

Rimpoche: gladly take me into your loving care. Ok? That’s the whole guru devotional practice comes into this. So. So, see. Even you say, by through the forces of my making offerings and respectful request. That’s the feeding part of it. And requesting. And praising. Even you talk to animal. The llama with the two L’s, even you feed them, then you pet them, you talk to them. You do that. Right? Don’t you? And the same way, you communicate with your spiritual master, spiritual thing. Do the same thing. Praise the person. Look after. Help and actually the idea of doing this is to develop very powerful merit. Did you understand the word merit? Merit. Would you like to say it?

Aura: Merit. I feel like Vanna White

Rimpoche: What? What did you say? I didn’t hear nothing. What did you say?

Aura: I said, I feel like Vanna White. You know, Wheel of Fortune.

Rimpoche; (laughs) Yeah. Vanna White.

Aura: Wheel of dharma

Rimpoche: Wheel of dharma. Yeah. So. So, to gain, what did you say? Merit?

Aura: merit

Rimpoche: Merit. Ok? They may have a lot of questions why. I don’t know. Did I talk to here? Or did I talk to New York?

Aura: You didn’t say here

Rimpoche: Oh. I didn’t talk here. Ok. I talked to New. Is it n Ann Arbor or New York? I did something last week anyway, about generosity. Where did I talk? It was New York. Must be. Right? New York. That’s right. The Thursday night, that’s why.

0:15:14.8 Ok. So, the generosity. Are you with me? Good. Generosity is considered very important action by all of us. Right? I don’t think anybody questions that. Do we? Is good action or positive action or not. Does anybody question that? Generosity. Not in the west. Tends to be Catholics’ tradition. They think it is a great thing to do. And it is good. It’s really wonderful thing to do. So, nobody really questions about it. They may have questioned the motivations. To some people. But generally, generosity is considered one of the most important, positive actions that we could do. Right? So, Buddha agrees with that. And Buddhism accept that and that is very important. And but, the difference here. I don’t whether it is different or not. In Buddhism, and if you are going to be generous, the gain what individuals are gaining by acting generous.

Aura: Generously

Rimpoche: Generously. Did I say something wrong?

Aura: No.

Rimpoche: Ok. To the merit what you are going to gain is different from the object or subject to whom you give. So, that’s why the lama is considered the supreme field of merit. So, even if it’s like a field where you are growing food, it’s supposed to be the best field. So, yield, what you are going to get is considered much more important and more, what you call it? More. Huh

Audience: Fruitful.

Rimpoche: Yeah, fruitful. More abundant so that’s why it’s called Lama Chopa. So, that answers your question, right? I hope so. Ok. So, did that raise another question in anybody’s mind?

Audience:

Rimpoche: Feed.

Audience:…

Rimpoche: Yeah. I told you earlier.

Audience: …

Rimpoche: It really doesn’t matter what that word is. It’s Chopa. If you’re making. If you really make direct translation it is offering or something. But it is the most important thing what you get the message out of it. That’s what it is.

0:18:29.8 So. Now then today we have. We have lot of discussions. Ok. Before. Before I do that. I was also asked by somebody to explain the seating arrangements here. And so, I really. There is nothing to explain. People came in and people sat down. And that’s the explanation. But what we did, is we sort of reserved a little bit of area on this side for the faculties. And we have a little extra cushions here for the monks and all this, who sit. And we try to reserve few lines for the faculties that doesn’t fit. And, and the people who have been working in the office and things like that can have to get in and out, to ease the purposes. And that’s, that’s about it, we made the result. However, this is what we did. And then, however, whoever came and they begin to, they sort of sat down here and there. But everybody’s very kindly, very politely, left the front row alone. They doesn’t 0:19:58.3 (?) sit on that. And they just keep on sitting it. And however, me personally, we don’t have the drill(?)0:20:06.1 yet. Me personally, do expect people who have been here number of years, they’re doing studying and all this and when I said, if they sit in the front and people who are, let’s call it, juniors. And the junior guys sit at the back. (laughs) I’m just. That’s sort of normal traditional, maybe I, maybe it is the eastern, what do you call it? Eastern influence.

