Archive Result

20000606GRAABWL

Tape 96 Side A of 06/06/00

We have been talking about verse 2 of Chapter 6 and this is the chapter on patience.. Now I would like to go to the next verse:

Verse 3

My mind will not experience peace

If it fosters painful thoughts of hatred.

I shall find no joy or happiness,

Unable to sleep, I shall feel unsettled.

This is talking about the direct faults of not having patience. When you don’t have patience, you have hatred or anger. This gives you pain in the body as well as in the mind. Actually it deprives you of having experiences of joy in the body and peace in the mind. This will be taken away, because you are experiencing suffering physically and mentally. Also it makes your mind very rough. The moment that hatred grows within you, you lose peace of mind and also become unhappy and very miserable. That unhappiness and misery deprives you of equanimity and as long as you have hatred you have anger burning there and this will torture you. That anger again will deprive you of all happiness. No new happiness will grow with you and whatever you had before will be taken away. Not only that, you not even able to sleep at night. For the whole 24 hours of the day you will not be able to rest, not even able to focus. You can’t concentrate and think. You have this pain as though as somebody had shot an arrow at your heart. That is one of the reasons why hatred and anger are no good. This is the direct problem you experience through hatred. When you think about that you will almost find that this is true. When you have very strong anger and hatred, you will experience all of this. It is bound to happen. This gives you an understanding of what is happening and a choice of what to do.

Not only that. A number of people think, ‘I am miserable and terrible.’ The good ones will say, ‘I am getting angry but I don’t know.’ The bad ones will say, ‘I don’t know what happened. I am not happy because So and so did this to me.’ So if you look in your experience you will find that hatred and anger will always give you additional problems. When there are two human beings together, there is bound to be problems. But when you know how to adjust, when you can think, ‘Well, that is human. He or she is not a bad person.’ If you try to adjust that way – provided that person is not doing something really terrible – you have a better peace, particularly if you are angry with your companion. Some have bigger reasons, some have just slight irritation. ‘I don’t like the way he acts, the way he looks at me. He does not get it.’ Somebody thinks, ‘I don’t like how he pinches people’, or ‘I don’t like the way he is driving’. All these small, little things can irritate you and it is fine. However, if you get angry and start hating the person, you are getting more pain. You are creating more pain and more trouble. Even if there is really someone who is trying to get you, financially or even physically, but if you are getting upset and hold onto that, not only do you make yourself miserable, but you also give misery to the companions around you. But my main point is that if you let it go it is not a big deal. If you don’t let it go, you get additional mental suffering and problems. It increases. There is a reaction and a counter-reaction and you are even unable to sleep.

When somebody tries to literally get you, what can you do? There is no question that you have to protect yourself. But you don’t do that by getting angry with or hating that person. Actually patience does protect you. That does not mean that you should think, ‘I am letting him do whatever he does and just have patience with it.’ That is not patience. That is removing the carpet from under your feet. It is not patience, it is stupidity. You are not getting the message of patience. Patience is that when this person is doing something and you explain to them and they are not getting it, then you cannot force the person and it has become time to protect yourself and do whatever you need to do. But there is no need to hate the person. You don’t have to do something wrong against the person, but you do have to do something to protect yourself, whatever it may take, but without hurting any individual. If you have to stop somebody from what they are doing, that does not mean that you lose your patience. You do have to stop some people when it is necessary.

In the Jataka stories there is the example of one of Buddha’s previous lives where he had to kill a person in order to protect five hundred travelers. This gives us an idea and guides us in how to function in our individual lives. When particular things happen, how can you handle them? All these thousands of Jataka stories that have come out are examples of how handle that. It is never said that you have to be somebody’s door mat. That is not patience. That is not compassion. You have to protect yourself, but without developing hatred and hurting the individual. We are very vulnerable and we particularly like to blame ourselves. It is me, it is not him. It is not here, it is me. I believe that is quite stupid. Whenever there is any conflict there has to be faults of both parties. Remember, one hand, no matter how much it moves, doesn’t clap. There has to be two. So the idea of ‘It is all my fault’, is thereby logically proven to be wrong. No matter who has the idea of ‘It is all my fault’, it may be an intelligent person, a stupid person or a crazy person, but thinking ‘it is all my fault’ is the sign of craziness. So that is wrong. And thinking, ‘I have to be patient, I have to submit’, that is also a totally stupid idea. To be patient means not to get upset and angry. Don’t develop hatred. It does not mean not to stop the person. Are you with me? You have to be aware of this. When somebody is doing something crazy you have to stop the person, without hurting them. That is the challenge we face. Whether you follow Buddha’s path or not, just to be a good human being, you have to draw the line here. You have to stay on the middle path. Avoid the extremes. You should not submit. We have a saying in Tibet,

