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20000404GRAABWL

Side A of tape 90 of 04/04/00

Before I start today, I would like to introduce Bruce to you. He will be working as a director of Jewel Heart. He has been kind enough to take interest in us, although we do not have a big salary to offer and he did have a big job before as a dean of Integrated Studies in Pennsylvania. He came to us because he is interested in Buddhism and wants to do something useful in his life. He has been dealing with the Tibetans for a number of years. He has been in Nepal for a number of years, helping the Tibetans. However, he likes to be home. Lets welcome him here and look forward to his contribution which is organization and raising funds.

I saw a newsletter today which came to my house by mail. It is not the usual Jewel Heart newsletter, but the Jewel Heart Ann Arbor newsletter. I was very happy with it. It is like local Ann Arbor news. It is going to come out once every three months.

Bruce: One of the things I would like to do first is to bring the production of the national Jewel Heart newsletter From the Heart into Ann Arbor. There is going to be a couple of clipboards going around and we will be asking people to help out with a lot of jobs. That production is an enormous task, needing people who have experience with layout and editing and writing, etc.

Rinpoche: I also would like to say that the reason that Supa, Kathleen and Tony went to other Jewel Heart chapters recently, it is because it is time that a number of people should be getting ready to go around to the various Jewel Heart chapters. We are really looking forward to that. Otherwise I am the only person that goes everywhere. There are certain organizations, like the FPMT for example, who bring out geshes to all their chapters. So we could have brought out one geshe each for Cleveland, Chicago, Nebraska, San Francisco and even one for Seattle. But I am not sure whether that is going to be very useful for the people there. Secondly, we want to make sure that Buddhism in this country is not left to the Tibetans. It should be adopted as American Buddhism and American people should be able to teach and manage by themselves.

I have told you before that there are quite a few Buddhist organizations in the United States who are extremely well to do from the financial point of view. Really. They have capital money, some up to 250 million dollars, others 40 or 50 million dollars. We have no more than zero. But we have very dedicated, intelligent and devoted people. We probably have the best people available, if you compare it with other organizations and we probably have the least money! I don’t think the money is the most important. I think the people are the most important. People are the ones who serve people, not the money. As long as we can manage and don’t get into debt, it is fine.

The challenge really is to uplift the American spirituality. This is what I wrote in the last newsletter. The only way to do that is by learning it and practicing it yourself. If you don’t know anything and if you don’t practice, if you try to cheat, then it is totally useless. We don’t have to create some more academicians. There are plenty of them available in every university and in all the monasteries. What we really need is people who are capable of managing by themselves, no matter what difficulties may come. Did you hear me? That means, if you have mental, physical or emotional difficulties, you should be able to handle them in a spiritual way. I don’t mean that you have to become clever and witty. Also, even if you have not seen a particular text, you should know what it is talking about. You should be aware of the subject and should be able to understand it. Not only that, you should be able to notice if somebody is saying wrong things. You should be able to tell. If not, at least you should be able to raise doubts. Just because it is in print and written by a great lama or professor it is not necessarily true. You don’t just buy it. You should be able to think and contradict it. If you can do it, that is my measure of whether or not you can manage. I don’t mean that you should be able to talk and sit there and make jokes and pass the time. Anybody can do that. To be able to manage is like if you are thrown in the middle of a lake, you should be able to pull yourself up, check out your direction and then swim across to the shore. That is called managing. It is the same with the Buddhist teachings. I am very happy that there are some now who are able to do that. I know that there are many more, but they are keeping their mouths shut. Don’t keep your mouth shut all the time. There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘

If your monastery is on fire, you still just sit there and smile.

If your offerings are being eaten by dogs and monkeys, you still sit there and smile.

You don’t want to do that. I am looking forward to many of you coming up. There are a lot of people here who have been coming year after year. I was shocked to hear the other day that we have been coming together every Tuesday for this Bodhisattvacharyavatara teaching for the last five years. You should have something to show for that. You must look back and say to yourself, ‘I have been coming here for five years, and what did I pick up? What did I learn? Does that make any difference to my life?’ It is not enough to say, ‘I feel good’. If you smoke a joint you also feel good. That is not the answer. You have to ask yourself, ‘Does it make a difference to me, if I am in trouble, am I able to handle it better?’ I am talking about mental, emotional and physical difficulties. Can you handle your negative emotions better? Can you help other people better? That is what you have to get.