Audience:….

Rimpoche: Huh?

Audience:…

Rimpoche: Huh?

Audience….

Rimpoche: Sort of influence maybe. And that’s the, what I’ve been thinking. Oh yeah. Except there’s a few people who says the prayers, so they been put together. Because when they started chanting, if one goes, the other side, and the other goes that side, it will be a little difficulty.

So, a few seats came that way. And that’s it. That’s expected to be. But nothing else. No other rules has been made. So, then people who have come earlier, they put their things on their cushions and they occupy their cushions. So, when they, who came later one, they don’t have. They couldn’t sit in the place because somebody else occupied it. So, you can’t sit on top of another. So. I guess that’s what had happened. Because I’d been requested to explain. I don’t know. So, a few people who had made that request. So. That’s, I hope that’s good enough explanation. Did I do ok?

0:22:09.7 So, then there are some people would like to have. Or they will, some people, some people have a physical difficulty. They would like to have a back wall. Right? Walls. And few of them will be able to provide, because there’s only a few available. And that’s what had happened. And some people like to be on chair, so we have chairs there. And also, I said this morning too. There’s another room over there, called chief’s lodge. Lodge. And there’s a television hook up there. There are quite a few people there. Not so many. There’s a big room. You can take a couple of cushions there and lie down. And even you want to lie upside down, you can do that. When I went there to check whether the television’s working there, somebody is sitting upside down. So, that’s fine. You can do it. And so, that’s it. So, you can do that. It’s over there. I mean, you really don’t have to. Or you may, you may have a slight different atmosphere. But we also hang thangkas over there. Everything there. I mean, almost. And there’s a television hook. So, if you have so difficult to sitting the whole day and almost whole night, you may like to go there for couple of sessions. And a couple of sessions, you may like to come here. You’re welcome to that. That’s purposely we made that available. So. Some people are enjoying there. I’m quite sure they’re lying like this. They will see it, right? So. So, that’s that. So, any questions anybody? Ok. So, I’d just like to say a few words for the benefit of those who are not been to so many times in Jewel Heart. Maybe the first time. Once again, the Buddha’s teaching, what you are going to encounter here. I’m going to say it. The Buddha’s teaching what you are going to find in Jewel Heart, in here. I forgot what I’m going to say.

0:25:24.1 The teaching of the Buddha, what you going to find in Jewel Heart is not going to be very orthodox. It is going to be. It is very relaxed manner. Very liberal. Very open. And not so much emphasize on how you sit and all this. Sitting or saying prayers, doing mantra, even meditation, you are not going to hear much. You’re going to hear. You’re going to get plenty of material for you to think, to consider. And so much emphasize on your mind level, how you settle/set up(?)0:26:19.1 your mind and you’re going to find a lot of emphasize on kindness, compassion and dealing with your daily life. And that’s what you are going to find. And maybe slightly unique. Even though there are large number of centers, Tibetan Buddhist centers available in the United States. Both, plenty of them actually. Both in the east coast as well as west coast. But we have a unique in Jewel Heart. The unique-ness in Jewel Heart is, you know, I believe because I myself is crazy person. That’s why. Maybe that’s the reason why you have the unique-ness. And this is not so much orthodox. And yet, hopefully, and it is one of the best presentations of Buddha’s teaching, dealing with our lives. It is more on grounded. Our dealing with our life. And it’s not so, we don’t emphasize so much studying. I mean, we do. I mean, you study, you learn better. But we don’t tell you, “do this, do this, get that examination. Get this and have this test done. Get this.”

