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20000418GRAABWL

Side A of tape 93 of 04/18/00

Today we will probably finish the Fifth Chapter of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara called Guarding Alertness. It is telling us to keep our mind alert. This is not necessarily saying that you have negativities and should never do this or that. It is simply saying that these are the things we encounter and this is what we should do. We have read through most of them. Now lets do the last ones.

Verse 107

I should do whatever is not forbidden in those (works),

And when I see a practice there,

I should impeccably put it into action

In order to guard the minds of worldly people.

I am not sure whether the translation is right or wrong, but it means that if any of Buddha’s teachings that you have heard is objecting to something, saying that you should not do it, then don’t do it. It is as simple as that. Whatever has not been objected to you can do. You can do whatever you want to do. Where do you draw the line?

For me as an individual, if the action is not negative by nature, I can do it. There is no objection. If it is negative, one should not do it. The individual is responsible for their actions. Therefore if I do something wrong, I will get the downfalls and problems. If the action is not negative you can do what you want.

You don’t have to do everything, however. So where would you draw the line? The second two lines give you the answer. You look from the point of view of others, what actions are useful in order to help others, to show them examples, to guide their minds.

If you are a Bodhisattva, a good practitioner, you also have a role to play as a role model. Sometimes an action might not have any negativity for you and be perfectly all right for you. But you should not do it, if it creates some difficulties for other persons. In that case, if it creates doubts or difficulties for anybody else, you should be aware of it. The crazy wisdom practitioners can do all kinds of things. It may be okay for them. For a person who has understood absolute reality there is no objection to whatever he or she does. Everything is okay. It is okay for them. But for others it could create confusion. That is still okay. But if it is misguiding other people one should not indulge in it. Other people may see you doing it and follow you, doing the same thing. In that case you are not helping them, but harming them. You may not even be guiding others, but if they copy you, they will be mislead. That is the meaning of the last line in this verse in order to guard the minds of worldly people. The verse also says that one should act impeccably. Even if you could act out crazy wisdom you should not do it. You should act nicely so that you are no t misguiding people.

You can look back at the sixties. A number of great gurus have come. Each of these gurus had a number of scandals. This happened because they did not pay attention to the last lines of this verse. It is not easy to catch the meaning when you just read over it. When you read it twice you begin to understand.

This whole chapter is about guarding alertness, about watching and being alert how you function. The spiritual path and Dharma not only should be able to help people, but also make them happy. It is all part of it. If people are not happy with this, the help is not going to get there. It is necessary to make people happy. The responsibility of spiritual people is not only to be happy themselves but to make other people happy, so that Dharma can help them.

The next verse is going to tell you what guarding alertness really means.

Verse 108

The defining characteristic of guarding alertness

In brief is only this:

To examine again and again

The condition of my body and mind.

The Tibetan verse tells you that whatever actions you are taking through body, speech and mind, you should always be alert and see whether it is going against the advice of the Buddha or going along with it. We should watch if what Buddha has shared with us is contradicting our behavior. Whatever the chores we are doing, whether it is eating, sleeping, going, sitting, talking, we should have discriminating wisdom within ourselves, and that discriminating mind should always watch our actions of body, speech and mind. In short, guarding alertness really means watching your body, speech and mind. These are the three ways how we communicate with people, three ways of creating our positive or negative karma. These are the three doors you should always be alert of and watch them. If you do that you have guarding alertness. We have gone through 109 verses and this verse 108 tells you that in summary, guarding alertness means to be aware, to be mindful.

This mindfulness is not the mindfulness with which you know that you are walking, sitting, talking, etc. That is not so important. If you know it, fine. If you don’t know it, also fine, as long as you don’t fall down. What you have to be aware of, however, is the actions of your body, speech and mind. This is the fundamental basis on which we create our positive and negative karma. Furthermore, it is also the fundamental basis of the ability to help or harm people. People are watching you, looking at you. You sort of become a role model for them. So when you are acting, there are also consequences for others, it is not only for you. Even if you are a crazy wisdom person, don’t do crazy things around us, because we could be mislead.

Out of the three, body, speech and mind, the mind is most important. It is mind over matter. Really true. What is the difference between the straight forward scientist and the spiritual person? The scientists are only looking at matter. They are happy to know that if you mix red and yellow, you get orange. But the spiritual person, although he accepts that too, still wants to know a little more than that. He wants to know what that orange does. Should he wear it? Should he look at it? Will he be happy with it? So we are looking a little deeper inside.