Ram Dass told me the other day, ‘I am so happy to work with you, you are the only person I can go on stage with without any preparation and you can click in.’ That is because I am the product of Losseling, my monastery. There you learn so much that no matter where you are thrown in, you can pick it up. When I was working on my book I thought back to my examinations in Tibet. In those exams they will ask you certain questions out of nowhere. They will just say, ‘Tsong Khapa said…’ and they won’t even tell you in what book and what chapter. Besides, the original Tibetan books have neither glossary nor index. If you are looking for a particular verse of Tsong Khapa you probably have to read everything, otherwise you are not going to find it. Nor do you have any books available in the exam.

One question in the exam was, ‘The first doesn’t have the first, the second one doesn’t have it either. What does that mean?’ For that exam the whole of Drepung monastery was there, that means there were at least 7000 people watching. If the questioner is good, he will help you and make you see what the subject is about. If the questioner is mediocre he will insist that you should answer the question. They keep on insisting, ‘Say it, say it!’ You are supposed to sit there for two and a half hours. And then you might get stuck with such a situation. So I had to figure out what the question was. Obviously they were talking about some kind of stages. But what? Luckily I heard some of my class fellows, including Geshe Tabkye, saying to each other, ‘Isn’t that about this and that? ‘ I luckily overheard them talking.

I am telling you this so that you get the idea of how you have been given the information. It is so that you figure it out. Maybe not to the extent of the question that I received, but generally you should be able to figure out what is going on. So if someone says to you, ‘Things are forever changing. Isn’t that impermanence?’ you will immediately get the idea. You will know that there is gross and subtle impermanence. The gross impermanence means the end of everything, like the four conclusions which I mentioned the other day. The end of life is death. The end of accumulation is exhaustion. The end of companionship is separation and the end of going up high is to fall down. Subtle impermanence means change which takes place moment by moment. Most people cannot figure out subtle impermanence. However, almost everything is impermanent. If there is time you can do and undo everything. There is opportunity to change things, no matter what it may be. That is the good quality of impermanence. The bad quality is that once the dead line has come it will be too late.

Like that, you have a basic very good idea what impermanence and other subjects are about. Particularly, the lam rim is so wonderful. I was taught that when I was five and six years old. In the monastery I studied the prajnaparamita, the transcendental wisdom texts. The essence of the transcendental wisdom, made into a very short, easy form is the lam rim. So when you look in there you will find a big opening. You can collect any other information out there, bring it home and use it. The Kadampa lamas used to say,

If you have utensils in your kitchen for sugar, salt and butter, etc, then whenever you find a little salt, etc, anywhere else, you can bring it home and put it in your respective utensils.

However, if you don’t have that base available, then when you find a little bit of salt and sugar, what do you do? Mix them up together? That will be funny. Maybe you can make something sweet and sour. That is about it. If you have another container for chilly, etc. you can keep everything in its right place. Lam rim provides you with that basis.

We have been talking about the Bodhisattvacharyavatara for quite a long time now and quite in detail. ButI have received this teaching only once myself from the Dalai Lama in 1977 over the course of six, seven days. However, when looking at the verses I can talk about anything because of my background of my studies in par chin (transcendental wisdom) and uma (Middle Way) and a little bit of dzö (metaphysics). The transcendental wisdom texts and the metaphysical texts come from opposite directions but talk about the same point. One talks to you according to the do döpa and chetra mawa systems while the other talks from the viewpoint of the sem sampa system. However, if you at least have the lam rim, then whatever is thrown at you, you will be able to manage it.

In the West, when people give lectures, they have to prepare. I never prepare anything. If I did, I would make a fool of myself. I am not good at it. I had one little prepared statement once and it was terrible. I doesn’t work for me. But if you talk from the heart and from your own understanding, there is no problem. That is what I challenge you people to do. That is how you can help people. If you really look, there are about 80 people here today. So there will be 80 different types of questions, according to everybody’s needs, thoughts and minds. As a spiritual teacher I should be able to answer you and try to help you to figure it out. These questions may have something to do with the spiritual path or they may be something entirely different. It could be family problems or something else. A spiritual teacher should be able to help in these matters. At least he should be able to point you in the right direction. You get that if you do it well. If you establish that ground very carefully, no matter what they are talking about, you can understand it and deal with it – unless it is a very specific subject, like business, economics, anthropology or something. You should be able to have a good common sense and figure things out. You know, ultimately, as a result of this, you should become a Buddha. That means to be all-knowing. So you get to this level.

Do you have any questions regarding purification?