0:28:24.1 We do not give you any certificate. A lot of people do. Do those certificates, do they carry value? Can you get some job out of those certificates? Maybe not. And yet, people give you certificate. One most important thing, can you show that certificate to the Lord of Death and say, “I did this.” I don’t think you can. So, don’t do. We don’t emphasize that. So, we don’t. We don’t have test. We don’t have deadlines. We don’t do it. But we sort of very relaxed manner, we can give you a profound really teaching of Buddha. It’s also try to put in a very simple synthesized tiny little things like Three Principles of the Path. Like two pages. Or the, or maybe the most biggest, this Lama Chopa, the couple of pages here. Or few sadhanas. Maybe short Yamantaka sadhana. Short Vajrayogini. Like six-session yoga. So simple little nice thing. Yet it is really opening everything. And I’ve been, been told by a number of people. When His Holiness was giving, the Dalai Lama was giving a teaching in New York. A number of people told me, it is sort of, very, the teachings which we did made them very opening. Sort of, they open them. They can understand. They can get what he is talking about and help them to understand. So, which means, it’s providing you a key to open any important spiritual path available. And provided you key and you carry that key and open and you can utilize that. To understand it. Did you get my, what I’m talking about it? I think some people begin to wonder, “What he’s talking about it? Didn’t get it.” But some people did. And then sometimes, it is like a little sort of tiny little painting on which you can, you know, it is sort of provide you basis on which you can paint. You can absorb all different colors and all different designs that can be put on And that is like a, like, like when the Tibetans paint thangkas, they provided that basis and on that, the painter can pick up all different colors and make every, whatever the different shapes, things they wanted, they can do. And that sort of basis has been provide here.

0:31:33.6 So, here you can hear a Vajrayana. You can understand. You can hear Lam Rim. You can understand. You can hear anything different, you really have some kind of basis on which. When they’re talking about guru devotional practice, this morning. You can hear. You can understand that. And when you’re talking about the functioning of the faculties of them. Mental faculties and you can fit in there. In here, maybe not exactly where the Tarab Tulku present, sort of little, sort of more scholarly type of thing. But might not exactly be fitting in the Lam Rim pattern. But you can get them in wherever it is coming. And whatever the Thurman been talking about it. For the two days. And you can fit them in here. Wherever the Jack Kornfield been talking, and all of them going to fit in here. So, that’s why. What you’re really getting is the key to open everything and the basis on which you can absorb/observe(?)0:28:24.1 everything. In other words, you have established spiritual ground. And anything thereafter, it comes. It can be, what you call it? Complementary decoration or addition. And that’s what it is. So, it’s also came in very relaxed manner. And very nice, very relaxed manner. And I was also very happy to hear. I did not hear that before. But I was very happy to hear from Thurman last night at the dinner. Right? And today he repeated here. And when, just before Allen died, and when he called. And he said, “This yogini business works. I’m happy.” So, I’m really happy to hear that. So, every, this little efforts that we all put it. And everyone of us, even you, you people. Even you’re for the first time here today. Even then, you know, the efforts what you put in, is a lot of efforts. It’s not that easy to get in some corner of Michigan. Where the digital phone doesn’t work. I mean the digitals doesn’t get, didn’t get here. So. So, to get, the world is northwest is on strike. And there’s a difficult to get here but they put efforts to come. And spending seven days here, which you don’t have time. And they’re all our efforts. And plus, you’re paying money to have rustic accommodations, and all of those, and those efforts you put in. But then the, I’m also happy to notice those efforts becomes worthwhile.

0:34:51.1 And worthwhile. Worthwhile to our spiritual journey. And in this life itself, dealing with our everyday life. Dealing with our anger. The dealing with our hatred. The dealing with the jealousy. All of those making difference. Too. Well you’ve been in dharma for a while and your outlook of the world, your perception of the world around you will be totally different than those who are not exposed to this. And those who have not been with the Buddha’s message. You’ll be totally different. In other words, your way of perceiving the everything what’s happening in the world will be different than other people. So, at the consequences of that, you will not be suffering so much. You will not be tortured so much. You do not have much traumatizing, because you’re perceiving things are different. Even you don’t get stage where the pain is not going to be pain. Even you don’t get to that stage. But your understanding and your own look and on that will be different. And that’s going to be your benefit for this life. And talking about the future life is then we’re talking big difference, totally. But still, there’s no way to prove. But still, it is big difference. On those are the. Those are the, what do you call it? Huh?

Audience:.