When the temple is on fire, you still smile.

When the offerings to the Enlightened beings are being eaten by dogs, you still smile.

When the cats are jumping over the offering bowls and throw them down, you still smile.

When the monkeys are jumping on the tables, using all the instruments, you still smile.

That is the sign of stupidity.

You have to be kind and gentle and compassionate. But not stopping people from doing something wrong is not a compassionate act. It is lack of compassion.

Verse 4

A master who has hatred

is in danger of being killed

Even by those who for their wealth and happiness

Depend on his kindness.

Hatred will wash away anything good you have done before. Even if you have done something very kind and generous to somebody, supporting and feeding them, but if you have constant hatred, then that person will not want to be a door mat and you are in danger of being killed by that person. You may think that you have done something great, so you can bully the person with hatred. If you do that, that person may kill you. If you are a leader or even if you a benefactor who has given food and wealth, help, respect and support, but you can make such people hate you so much that they will even kill you. This is because of your own hatred. If you keep this hatred continuously, that can happen. If you keep on beating a dog, then even an obedient dog will listen to you and scream, no matter how much you hit them. But if you really force that dog into a corner, what else can that dog do but bite you? That happens, we all know. The master of the dog thinks he is kind and takes care of the dog, but one day he gets angry, begins to hate the dog and drives it into the corner, until one day the dog will bite back. It is your own hate and anger which pushes the dog into the corner. Just like that, every human being will react the same way. If you show temper or anger or hatred to someone you cannot expect that they will respond with love and compassion. Certainly not. Once or twice they may bear it. But after that you get a different reaction. No question. That is what anger does. When someone is upset and angry all the time, then how many times and for how long do you expect people around to put up with that? May be a day or a week or a month. In the case of a family, a couple who has been married for a long time, it may last a year or a year and a half. Then they will quit – bye, bye, no question. A new companion or just a friend will quit within a day or two. No one will go on with that. Not only will the other person not be happy, but it will also create a negative reaction from them.

If it was me, I would rather quit than entertain anger. That is me. You would be better off to get out before it gets worse. These are the faults of anger and hatred. We have to take a step back and watch and check if it is worth it. Naturally not. Even if you are really upset with somebody, will it benefit you to keep that anger with you? Never. Is your anger going to hurt that person? We do want that other person to experience pain. That is why we show a temper or terror. We try to get even with that person. You are trying to make the other person experience suffering and try to lock them in there. Any wise people will not let themselves be locked in there. They will move out. Ultimately, the end result you are going to get is that you have the biggest problem in your life. That is what anger and hatred do. Is it worth it to live with that? Think about it. You don’t have to decide now. Go back tonight, and before you go to sleep, think about it. You will find that it is not worth it.

That does not mean, however, that as soon as someone gets angry with you, you have to separate immediately. I am not telling you that. Don’t misunderstand. This particular verse talks about someone who has been kind and a leader. That goes in the same way for parents, grandparents and their children and grandchildren. It is all the same thing, particularly if you are thinking that you get benefit from that person. The parents expect that the children will do something for them. They depend more or less on the children. I don’t mean in terms of money, but as mental support. In the Asian culture the parents don’t depend on the kids for money. It is the other way round. Kids depend on the parents for a long time. Even if they have an executive job they go to the parents for money. And the parents will give it. But the parents expect from the children mental, emotional and physical support.