Aud1: How does purification actually work if karma is like a pressure cooker in which, once it is set to cook, you can’t make any changes any more until the process is through?

R: We should have a transparent cover on the pressure cooker, so that we can see what is going on in there, right? The cooks should know how it works. What makes the pressure? The air cannot pass through, because it is sealed. Then the heat and the water build the pressure. Is that right?

During purification, first you isolate the thing that you want to purify. You focus, you regret, think about it and acknowledge it. So with that you have isolated the things you want to cook. Then comes the antidote activity. That is like the heat, water and steam of the pressure cooker. Taking refuge and generating the bodhimind, which is the power of the base, makes you focus and really deal with that thing. This is like having steam but not letting it out. You are not letting the pressure go out. Then you use the time. The four elements together with time makes it cook. So regret, antidote action, power of base, etc, all put together, is what makes the food cooked. That makes the negativity unable to function. I guess that is the best explanation I can give at this moment. I can’t say exactly what happens in detail. I don’t know whether A becomes B and B becomes C, etc. I don’t have a scientific explanation. The product at the end changes. A product that was inedible, that would make you sick if you ate it, has been changed into a good product which you can eat, which gives you good nutrition and good digestion and which is helpful. It is transformed. Does that makes sense to you? You may have thought from a slightly different angle, that is fine, but that is how I think.

Aud2: You mentioned compensation as the fourth power before. I thought it was supposed to be the ‘Promise not the Repeat the Action’. Compensation involves more.

R: You compensate the people you have hurt. You don’t let them go. It is a completely different way of looking. In the normal American system, if someone has done something bad, that person has to be punished. I don’t look for punishment. I look for compensation. Even the good old American law will actually tell you that if you hurt somebody you have to compensate them. I don’t see that as punishment. That is a big difference. Punishment is the cause of more difficulties. It is a cause of suffering and ensures the continuation of it. Compensation does not create a continuation of suffering. Yes, I like to include compensation in whatever way you can. Buddha has provided aspirin which is that in the case of enlightened beings there is no other way to compensate them except by taking refuge. If it is non-enlightened ones, generate love and compassion for them and for all others. You can also call it the power of the base. It provides the base on which you can work, on which you can purify. You really have to do something when you hurt someone. The normal American thing is that you would like to seek forgiveness, but some may say Yes and some may say No. That does not mean anything, truly speaking. Seeking forgiveness is helping yourself. You can say afterwards that you did seek forgiveness and the other person refused to give it. It gives you something to say [as an excuse for your actions]. Everybody will find something to say though. Even the son who has killed his father will have something to say. That doesn’t mean that it is valid. The valid thing is to compensate in whatever way you can. The least you can do is use the aspirin for general headaches.

Aud3: I can hear a difference between the way the law asks for compensation and the way a spiritual practitioner applies it. The motivation is different. The law may require you to pay 100 000 Dollars in compensation.

R: That is all right.

Aud3: But it is not good enough. The difference lies in the motivation .

Aud4: What would you say is more important: reciting the Sutra of the Three Heaps or going through the process of having regret, finding the antidote action, compensation and coming to a conclusion of how to avoid making the same mistake?

R: The second one is much more important than the reciting. There is no comparison. People can recite many things without thinking. It does not mean anything.

Aud5: When we purify, are we eliminating negative karma or are we just preventing the conditions for this negative karma to arise?

R: It depends how you do it. The immediate goal is to prevent the conditions to arise and then the real goal is to eliminate it completely. Since negative karma is impermanent, it is changeable. So you try to change the conditions of the negative karma. That is what purification really is. Changing the conditions and changing the karma itself from negative to positive. In one way you can call it purifying. In another way you can call it transforming. In Vajrayana everything becomes transformation. In the non-Vajrayana level it is purifying.

Aud6: I was wondering if you can give us guidelines how to do analytical meditation – shamata-vipasyana – on the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. I have gone through the teaching but it seems to be a mixture of philosophical insights and prescriptions about how to lead one’s life. I am not exactly sure how one approaches it in a productive, systematic manner.

R: You want the true answer?

Aud6: I want the most helpful answer.