Rimpoche: Benefits. Benefits. Yes. Benefits. That’s what I was hoping you’d get. Some of you are going to be very good ones. Be helpful for so many people. Some of you be helpful to yourself and a number of people around. Doesn’t matter. Even you can help one person, that is good enough. But you, yourself must get help. And I think you’re getting that, going to get it. And I’m happy that you are here.

0:37:56.2 And so, the guru devotional practice falls in this particular category. And if you look, those of you who have the Odyssey to Freedom, I think it is somewhere number thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, right? Did it right?

Aura: I think it’s thirteen. Starts at thirteen.

Rimpoche: Ok. So, you have them. There’s four of them. And by the way, if you have the Odyssey to Freedom in your hand. But I’m sure it’s available down there in the store. Right? You have them. You have them. If you don’t have them, make sure you pick up. Ok? They’re very useful. It’s a little piece of. I wanted to make shorter than this but did not have time to do. But if you look up here. And if you look up here, from number one to number twelve. And we do in the morning here with White Tara practice. We’ve been talking about seven limbs. Remember? In the morning. Those of you here in the morning. Those of you who came, who are kind enough to get up in the morning. (laughs) Just joking. And do the White Tara practice, this is a. You have this number one to twelve available in that. So, you just have to know how to fit it. And there’s not big difference. There’s no big mystery in there. You don’t have to do a big study. Just look around. You can figure out. And the guru devotional practice falls on the number thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. All this. So. And then, we talked the Four Noble Truths yesterday. Where does Four Noble Truth fall? Hmm?

Audience:

Rimpoche: That’s right. I think thirty-three.

Audience: Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven

0:40:32.2 Rimpoche: Yeah. All of those in the thirties. You’ll find all of those Four Noble Truths that we talked yesterday. It’s also in there. So, you know what I’m trying to do is try to get everything, whatever you got here, you hear here, try to bring them one, something little solid on little something. And bring it together so that you don’t have to be scattered that information here, that information there. Bring them together. Make it simple. The. As I said yesterday; the essence of the practice is actually simply dealing with life. And being, you know. I said, you live with the Four Noble Truths. You walk with the Four Noble Truth. You sleep with the Four Noble Truths. You die within Four Noble Truths. That’s; That is exactly all of your practice should be. It is not necessarily, you say, “Oh, it is my time to practice.” And then sit down and then you know, pretend to be somebody else. It’s not, not. I mean, is it good? Yeah. Not that great. Fine. No problem. May way I talk, you know, I look like criticizing all the time, but it’s not, if you know me. In order to emphasize something more important, I do that all the time. So. That’s great. Wonderful. Fine. If you have certain time and sit down for a little. Great. But the most important thing is, when you are walking outside. Going through the street. Talking to some irritating fellow. And. Yeah and this time, this is more important. And whatever you could do while sitting there and try to visualize everything pure and wonderful. Light and love and nothing else. And it is great but then moment you wake up, you have to yell and scream and fight, it’s not great at all. And that doesn’t work. The effort of that putting is, has become useless. In other words, spiritual practice is totally within the individual. Making the one individual, that’s myself. Making better person. Making kinder. Making gentler. Improving. There’s always room for improvement. And that is spiritual practice. Don’t look anywhere else. Don’t look anything else. And that is so important. So, bring them together. And I don’t know. Our life is, we manage our life through our karma.

