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20000627GRAABWL

Side A of tape 98 of 06/27/00

Last week I attended a conference. It was supposed to be a conference for American Buddhist teachers. There were a few European representatives there too and they very strongly objected to the label ‘American Buddhist teachers’. So it became Western Buddhist teachers. However, there were certain Asian teachers there as well, so they had to change the name again. Anyway, there were about 200 teachers there. I should say the conference brought a lot of awareness. There was no particular conclusion, resolution or anything being agreed on. It was just everybody talking. There were two main presenters every day and three or four others. Everybody could talk for ten minutes or so. It was nice. His Holiness the Dalai Lama came and participated for two full and one half day. Somehow they removed the restriction for him to only speak for 10 minutes. Actually the restriction was in place, but he kept on talking in spite of the gong ringing. Perhaps he was not aware of that rule and finally, the gong stopped. On the whole it was good. I think all these teachers wanted some kind of confirmation. My feeling is that this did not really happen.

When I had to speak I had to say something about the quality of the teacher. There was a woman from Switzerland. She was a moderator or something. She was there almost every day. Anyway, she told me that some Zen teachers had authorized a number of their western students, Vipassana had also authorized many westerners. She said that in the past 50 years, Tibetan Buddhist teachers had never authorized anybody, not a single teacher. She wanted me to give an explanation for that. I only had ten minutes, so I couldn’t do much. I got as far as mentioning the necessary qualities of a teacher. I did not get to how one officially is authorized to be a teacher. This lady kept on asking His Holiness, ‘Can you say anything more to encourage us? Is that all you are going to say? Do you have anything more to say?’ She was going on and on. She asked in that manner at least five times. I don’t think His Holiness was getting what she was saying.

On the whole it was very nice. On the day I was on, there was me and Ram Dass and a senior Zen abbot. We were on for ten minutes each. There were a lot of Zen people that day. The next day the Dalai Lama showed up and I didn’t see these Zen people any more. There were only four or five left. The rest had gone.

On the whole, it was nice and a lot of people of different traditions met. Another big topic was whether or not traditions should continue. Somebody there said, ‘Let the traditions go into the dust bin.’ I don’t know if anything is going to be published from that conference or not.

Then I had a personal meeting with His Holiness for over an hour. He was meeting with Tara and Dan Goleman, because he is writing a book with them. My appointment was on after them. He asked if there were any more people after me and there weren’t. So he said to me, ‘All right, lets go into the bed room.’ He took me there and we spent over an hour and he gave me a lot of advice regarding the controversial protector issue. At the end of it I said, ‘Whatever you say’, and that was that part of it.

Then I did not go to Los Angeles. I still have to do the teaching there. After that I had to re-join the conference in Washington. I had to speak there on two days, one day with Bob Thurman, talking about Western Buddhist centers or Western Buddhism or something. We had 45 minutes between the two of us. I told Thurman, ‘You speak and I will say, ‘yes, Sir’. He said, ‘That’s right’. Knowing Thurman, I thought there was no way he could stick to such a time limit. On a previous day, he had to speak too and was limited to ten minutes. He would not stop and they beat the gong three times, he still kept going, until finally the guy with the gong got up and banged it really loud. Even then he said, ‘5 more seconds’. On the second day in Washington I was speaking together with Khenpo Kunchog. There was also a 45 minute time limit.

To come back to verse 6 once again: The last two lines go:

But whoever assiduously overcomes it

Finds happiness now and hereafter.

Here is the beginning of the benefits of patience. A person who has awareness and works hard at overcoming their anger will experience joy and happiness. If you have mindfulness of what your mind is up to and which mental factor causes you difficulty, creates suffering, etc, you can overcome anger and that will be the opening of the door to joy and happiness.

There is a young Tibetan lama called Za Choje Rinpoche. He was also attending that conference. A few years ago he was here with the Losseling monks.

That day the subject was pain in the sangha. With that group of teachers that has been a common theme. For the last two years they have complained a lot, especially about Sögyal Rinpoche. This time however, Sögyal Rinpoche was one of the main speakers during the time when the Dalai Lama was there. Anyway, this time there was pain in the sangha again and they talked about every possible scandal, including a huge scandal involving Thich Nath Han. People were crying and I did not even know what to talk about that. There is all kinds of trouble. Then Za Choje talked. He only had three minutes, but he spoke very well, in good English and slowly. He said,

‘I think most of the Western Dharma friends are coming out the Judaeo-Christian tradition. They bring the projection of God onto the teachers. This happens unconsciously. No one will think that the teacher is God but somehow that projection comes in and so sooner or later these huge projections are not fulfilled and people are disappointed. That gets bigger and bigger and that is why all these complaints are coming. No one is God and no one can protect you except you yourself.’