R: So in that case, if you don’t mind, I have to tell you that whatever I am talking here I am actually giving instructions for analytical meditation on the Bodhisattvacharyavatara. Whatever we are talking about here is analyzing. We are thinking about it, we are reaching conclusions. That conclusion is what you read here. When you read it, you focus on it and that is how you build shamata on it. That is the true answer. It looks like I am giving a lecture. It looks like I am giving a talk, but what I am really doing is giving you instructions for analytical meditation. For example we are reading one verse. Then we talk about it, we look from this side and look from the other side. You can look from several sides and at the end, without always telling you, with or without you realizing, we do reach a conclusion. Each verse is drawing a conclusion. If you really put shamata on it, that is the meditation. Actually, you do it mentally. If you are talking about physical meditation posture, you have to sit on the ground and if the ground is not there, sit on a chair. The first thing to do is keep your backbone straight. That is the physical aspect. I am glad you are thinking about it because then you will find out. Perhaps you want to also pick up certain portions of this and compare it with the lam rim or the Odyssey to Freedom. It may not go in the same order as this text, but the points cross over all the time. It may be very useful in life to do that.

End of side A of tape 90

Side B of tape 90 of 04/04/00

Aud6: When I think of karma it seems like having something stored in an account. It seems like it is on one particular scale. But when I think more deeply, I wonder if there are not many more scales, one for anger, one for jealousy, one for this thing, one for that thing. It could be like getting a bill from Visa, then one from MasterCard, then one from American Express, one from the water company, one from the phone company. Then there are the bills from unknown entities which are the beings from my past life. How do I know if it is coming to the right address?

R: I don’t really think that your problem is whether it is coming to the right address. You are not going to get anybody else’s bill at all. All your bills are going to get you. You may pay all these bills separately, but it all comes out of your one or two check accounts. Whatever it is, the deductions go out of your account, and the credits go into your account. In the end it is one account.

Aud7: Between bardo and the next life, who does the math’s, who decides whether one comes back as an ant or as a human? Who reads the scales? Or is it like gravity and the natural law where no one does the math’s?

R: When I was a child they used to tell me a story which was semi-story and semi-metaphor. They told me that there is somebody called ‘Yama, the Lord of Death’. He also is supposed to hold a mirror, which is like a computer. It shows everybody’s positive and negative karma. So he will tell people what they did. That is how kids are taught. For the elder ones this is not really corrected. It is just left there. It is not further spelled out whether there is a Lord of Death and whether you go through some kind of narrow passage. In Tibet there were these caves that you had to go through sometimes. They were so narrow that sometimes your body would not go through easily and the other travellers would have to push and pull you through. They used to do that in Tibet. It was not exactly a tradition, but in certain pilgrimage areas they used to do that. Then they would tell you, ‘Oh, bardo is like that. It is like going through a narrow tunnel. You will get squeezed completely, but everybody will help you and you will get through.’ You are meant to go right through, you are not able to go somewhere else right or left from it. Then judgment will be passed. This metaphor is generally used for kids but also for the simple-minded people, those who are uneducated, illiterate, who don’t know anything.

However, in reality, during death, all your gross processes, the body and even the gross mental consciousnesses and sense consciousness, all of them completely shrink and become so subtle that you almost touch absolute reality at the time you go through. As a reflection you see all the good and bad things you have done.

Bodhisattvacharyavatara tape 90 - 93

Verse 98 - 109

There is this children’s story called The Never Ending Story. That child in there tried to go somewhere with this crazy scientist, looking from the other side. The scientist said, ‘He is gone without any preparation and when he sees the reality he won’t be able to face it. He will bounce back like an apple thrown out of …..’ You remember that? In this picture they showed that mirror in which you reflect yourself. That is what happens at the time of death. You encounter with your primordial mind, no question. But whether that is equivalent to encountering emptiness is a different question. Tsong Khapa basically said that that is not emptiness. But within the Gelugpa tradition, even the Upper Tantric College says that it is in fact emptiness. Gyü me says that it is not emptiness. However, it is beyond question that at death you encounter with your primordial mind. In Tibetan it is nyung mai sem, which people try to translate as natural mind. But it is the same as primordial mind. If that is not primordial mind, then where is it? If that were the same as encountering emptiness it would be a big problem. Every sentient being would have had encountered emptiness. Once you have encountered emptiness, can you still have faults? If that were the case we would not have much hope. But encountering the primordial mind does not mean you encounter emptiness. In addition to that you have to add up wisdom on top of it and in Vajrayana you have to add up simultaneous bliss. That bliss makes the experience longer lasting so that you can deal with it. Without that joy or bliss, even if you were to encounter emptiness, you would only be able to stay in the experience less than a portion of a second. Then you would be thrown off. That is why that crazy scientist said, ‘If he sees his own reflection, he will be thrown off.’ That is the understanding I got from that.