A lot of people in the United States think that the extended family is great. They are telling me that the Asian style of keeping the old parents in the house and having a big family is great. Well, yes. There is a good quality in there. At the same time there are difficulties too. More or less in that sort of family style, with exception of a few people, the senior ones will totally depend on the junior ones. It is a very difficult life for the middle-aged people. It is not so difficult for the young ones and for the old ones, but it is very difficult for the middle-aged people. Some older people are also very hot-tempered persons too. They are very demanding and have a temper. You even find that their middle-aged children cannot take it and start abusing the older ones verbally. They tell them to shut up.

Verse 5

By it, friends and relatives are disheartened.

Though drawn by my generosity, they will not trust me.

In brief, there is nobody

who lives happily with anger.

You may be a relative or a friend, and you may be generous. But if you keep on getting angry all the time, they will not like you from the heart. They will come round because they depend on your generosity, but they will just give you a few nice words and run away as fast as they can, after you have served their purpose. Your children, relations or friends will come to see you, because they depend on you. But they won’t sit with you and talk to you much, but instead run away as fast as they can, because they are afraid of you. They will not enjoy spending time, sharing and doing things with you, because they are not sure when you are going to start yelling.

In the Tibetan original verse there is a word which does not show up in the English translation. Through the grammar an extra word comes in. It means that if even your relatives and friends do that, any one else will definitely run away from you. There is no doubt about it, for sure. In other words, this is telling you not to be an old, yupping person who is angry and yells all the time. I think that applies to everybody, parents, teachers, spiritual masters, gurus, disciples, children, men and women, everybody. What is the reason why people don’t like you? It is not because of the people, but the reason is oneself. There is no other reason except your hatred, anger and pride and moodiness. The moodiness comes from anger. It is not that you decide inside, ‘I like to be moody’. If you are not moody you will be sitting around, giggling or doing something, because of the good quality of a human being. Moodiness comes out because of anger. Somehow, somewhere you are holding anger. Where does that anger come from? It could be childhood abuse or something. It is the psychotherapists’ and psychoanalysts’ job to find that out, not mine. I think it is the responsibility of the individual to let that anger go and not hold on to it. If you keep on holding it, you have that problem.

You may think, ‘People don’t like me’. Actually, you think that certain people don’t like you. There is no such thing as all people. The whole country is not going to react to one person, unless you are President Clinton. Then everybody will react. But when you think that people don’t like you, then it is time for you to sit down for a minute and think why. Our natural habit will tell you that it is because they did this and they did that. We always blame other people. You think, ‘They don’t like me, because I am Democrat.’ ‘They don’t like me because I am Republican’, or a Libertarian or Liberal or whatever. There is always some excuse. You may be a Christian, Jew or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever. You may think it is because you have a beard or because you are bald-headed. Are these valid reasons? So normally the reasons we give ourselves are just excuses. We have the habitual pattern to blame other persons set up from life after life. That is one of the reasons why we are continuously suffering, even when having a good life, good conditions, good opportunities. We still carry a long face all the time, because of the habitual pattern that is set up. There are a lot of invalid reasons. I have told you right from the beginning. Some people get upset, because the way someone looks at them.

Tape 96 Side B of 6/06/000

What do we mean by dualistic mind? We always blame the other person. It is not my fault but everybody else’s. There is a story about a guy who is driving in the wrong direction on the highway. He turns on the radio and the speaker gives the message through that somebody is driving the wrong way on that highway and to be careful. That guy thinks, ‘One person? Everybody is driving the wrong way!’ That is the example. When you think that everybody else is wrong, it means that it is not everybody else’s fault but it is a clear sign that something is wrong with you. There is nothing physically wrong or mentally wrong, but the wrongness is emotional. That consists of blaming other people and refusing to acknowledge your anger, your hatred, your attachment, your jealousy. That is the problem. That is what is wrong. It is very important to remember that and work with it. So in brief, as the verse says, ‘There is nobody who lives happily with anger’. Anger and hatred always grows unhappiness and misery. We have 52 different mental faculties, and out of that there are five which function with every mind at every moment. These mental faculties overpower the mind and the emotion overpowers you. As long as you have hatred and anger with you, you will never have peace. That is the same for everybody.

