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20010206GRAABWL

CD of 02/06/01

I would like to remind people that when Shantideva started to give this teaching, he was not known to be a great scholar or teacher. He was some strange guy who only knew three things, how to sleep, how to eat and how to discard what was eaten earlier. It was customary at the time that the nuns living in the nunneries would invite monks to teach them. That is why I am saying that Buddhism has a lot of male chauvinist ideas within it. Every second week a monk would come to give them a sutra teaching. The monks would select the monk who would teach them. So one time Shantideva was sent. The nuns thought, ‘The monks not only bully us, now they insult us too by sending somebody who knows nothing except how to eat and to sleep’. They wanted to register their displeasure. So they decided to build up this huge throne, and there was no way that he could get on to it. There were no steps or anything. The nuns were just going to sit there and laugh and giggle when he would try to climb on to that throne. They expected him to fall down. It was a weak throne too. They had collected all their robes and piled them up. So they expected the throne to dismantle anyway, as soon as he sat on it.

Shantideva came close and looked at that huge throne which almost reached the ceiling. It was doubtful that, even if he could climb it, whether he would not hit the ceiling. He thought for a minute, ‘Is this done out of respect or in order to insult me?’ It was pretty clear that it was meant as an insult. However, he reached with his hand and pressed the throne together and the whole thing shrank to a very low level so that he could easily sit on it. Then he started giving this Bodhisattvacharyavatara teaching, ex tempo, straight away. While he was talking, the throne was lifting up and up and finally when he reached the Chapter Nine, the listeners could not see him anymore, they could only hear the sound. He was gone and remained completely gone since then. So that is how the teaching which we are reading here, came into being. We know by now how wonderful it is. Shantideva was no scholar, researcher or someone who worked on this book for a long time and then presented it. It came simply and straight forwardly from his heart. He is just telling us what to do and how to function.

When you look at certain particular verses, not everything is mentioned in each of them. We have to read through the text verse by verse, but when you try to understand, you have to understand the totality, because one verse cannot convey every message that needs to be conveyed.

Verse 47

Having been instigated by my own actions,

Those who cause me harm come into being,

If by these (actions) they should fall into hell

Surely isn’t it I who am destroying them?

This is saying, ‘If I did not create any negative karma, those people would not hurt me. If they did not hurt me, they would not go to a hell realm or experience any other miserable experience. Therefore I have done harm to them rather than they to me.’ This is an amazing way of thinking, really. Usually, if we get hurt by somebody, we will think exactly the opposite. We will think, ‘He did this to me and that to me. He hurt me, therefore he is going to be reborn in a torture chamber and I am happy about that.’ But here the Bodhisattvas are taught to think the other way around, ‘I created all this bad karma. Now I have to experience the result. He or she simply happens to be the instrument to give me this suffering. By doing that, he or she have created more negative karma for themselves. So indirectly, I have hurt them more than they have hurt me.’ They can beat me up or kill me. Through that I may lose one life, but that is about it. But the harm they get through me, is the creation of anger for themselves, just because I created my negative karma in the first place.

In other words, the person mugging you and beating you is not at fault, because you have created that karma yourself and you have to pay it off. Therefore you did harm to those others rather than they harmed you. That is very different from our American culture. Here, if people did something wrong they have to be punished. That is the culture we are in, whether you like it or not. If you think that people who are doing wrong should be stopped, I don’t have any problem with that. You have to stop them. But you have to do it in a kind, compassion-oriented way. We should try to turn these people round, give them an understanding, educate them, make them into useful members of society rather than punishing them. You can see the difference from that to the virtuous culture of the Bodhisattvas, where, even if you get beaten up, you think, ‘It is not their fault, it is my own fault. I have created bad karma some time earlier, so my karma not only gets me beaten up but harms the person who is beating me too.’ The person harming me, has been caught in between a rock and a hard place from that point of view.

If that is the reason we should definitely be able to meditate on patience in relation to these persons.