Encountering the primordial mind is one of the best processes to see your positives and negatives. No one makes a decision, no one gives a judgment, it automatically happens, because your own karma is very well accounted for there. That is why the metaphor of the Lord of Death is given, who looks in the mirror and tells you what your actions were. The metaphor just suited the minds of the people at that time. When you encounter with the primordial mind, the positives and negatives are actually accounted for. It is almost like Quicken or Excel computer software. So no one has to make a decision. It is the truth. And everybody goes through that.

Aud8: In one prayer, when it says, ‘May all sentient beings’ sufferings ripen on us’, what are we asking for?

R: Very good question.

Aud9: You can read the answer in one of the verses in the lama chöpa.

R: Right. That verse is

Lama Chöpa Verse 60

Since cherishing myself is the doorway to all downfalls,

And cherishing others is the foundation of everything good,

Inspire me to practice from my heart

The yoga of exchanging self and others.

I cannot answer this question in a very short time. I would like to suggest to you to read the transcripts of the Seven Point Mind Training. It is all talked about and shared in there. You are really asking how you could take all the problems of others so that you can destroy your ego. If you look in the transcripts it is very detailedly mentioned how you can take the sufferings in the form of bullets, poison and disease. With this you hit and destroy the ego. With the sufferings in form of thunder and lightning you hit the rock of your own ego. You will find these descriptions in there. Can you really take all the sufferings of everybody? Is that actually what happens? Most probably not. But you are doing it to destroy your ego. In the Seven Point Mind Training you really begin to see the division between the ego and the ‘Me’. I presume that we use the word ‘ego’ for the Tibetan term dag dzin. Then you can really see the difference. Until then ego and mind and I and Me are names. So read the transcripts. We can give them to you. Actually we have not made these publicly available because some people may not like it. They may think, ‘I am supposed to destroy myself and then who is left here?’ If it creates that kind of fear I am doing you a disservice. So if you think you can handle it, you can look at them. If you cannot handle it, don’t look. The time is not right for you.

If you look at it, we really have a lot of good material available at our disposal.

Aud10: We give up our body and wealth and everything when we die. We have no choice.

R: That is true. Even if you don’t want to give them up, they will take it.

Aud10: So how do we take with us the negative actions even into the primordial mind and is that primordial mind one big thing for everybody or is it an individual thing?

R: It is an individual thing, not a collective. You cannot carry the body with you through the bardo. The head won’t go through and the rest of the body will be left. However, all your karma is not a physical thing. It is sort of available in the form of imprints. We call them karmic imprints in our consciousness. It is like our memory. How do we carry that? Think of last year’s Halloween party. As soon as you think of it, you will see those costumes that this girl or that guy was wearing. You are not bringing that girl in here again. Your memory is bringing up that picture. It is like a reflection, or not even that. It is an imprint, which you both project and perceive. It is the mental picture, like as if you had taken a snap shot at that time. This snap shot is what you have stored in your memory. When you think about that time, your memory will reveal that picture. You perceive it then. In the mean time you don’t carry that picture as such. It has been stored [as an imprint] and when you need it you can look at it. If it were physical you would have to drag it here. The law of physics would not allow you to just bring it up. However, since it is not physical the law of physics does not apply.

Aud10: Okay, these are mental events. But isn’t the primordial mind just clarity?

R: Even in the primordial mind you don’t remove the seeds. No matter how gross they may be. Nowadays you don’t even have to talk in terms of seeds. You can use the computer as examples. The computer shows you how much you can shrink everything, how many folders you can open, how much information you can deposit, etc. We can be grateful for the computer. It really gives you the total projection. Otherwise I would have to sit here and try to explain how so many things can happen in one place. With the computer it is so easy to see. And the mind is even much subtler than that. It virtually takes up no room. Even the size of a teardrop could take over the huge storage capacity of a big mainframe company computer. I am sure the scientists will be able to do it, because Buddha said that it can be done. He said that the spiritual power and the material power are equal. The scientists will be able to do it, no doubt. Mind you, even a computer as small as a teardrop will be able to store as much information as a huge mainframe computer – if it has not been done already. They don’t tell you everything they develop.

Aud11: Is primary consciousness the same as primordial mind?

R: Certainly not, what are you talking about?

Aud11: In Geshe Ngawang Dhargey’s book he talks about primary consciousness and secondary consciousness.