As I told you a number of times: The scientists and Buddhism work very well together. In Tricycle magazine there was a quote of Einstein who said that in future when science develops further and further the only one who can stand up to and agree with the scientific findings, will probably be the Buddhism. However, that is not the only thing Buddhism is about. It may suit the scientific thinking, fine, wonderful. But that is not enough. If this was good enough, we could all become scientists and create a beautiful future life. However, it is not enough. We are dealing with mind and it is uncharted territory. The mind is also more important than matter. It is more important to decide how to use orange color than to find out that red and yellow mixed together will become orange. This is the point we have to see.

We have been talking about emptiness. We have said how much Einstein has contributed towards the understanding of emptiness. Look at the computer. It has helped us to understand how you can store so many things on such a tiny, little space. You can have so many gigabytes in such a small space. Likewise, when I talk about emptiness, it does not mean that it is empty, but that it is the understanding of dependent relationship. It is an understanding of conditions and how they work together. Einstein helped us to understand that with his theory of relativity which is based on points of reference. Buddha said that there will never come a point at which you will have no division, no matter how big or how small you go. The scientific experiments help us to understand that as well. Stephen Hawking thinks that there will be an end of the Russian doll. He talks about the theory of indivisibility.

So Buddhism works very well with science. However, science is not enough, otherwise we can all become scientists and not worry about the future, that of ourselves and other generations. But we do. And that is the mind. How does the mind work? What does it do? How does the mind continue? How come, the Me of the year 1999 is continuing to become the Me of the year 2000? Is that one person? Yes. The Me of 1995 is the same person as the Me of 2000, but today’s Me is not 1995’s Me. That is an important point. We have to understand how mind works. I hope there will be some kind of scientific explanation. Then we can refer to that. But since I don’t know about one, I can only talk of the Me of the year 2000 and the Me of 1995. There is a continuation of the same person, but today’s person is not the same as yesterday’s person. This is where spiritual people have an edge over the non-spiritual ones. In medicine they say that the surgeons have the edge over the internists. They can cut the problem out. Like that, we have the edge over the scientists because of the knowledge of the mind. If we can’t take advantage of it, it is our own bad luck. If we can take advantage, we can. It is there.

The scientific thing and the spiritual thing go together. The funny thing is that if the scientific development contradicts the spiritual knowledge, we have to ask questions about the spiritual path as well. If a scientist could prove with absolute certainty that there is no future life or past life, we would have to question whether there is one. We can’t just say that this is some crazy scientist’s opinion and that Buddha said there is future lives. We have to be very open-minded in case that happens. So far it hasn’t. At some point they thought they found the ultimate indivisible entity – the atom. Luckily for us they then found neutrons and things like that. You can cut it again and divide it which goes well together with what Buddha said. However, if science really proves something is different from what we had believed, we should not be stubborn. We must accept and think about it. It is important. The purpose of the spiritual path is actually to find the truth, to find out what is right.

I remember when I first came to India there was an Indian Buddhist professor at the university in Delhi called Dr. Gokali. He was Head of the Department for Buddhist Studies – a philosophy professor. I asked him, ‘What is the purpose of being a Buddhist professor and philosopher?’ He said, ‘The purpose is to find the truth.’ This stuck in my head. It was a very good answer. Whether we are spiritual or whatever we are, we are really looking for the truth. Whether we try the scientific way, the analytical or philosophical way, the mystical or the meditative way, we are all searching for the truth. Each and everybody is. Those who claim to be meditators, what are they meditating for? To find the truth and solve the mystery of life. That is what it is all about. Why are the Buddhas called ‘Enlightened Beings’? Because they have understood and can express the truth which they have discovered. If you think of the truth being mystical and a mystery, you are defeating your purpose. Every spiritual person is trying to find out the truth about our nature, our life, how we can achieve the best, how we can eliminate suffering, how we can embrace goodness. That is what it is all about. No matter which tradition you look at, Hindu-Buddhist, Judaeo-Christian, Muslim, native American, or mystical mystery, wherever you look, the ultimate purpose is to find the truth, eliminate suffering and embrace joy. Who else would have any other purpose?

The way they present it may differ. Some say that you have to beg God, some say you do it yourself, and so on. There are all kinds of different ways, interpretations, means, systems and traditions along with their corruptions – everything comes together. That is how we have that huge baggage today. But we should strip this baggage off and tell ourselves that it is none of our business what other people are doing. Ask yourself, what you are looking and hoping for. With the Buddhist influence you will say, ‘I am hoping to become a Buddha.’ So what? What do you gain out of that ? Why and what for? What is it? Are you then some kind of powerful person hiding above the clouds and causing all sorts of funny things down here? That is surely not what we are looking for. When we really look deeper, we are looking for the truth.