We are in the chapter on patience. This morning the thought came to my head that there could be a slight difference in the way I understand patience and the way patience is normally understood. Usually patience can mean that you are able to wait at a bus stand for two hours without losing your temper, that you don’t mind much if people make a mistake, that you don’t mind if people insult you. But here we are talking about a different kind of patience. It is not the patience of endurance. Here it means, no matter whatever the conditions, one is able to restrain from developing hatred or anger. Sure, it is good to be able to wait without losing your temper, it may be a little difficult, but it is nothing that great. What a big deal! Maybe you are waiting for six hours to settle a score with somebody or you are waiting for six hours for some settlement of your attachment or something. I don’t think that is anything great at all. Patience really means to be able to protect ourselves from anger, no matter what the conditions. When the conditions are right, the result will pop up. In a way that is the nature. On the other hand, if all the conditions come together, our mind will also be influenced by anger. It happens very easily. To be able to restrain from that is what we are looking for.

Last time I mentioned to you the story of that Tibetan monk, the chanting master of the Dalai Lama’s monastery who had come out of a Chinese prison after many years. He had told His Holiness, ‘There was a danger.’ His Holiness thought he was talking about a danger to his life. But he clarified that and said, ‘No, there was a danger that I would submit to hatred.’ To me that is a very powerful message. That story reminded me that I had to clarify the meaning of patience. There are people who are waiting for the sake of attachment for months and years and even for the whole life. There is nothing very great about it. It is interesting, but nothing much of a virtuous activity at all. There are people who can do very hard work, constantly, continuously, without any complaint. That is a very good quality, but there is nothing virtuous in that. Buddha is talking about patience as the antidote to anger. It is the patience that protects the individual from the influence of anger or hatred.

Buddha said,

There is no negativity like hatred,

There is no such a difficult virtue as patience.

Patience is very difficult, particularly when the conditions are fully developed, when you are not happy, when you are upset, when everything goes wrong, when on top of that somebody gives you a hard time, accusing you of something that you haven’t done, or ignoring all your good deeds and services. Then you are going to say, ‘Me, Me, Me’, and you are going to get red in the face like a scorpion who bites and stings and gives poison. We can go to that level.

I always tell you the example of the porcupine. Even if the conditions are not extreme, we walk around in society, among the people, in the style of a porcupine, ready to shoot anything. There are people who yell and scream a lot, but I think they are better than people who say, ‘I have been ignored’ and cry and so on. Even worse than that is the passive-aggressive attitude. That is the worst thing to me. You are not honest. You are perhaps diplomatic. You want to have a good picture of yourself and impress the other person. So you hide your emotions, but then you become passive-aggessive.

Another extreme is people saying, ‘Look, it is not your fault, it is only my fault.’ Deep inside you don’t mean it though. You probably think it is somebody else’s fault. You just want to project that sort of image. Then eventually you really believe it is your fault and you will be angry with yourself for years to come. That will bring a tremendous amount of depression. All of that is caused by a simple hatred in the first place, which is then constantly and continuously fed and built up by your own delusions and then it becomes depression. Not only that. You become half cuckoo. You behave like crazy, particulary if you are an intelligent person, if you have that thin layer of a border line personality. You can then turn to the other side of your personality easily because of self hatred. We can clearly see what consequences anger has, fed by our prid, it then becomes deep hatred of yourself, because you cannot fight with everybody else all the time, so who else can you turn against but yourself? You can fight with one person one time, but the next time they won’t even talk to you. No one will be around. Ultimately, only one target is left: yourself. My hatred for myself is the cause of my depression. If it is recognized early enough, if you start de-winding yourself early enough, it will not cause any damage. If you can’t do it, thinking, ‘Why do I have to be the loser all the time?’ and endlessly going on in that direction, it just gets worse. When it is happening to somebody else, when you are looking on, it is very easy to see. When it is happening to oneself it is very difficult to see. When you see somebody else in that condition, stop criticizing and laughing at them and remember, ‘I do the same thing. I just don’t see it with myself. I only see it with others.’