0:43:43.7 We create our own karma. Nobody else does. That makes me responsible for my life. I’m responsible for my life. So, I create my karma. But I cannot control my karma. I lost control. Because when the karma started functioning, it takes over. I lost my karma, karmic control. So, before you lose your karmic control, while it is in your hand, this is the time for us to govern ourself. This is the time to keep our power intact in our hand. And way and how we do, is functioning every minute of our life. Functioning every minute of our life. After a little while, it become automatic. As we are so used to it. Every life, you know. Remember they’re raising question about addictions. You’re raising questions about the patterns and all of those become automatic to the individual, the negative. Negativity. Those of, those of us, that’s including me, who used to be addicted to cigarette. You don’t have to think you’re going to get a cigarette. You don’t have to plan it. I’m going to smoke here. And then doing this and that. You automatically pick up a cigarette. Right? Because you’ve some kind of feeling and automatically grab a cigarette and keep on smoke. So, you don’t need any efforts to put on. And when you try to resist that. And you really have to put efforts. And you have to put efforts. Yesterday. Wasn’t it yesterday, they raised question about the, the addiction during the panel discussion and I was sitting over there and my thoughts going on. I’m looking at myself. As you, many of you know, many of you don’t know, I used to be chain smoker. Chain smoker. I used to smoke a dirty filthy strong Indian Panama twenty cigarette packet. Two at least, if not three packet, in three days. Or something. You know, like a little over one packet a day for thirteen years. It’s not a joke. For thirteen years. But I did not inhale. (laughs)

0:47:10.3 And when you cut. You know. I cut cigarette smoking cigarette in India. There’s no twelve step there. The twelve step is great. I mean, really wonderful. And we are talking yesterday. I was saying, “twelve step, twelve step”. And then Thurman raised a question. And he said, “It looks as though, though they are saying something different.” No, it’s really great. It works. And it is great. It’s wonderful. Let them be Lord. Let them do. When they’re working, why disturb them? I do the same thing in Holland, when I go to Holland. They function so well by themselves. And I said, if I poke, if I poke my dirty nose, I will make it worse. I don’t fault. I will follow them. So, they, when they’re doing well, and why should I poke my nose in there. That’s it. Am I right? Marion?

Marion: Yes. …

Rimpoche: (laughs) Ok Anyway. So. So, so, so, the twelve step’s great. It’s function. It’s helping. It’s wonderful. We should appreciate and really great, support people to that. But when I cut it out, there is no twelve step for me. So, what I’ve learned. I learned two things. Two things. One; you can get every information. You can understand. You can learn intellectually positive negative point. And whatever you can do. Whatever you learned, whatever you learned, and you tried to adjust that within yourself. And that’s a great way of doing it. But for so many people, you can’t do it. You know why? Because they said, but one little thing will not do. .Another little thing, you know. Maybe I’ll smoke this half of this cigarette. Finish that off. Or maybe I get one little puff and then I’ll feel good, relaxed and then I won’t do it. And that never works. Never works. If you have one puff, you get want second. You want second. You want third. You want finish cigarette and all this. But it never works. So, if you. That shows you, your intellectual knowledge cannot translate in action. So, if you cannot, what you do? Discipline. Then comes the discipline. You have to say it. I am not going to smoke now. And have your will power sit on it. You may have headache. Take some aspirin. Don’t get addicted in aspirin. But take the aspirin. It will help you relax a little bit. No matter, whatever helps, do it. Do, never ever go back for that. Even a single minute for anything. And if you have that power you can do it.

0:50:20.3 So, the. The curing the addiction. The best is knowing and balance and translating that in practical form. Which is very difficult for a number of people. Then help that. The, you know, the discipline and complement each other. That’s why in the Buddha’s teaching, why Buddha ask people to take vow. Why Buddha ask, recommend people to become monks and nuns. Because of the addiction to those negativities and through knowledge alone. If you cannot handle. Through some discipline, vows, communities been made. And made it easy for that individual to maintain in the way. And when you lose your discipline, feel a little embarrassment and all that type. All of them are utilized to cure the addiction. I think, I think I’m talking too long. I’m not; didn’t let Aura say a word. Sorry. And so. So, the. So, the. I mean the, the. Huh?

Audience: You talk about managing your own karma and

Rimpoche: That’s right. The managing your own karma is the. That’s the most important. Managing your own karma. The most difficulty you face in that is the addiction. Addiction will want to make you go back, as we see. The alcohol addictions, the cigarette addictions. We see it all the time. Wanted to go back. Just like that, attachment will do it. Just like that, the anger will do it. And, there’s some people. There are one or two people who like to do something funny, which you know it; it’s bad for you. You know it; it’s not right. But like to be mischievous somewhere. They do something funny. There are a lot of people who will like to do that. Right? Something mischievous they will like to do. And those people who would like to do mischief, is again addiction to that. Who would like to hurt yourself. Who would like to destroy your life. Who would like to do something that. That is the addiction that will make you even tickle yourself. You know. You really needed to do it. The grass can’t sit. It will tickle you. And that is your addiction. And how you, how you handle that, with your will power and your intellectual knowledge. Understanding and will power complement each other and make force.