Mainly the purpose is that: How am I going to help myself? That is the whole purpose. You may deny it, but deep down, if you ask yourself, that is the reason. You simply want to help yourself. No one will have any other reason. Believe me. If you don’t, ask yourself and you will get the answer.

Verse 108 says examine again and again the condition of my body and my mind. But is not only the condition. It is the level of your mind. What is your mind really up to? It is my mind that I am connected and concerned with all the time. However, do I really have control over it? I am sorry, control is the wrong word. The point is, can I guide my mind, can I make best use of its capacity? Can I help myself with this mind? Unfortunately we are not capable. Normally our mind doesn’t listen to us. This is true for so many people. Why is that? Because our mind is under the control of our ego. This is absolutely true. If that was not the case, I would not be so sensitive so that as soon as somebody looks at me slightly different, I get upset. If somebody gives me a little smile, I am so happy. It is so easy to push me up and down through a simple little act of some other people. This could have been done consciously or unconsciously or might not even have taken place at all. It is the way I perceive the facial expression of another person that alone can make me suffer and feel torture. All this is because I am so sensitive. That is my ego’s doing.

My ego does not appear as my enemy within me. It appears as my friend, my guide, pretending to protect me, making sure that I am not somebody else’s door mat, that I have enough social status, that I am believed by people, that I have got my due respect. That is ego talking. Anybody who seems to be undermining those conditions, I look at them as my enemy, a threat, an insult. I look at them as being lower than my level. My ego will tell me, ‘I am the most important person in this organization.’ My ego will tell me, ‘I am the most intelligent and brilliant person around here.’ My ego will tell me ,’I have been mistreated by myself and others.’

However, when I say that out of body, speech and mind the mind is the most important, I am not talking about the ego, but about the real mind. The real Me is much important than my ego. In normal American language the use of the word ‘ego’ is not always exactly like that. On Larry King Live I also heard the phrase ‘That is your ego talking’, but it meant something else. It seems that the ego is something outside ourselves, but that is probably wrong. It is very much within ourself as our own boss. It is deep down somewhere within ourselves saying ‘Me’ and grasping at the self. That is probably what ego really is.

End of side A of tape 93

Side B of tape 93 of 04/18/00

And we have to suffer because of this ego. Anyway, I have said enough. Lets continue with the last verse.

Verse 109

Therefore I should put this way of life into actual practice,

For what can be achieved by merely talking about it?

Will a sick man be benefited

Merely by reading the medical texts?

Isn’t that interesting? This very last verse is telling you that knowing something is not good enough. It is good that you know it, but if you have a doctor’s prescription and keep it in your pocket, is that going to help you? You are not getting blessings from the doctor’s prescription, are you? What do you do? You go and get the medicine and eat or inject it or whatever you have to do. Then it can effect you.

This does not only hold true for the body. The verse says that we should conduct our life in this way. If we don’t, then simply saying some words, what will that help? Buddha said that learning and understanding is very important, no doubt about it. If you don’t learn you probably can do nothing. We talked a lot about the benefit of learning. But is learning alone good enough? No. For Buddhism having knowledge is not good enough at all.

There are people who are carried away by a powerful current, but they may not be able to drink a drop of water and my even die of thirst. If you are stuck in the ocean you can’t drink a drop of water and can die of thirst. If you do not meditate, if you don’t practice, all Dharma is like that. You have so much Dharma around, in the books, the tape recorder, the note book, the VCR, but you can die without having Dharma. What good would that be?

Buddha has another example. You could be there giving food to many other people but you cannot eat yourself and die of hunger. He must be talking about people like me. I can talk about Dharma a lot, but if I have no practice, I will get no benefit.

Some doctor may have all sorts of medicines to help different people with. But he himself could have an illness and does not know what to take and he could die. Like this, you could learn a lot about Buddhism and know a lot, but if you don’t meditate, it is useless. In short, it is totally useless if you leave it as intellectual knowledge alone. If you have any knowledge and any understanding, you have to apply that to yourself in your daily life. You have to meditate, think and function accordingly.

Nagarjuna has given a very interesting example. He said,

If you have learnt a little bit and understand a little bit

But cannot practice and meditate,

It is like a blind person carrying a huge torch.