There is a saying in Tibetan

Always take yourself as example. Don’t criticize others.

So don’t insult others, have understanding. The person is going through a terrible time. They are not only caught in between a rock and a hard place, but they are almost smashed in between. So be careful and realize that you also do the same thing. You don’t know what you do to yourself, but you can see what others are doing to themselves and that can make you realize, ‘Oh, that is what I also do a lot.’

Another thing. Some people get that point and they say, ‘I know, I have been there.’ That is fine, but do not take the position of adviser. That is not good. If you think that you have been there, stop for a minute and reflect if you are still doing the same thing.

You will find no difference between Mr. A and Mr B, Mrs C and Miss D in the way of their functioning. Recognizing that will be very helpful. Don’t immediately become the adviser. That is not necessarily helpful.

I have a little experience dealing with a couple of friends. You don’t dispense advice, but you keep on listening to them. How much help you can give just by listening to them! But if you try to give advice you will probably give the wrong advice. The best thing is to keep your mouth shut, don’t disagree and listen. That itself will help tremendously. And if you have a true, little suggestion, you may give that in a few, short words, rather than being a speaker. One thing, you can definitely not tell such a person straight out, ‘It is not the other person’s fault, it is your own, it is your negative karma, so you have to suffer the consequences. You are hurt, but the one who is hurting you is going to go to hell because of that.’ I don’t think it is going to be helpful at all! What we are talking about today should become your deeper understanding. Keep that in your deeper mind and then present something which is suitable to the person at the time. That is what skilful ways really are. The skillful way is not running around naked downtown. That would not be crazy wisdom, but simply somebody gone cuckoo. Skillful means is having a good understanding and being able to present that in such a way that it is suitable for the mind of a person who can take it.

There are times where someone is really too high and then the best thing is not to say anything for a couple of hours, but let the person settle down a little bit. That happens very often.

Verse 48

In dependence upon them I purify many evils,

By patiently accepting the harms that they cause.

But in dependence upon me they will fall

Into hellish pain for a very long time.

Because of the people harming me I have the opportunity to purify. The meaning of ‘antidote’ is not only stopping current negative actions, but also the purifying of earlier actions that have been influenced by negative emotions, such as anger. You can purify all actions, those that you understand and those that you don’t understand, those that you remember and those that you don’t remember, since the limitless beginning.

In Buddhism you hear a lot about limitless beginning. When I first came to India I learnt many things. I came out of Tibet with the great pride of being a Mahayana Buddhist on the Bodhisattva path. Not only that, but even on the Vajrayana path. Two, three years later, we had a Buddhist conference with Indian Buddhist scholars. There were also some Hindu scholars, in particular the Hindu master Upadeya from the Sanskrit university in Varanasi, a wonderful person. He gave a lecture in which he said,

It is wonderful to see the Himalaya, which is so high. It is beautiful. Up there you have snow. That will release water, it becomes rivers which flow down into the plains and finally merges into the Ganges river. Then it goes to the ocean. But how do you know to what height the Himalayas reach? You need to have the ground zero level. Without that you have no way of knowing. Therefore the ground zero level is very important. In other words, the Mahayana is very great and very high. But without the Hinayana you would not know how high the Mahayana is.

That is a great thought. I had to put my finger in my mouth. I knew it, but it never clicked until this Indian professor said it. At the same time there was another Indian professor called Maheswar Tiwari who gave a lecture. He said, ‘Buddha was asked when everything began and when it will end. But Buddha kept silent.’ This is actually true. Maheswar Tiwari actually made it very dramatic. He spread out his arms and whispered ‘silent’ a couple of times and then just stood there for a while and said nothing. But it is true. People did ask Buddha where they came from and where they would end up. Buddha did not give an answer to that. The reason is that it is too far away for us to be able to comprehend. Buddha can, but for us it is too far. We are continuing travelers with no idea where we are going and where we have come from. That is our situation.