0:53:28.6 I must tell you one thing. When I stopped smoking cigarette, at that time, and when I decided. When I. When I needed. When I know I need to stop and then said, “I’m going to stop.” And then somebody told me, “Oh yeah, just, you finish the packet and then stop.” I said, “No. If I’m going to stop, I’m going to stop right now.” I’m not going to finish the packet, I’m not going to finish even this very cigarette. It goes, here. And then I’ll count. I’ll count my hours. So, I said; Look, I can get one hour without cigarette and then I’m not going to spoil that efforts I put in for one hour, by simply saying (?)0:43:43.7, ha. I’m not going to spoil that. Then two hours go. I certainly not going to waste my efforts of two hours. Then four hours, certainly not. Then seven hours. Then day. Oh, I’m not going to waste my day. Then week. That’s how I stopped. So. That’s the same thing with attachment. That’s the same thing with anger. The same thing with jealousy and all them. But, you know, sometimes you will still have some spark of attachment here. Sometimes spark of anger here. Sometimes spark of jealousy. They’re bound to happen. We will have it. That doesn’t mean we’re falling back. But do you, you notice yourself. That doesn’t last very long. Those sparks. Not like before. The anger doesn’t last you for months and started shaking your body. They don’t do that any more. You notice that. So does attachment. So does hatred. And that’s how you see improvement within yourself. These are your encouragements. Lot of people think there’s no encouragement. The encouragement is within yourself. You see it. You know it. And so, if you don’t utilize that. If you’re going to wait for some kind of encouragement from somewhere, a flower shower from heaven is not going to happen. Ok? So, I said so much and I have, I would like to save Aura to say a few things. I’m sorry. Took a lot of time.

Aura: I don’t really need to say anything at the moment. It’s fine with me. I have plenty other opportunities. I don’t need to speak right now.

0:56:05.9 Rimpoche: Just say a few words.

Aura: I don’t really. I don’t have anything particular to say a few words about. So, if somebody has a thought or question, a response to anything Rimpoche’s just said or anything else, I’d be happy to respond to that. But I don’t have anything at the moment to add; to say. So, I’ll be happy to respond. Yes, Daniel

Daniel: Microphone?

Aura: What? Oh. A microphone.

Rimpoche: He wants a microphone. (whispers) See someone take up.

Daniel: Hello.

Aura: Hello

Rimpoche: Hello

Daniel: Today… Pardon?

Rimpoche: I said hello

Daniel: Hi. How are you?

Aura: Fine thank you

Daniel: Good.

Aura: I can answer that. You’re going easy on me.

Daniel: Today there was a lot of discussion on tantra and the transformation of self into the deity. A number of people here don’t have tantric initiations and can’t do some of the maha anuttara yoga practices described. What can a non-initiate do to transform their anger and hatred and what you said, grandiose, to free themselves and become enlightened, in one lifetime and what did the Buddha do, or anyone else. And how did they do it?

Aura: He started with “How are you?”

Daniel: Ok.

Aura: Just trying to catch me off guard though.