R: Yes, in Tibetan that is tsowo yi gyi nam she. That is definitely not the same as nyung mai sem. There are 52 minds, the 51 secondary ones and the tsowo yi gyi nam she. The fifty ones are the five which always follow, five that recognize, eleven positive and the six root delusions, the twenty secondary delusions and the four changeable mental factors.

Aud11: As for the relationship of the Wheel of Life and karma, how would Buddhists explain the existence of twins?

R: What's wrong with twins?

Aud11: A person dies from their previous life and due to their karma is launched into the next life. Does that mind split to become twins? Since it does not have any substance, it is very difficult to talk about it in those terms.

R: Why cannot two or three consciousnesses come in and take their place within the mixture of egg and sperm? How much sperm and egg do you need to create one life? A very tiny quantity. When the parents are in union, they produce so many. It is not limited to that tiny, little quantity. So twins are possible, triplets are and more than that. It is not just one sperm and one egg that come together.

Aud11: I was thinking more from the perspective of the mind that enters into the parents’ body.

R: Two can enter together. What is wrong with that?

Aud11: From the point of view of karma, it is easy to see that the mother would have the karma to have three children at once. But the three triplets, do they have the same karma and the same imprints?

R: No. Three independent consciousnesses come and occupy the same place together with the others. You even get Siamese twins where two children are joined and share the same stomach and have two heads. They have the karma of sharing their physical aspects. That karma may change if a doctor manages to operate and separate them. If an operation is not possible, they are karmically bound together in that body. That is shared karma. With the usual twins and triplets there is no difficulty at all. Each one of them has their own individual karma and they have the shared karma of having the same parents. Look at the dogs. They have eight, ten or eleven puppies. So there will be eleven different consciousnesses. All these dogs will grow and walk and bark and do everything.

Aud12: You talked about the primordial mind at death. Right now, do we have it?

R: I don’t know. We do encounter it at the time of death. That is for sure.

Aud13: Are there any writings and definitions on primordial mind, which you can recommend?

R: All dzog chen talks about the primordial mind. Whether that is emptiness or not is a different issue.

Aud14: You said sometime earlier that in the 60s and onwards the West has been introduced to eastern spiritual paths. Now since then the world population has increased dramatically. You often say how it is a great blessing to be born human. I wonder whether the increase of the population is indicative of the spiritual evolution of the human race?

R: I think we all have the good fortune to be here. To a certain extent I believe it is an indication of progress. But that progress is not necessarily guaranteed.

Aud15: I think we are talking about a wide range of sentient beings. Even bacteria are, as I understand, manifestations of primordial mind and are sentient. So in us there are many sentient beings. At the moment we are only focused on a small section of the whole scale. On the one hand we have been talking about very small and subtle things, smaller than quantum elements and on the other hand we have got a universe here with billions and billions of stars and billions of opportunities for sentient lives and we are just talking about the physical realms. It seems that we only take into account beings that are close to us like other humans, dogs or ants and things of that nature. Is the scale possibly much larger than we usually think of?

R: I am quite sure. As you said, there are all these bacteria within us. They are sentient beings too.

Aud16: What about plants?

R: It depends. Some plants may have consciousness, some may not. If you ask me whether plants have consciousness, my answer will be ‘no’. That does not mean that every plant necessarily has no consciousness. I have to give the ‘no’ answer, because it is a classical argument between Buddhists and non-Buddhists. It has been said that plants have life because they shrink their leaves and go to sleep at night. The reply to that is that it does not follow that it has consciousness. In the case of bacteria I believe that they are sentient. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to say a prayer before eating food every day,

The bacteria, etc, in my body,

I will feed them right now with the food I am eating.

Later I may be able to feed them with Dharma

and may they obtain enlightenment.

That is the four-line verse he would always say before eating. There is no limit to the scale of living beings. You never know. One tiny, little spot, the size of one millimeter or even smaller, you never know what you are going to find in that.

Aud17: Buddhism came after the upanishads (Indian philosophical treatises). In there it talks more about fullness. In there it says about meditation on the primordial mind, ‘If this is full, that is full. Fullness comes from fullness. Even when fullness is taken from the full, full lives.’ I then thought about emptiness and the primordial mind and when you talk about the primordial mind and wisdom and bliss I can’t see much difference there.

R: That is okay, whether you call it emptiness or fullness; it does not make much difference. It is just a label. It is the way they try to introduce it. I don’t see any problem with that. If you fill up emptiness, it will remain emptiness. Fullness is full, even when you empty it out. What is wrong with that?

It is getting late. Lets close shop.

End of side B of tape 90