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120000706GRNYCFP – Talk 9 of 12

The total dedication for the benefit of all living beings is easy to say but very difficult to do. Certainly it is very difficult to develop within us. It is difficult to comprehend, so how can we develop that within ourselves? Developing is meant in the sense of actually gaining experience of that mind. In other words, our mind, which is ego-centred, even ego-centric mind is going to change into the great mind that has the total dedication for all sentient beings. That is definitely difficult. However, it is not impossible. It is possible, if we try to gain experience gradually, rather than drastically.

We all would like to change in a moment and become bodhisattvas overnight. That’s absolutely impossible. It is a very long and gradual process. This is ultimate love and ultimate compassion. In order to reach that we have to have basic good love and good compassion. That itself is difficult. To develop compassion for others, in my opinion from what little I know, I can say in my experience is impossible, just ordinary compassion for others, without first having compassion for ourselves. It is also not possible to develop compassion for ourselves, if we haven’t developed love for ourselves. Without love for ourselves we cannot have compassion for ourselves. A lot of us hate ourselves or don’t love ourselves. It is terrible to think, “I am bad, I am terrible.” Self hatred is coming because there is no love for ourselves. Why is that? Because we really don’t care for ourselves. And why is that? Because we take everything for granted. If it doesn’t work we hate ourselves. How many times do we hear people say, “It’s all my fault?”

I do not know if people really deeply think it is their fault, but they use that expression very often. Perhaps this is because of a lack of care for ourselves. When there is no care for ourselves, then developing love for ourselves is out of the question. On top of that we hear a little bit about the ultimate love and compassion and doing everything for the benefit of all beings. Then we think, “Oh, I am not the one to take care of. I have to take care of all sentient beings.” Truly, we don’t have love and compassion for all sentient beings, because there is no such person called “All sentient beings”. That is the reality. In order to develop the precious bodhimind it is absolutely necessary to first develop compassion for ourselves.

I was in Washington till this afternoon. A good old friend of mine, Samdong Rinpoche, who is right now the Chairman of the Assembly of the Tibetan People’s Deputies of the government in exile. It is something like the speaker of the exile government assembly. I was talking to him last night. He pointed out that when we begin our prayers we say, “I and all sentient beings take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha until I obtain enlightenment….” All the prayers begin with that. The prayers don’t say, “All sentient beings take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha except me.” That really makes sense. Especially in the west people somehow think that love and compassion are wonderful. Narrow selfish interest is terrible. All self interest is bad and it is ego. Then we try to be good bodhisattvas, without knowing what is the priority for bodhisattvas. Even bodhisattvas will stay pray, “I and all sentient beings”. They also don’t say, “All sentient beings except me…”

0:10

So somehow we ignore ourselves. We have been left out through misconception or overzealousness of having compassion or whatever. The difficulty is this: we are never going to have compassion for others, even for a single other person, without having compassion for ourselves. I am talking about ultimate compassion. That is important to realize. Even when Buddha gives us the path, the first path is actually how to take care of yourself spiritually. We call it “seeking freedom”, “determination to be free”, “renunciation” or whatever other names. But it is really telling you how to take care of yourself, how to develop caring and love for yourself. Once you have that, then use that as an example. Then think of other persons. This teaching doesn’t just say to develop love and compassion for all sentient beings. The next verse begins with, “Just as I myself have fallen into samsaric waters” – there is a big “I” there. So the sufferings that I experience and the compassion and caring that I have for myself is taken as an example. Then one tries to develop that on the other persons. So if you don’t have that for yourself, what are you trying to develop for others? It is only lip service or pretending, almost like being a hypocrite. We don’t have the real compassion and love, not even caring, for ourselves. I don’t have it for myself. Even within the method of developing ultimate love and compassion the example is love and compassion for yourself. When you don’t have that, how are you going to work? It really tells us that first things are first and that is taking care of ourselves. This means taking care of myself. I don’t even want to say “our”. That may confuse people.