Verse 6

Hence the enemy, anger,

Creates sufferings such as these.

But whoever assiduously overcomes it

Finds happiness now and hereafter.

Our enemy in this case is anger or hatred. We have talked about how this enemy treats me. When the verse says that it creates sufferings such as these, it indicates that there are many more than what we have mentioned. That is why anger and hatred are our true enemies. There may not be devils with horns and fangs. We talk about monsters. If I tell you grown-up people, ‘Better be careful, there is a monster under your bed!’, you will laugh and think that I am joking and being foolish. So I don’t think that there is such a thing called ‘evil’ out there with horns and fangs, except in movies. But the true devils or demons are within yourself. They will really kill you, they will kill your spiritual life. They overpower you completely, with various, unthinkable excuses. They will not only harm you in this life but also in future lives. Even in this life, they don’t only harm you on one occasion but continuously as long as you keep hatred in your mind. As much as you can let your hatred go, the hatred of the other side will be reduced. It will be much less.

Buddha says,

Where does anger come from? From our projections and perception of those projections. That is like fire. It is very harmful to oneself and others. When you are angry, you will look terrible. No matter how many ornaments you put on they will not look good on you.

You may have a very soft, smooth and wonderful bed, but the sufferings you are going through due to anger will not let you sleep. You will forget that people have helped you before and because of anger you will engage in wrong actions. Your good name and your capability to achieve things will be lost because people will know that you are short-tempered. It is like the waxing moon. Even some of your friends and relations who still bear with you, you will let them down. You are blinded by your anger and you will not know who is good and who is bad. Through that you become stupid. Hatred will build negative emotions and negative karma and will make you suffer for a long time in the hell realms. A true enemy who wants to make you suffer, what could they do that is worse than that? Therefore your worst enemy is your hatred.

That is what Buddha said to his followers. Buddha advised that even if somebody is being burnt like a log, even then that person should not have hatred. If that is true, then how should anybody with a mind that can think, entertain hatred and anger? That is Buddha’s message. It is somehow very old, 2500 years, but very good.

I mentioned to you earlier that anger and hatred are terrible and should be avoided but that does not mean that you have to become a door mat. You have to protect yourself and stop wrong doings, but not by anger and hatred. So what do you replace anger and hatred with? Love and compassion. That can stop wrong doing and can help – not anger and hatred. To stop wrong doing it is not necessary to shoot the person. There are many ways to do that without hurting that person physically, mentally or emotionally. If we hurt the other person we are creating negativity. When we are angry we want to hurt the person. So we use any weapon we have.

The first weapon is the tongue. You try to use the sharpest and meanest words you know. You want the person to experience pain, so that you feel justified. And that is wrong. You should definitely help that person, correct their attitude, correct their thoughts. That is why I would like the prisons not to be places of punishment but places of rehabilitation. We should try to make them into respectable members of society. There are a few people who, no matter what you try to do, will not give up their wrong doing. But that does not mean that everybody has to punished the same way, definitely not. We always think that people have to be punished. Like for example capital punishment. Personally I am against that. What good does that do? The only relief could be for a family member of a victim who can say, ‘Ha, now it is done!’ and conclude. But what will that help|? It only gives them just a few minutes of relief. It does not bring the victim back to life and from the spiritual point of view just another negativity of killing is being created. Particularly there are many people involved in capital punishment. You know, the appeals go on to judge after judge up to the governor and all of them reject the appeals and thus contribute to the negativity. All the lawyers contribute and the family of the victim waiting for the killer to be killed also contribute. The family members of the killer who are trying to save him will also be made to suffer. So I cannot see any benefit. You would get benefit if you could change the person, make them useful so that that they can contribute to a good society. That will be great. A few persons will repeat their same bad actions, but that does not mean that everybody will. Some people can’t help it. No matter whatever you try to do to change them, they like to kill. This is the worst result of a killing karma. It is not that one person kills the other and then it is finished. No, it is the habitual business of that person, always liking to kill. This is worse than getting yourself killed.