That means you cannot see anything despite the torch, because you are blind. So don’t waste your information, don’t waste your time, don’t waste your Dharma. Whatever little you know, apply that in your daily life. Meditate. That is very important. When I say meditate, I mean both, active and passive meditation. If you don’t have active meditation you really won’t know what you are doing and your meditation will only be lizard meditation. If you don’t have passive meditation the information will not become part of your life. It does not become part of you. The Dharma is over there, you are over here and the horses run in between or the cars will drive in between. It is like as if the Dharma has been left across the street.

The most important thing of all is the morality. The bottom line is the morality. Guarding alertness will give you a perfect morality. According to Buddhism there are three different kinds of morality.

Accumulation of positive karma

Protecting yourself from wrong-doing

Helping others

Among those three the most important is to protect yourself from wrong – doing. Then the others will grow. This is the fundamental basis. It is like the earth which gives birth to all the trees, mountains and seas. Morality acts as the basis for all our spiritual development and growth.

Protecting your own vows is the real fundamental basis. Buddhism talks about the Three Higher Trainings of the Mind, the Three Baskets – which are wisdom, samadhi and morality. The baskets of wisdom and the basket of concentration have been put into the basket of morality. Sometimes people say, ‘Everything is wonderful and good, there is nothing you can call bad.’ That is just an extreme reaction from the position that everything is bad. I believe that the spiritual path is really in the middle. There is good and there is bad. We all create good and bad. But there are ways and means how we can function, how we can live. Well, I just wanted to say that much and thank you for being here and thinking about it. Actually you have to thank yourself for thinking and helping yourself, not just being here. Just being here would not mean anything. Helping yourself is the most important.

If you don’t help yourself, no one is going to help you. No one can punish you and no one can help you. There is only yourself. I believe that is how life goes anyway.

Tomorrow I am going to Europe, to Jewel Heart Holland. There are over a hundred people. They meet every day for some activity or other. That goes throughout the year. I only get there once a year. This time it is going to be for three weeks. For one week I am going to be in Denmark, Copenhagen, doing something with Tarab Rinpoche who came to Ann Arbor a few years ago. I will be away for four weeks. Within the US now we have the means to talk to you while being in a different city. But I don’t think I can do that from Europe. Hopefully Aura can come and run a four week’s course over the next four Tuesdays. Otherwise I have four different people in mind to lead the next four Tuesdays. There will be opportunity to discuss and ask questions.

Are there any questions tonight?

Aud1: I was wondering whether the part of our mind that watches us when we are meditating is not also part of the ego and is ingrained in the dualistic quality of language? It is important to examine ourselves, of course, but the watcher itself is part of the dualistic language and always there. It is hard to get rid of. It seems it is inseparable from ourselves.

R: Interesting question. You have thrown in a lot of concepts and ideas. I don’t know how to answer this. Normally people like me, perhaps due to my childhood training, recognize this watcher as one of the mental faculties. We had talked about the primary and secondary consciousnesses before. I like to use the word ‘mental faculties’. They are really the same as secondary minds. There is 51 of them. The watcher happens to be one of these. It might not be ego. However, it might have a very strong ego-influence at this moment. The moment your primary consciousness begins to gain ground over the ego, all the secondary mental faculties will get more ground away from ego too. At this moment there still may be a lot of ego influence.

Yes, it looks like the watcher may be harmful. It can come in between and whatever experience you had may be gone. On the other hand, the watcher is also helpful. It is the only way you can recognize if you are on the focus or not. It has both, advantages and disadvantages, but you can’t do without. After a little while it will totally become to your advantage. Eventually though, the watching mind will get less and less. If you look into the teachings on shamata, the concentrated meditation, you will find that in the beginning you have a problem not entertaining the watcher enough. However, if you are entertaining the watcher too much it becomes a problem too. This is a transition that one must go through. You cannot do without. You have to have it.

Aud2: Sometimes it seems that when you are in difficult, awkward circumstances, you can call on this particular mental factor to tell you, ‘I must draw on my practice now.’ You still don’t know what to do exactly but you have woken up. You are thus already at 51 per cent of the solution. I wonder what I could do to encourage this to happen more.

R: Better late than never. True. In the beginning we may not have the right thoughts and answers available. So even if in the beginning the recognition comes late, perhaps even a little too late, it is actually never too late. After a little while, this mental factor will act before the problem gets big. So it is never too late.