0:15

Now people will worry. If you keep talking about “I” and “myself”, are you trying to build up my ego? No, at this point we don’t even know what ego is. Truly speaking, when you think about it that’s true. I attended a Buddhist teacher’s conference in California. There were 200 Buddhist teachers. I don’t know whether any of us knew what ego is. I doubt it very much – maybe with the exception of one or two people. I doubt it – including myself. So why worry about building ego? We don’t even know what it is. I think we have to build the caring and the development of love and compassion on “myself” and once we are able to build that we have found the basis on which we can work. It becomes so relevant why the teachings talk about guru-devotional practice, why they talk about precious human life. It all begins there. Why do they talk about impermanence? Why do they talk about suffering in the hell realms? Why do they talk about suffering in the hungry ghost realms? Why do they talk about the sufferings in the animal realms? Why do they talk about sufferings in the human realm? Why do they talk about the suffering in the demigod – and god realms? Why do they talk about sufferings in the form – and formless realms? That is the reason why we would like to develop compassion.

As good human beings, when we see someone suffering we feel it. We don’t have to work for that. We don’t have to put a lot of effort into that. We have that feeling – unless you are evil or mentally ill or something. We try to use this good human instinct. Human beings have that naturally. That’s why they say we are pure and wonderful. These are the signs. Just like we see smoke when there is fire. There has to be a fire when there is smoke, no matter how small. It may be as small as an incense stick burning or it may be huge. We try to utilize that. We have that naturally given to us and then with human intelligence and the human mind we try to build that up. So we visualize and almost build in the sufferings a little more vividly, maybe even exaggerated, so that this mind of caring will become stronger and bigger.

That’s why in the Four Noble Truths the first one is the truth of suffering. It is not the only thing Buddha discovered in his life, but that’s there. When you see the suffering you care. The caring will become love. Love brings compassion. There is no direct instant compassion without going through these steps. Anybody can shout and make a slogan “I care”. But caring has to come from the heart, not from a banner. If we have it, it comes from the heart. We definitely have it, but when it is not developed it cannot come out big. And that has to first come out for myself. Me first, you afterwards. That’s true, no matter how much we pretend that “I am the last and you are the first”. But when the time really comes I am the first and you are second. You may call that ego-centric or selfish, but it might not be. It is natural. I care for myself. Naturally it is my priority.

A number of people are trying to avoid that and think it is ego and selfish and because you can’t get the actual compassion either you are nowhere, you are in between. Many people are doing that, including people such as yourself, in this room. You really want to give the ego business up and you really want to have compassion, so you are neither here nor there. You are falling between the cracks. That’s what happens. Here the teachings try to prove to you that if you don’t care for yourself you can’t care for others. That’s for sure. If you don’t love yourself you are incapable of loving anybody else.

0:24

That’s the reality. If you are incapable of having compassion for yourself, you are equally incapable of having compassion for anybody. Whatever we pretend to have, it is lip service. Compassion, compassion, compassion – even a parrot can say it. We care for ourselves if we have physical pain. We try anything to relieve it. But otherwise we don’t care. We care for ourselves if we find out we are going to die – because of fear. Otherwise I don’t think we really care much about ourselves. No one wants suffering, no one would like to experience pain. But there are many pains we don’t recognize as pain. We take them as pleasure. I don’t have to tell you. You know more than I do. We open those magazines meant for only adults and we see them in there. Actually it is pain. Ouch. They make holes in different places in the body and pull. It is pain. But they look at it as pleasure. Why? It’s because we don’t know what real pleasure is. How confused our mind is!

