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20000229GRAABWL

Side A of tape 85 of 02/29/2000

Welcome to everybody here and all those who are hooked up on any of the ten lines. So some of you may sit in sunny Florida. However, it is not that cold here either. It is not so bad.

We were up to verse 83 of chapter V:

Verse 83

The perfections such as generosity

Are progressively more exalted.

But for a little (morality) I should not forsake a great (gift).

Principally I should consider what will be of the most benefit for others.

To remind ourselves, here we are dealing with a method that helps us to behave and function within our daily life – particularly if there is a contradiction. This is very common in our life. If we do something, there will be contradictions by something else. How do we deal with this? This is especially dealt with in this chapter. Bodhisattvas, those who are committed to become Buddhas by themselves, have basically two categories of activities. One is to help themselves and there are the six activities of handling their lives which are called the Six Perfections. Then there are four different ways of handling their lives in order to benefit others. All of these are called paramitas which is Sanskrit and does not make sense to us. Translated, it means perfections. We try to be perfect. We try to work it out. We try to fill the shoes that they have left. To begin with, our own shoes may not be that big, but soon they will get bigger and bigger.

The first perfection is generosity. In the West, one good thing is that we don’t have to emphasize why generosity is important. Everybody without question will know that generosity is important. People just know . However, we have very little information about what generosity is all about. Every generosity may not be that good. Generally it is great.

The second perfection is morality. It is very important. However, everybody has their own interpretation of morality. The politicians have their own interpretation. Business people have their own interpretation and even gang members do. For example, remember Bill Bennet wrote a book called Ten Days. He read it out on Larry King Live. Then there are different interpretations from people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Then of course you can hear other versions from Al Sharpton or Louis Farakhan. So everybody has their own statements. Buddha made his own statement too. Then we also have our vows and commitments. That becomes another morality.

Thirdly, there is the perfection of patience, then the perfections of enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom. These are considered the most important activities of the Bodhisattvas for the purpose of helping themselves. I am not here to say that Louis Farrakhan’s morality or Jerry Farwell’s morality are wrong. But I am here to mention what kind of morality Buddha has mentioned. Everybody talks about morality and everybody talks about compassion. These have become buzz words. Morality has also become a buzz word. There are so many interpretations.

Basically, Buddha said that morality means following whatever commitments you have. Keep your vows intact. If you have a vow that says, ‘ Thou shalt not kill’ , then you shouldn’t. If you do, you are breaking a vow and that is breaking your morality. If you don’t have that commitment and you kill, you have the negativity of killing, but you have not broken a vow. So in that case it might not be immoral. It all depends on the circumstances that you are involved in. For example, if you have taken a vow not to have sex with somebody of the same sex and then do it anyway, you have broken your vow. If you have not taken such a vow and you have sex with someone of the same sex, you have not broken that vow.

Some of you may remember: A few years ago we went to that temple in 1214 Packer Road. The head of that temple, Sönam, kept talking about Trungpa Rinpoche and said, ‘ Oh, he broke every vow in the world that could be broken.’ At the time I did not say anything, but it occurred to me that he did not have any vows. So he could not break any! He must have had Vajrayana vows, but he was not a monk. So there were no monks’ vows to be broken.

Then patience. There are not so many interpretations. Patience is patience, very clearly. However, I would like to point out, that to be patient in order to achieve negative results cannot be considered to be good patience. There are some people who say, ‘I can wait, but I will achieve my desire.’ If you are waiting in order to achieve something negative, I don’t think it is good patience in the context of the Bodhisattvas’ activities. On the other hand it is good patience if a Bodhisattva – as mentioned in the Lama Chöpa – is prepared to remain in the hell realms for hundreds of eons. That is a very long shot, it is far away. But that is an example. It is unimaginable patience, but it is good patience. There may be a thief who can wait for years until he can steal something from a museum. But that is negative patience.

The same goes for enthusiasm. You could be very enthusiastic about getting leverage over a business partner or the opposition. Politicians in an election period will do anything to get elected. That is enthusiasm, no doubt, but not necessarily the best thing.

These qualities are there to make the individual perfect, but it depends on how the individual utilizes them.

The same thing again goes for concentration. You could meditate on how to defeat your opponent. It is a technique you can apply. You can meditate on how to improve your business. But it is not necessarily a positive thing from the spiritual point of view. But these are the tools you can use.