Then His Holiness talked and said, ‘That’s good’ and quoted Nagarjuna who said, ‘You are your own protector, there is no other protector besides you.’

Luckily we don’t have any problems here in Jewel Heart, but I am sure people have some pains here and there, no doubt about it. After all, if three people sit together, there is bound to be some dissatisfaction and difficulties. If there is not it would be a big surprise. You would have to be sitting like images of God in the temple. This is not going to happen, there will always be something. Verse 6 tells us also that you are your own protector, because if you overcome anger, you will find happiness. Where do all the negative emotions come from which cause us all the suffering? They come from ourselves. They are the result of negative karma that we have created. This karma comes from the negative emotions, nothing else. Likewise, if you want to reverse that, you can only do it yourself. That is also the reason why the ultimate result refuge is your own Buddha within you. The ultimate Dharma is your own spiritual development, nothing else.

The sangha – that was the big issue in that conference. There was a large section of people who did not want members of Dharma centers called sangha, including Alex Berzin. They said only ordained monks and nuns should be called sangha. Other people said that every member of every Dharma center was part of the sangha. There was definitely no conclusion reached there either. Everything was aired, but nothing was concluded. But who could conclude or decide anything anyway? No one has the authority to do that.

We have said that unhappiness and dissatisfaction is the cause of anger. Just a little bit of dissatisfaction is the cause of anger. So being aware of anger developing is the beginning of overcoming it. Therefore you are your own protector, nobody else. No one else can stop you from being angry.

On Sunday we had a meeting with the Jewel Heart people in the San Francisco Bay area. There was an interesting lady. She cornered me and asked me, ‘Empower me to drive a car right this moment!’ She followed me everywhere. A number of the Tibetans around me tried to get in between but she pushed her way through several times. I did not want to say, ‘Yes, you are empowered’, because she might have got behind the wheel and hit something. So I said, ‘I can pray’. She was not satisfied, she wanted to be empowered.

This also shows: you have to empower yourself to drive. You have to train and be able to manage yourself. You have to fit in with the other people. Likewise no one can empower you not to get angry. You have to learn how to be aware. You have to bring awareness and be alert and make sure that your anger is not rising. Here we are talking about anger and patience, but it is all like that.

Why is patience so beneficial? Buddha himself has given the assurance that whoever can overcome anger, that person will not have any fall back. Not only that, the person who can do that will have a lot less enemies and a lot less difficulties. We create our own enemies. No question. There is no such thing as an enemy out there. Not only in terms of human beings but even at the level of devils and demons. I don’t really think that there are strange beings called devils over there. We create our own enemies. Perhaps we don’t know how, perhaps we do. Without any realization we somehow hurt the feelings of those people. Maybe you are just doing your own work and going after your own interest and in the course of that they get hurt. Maybe you are just associating with someone they dislike. They have animosity against that person and now they count you in the same category. Whatever it is, through whatever we are doing, we create the enemies. So if you have patience there will be fewer enemies.

This afternoon we were sitting there and we saw a police car waiting in the street. Colleen joked to Drakpa la, ‘You got a ticket the other day, and now the police is here waiting for you.’ Finally she went out and talked to them. They said that somebody had broken in next door and was still in there somewhere, so everybody had to be careful. My thought was that as we had a number of people in the building, if the thief walked in we could catch him. Then after catching what would we do? Beat him up or call the police and hand him over? You are supposed to call the police. But if you do that this guy would get into a lot of trouble, no doubt. But maybe he did not do anything serious, he might have just been desperate. So maybe if we gave him 20 Dollars and let him go, would he appreciate it or would he think, ‘These people have money, I must go back there.’? All these thoughts went through my head. So how do you treat a dangerous person? That is a big question.

Last night, Deepak Chopra said on Larry King Live on TV, ‘His Holiness the Dalai Lama loves his enemies and his neighbors. He is the God King.’