This also gives you the message that pain and pleasure is a matter of how you look at it. It also gives you another message: pain and pleasure is emptiness. That’s what I see. It is quite clear. There are different messages in a variety of different layers. No 1: How confused our mind is! No 2: How ignorant we are! No 3: Pain and pleasure are concepts that mind labels differently. 4: Actually it is emptiness. I am giving you the message of the magazine (laughs) When we really don’t know what pain really is that’s why we don’t have compassion for ourselves. That’s why when we train our mind we exaggerate the pain and even visualize that we are falling into the hell realms and burning and taking refuge. That’s how the great teachers tried to get us to train our mind so that we may be able to wake up.

Once we know how to develop love for ourselves and have compassion for ourselves we can begin to develop love and compassion for others. Even this particular verse says,

RANG NYI SI TSOR LHUNG WA JI ZHIN DU

MAR GYUR DRO WA KUN KYANG DE DRA WAR

THONG NE DRO WA DROL WAY KHUR CHER WAY

JANG CHUB SEM CHOK JONG PAR CHIN GYI LOB

Just as I myself have fallen into samsara's waters,

so have all other sentient beings.

Empower me to see this and really to practice

Bodhimind, that carries the weight of freeing them.

Until we see this we won’t develop compassion. It is very easy to talk about love and compassion. Allen Ginsberg used to say that compassion had become a buzzword. People use it everywhere, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and everybody, like George W. Bush and compassionate conservatism. But when you really think about it, it is extremely difficult. You can use it with beautiful language and people like that. But that doesn’t give you any meaning or message that moves you from the bottom of your heart.

None of us at this moment is capable of having real compassion or love. We are capable of being touched by emotion. Every touch we receive from great masters or great people is a touch at the emotions. Love and compassion maybe emotions – I don’t know. But the emotion that we feel is somewhere between love and hate. That is the easiest level to touch. We are not even capable of feeling more. So talking about compassion is easy, but getting it is extremely difficult.

We are at the level where we are supposed to have that love and compassion for ourselves and use it as an example for the others. If you are really a serious practitioner, then the verses we have already talked about above are more relevant. Below this, including this one, might not be relevant for us until we personally develop compassion and love for ourselves. That can only be developed if we clearly see our own situation of suffering in samsara, in animal realms, hell realms and even in the human realms. Even the human suffering we see is only the emotional and physical pain. We don’t even see the real pain beyond the emotions. That is what actually brings the emotional pain. We don’t even know about it.

0:36.54

Why do we have emotional reactions? Because there is something deeper in there. When there is something deeper in there then it is connected. We only notice the emotional and the physical pain. It is quite simple, if we feel it in our bones and flesh it hurts, naturally. But the real suffering is even deeper than the emotional pain. If you don’t have that pain that is deeper than the emotions you don’t have that much emotional suffering. For spiritual people, to me, the first goal is to remove that pain, that pain that is deeper than the emotional pain. When I talk about seeking freedom as the first principle, I am talking about freedom from that. Can we really talk and introduce and point out what that deeper pain is? I doubt it. There is no way we can provide any vivid example. It is very doubtful whether we can express that through words.

When I was talking at the Mall in Washington, somebody asked me where that pain came from. I kept on saying, “from me, me, me.” Bob Thurman made a joke, saying, “All pains are coming from Rimpoche.” Then I tried to clarify that first it’s me, then it is my and then we get all the trouble. Me, my friends, my enemies, that’s what it is.

0:40

The deeper pain beyond our emotions is actually on me, the true “me”. The true “me” right now has been totally crushed by my ego. The true me can’t even breathe. The big, fat ego is sitting on me. Really true. That is the deeper pain we have. Right now we are unable to see it. We are totally confused between “me” and “my ego”. We can’t separate them right this moment. That is the source of our confusion. That is the source of our pain and misery. That is the object of negation. Until we are able to see that it is very hard to help ourselves. Once we are able to see that everything becomes different – everything. Also, everything doesn’t really matter. There is no big deal, whatever it may be. There is tremendous freedom.