A few years His Holiness the Dalai Lama came to Chicago to give a lecture. I was sitting next to Geshe Söpa-la, who is a professor at Wisconsin, Deer Park. Geshe-la was giving me a lecture, saying that I should exercise because I was so fat. I said, ‘Yes, the treadmill is apparently quite good and some other machines that I have seen.’ He said, ‘No, no, no. You should have one of these indoor cycles. I use that. It is really good. You can use it inside any time in your room, watch out of your window and see the snow falling and keep on cycling. You can say your prayers and keep on cycling.’ I told him, ‘But Geshe-la, I don’t want to cycle on the spot all the time and never get anywhere! We are already doing that in samsara. I don’t want to do it again!’

We are in that condition. We can never point out the time where we started. We talk about the primordial mind, however, the starting point can never be pinpointed. We have been travelling for a very long time and will continue to travel, for sure. Not necessarily as a human being. We change our identity. Sometimes we have an identity with two horns and four legs. Sometimes we have two legs and can think. Sometimes we land in the hell realms and sometimes we go to the god realms. There is no certainty where we are going next. That is called ‘samsara’. Why do we do all this? Because of our addictions, our addictions to anger, to attachment, etc. These are the real causes of continuing to travel without ever reaching anywhere.

Anger is the most powerful and one of the most harmful addictions we have. What stops anger is patience. Patience can hold you back. Even if the conditions for anger to arise are right, the result may not pop up. That is the whole point of meditating patience for that terrible person who tries to hurt you all the time.

According to this verse, by meditating patience in relation to these people, you are not raising your temper and developing hatred, but restraining it. Restraining is a term that is probably not welcomed by a lot of people. Lets say you are protecting yourself, not letting yourself fall under the control of hatred. By doing that, you are protected and you also purify your negativities. That is why the verse says I purify many evils. Resisting to fall under the influence of these addictions is purification, whether you apply the four powers or not.

We may have the idea that in order to do purification we have to go to the chapel and sit in the confession box. However, James Bond 007 could be sitting on the other side dressed up as a priest as in Never Say Never and you release all your hidden information! That is not necessary. You don’t have to tell anybody else but yourself. That other person could blackmail you. It could be a priest or somebody from a church, synagoge or whatever other organization. The simple good work of holding back from your addiction itself is not only protecting yourself, but is also purifying. That is why this verse says that practicing patience helps with purifying many accumulated negativities. My own negativities have made other people do horrible things against me. I therefore indirectly created tremendous amounts of suffering for them. They will suffer for a long time. This karmic system is so powerful. A tiny little contribution can go a very long way, both the good and the bad. It is equal, there is no difference. It is not that the good thing goes for long, and the bad for short. The same rules apply, it is the same mechanism. Good is not stronger than evil, evil is not stronger than good. It has equal power and equal conditions. So through me tremendous harm has been created for them. They should therefore become the objects of my compassion rather than objects of my anger. I have done more harm to them by letting them hurt me. I can’t stop them. It is my karma that has allowed them to do that. They are the instruments of my karma working itself out. Therefore they are fit to be objects of compassion, rather than objects of anger.

These are the ideas which Bodhisattva Shantideva throws at us when we are overpowered by anger. At appropriate times we can think that way and protect ourselves from our own anger. But one thing I like to make very clear. We can’t do that when we are very angry. We have to do that when we are not angry, when we are free of the influence of the addiction. At such times we can think and analyze and our mind can be influenced positively, so that when the conditions are right we may be able not to lose ourselves. We may be able to hold back two seconds longer than before. We may be able to hold back one more minute or half an hour more; then anh hour and so forth, until finally you will be able to hold back completely.