Again, the same thing goes for wisdom. The six paramitas are directed towards achieving the goal of becoming a Buddha. With that in mind, generosity, morality and so on become perfect activities. These are tools. It is like computers. If you know how to use them you can. So they can be used by law enforcement as well as by thugs. They can be used by anybody for any purpose. So patience may not necessarily be great from a spiritual point of view. It is a good thing to have in order to achieve your goals. You can see that from any angle. So here these tools of the six perfections are presented, presuming that we want to achieve the goal of becoming a Buddha, rather than becoming rich or whatever. You could use these tools in all directions. And we do. That is why it is so important to recognize. Meditation is a technical name which makes us think that is an activity used to advance us on the spiritual path. But on the other hand, a business person meditates every day on how to increase their business. Thieves meditate everyday about the best way to steal. They may not sit down cross-legged, but they are thinking with their mind about how to make it possible. I just wanted to emphasize that.

As said in verse eighty-three, Buddha considers the first perfection to be the least important out of the six perfections. They are given in the order of importance. Morality is more important than generosity, then patience is even more important, and so on. The most important of the six is wisdom. It says in the verse that they are ‘ progressively more exalted.’ So the first is not the most important, but the sixth is.

Then it says that ‘for a little morality, a great gift should not be forsaken’. In other words, if your generosity is very big and helpful and the morality in this case is very small, then although morality is more important than generosity, one should not take it for granted, that one should give up that generosity for the sake of the morality. ‘Principally, one should consider what would be of most benefit for others.’ So if the generosity is very great, one should relax about the morality part and pick up the generosity, because it is more beneficial. For example, someone could be very patient. So generally, it is right to break the morality if it increases the patience. However, if you are not capable of the patience, it would not be right.

Or lets say that your generosity is going to be great. The morality you would have to break is very small. However, if you are incapable of handling that generosity, then it is not great to go ahead.

Lets say you are making a great gift. For that purpose you may have to break a little morality somewhere. However, you also may not be capable of giving this as a real good gift. You may have strings attached to it. You may hope for something in return. Your generosity then seems to be great but it is not. You are incapable to performing good generosity. There may be an agenda behind your generosity. It may look great to others, but for you, the individual, it is not. So if you then break some morality in order to perform that generosity, you break both. You are the loser in both cases. You are not gaining anything from your generosity, because you are incapable of delivering it. On top of that you have lost your morality.

So don’t be too quick to make a decision on the basis of categorizing these things. In the West we put everything into categories. We say that generosity is less important than morality. So morality overrides generosity. However, if generosity is huge, it should override morality. You may say, ‘Okay, this generosity is huge, so it will override morality.’ But without having the wisdom of generosity itself, you will be the loser.

The base of your judgment should be, as the verse states, the greatest benefit for the others. Here we are talking about love and compassion, not only for oneself, but also for others.

Verse 84

When this is well understood,

I should always strive for the welfare of others.

The Far-Seeing Merciful Ones have allowed (a Bodhisattva)

To do some actions that (for others) were forbidden.

In other words, the Merciful Ones have allowed some actions that were forbidden. From the generosity we now shift gear to morality.

There are three sections here:

I will help as best as I can.

That is service to others.

Generosity

That includes material as well as spiritual generosity.

It is just as above. If there are contradicting positive activities, which one should you let go ? This is our biggest problem. I get a lot of questions from people like

‘I would like to do this or that, but then I would be breaking this and that vow.’ People say, ‘I have to look after myself. But isn’t that self-cherishing?’

Questions like that come up very often. For example, ‘I have to work, but it includes harming someone’. Or, ‘I have to fire someone. If I don’t, my work is going to suffer. If I do, it is not right.’ There are bound to be such contradictions. We are not Buddhas yet. Until then, there will be contradictions. We can’t expect things to be perfect. We are Buddhists, but not Buddhas. How do we handle that?

We have to make choices. Who can make such a choice? Someone who has understanding. If you don’t have understanding, you better not make a choice. You bite what you can chew. That is why there are three scopes:

Common with the lower level

Common with the Theravada level

Mahayana level.

In Theravada the discipline is very much emphasized. In Mahayana it is more relaxed. You are given more choices. In Vajrayana there definitely are a lot of choices. It is expected that you know what to choose. If you don’t know you better stick to the discipline, because you are better off that way. It is safer. That is why this verse says, ‘ If it is well understood…’ Then you can even do things that otherwise ‘are forbidden’. There are such things as crazy wisdom or skillful means or wise ways. These things pop up all the time. But people misuse them, not understanding what is said in this verse. If you have the understanding, you can do it, because it is beneficial. If it is not ‘ well understood’, better stick to the strict discipline, because you will be better off.