When you talk about karma, there is a direct result, a common result, and an indirect result. The development of a habit is the common result. You are getting used to it. That is the worst result. It will continuously make you to repeat that same thing. So there are such persons. You lock them up, and when they come back out, they do the same thing again and again. We hope that people like that would remain locked up forever.

That’s about it for today. We have talked about the faults of anger and hatred. Next time we talk about the benefits of patience. After that you have to make up your mind about what you want to do.

Are there any questions?

Aud1: Which are the five always present faculties of the mind you were talking about?

R: I don’t remember.

Aud2: How much does it damage someone’s karma if they are taught to hate from an early age on and if it is not their choice. They just don’t know any other way.

Secondly, if they have damaged all the stuff they have developed so far and when they are finally able to get through the hatred, do they basically pick up where they have left off or do they have to start right over from ground zero?

R: No matter how bad the things they are taught, I don’t think that can damage their person or personality. What happens is that they will build tremendous amounts of negativity which will pull them away from the way they want to go. But I don’t think that will do something like damage. I don’t think so. Funny that you asked that question. In the afternoon I was sitting in my house, doing something, cleaning up my table. The thought came up in my head about a retreat by Ram Dass in Omega 10 years ago. He brought all the retreatants out in the open in the afternoon near a lake. There must have been 700 people there. I was doing retreat with Thurman nearby. I walked past that gathering. Ram Dass had brought Dan Goleman along and Dan had spoken the afternoon before. So now a question came out of that, how much the negativity damages the individual. Ram Dass said, ‘I don’t think there is any damage. For example, if I bring a person here to speak, then whatever that person says, I am not responsible for.’ I was listening from quite far away, but Ram Dass saw me and said, ‘Let us ask Rinpoche whether that does any damage or not.’ I said, ‘I don’t know, it is not my place to say’. Ram Dass kept on saying that the personality does not get damaged and asked, ‘Am I right, Rinpoche?’ I said, ‘I think so.’ That thought came up for me in the afternoon and that is your answer.

To the second part of the question: Since the nature or personality of the person does not get damaged, the question of restarting does not arise. You have cleared whatever obstacles are there. Thereafter you continue. It will not remain an obstacle that pulls you down. It may delay you. Certain things you may have to re-do. But you don’t have to start again. So be relieved. Just relax. Don’t worry about it, be happy.

Aud3: Can you believe in a God and still practice Buddhism?

R: I don’t know. For me Buddha is God. Is Buddha my creator? No. That’s it. All enlightened beings are God. Not necessarily monotheistic gods. Maybe not.

Aud4: God in that sense is not an object, but a state of being, awakedness, intelligence. I have a question about anger. I am thinking that subtle anger is the kinds of judgments you make out of the experience of separateness, and before that would come ignorance and delusion. Is that where subtle anger starts?

R: There is no question. Definitely. Almost everything, judgments, and so on are coming out of that. I said before that anger also makes you dull and stupid. Out of stupidity you make all these judgments.

Aud5: I got a bit confused reading these last two verses in other translations. In the Oxford Translation they use the word forbearance to mean patience. Are you making any distinctions as to how we apply the antidote against anger and how we apply the antidote against hatred? In the Oxford Translation is a Sanskrit term called shanti paramita and there is another term you would have to assume is there to describe the antidote. I am way confused if I look at the different translations.

R: Do you know Sanskrit?

Aud5: No.

R: I don’t either. I only read the Tibetan.

Aud5: Last week you said that hatred is a more complete activity than anger.

R: That is my thought. Anger will lead you to hatred. That is for sure. That I know. The antidote which is capable of destroying hatred is definitely capable of destroying anger.

Aud6: Forbearance is a wonderful word. It has a sense of the future and bearing the nakedness of the truth.

R: I am not a native English speaker. I did not learn the English language. I am not good at that.

Aud5: What I wanted to know is whether a distinction is made in the Tibetan.

R: I don’t know. I can’t say that I am not a native Tibetan speaker, but still I don’t know. (laughs).

If there are no more questions I would be happy to close shop.