That does not mean that you become a silly person. You have to understand that clearly. Sometimes a compassionate person may look silly. That is not the fault of the compassionate person but of the person who thinks that such a person is silly. On the other hand you cannot act this. You have to really function properly. If there is a danger of people perceiving you as silly, they may beat you up and eat you up and shit you out. It makes a difference how they read you. In one way you could see you as stupid, in another way you could see you as somebody to have great respect for.

You may think, ‘If I don’t submit to my addictions, how can that purify my negativities? But Buddha says,

A child who cannot really understand things properly, won’t understand this. But protecting yourself and not submitting yourself to negative actions is one of the best ways to purify.

There is a lot of misunderstanding in western Tibetan Buddhist circles. Many think that in order to purify you have to do Vajrasattva recitations. Yes, that does help. But that is not the only way to purify. As Shantideva himself says in this very text in Chapter 1, meditating on Bodhimind also purifies. He says, ‘Besides bodhimind, which positive mind can overcome such negativities?’. Bodhimind means love and compassion and that purifies. Vajrasattva recitation is recommended but that is not the only thing. Meditation of bodhimind is equally recommended. Meditation on wisdom is equally recommended. As a matter of fact, meditation on wisdom is more powerful than any other antidote action.

Verse 49

So since I am causing harm to them

And they are benefitting me,

Why, unruly mind, do you become angry

In such a mistaken manner?

I don’t necessarily have a bad motivation when I hear that those beings who acted against me will suffer and perhaps fall into the lower realms. But I also understand that if I have compassion towards them it helps me more. It becomes my quality and helps me not to fall into lower realms myself and helps me to purify my negativities.

This first half of the verse tells us what difference motivation makes. If we have good motivation, then whatever we do, will be good, even if a particular action is by nature just neutral. But it can become good because of the motivation. This is very important for us. We don’t have much time. Earlier people had nothing else to do. They would sit behind the mountains and under trees, for days and months together, even for years, and meditate. They had all the time in the world.

Today we don’t have the time. We want to achieve the same things as them, but we all have to work, we have a life with obligations, we have to pay our bills. So we have time limitations. Particularly now, in this 21st century, there is much more pressure. People have to work much more to get the same value for money. We may be getting a little more in terms of numbers, but in terms of value we are getting much less than we used to. In order to reach to the same level we have to work so much more. Think about it: how much could you buy for ten dollars ten years ago and how much can you buy today? That puts much more pressure on us than before. We have to spend time working. We work more and get less. That is where we are. We are supposed to have a wonderful economy. And we did, thanks to President Clinton. Now the suffering is coming. That is a political joke. Anyway, we have to work much more. So we lose time. That’s why we have to get our priorities right. What are you going to drop first? The first thing even in terms of spiritual practice is to avoid that anyone is chasing you. You don’t need bill collectors chasing you, dead lines to pay up and so forth. If it comes to that it is too late. So we have to pay the bills. The normally lesser things now have the highest spiritual priority. So we have to work out something to make it up.

I am not going to ask you to work harder. But I am going to ask you to work smarter and get more. How can you work less and make more? You would rather be a CEO than a bill collector. The way to work less and make more in spiritual terms is the motivation. That is the key. The best is to be motivated on the basis of love and compassion – a very generous and liberal love and compassion, not a conservative compassion . Don’t be conservative on compassion. Be generous. Be very liberal. Whatever you do in your daily chores, do it for the benefit of yourself and others. If you have to do your dirty laundry, do it with the mind that you are washing the negativities of all sentient beings. You have to do your dirty laundry washing anyway. Otherwise it will smell. Do it with a purpose, make it worthwhile. If you have to construct a building, do it for the benefit of all beings. Think, ‘I am going to build my mandala for the benefit of all beings.’ Even though you are building somebody else’s house and you are getting paid, but the labor you are putting in then becomes worthwhile. The motivation is the real key to work smart in the spiritual path. This is what even this verse is telling you.