0:58:03.0 Well. I mean. Ok. Just to give something very brief and sort of, manageable, I think Rimpoche did a very good job of bringing everybody right to the ground level. I don’t want to sort of take off into abstractions for people who are not exactly involved in these kinds of practices. But truly speaking, transformation is very, as Rimpoche says, a very romantic word. We all like the idea of transforming. And we want to transform our attachment and we want to transform our anger and we just, you know, that’s very, very drawn to that idea. But the fact is, even when someone is a tantric practitioner in sort of, in fact. That all practitioners. It’s a much. It’s quite an advanced level for an individual to be able to transform the energy of an emotion. And so, whether you are a tantric practitioner or non-tantric practitioner, the first thing to do, when you’re dealing with emotions, is to recognize them. To not to run and hide under the covers and hope they go away. You know, to not lock them in the attic, to not keep the skeletons in the closet, but keep them in your room where you can see them and relate to them and work with them. And then over time, the possibility of transformation even becomes something that one could consider from within oneself. Because transformation is not an intellectual process. It is not something that can be described like, “Well, this is what you do. You go through these steps and then it transforms.” If one is at the level where the emotion is transformed, there’s not intellectualizing process that’s going on. It’s immediate. It’s on the spot. So, yes. That’s. We work with that; is a real possibility, obviously. But whether or not you are a Vajrayana practitioner, what the first order of business is to relate directly, over, as much as we can. You know, we have incredible fear of our emotions. And we don’t like them. We tend to either act them out or shove them away. And one of the biggest challenges is to be able to slowly relate to them with some measure of openness. And some measure of insight. So, I think that that’s the first thing and the second and the third and the fourth and that goes for quite some time.

1:00:51.5 Maybe one more question. Yeah.

Demetri: The question is. I was thinking this morning. Especially in light of Bob Thurman’s talk, but also Tarab Tulku made me think of this. And, you know, actually I’ve spoken with Bob about this in the past, because he is a Professor and he’s an academic. But the question of bridging the gap between intellectual understanding and really having your body catch up with, having your emotions and your feelings catch of with what your mind understands. And I just, about six months ago. You know, particularly because of therapy and psychology and because of the subtitle of this retreat is: From the Head to Heart. Eh? So, the question is, “if you and or Rimpoche could just make a brief statement or something to on the subject of, sort of like, we’re all pretty educated and we can get the basic teachings of the Lam Rim or the Three Principles of the Path, you know, relatively quickly. Within like a year or two you can sort of understand the basic teachings. But sort of talk about how you, how you begin to bridge the gap between your intellectual understanding and the functioning of your body and your heart. Because I feel like a lot of these things are in our muscles, in our flesh and in our. It’s really literally in our molecules of our body in terms of attachment and jealousy and things like that. So, it’s like one thing to say the truth, but it’s another thing. So, if you could just say something about how, how one avoids the risk of getting way too heady and way too intellectual and way too advanced in the mental plane and is like fifty years behind in the body plane.

1:02:50.8 Aura: Uh huh. Question. Ok. Well, I mean, glad you’re asking that question. I was, I forget when it was. Maybe when I was talking on one of the Tuesday nights, I think, when Rimpoche was wherever he was the last time; he was in Mongolia or whatever. I think I was mentioning within that, in Ann Arbor that the body is slow. The mind is fast. Conceptual mind is very quick. And the body takes; the body is slow. So, there’s. It’s true. And it’s a whole mind body synchronization. It is not something that is easy to achieve obviously. But in terms of how one actually moves from the intellectual understanding to what you are calling an embodiment of the practice, because truly speaking, none of this is meant to be intellectual. You know, if it’s left at the level, then we have failed in our spiritual life. And if there’s no. Spiritual life is not an intellectual pursuit. And that we can use our minds, and we need to use our minds in order to be able to move forward. But that, the living of it happens through actually trying to apply these things in our life through doing analytical kinds of meditation, which basically means, really thinking about things from all different angles. Not accepting things on faith or belief alone. So, you know, you hear something like, we have this precious human life. And truly yes. Intellectually we can grasp that and we can hear all the reasons and the leisures and the endowments and yeah, it makes sense. And life is precious and so forth. But how far is that knowledge from really feeling that one’s life is precious. From really feeling, from really waking up in the morning and having that sense that, I have an opportunity here that I may not ever be able to match again. There’s a big gap.