So if you treat a dangerous person with respect, what is going to happen? I was quite sure I would have given him 20 Dollars. But chances are he would be back for another 20 Dollars. So it is a big question.

Buddha says,

People who have patience will have few enemies. Their joy and happiness will gradually increase and when they die they die without any regret and any hesitation. Because of that their next life will be another joyful life.

He further said,

Patience is an ornament for those who are working hard for spiritual development.

It is like jewelry. If you wear it, that is a good thing. But if you have to carry it, it becomes a load. It is like with a dress. If you wear a nice dress, you look good and it becomes a decoration for you. However, if you can’t wear it, you have to pack it and carry it around. It has become a load and not a decoration. So if you know when to be patient and when not, it is an ornament for you. There are some people who tell themselves to be patient with any suffering. They don’t even know whether they have to bear it or not. If you endure everything and think that this is patience, that is actually a sign of stupidity.

Patience is like the water that destroys the burning fire. If you have harsh words coming from other people and if you know how to handle that, they can become like flower garlands to you.

We talked about that before and last time I mentioned the movie ‘Little Buddha’. I also shared the story of Ram Dass very often, when he was on LSD and one of his brothers verbally attacked him. He saw the words coming at him as arrows. However, he calmly picked them up out of the air and put them in front of him on his dinner plate. I also mentioned the Shao Ling practitioner Ma Peng Kong deflecting the blow by one of the Karate specialists through concentration power. So that is how you deal with the negative emotions, especially anger. It is very important not to take anything personally, even though the other person may be trying their best to hit the spot that causes you the biggest pain. If you have awareness, you can protect yourself. You think, ‘Well, that person is very angry and completely blind with anger. Whatever they say is like that talk of a crazy person. So I can’t take it personally. If I do, the crazy person is not the most crazy one, but the one who is entertaining the crazy person is the most crazy.’ So even if they get stuck into you, the pain of that will be much less.

Side B of tape 98 of 06/27/00

If you keep on thinking what they have said to you, the pain of that will be much more, even double or triple. So don’t take it personally. It will be much easier to deal with. The Dalai Lama was on TV last night. Larry King asked him, ‘Your Holiness, you are called Holiness, so are you a holy person?’. The Dalai Lama laughed and replied, ‘I doesn’t matter if others call me Holiness or Living Buddha (as the incarnate Lamas are called in the Chinese tradition) or devil or reactionary or separatist or creator of trouble. As far as I am concerned, I am a simple Buddhist monk.’ That is a very good attitude. Whatever people may say actually does not make a difference to that individual. If an angry person calls you ‘Damn Fool!’, you are not becoming a damn fool through that. Somebody may be buttering you, calling you a kind, compassionate and wonderful person. But no matter what they say you don’t become that. Our improvement will come gradually through what we do. If somebody tells you that you are beautiful, that will not make you beautiful and if somebody tells you that you are ugly, that will not make you ugly either. So whatever people say about you does not really make a difference. We have to be aware of that. Then whoever says what, it will not affect us. You may be scared, if somebody very tall and threatening is yelling at you. That is the usual physical reaction you are bound to get. But when you realize that what they are saying is not going to make a difference to who you are, the hurt from those words is going to be much less. You know that this person is temporarily totally crazy with anger or jealousy. They may say anything and it does not mean much. You will find out with your own personal experience. That may be the opening of the door way for us to be able to learn a little bit of patience.

The patience in the normal usage of the English language and the patience we are talking about here are slightly different. If I understand correctly, patience in the usual sense means enduring anything and keeping on waiting for a long time. Here it is not about waiting and waiting and not getting upset because that person has not come. Here the person is there right in front of you, yelling at you, using all sorts of F – words and giving you the finger and so on. But you are still just watching them. The trick is that whatever they are saying, somehow does not get to you. If they physically hit you, then you can’t help it. Otherwise the weapon they are using is the tongue. Don’t let it come near you. The sharpest tongues in nature are the tongues of the snakes, the cobras. But no matter how much someone shouts from the distance it is not going to hurt you. Like a snake does not hurt you from the distance. But if you make the mistake and go near the snake and try to hit it, it will bite you and the venom will get into your body. So keep a distance from the sharp tongue of your enemy who is yelling at you. Don’t go near.