Until we have that, should we not try to develop compassion? In truth, yes, that’s what we should do. However, we have to pretend to have that and to superficially develop caring, love and compassion – one after another. The equanimity I talked about during the lojong period, all the different layers of equanimity, that is the time for you to utilize it. Likewise, all the stages of training of the bodhimind have to be utilized here too. During the lojong period we talked about the exchange way of developing ultimate compassion. Here I like to present something slightly different, the 7 stages of developing compassion.

First and foremost, in order to develop love we have to like the person. If you don’t like the person you cannot develop love for them. Otherwise, you might as well develop love for the person you hate. Still, we know that love and hate goes together very much anyway. So when you have to like a person you have to see their best, their love and caring. That’s why the great teachers recommend to see all sentient beings as our mother. You may think, “Why my mother? I don’t particularly care for my mother. We are not talking about that. I think we have to look from the other angle. See how your mother is feeling for her child. I have never been a mother, so I don’t really know. But many of you have been mothers. And you know how much you care for your children. It is a big difference between looking from the window of the mother, who gives love and care to her children versus looking from our window at our mother.

Again, we are taking our mother’s affection for granted. I don’t mean that every mother is wonderful. There are bad mothers too. But I am talking about the mother in general. Looking from our window at our mother we think that what she has done for us is no big deal. We have taken that for granted. We may almost think it was her duty. Sure, it may be her duty, but still she has done all these things. She has protected us and saved our lives a number of times even in a single day.

0:50

Don’t think from the child’s angle. Think from the mother’s angle. If you are a mother, how much do you go out of your way to protect your children! That way, as children we always touch with the mother. We rely on the mother. When you are afraid as a kid, where do you run? To your mother, for protection or safety. She is the closest person you have. What closer person can there be than the mother? You have been inside her, with all physical systems joined together. Your survival has been totally connected to your mother. The mother eats food and you get it. The Dalai Lama says that the child recognizes the mother’s voice first. That’s why she is the closest person. And that’s why Buddha chose to introduce everybody as mother being in order to develop this care and compassion and love. He even gives you some logical reasons here and there, saying that even if a person is not your mother this time, they have been your mother last time. But let’s leave that aside for now. Recognize each and every being as one or your closest, safe, protecting care giver. At least you don’t feel funny.

Once you have established that, then remember the kindness they have given to you. Not only has the mother carried you inside, but also outside she has been continuously caring for you. If the mother had not cared for us we would be dead. Maybe a hospital would have kept us alive, otherwise we would have died. Our mother has taken care of us and fed us. She has protected our life many times every day. As a little one you put your finger in every socket – even if you are already a little bigger. She protected us from all that. When we were a little infant she constantly worried about whether we were cold or hot or hungry, uncomfortable, suffocation – everything. She has taken care of everything, including stopping us from putting our finger into electrical sockets. Then the stopped us from falling down the stairs. Think what you would be doing for your child to protect it? Think from that angle and you will understand better, how much our mother has done for us. Sometimes we don’t like to acknowledge that and like to forget that.

0:55

In short, we not only recognize that one person has done that for us. Each and everyone has done that for us a number of times. It is almost certain that I would not have survived without their help. Whether somebody did that for me today or yesterday or last year, it doesn’t matter. Likewise, there is no difference whether somebody did that for me in this life, the previous life or will do so in future lives. Who are you going to leave out and who are you going to pick up? We cannot discriminate. It has been everybody. How can we recognize some and reject others? There is no valid reason. Each and every one of them has been your kind and caring mother.

So you have to think: now it is my duty to repay some of their kindness. Why should I do that? It is normal. It is human nature when somebody has done something good to me that I should pay back something. If you don’t you are considered bad person. I don’t want to be a bad person. I am not a bad person. I am a good person. I am a kind person and therefore I would like to repay that kindness and if I don’t do it now, when can I do it? Right this moment I have the opportunity. I understand a little bit about what’s good and bad. I understand a little bit about suffering and joy. I know that what they want is joy and happiness. But what they have is misery and suffering. At this moment, if I don’t help, when can I help? At this moment, if I don’t repay their kindness, when can I do it?