1:04:47.7 And that gap. I was talking a little earlier today about the tension between our ordinary nature and you know, the deity nature. That applies to all aspects of our practice. All aspects. Embodiment comes through bringing together where we are right now, right here. Which means, acknowledging where we are right now, right here. Seeing it clearly. Being willing to recognize it. Being willing to look in the mirror and see the gorilla looking back, if that’s what we see. Right? Being able to cope with that. At the same moment that we have this other understanding that intellectually and somewhere intuitively makes sense. The tension between those two things. Between the inspiration of the teachings and the kind of messiness of our lives and incongruity of our lives with the teachings. That is the richest place to practice. That is in fact where practice happens. The practice doesn’t happen away from all of our problems and difficulties and all the stuffness and all the cells of our body, as you describe them. The evolutionary impulse to just survive, you know, at all costs. No matter who it harms. And Rimpoche always gives the example that, you know, if someone wants to come in with a gun, we’d be the first one to put everyone else’s body in front of ourselves. Right? That’s our immediate. That’s our nature of survival. That’s We’re born with that. Every living being has that. If you approach a little worm, with a little stick, you’ll see the little worm running away. Right? Trying to survive. Trying to protect itself. That’s an inborne quality. And so, when we’re talking about really applying these teachings, we’re talking about a level of transformation. We’re talking about Buddhahood. Talking about a level of transformation that also includes instinct and habit. Instinct and habit very much live in the body, as well as the mind. So, that process of transforming at that level, that also includes instinct and habit, has to happen through bringing those two things, the incongruity of our lives in relationship to the teachings. If we keep the teachings here and it’s great and it’s wonderful and it’s marvelous. And yes, attachment and anger and all this, and then we have our lives here, then we miss the point altogether. It’s bringing the two things together and struggling with how, how they feel dissonant. You know, how we feel. You know, we don’t live up to it. How we feel that we’re failing every moment. Right and every moment we’re aspiring and every moment we’re failing. Holding those two things together is the way that we begin to embody the practice. (whispers) Is that …(?)

1:07:34.6 Rimpoche: Very good.

Aura: Do you want one more? Ok. Then maybe last question.

Audience:…..

Aura: I wasn’t finished.

Audience: …..

Aura: Oh she’s Pat. yeah(?) 1:07:56.6 Pat. Sean is giving her the mike. Yeah.

Audience: You are talking about how we live with our feelings. The first step or this ongoing.

Aura: Recognizing

Audience: Ongoing step. Recognizing the feeling and living with it. And knowing it and living with it and knowing it and living with it. And then you said that then there comes a. You said it’s a momentary change or something changes. And I want you to talk about that. What is that?

Aura: The moment of change?

Audience: Yeah. You said it happens in a moment. The change happens in a.

Aura: No, no, no. I was. I’m sorry. What I meant was that at the level of transformation. When someone’s actually working at that level, which is not the level that we are really discussing for ourselves at this moment in time. And at that level, at a much more advanced level of development when one is actually transforming or transmuting the emotion on the spot. And that happens in an instant. It’s not part of a process of thinking. It’s not a stepwise. It’s sort of the. It’s instantaneous. But what I’m talking about is that in order to get to that point. In order to be able to achieve that, we have to go in a stepwise fashion. Beginning of that stepwise process is the recognition and the willing to come. The willingness to come and face to face and with a kind of an open heartedness towards our own dilemmas. Towards our own problems. Towards our own difficulties. So, that’s. So, the in the moment thing I was referring to, the transformation process that Daniel was. That Daniel was asking about regarding tantra. But does that answer your question?

Audience; I’m trying to understand in that continuum where, like someone like yourself, where are you? Which

Aura: I’m just trying to keep the skeletons in the room. Our of the closet.

Audience: You’re not going for that other level of transformation?

Aura: I’m, I am absolutely going for that. And I absolutely believe that is it possible. But, but I’m working with the energy. I’m not. I’m working with the emotion. I’m working with the relationship to my own psychic material. And maybe that’s enough for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be speaking and maybe I’ll address the issue more fully when I have an opportunity to talk for a longer period. There might be another opportunity to talk about that, because it’s a very important question and difficult to exhaust(?) 1:10:34.3

1:10:37.6 Rimpoche: Thank you. Well, I guess we have to call it a day. Otherwise, it will be night. (laughs)

migtsema