I give you one example. It was one of my father’s previous incarnations or one of Dagyab Rinpoche’s previous incarnations. This person was hunting deer all the time. Another lama who was passing through, criticized him, saying, ‘How terrible! You are killing animals!’ He said, ‘That is true, but lets eat this meat first. Make sure you keep all the bones and skin.’ After the meal he took out his mala, blew on it, put it inside the bones and skin and had the skin stitched together. By this time the deer got up and ran away.

So for this type of people it is okay to practice crazy wisdom. But if we did this, we would be fooling ourselves and other people too. That is why I am circling around this verse, emphasizing the line When this is well understood…. If you don’t understand well, then from small things you can easily progress to big things. When you make the choice, you will first hesitate with big things. You think that for small things it may be okay [to break the morality]. Then it will become a little bigger and bigger. Very soon, before you know it, everything becomes wrong. That is not only not good for you, but you are also misleading many people. In the United States people are at the moment so interested and get so excited about mystical things that it is very easy to mislead them. There are a lot of people around who will tell you that they prefer to rely on their intuition rather than on what Buddha said and what his followers have done. Buddhism, however, is nothing but Buddha’s personal experience of dealing with negativities. Not only Buddha, but there are thousands of people after him who have achieved the same results, using the same methods. It is almost scientific. When you have such an extremely strong, scientific path provided by Buddha, why should one rely on somebody else’s strange feelings, that come from waking up early in the morning and are half sleep and half meditation – half hallucination and half information? If we do this we go into a wrong direction. The spiritual path is unknown territory to us. There is no perfect map. There actually is, but it is not a drawn map, but only available in form of books.

[When you follow a wrong path, then after some time] your anger, your attachment, your jealousy, etc. may be getting much worse and you have wasted ten years of your precious life. And it would be the fault of not properly understanding the meaning of well understood. That is the meaning of spiritually grounded. That is why Trungpa Rinpoche wrote the book called Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. That is the one you have to cut through. People are very easily misguided and misled. In Tibetan we have a saying: When you bless yourself, your feet will give the blessing on your head. The lowest part of the body is the feet, the highest the head. So when you put your feet on your head you can give yourself a blessing. It is a derogatory statement. Usually we get blessings from someone higher than us. So putting your feet on your head does not work. You are lowering yourself spiritually. You are pulling yourself away from your achievements. You can do these [unconventional] things, but only if you clearly understand what you are doing.

When this is well understood,

I should always strive for the welfare of others.

The principle of that person is helping others, being totally engaged in the service and benefit of beings other than yourself. This is for people who can undermine their own interest for the interest of others. A lot of people pretend to do that, but when it really comes to it, they want something for themselves. We want benefit for ourselves in the end, so we don’t mind to do something for others here and there a little bit. However, you don’t really want to let the big one go. You are not really able to undercut your own personal interest for the interest of others. In the case of Bodhisattvas, you see them undercutting their own interest for the interest of others. When that is in your blood, you can claim that you have well understood. Until then you haven’t – even if you have a good motivation. Even then it can go wrong.

The Far-Seeing Merciful Ones have allowed (a Bodhisattva)

To do some actions that (for others) were forbidden.

I have given you the example of this yogi who went hunting and killing. For that person it was allowed to do that, because he knew how to handle not only the action of killing, but also what to do with the departed soul. If you do not know how to help a departed soul, you are not allowed to do such things. Traditionally, if you look in the Heruka story, there is the example of people who can make fruit drop from a tree just by looking at them. They don’t have to go up the tree and shake the fruit off. However, for such people dropping the fruit from the tree is only allowed, if they know how to put them back. Crazy wisdom does exist. It is true. All the mahasiddhas did have crazy wisdom, but it is only for those who know what they are doing. For people like you and me crazy wisdom is not right. There is the strong danger of misleading yourself and others.

Verse 85

I should divide my food among those who have fallen to

Lower realms,

Those without protection, and practitioners,

And eat merely what is sufficient for myself.

Except for the three robes I may give away all.

Not giving the three robes refers to monks and nuns. Apart from that everything should be given. Such a Bodhisattva can give everything, without hesitation. Until you reach that level, you may be pretending, but you are not going to get it. We don’t mind sharing when for example we have ten shirts. We will be able to give away one or may be two. At the most we can give three. We feel that we must keep seven, because there are seven days in the week. But Bodhisattvas of a certain level will not hesitate to take out their eye balls and share them with others. Can we do that now? No. Are we allowed to do it? No. Don’t try it! I have to mention it. You never know, some crazy people may try. I am not responsible, okay? I better tell you now. You are not even allowed. At this point generosity has gone beyond your wallet. It is about sharing your eye balls. Those who have understood, they can do it.