We always want to do something. We have the attitude that we can fix things, do something about it, but within that we get into trouble. We have to distance ourselves so that we are not getting hit. The way to do that is to think that the other person at that moment is crazy. Let them say whatever they want to say. If you take literally what a crazy person says, you are crazy yourself. No question. You don’t want to be crazy. The other person is mad, out of control, really. The awareness of that person has been completely overtaken by anger and maybe also attachment and jealousy. You have to understand that and that is how you can protect yourself.

So there is the patience of enduring whatever hardship you have to face and there is the patience of not responding with hatred to people that are hurting you. That is important. If you challenge an angry person with anger, your quality of being a nice guy is gone. What is the difference between you, who cannot tolerate a single word and that crazy person who is yelling at you? There is none. But you want to do better than that. You are an intelligent person, a spiritual practitioner. So if you become the same as that crazy person, what has happened to your quality? It is gone. You are no different. So no matter who is harming you and shouting and yelling at you, somehow you can stop it from getting to you. Somehow you manage, you are able to stay above that. But make sure that you don’t become passive-aggressive. Although you are not physically acting, yelling or screaming, you are manipulating the other person, making sure that you are bringing that person pain. That is why some people may say, ‘He was yelling at me, but I maintained my cool and that made him more mad.’ That tells you that this person is manipulating the other one, making a fool of him, playing passive-aggressive tactics. That is violence. Why? Because you are hurting the person. It does not have to be physical violence. Sometimes mental violence is worse than physical one. With physical violence the other person can hit you back and if they can’t, they can call the police who will come and get you. Passive-aggressive mental violence however is not prosecutable by law. It is hard to prove. But you are creating a lot of pain for the other person. So you have to make sure that your patience is non-violent. Patience cannot be violent.

Talking about non-violence: Gandhi-ji really had fantastic patience. That does not mean that he did not lose his temper. He did. He used to be a lawyer in South Africa. He was thrown out of a running train by white British-African police, just because he happened to be a colored person who was supposed to be on the same train with white people. Gandhi actually became angry at that point, but he could not do much except throw stones after the train. After that he used the non-violent approach. And his movement started from that incident on the train. He began to realize how bad the racial discrimination was. Gandhi’s movement started in South Africa, not in India. Later he moved to India. That is patience. He was willing to wait for anything without getting upset. Not only that, even at the end of everything, when the British decided to have India and Pakistan divided, making two independent, separate nations, Gandhi was still willing to wait. The Indian Congress actually voted Gandhi out, because he was not willing to accept India’s independence as a separate country from Pakistan. That was not because he only wanted India and Pakistan as one nation, but because he did not want those Hindu-Muslims fights. Millions of people got killed in that fighting. So many Muslims from India went over to Pakistan and all the Hindus from Pakistan went over to India. In between that movement of people, train after train there was a lot of killing. Whole train loads of people got out of the train and everybody was fighting and killing everybody. Gandhi wanted to avoid that. He would rather have waited. In fact he was almost willing to sacrifice the Indian independence. That is patience. He did not want people to get hurt. After the Congress voted him out, Gandhi walked away. People went after him, asking him what he was going to do now. He said, ‘I am going to Pakistan’. Then they blocked him and almost put him under house arrest. That is a great example for patience. It does not mean that you don’t get irritated. Irritation is not that bad. You cannot avoid that. We are human beings. If somebody tells you something strange and terrible in your own face, you are bound to get upset. That is not necessarily hatred and losing your patience. But being able to wait and able to avoid hurting others, and avoid getting hurt yourself, that probably is the real patience. Lets move to the next verse.

Verse 7

Having found its fuel of mental unhappiness

In the prevention of what I wish for

And in the doing of what I do not want,

Hatred increases and then destroys me.

It is really hot. So we better stop. If I start talking about this verse it will take a little longer. I can’t just skip over it. It has worked very well so far. People are saying now that the transcripts of this Bodhisattvacharyavatara teachings are the best available commentary in English. Those who have read them have told me. Lets not destroy that. We still have most of Chapter 6, then Chapter 7,8, 9 and 10 to go. Chapter 9 is the most difficult. It is all about wisdom. Hopefully we will be able to finish it all. It is really hot, so let us stop, unless you want to have training for your patience. (laughs). But that would be like staying in the sweat lodge, so better go now.

End of side B of tape 98 of 06/27/00