Aud3: The watcher may at times assume a different role for a person within the practice. For example, if the watcher is too strongly under the influence of ego, the activity of practice is experienced as punishment. The activity allowing you to do something good for yourself is not allowed to flow in. The watcher has now been twisted in a sense. Your reliance on the watcher has been confused. How can you make sure that you place the watcher in the best possible position within your mind?

R: Now I am confused myself.

Aud4: You have to watch the watcher.

R: But then you need another watcher to watch that watcher.

Aud5: Under stress or when feeling tired, more opportunities for practice arise. But it is also harder to do. For example, when I am overworked, I get very irritated, yet I don’t have the skill to be guarding my morality and pay attention. Is it best to observe my own condition and then reflect upon it or is active involvement good at such a time?

R: It is very simple. Observe your condition. If it is good, be happy, if it is bad, try to correct it. If you can’t correct it today, try again tomorrow. If you can’t do that, try the day after tomorrow. We are like children learning how to walk You fall back down a hundred times a day, but you will learn to walk one day. But if you try too hard to make it, shape and force it, then it becomes difficult. Basically, you have to know what is good to do and what is bad to do. You are not going to learn everything perfectly. Simply watch yourself and do the best you can. When you can’t do it and you do the wrong thing, regret it and try not to repeat. If you find yourself doing the same thing again, apply the same method again. Watching the watcher and all that business actually refers to concentrated meditation, where a subtle part of the mind is occasionally checking. From the philosophical point of view we are able to separate the minds into the watchers and observers, and so on, but if you are really thinking in one mind, you are only capable of doing one thing at a time. When a sudden realization comes, ‘I am on the focus’ or ‘I am off the focus’, that is the watching mind we are talking about. In practice, at our level, there is mainly only one mind functioning. Suddenly we get a surprise recognition that we don’t know where we are. That happens very often when we do our so – called commitment practices. We find ourselves wondering whether we have already gone through a particular passage yet or not. This is the watching mind coming a little too late. But it is okay. Better late then never. That is how it works at our level.

Aud6: You said earlier that when crazy wisdom practitioners do certain things it may cause some Dharma practitioners to be mislead. It can lead to some suffering on the part of the students. I was wondering whether that also causes negativity for the crazy wisdom person. Although they may not have a motivation to hurt that person, their action may have that effect to cause suffering. I have seen different teachers do that, saying that they will not experience any karmic implications for themselves, and it is only the problem of the student. That has been happening quite a bit in the West.

R: Good question. I don’t know how to answer that, however, if somebody says, ‘I am free of karma,’ that may not be correct. Even Buddhas experience karma. They are not free of karma. They are loaded with karmas – good karmas. Otherwise they would not be Buddhas. Karma is applicable to everybody, even to the crazy wisdom practitioners. If they do anything wrong, there will be karmic consequences for them. Even in Buddha’s life time, there were times when he had a back ache. Once his toe was crushed and he referred to that as karmic consequences. A Buddha has no negative karma left, however, he is ‘subject to it’. If that is true for a Buddha, all other persons are bound to be subject to karma. Pabongka mentioned in the Liberation in the Palm of your Hand,

There are people who say that they can sit on the images and books of Buddha without consequences, but in fact they are creating tremendous amounts of negativity.

With that they are not only misleading themselves, but also others. Everybody has to be extremely careful about this. And even if you are yourself free of it, you still can create problems for others.

Aud8: The Dalai Lama said once that the truth does not necessarily mean the same as revealing the facts. If revealing facts causes suffering, it is better not to do it. Could you say something about truth versus love and compassion? Ultimately they run into each other, but what is the difference between them?

R: I don’t know what to say. I would not say it is truth ‘versus’ compassion and love. It is true love and true compassion. True love to me is the true caring for the individual person without any projection of how that person should look like, should behave, should think. True love is deeply and truly caring and having affection for that individual. True compassion works the same way. It is trying whatever the best way to make the other person free of suffering, under any circumstances. Very simple. But each and every individual will have their own little interpretation and their own little idea and agendas. There are all kinds of things. They all have the right.

Aud8: When you feel love and compassion you are often moved. But sometimes you become completely still in the sense of silence and total awareness.

R: That could be. Once over dinner I asked Ling Rinpoche, ‘What is really love and compassion?’ He took his napkin and pointed at it, ‘This is love’, then he turned it around and said, ‘This is compassion’. That sounds very Zen, but the point is that it is one mind with two separate aspects. These are the aspects of caring and freeing from suffering. That is what I know of the truth of love and compassion.

I guess that’s it and I have to close for today.

End of side B of tape 93 of 04/18/00