Verse 86

This body which is being used for the sacred Dharma

Should not be harmed for only slight benefit.

By my behaving in this way

The wishes of beings will quickly be fulfilled.

I have shared the example of giving the eye balls. Some crazy person might try, but will that be of any benefit? No. It does not benefit others, and it just harms their own body, a body which could be used for much better things. So the understanding is definitely needed. If there is a contradictory situation, you can definitely make a choice. But this choice must be based on understanding. If you want to break your vows and commitments, you must have very good reasons. Otherwise you will not only do harm to yourself, but you will also be misleading others. That is important.

Are there any questions?

Aud1: When you were talking, I got a funny image coming up. It was like driving a truck and seeing a bag falling of a bank truck in the middle of the road. To prevent that others may get hurt, I would pick up the bag and throw it in the back of my truck. I would find out that there are a million dollars in it. I would give most of it to Jewel Heart and keep the rest – 900 000 Dollars – for myself and share it with my family.

R: [laughs] That is an interesting image. Here you have a choice whether you leave the bag there and get people hurt, or pick it up. What about a third option? You could catch up with the driver and tell him that he dropped something! Then you had another choice, whether to keep all the money or whether to give some to Jewel Heart. So there may be some self interest in there. I don’t know whether that is really free of self interest.

Aud2: When I went to college I wanted to become a politician and help people. Then I saw what you had to do to become a politician and I pulled away from it. Is there any way to bring your own personal commitments and helping other through politics together?

R: I really think there is. The old Tibetans used to be very proud of the combination of the spiritual and the temporal. They are also very proud of their country, the whole socio-economic and religious system, based on the combination of the temporal and spiritual. For a long time I did not understand what they meant by the combination of religion and politics. I thought they were referring to the Dalai Lama being both, the ruler of the country and its spiritual head. Then I saw a book written by Trungar Rinpoche who was one of the very important spiritual teachers, as well as one of the best poets available in Tibet. He died a few years ago from a terrible bone cancer. We in Jewel Heart were able to sponsor his treatment in the United States, in the Cedar Sinai UCLA Hospital. We could not help him much. He passed away two and a half months later. Wherever you touched his bones, they would break. He wrote a number of books. One of them was called The Combination of the Spiritual and the Political. He traced Tibetan history back to before the 5th Dalai Lama back to the 7th century to make historical points. He gave very interesting reasons. He talked about Chinese pressure and took that theme up again at the time of the 5th Dalai Lama. While reading, I noticed that the idea was not so much the situation of the Dalai Lama, but the life of every individual. From the Buddhist point of view each and every one of us is involved in the material life and the spiritual life. To make the material life right, you have to have a policy about how to conduct yourself. You have to have ways and means of functioning and bringing yourself to that level. That has the influence of spiritual principles. This is the example for one individual. That one individual can care for a family of six or twelve or twenty four. The same principle can apply to a county, then to a city, a state, a nation. Truly, the two can go together. Today we hear the slogan Conservative Compassion. I don’t know whether that works or not, but the politics of compassion or compassion-oriented politics are definitely possible.

Look at the life of Mahatma Gandhi. It is full of politics. There is no way that India and Pakistan could have become independent from the British Empire without politics. They used to say, ‘ The sun never sets on the British Empire.’ But because of Gandhi’s politics India and Pakistan became independent. These were based on compassion.

This morning they were talking about a poet who was in India with Dr. Martin Luther King. Now see what impact he had in the United States. Again, there are Gandhi’s principles of non-violence applied in politics. I do not know how well this new conservative compassion of George W. Bush will work. Apparently, during his governorship in Texas, hundred and twenty-five prisoners were executed. That may not go too well with compassion.

Other examples of the coming together of politics and spiritual values are Nelson Mandela and also the Dalai Lama. I cannot mention Mother Theresa, as she was not a politician. But I know that she played a lot of politics in India. When she first started her missionary work in Calcutta, the Indian government did not trust her. She always had difficulties with rules and regulations. Hers was the only organization that did not maintain accounts and that was never acceptable to India. Tremendous amounts of donations came in and she never maintained accounts, whether it was for food donations, or money or medicine or whatever. But when you look at her, she only possessed a sari and a little leather bag which contained a few books – no money. It took her a very long time to be accepted in India. Luckily there was a woman named Palmaja Nadu. She happened to be Nehru’s girl friend. She got along very well with Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter. I knew Palmaja personally, that is how I know that she was able to influence Indira Gandhi when she became prime minister of India. So that is Mother Theresa’s politics. She became Indian citizen and was able to work there. That is small politics, but it is her own politics. But can you win elections in the United States in the year 2000 with this idea? Ask Senator McCain. I don’t know, probably not.