Think of your mother in this life, being old and blind and walking into a ditch filled with fire. If I just sit there and watch, will I be a good person? No, I must go out there and help her and make sure she is protected and guided.

1:00

Likewise here, I have to do the same thing for all sentient beings. That’s what I mean by repaying their kindness. The example of the blind mother is true. All of us at this moment are blind. We don’t see the difference between my and my ego. We don’t even see the difference between joy and suffering. Remember the example of the playboy magazine. The pictures tell us. That’s how you have to think and meditate and practice. When you have built up that much positive emotion you will begin to see that you care for these people, each and every one of them. There is something very important I forgot. Every teacher and teaching will tell you, “I am here with all sentient beings”. That looks like these sentient beings are all little dots. They fill up all space. It is true that is how it is taught and even practiced. But not for us. We begin with people who have names and faces. Don’t go to nameless, faceless dots. That is easier of course, because you can dictate to them and tell them, ”You are supposed to do it this way and think that way.” But then you find that people with name and face will say, “No, I won’t.” Then you get a big shock and say, “You are not supposed to say, “No, I don’t.” I must warn you here. Many people who are in a spiritual practice, including Buddhism, after practicing for 15, 20, 30 years become so arrogant. Instead of helping, being nice, kind and compassionate, they become arrogant, because they dictated too much for too long to these nameless, faceless dots.

Sometimes you wonder, “These people have been practicing for so many years, so many hours a day and look at the arrogance they have.” That’s important. So begin with one. That’s okay. It is not attachment. If you begin with your companion, even if there is a little attachment too, it is okay. Then go to two, three, four. That’s how you expand. As I told you right from the beginning: There is no such person called “all sentient beings”. Even the collective of people is not “all sentient beings”. Maybe I am making a wrong statement, but there is no such person called “collection of all people”. Then your care will develop. Then, when your mind is trained and more used to it, it will develop. Love will develop and that will bring compassion. The difference between love and compassion is very simple. It is one mind with two different aspects. The aspect of love wishes them to be happy. The aspect of compassion wishes them to be separate them from pain, free from pain.

1:05

Without love you cannot have compassion. Without wishing them to have happiness and joy, how can you wish to remove their pain? You want to separate them from pain because you wish them to be happy. That’s why compassion follows love. Love brings compassion. That’s very normal even in our daily life. That’s why in the seven step method one brings the other. Why do we have to have the big “mother” business here? That’s the difference between compassion and greater compassion. Compassion can be focused on one person or a couple of people. The object of the greater compassion is all sentient beings, equally. It is enemies and friends equally. That’s why equanimity is important. That’s why recognizing everybody as your closest, nearest and dearest is necessary. Then you remember their kindness and repay their kindness and then come love and compassion.

When that becomes strong you can do anything you want to. You will go out of your way to help. You think, “I don’t even know how to do it, but I am committing myself to free them from pain, to make them happy and bring joy to them.” That is the 7th stage, the particular thought or special commitment. You totally commit yourself. That can only come if you have greater compassion. If you have compassion for one person, it is compassion, but not greater compassion. The object of greater compassion must be all sentient beings, without any exception. That includes insects, snakes, cockroaches, ants, rats. Think in your mind, “How am I going to develop compassion for cockroaches and rattle snakes and cobras?” It is easier with mice. They are cute, but it hard to do it for rats. That’s ultimate love and compassion, unconditional, unlimited. It is not conditioned towards human beings alone, and among them, to me, and my better half and not conditioned towards me and my boy-friend. There is no conditions and no limit. I want to bring total joy, and make them free of all suffering.