Actually there is always a mixture of religion and politics, even though there is a separation of church and state also in the United States. Senator McCain noticed that there were Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on the right extreme and Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan on the left extreme. So there is always that mixture of religion and politics. Look at Buddhism and there is the Dalai Lama as the outstanding example. Then look at Islam and Ayatollah Khomeini is an outstanding example. Look at the Christian tradition with all its kings and cardinals and bishops – one after another. Perhaps Pagan traditions don’t have much impact on politics. Apart from that they all do, whether it is the Hindus, Buddhists, Judaeo-christian traditions, Muslims, etc. That is not necessarily that good. We only had one Gandhi and one Martin Luther King. With Nelson Mandela we can slowly see now how great he is. He might have been a little militant when he got out of jail, but he changed that very quickly. Another person to look at is Jimmy Carter today. He is a politician, no doubt about it, but….I hope we will be able to see the same thing with Clinton later, hopefully.

So in answer to the question: History has proved to us and even today we would have to say: yes, it is possible to join religion and politics. It is not that bad. The rhetoric’s will say that it is not possible. A thirty second sound bite may say it is not possible, but I think it is.

Aud3: You talked about the antidote to spiritual materialism. Did I hear you say that it was putting other’s needs before your own?

R: No, that is not what I said. The actual antidote to spiritual materialism is to ground yourself. Don’t fly in the air. In the spiritual path that you follow there should be principles. The path should be a perfect path. There cannot just be one little thing. A lot of people think that just sitting peacefully on the ground is enough. But that is definitely not enough. It is not enough, because our negative emotions are so many. Each one of them has to have their own antidotes. So you really have to have a variety. This variety has to be organized, otherwise you won’t know what to do. Then you should be able to follow it properly. What does that mean? It means that it should be happening in scientific fashion. The person must make their own experiences based on the Buddha’s experience. I am saying that since I am a Buddhist. That does not mean that only the Buddhists have an organized system. Everybody has their own thing. Buddha has had the experience, followed by thousands of his followers who had the same experience, doing the same thing. If you follow that properly, you are grounded. There are, however, a lot of people, who are looking for some kind of mystical instant enlightenment, something funny in which intuition is more important than the inner science, which is scientifically grounded and established. That is just flying in the air.

Tsong Khapa had a vision of the Thirty-five Buddhas sitting on all those mountain peaks. But he didn’t go around telling everybody that he had this vision. No, he ignored it. He said to himself, ‘I am not sure whether these are really Buddhas or whether that is just my hallucination. Perhaps it is even a devilish vision.’ So he kept on ignoring, until he got a personal message from an individual living being who told him, ‘Please don’t ignore, these are really true.’ That is really grounded.

We fly. When we are a little bit light-headed and have funny feelings, we think it is great. We think we saw a vision, a star or something. When you faint, you may see something and think that it is great. That is called ‘ ungrounded.’

Tsong Khapa told us,

When you have visions [of enlightened beings], don’t ask them questions that you don’t know the answers of, in order to make sure that these are real. When you are sure, you can ask question that you don’t know the answers of.

If you ask them question that you don’t know the answers of straight away, they could tell you anything and you would not know if it was true or not. You have no way of judging.

Aud4: Earlier you said that the six perfections are mainly there to help yourself and that there are four things to help others. What are they?

R: I don’t want to touch on them today. That will come another time.

Aud5: When it comes to interacting with others we have to decide whether someone is behaving improperly or not. The training in the Bodhicarayvatara, however, is about ourself. So how do we balance the discrimination of other’s behavior with not judging them?

R: The real question is not to decide on what others are doing, but rather what I am going to do. I have to make my decision. I am not making decisions for others. That is my way of looking. I don’t care if ten phony ones are coming or ten good ones. I don’t have to make that decision. Let the phony ones go and let the real ones go. But I like to know what I am going do myself. That is the decision I have to make. Further, when people come to me I just talk about what I do, not about what others do. These are my principles.

I would like to close here, because I am trying to be on time. Some people may have baby sitters waiting at home and so on.

End of side B of tape 85 of 02/29/00