1:11

That is not enough. I have committed and I want to do it, but I don’t know what to do. Where do I begin? The answer then comes: if I become a Buddha I will know what to do. If I don’t, I will not know what to do. So therefore the relevance of I becoming a Buddha begins here, not before. Before that our goal is to fee ourselves from suffering. Now the goal is to bring the freedom and joy to all beings. I use myself as an example, but I don’t know what to do. Therefore I see the all knowing, awakened state of the Buddha level. That’s called bodhimind. It is seeking buddhahood for the reason of being totally committed for the benefit of all sentient beings – A-L-L sentient beings.

This verse says that right now I don’t have that, so empower me to be able to develop that. Then light and liquid come from the supreme field of merit, washing away all negativities in general and particularly self interest, selfish thoughts, narrow-mindedness. All are completely washed away. You consciousness and your body are cleansed and you become pure. Then you think, “I have developed that”. Even if you haven’t, for a short period visualize that you have and call yourself a bodhisattva.

Are there any questions? – 1:14

Audience: You talked about having love and compassion for enemies. What if someone attacks you physically and threatens you and others? [question inaudible, reconstructed from Rimpoche’s answer]

Rimpoche: You could give them one of those martial arts kicks, but I think the appropriate thing would be to call the police, rather than taking the law in your own hands. But of course you have to protect yourself. The first thing is try to run away. We are training our minds to be at the very compassionate level, but we are not at that level yet. So you don’t want to be a naïve bodhisattva and get hurt in between. Unless they are trying to kill someone and then you have to protect them as best as you can. I would be the first person to run away, as fast as I can.

Audience: I am getting confused between having compassion for myself and whether that is ego-oriented and helping others at the cost of not being able to look after myself. [question inaudible, reconstructed from Rimpoche’s answer]

Rimpoche: Everybody has a natural instinct to protect oneself and take care of oneself. But when we pretend to have compassion, we really get more confused. At the same time the true compassion for all sentient beings has not yet developed. So we are falling in between the cracks. Nobody knows what to do. That’s why particularly this teaching, from the guru devotional practice up to this level is telling us what to do, how to help ourselves first. Then below that it is about helping others. From here onwards you will say that the way to help me is to help others. Before we do that we have to have very well established how to help ourselves. Guru devotion is introduced first to build inspiration and find something to hang on and to pray and have something to do. Appreciation of life is introduced to build the source of inspiration. Impermanence, including death, is introduced to cut down laziness. Meditation on suffering in the lower realms is introduced to build two things: dislike the situation in samsara and also to seek protection from Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the Three Jewels.

1:23

That’s going to help you to take care of yourself. If you don’t see this the practice becomes irrelevant and will only be on the level of saying prayers or chanting or just believing or offering something. There would be a separation of the mind from the practice. That will not reach very far.

Why do we talk about suffering in the other realms of samsara? Because that shows us that unless we are out of samsara completely there is always the danger of getting caught in it, without guidance and information. It is like when Rabbi Salomon Schechter told me, “that would be karma without dharma”. That was when in Omega Institute we were paddling on the river and then suddenly he lost the oar of his boat and it was drifting away on the river. I pointed it out and he grabbed it and then he said, “If I lose my oar it will be karma without dharma.” These great people have very interesting things to say. It has a lot of meaning.

So this is what we have to do. Otherwise the lam rim will be over there and your daily practice will be over here and chanting is over there somewhere and you are somewhere else again. So that doesn’t do any good. The kadampa teacher say, there should not be a horse galloping between me and my dharma practice. If the dharma is there and I am here, then a horse can run in between or a car can drive in between. That would be the separation of the person and their practice. As long as you have that separation, nothing much will happen. You can still get some kind of benefit, just because you are praying and saying the words. It will be only a fraction of the benefit you are supposed to get, just a little peace. Then the only think you can get is some kind of blind faith. That is a pathetic situation. We have such a great life and such a great mind. We have such potential to understand and such an opportunity. So just having to rely on blind faith is very pathetic – but still better than not having anything to do.

1:29 [remarks on upcoming summer retreat and announcements] – 1:32-42 end