The other half of verse 79 is telling us, ‘You unruly mind, why are you getting angry in such a mistaken manner?’ So we have two things here. Because of all the reasons we have discussed this situation is not fit to get angry with anybody and is also tells you what a difference the motivation makes. Generally, a good heart or warm heart, as the Dalai Lama calls it, is a compassionate mind. If you have compassion, it will not only help the other person and help you not to do the wrong thing, but it will also help you to prosper. Prosperity comes out of your compassion. If you want to cheat and make an extra penny out of that, you are not going to get anywhere. In India they try that all the time. Every Indian coolie will try to cheat you and get one extra rupee out of you. But they don’t get anywhere, they remain poor all the time. But if you are honest and straight forward, even your business will grow. If you are nice, the customers will come back to you. You care for the people and you do the work right, therefore they will come back to you for your work, for your service. That is true on the simple level. On the bigger level, a kind heart brings benefit not only for future lives but also for this life in terms of prosperity and success. All of that is due to a good heart, kindness, compassion. Are you with me? We are talking about your everyday job. If you do something good, people will like that. They want to come back to you and they will help you. But if you try to cheat wherever you can, for a nickel, then who is going to come back to you? It is very clear even on the ordinary level. Big, small, everything, compassion and kindness makes you better. If you want something badly, you are never going to get it. If you let it go and cultivate a helpful mind, then you will be all right. The nature of reality is like that.

Verse 50

If my mind has the noble quality (of patience)

I shall not go to hell,

But although I am protecting myself (in this way)

How will it be so for them?

Verse 51

Nevertheless, should I return the harm

It will not protect them either.

By doing so my conduct will deteriorate

And hence this fortitude will be destroyed.

One important thing which Buddha emphasized for the Bodhisattvas is the four special ways. If somebody hits you, don’t hit back. If somebody insults you, don’t entertain the insult. If somebody is angry with you, don’t return the anger with anger. If someone is provoking you, don’t entertain them.

Our usual habit is to hit back when we are hit. If someone booes you, you immediately use the F-word. If somebody insults you, the tendency is to insult them back. If somebody provokes you, you will react even worse. These are the four qualities of spiritual practitioners. One should not indulge in these four activities. That will be very helpful for the inviduals. Are there any questions?

Aud: If someone was wishful to do harm to me and if I did not respond in a way to receiving that harm but rather recognizing the compassionate object before me, am I creating a condition of incomplete karma for that person who is generating the full wish to harm me? So is that helping that person not to generate a complete negative karma?

R: Maybe. I have never thought about it, but it is probably right. That would be in line with this verse. If you respond with compassion rather than anger, I am quite sure it helps them not to accumulate a negative karma.

Aud: There is a kind of patience that is coupled with enthusiasm, like when it says ‘I will stay in the hell realm for eons, if it helps one person’. How does that relate to the patience you were describing, like holding back anger?

R: That is talking about very high level Bodhisattvas. This example comes from the Lama Chöpa at the endurance level. It is indeed a mixture of patience and endurance. Even if a Bodhisattva stays in the hell realm for the sake of someone for one eon and can endure that, it will continuously create positive karma and continuously purify negative karma of that Bodhisattva. But hereI am trying to address the subject of patience at the level of where we are, and we are something like young adults. Maybe we are even infants on the spiritual path. We are not grown up and experienced.

Aud: How do you not get mad at the negative actions that are your own karma? They seem like a punishment. The whole of karma is like a punishment that keeps happening. It makes me feel negative about everything.

R: I don’t blame you. But who said it is punishment? It is our own mind that projects and reads it like punishment. No one punishes anybody. I am deadly against punishment, really. I don’t like people put in jail for the purpose of punishing them. I would like to see that locking up as an opportunity to make useful members of society out of them. Basically, if our mind projects our experience as punishment, then it becomes that way. So it is important not project it that way. Sometimes it looks like I am punishing myself, because I am constantly creating negative actions and it does not end. But it is not punishment.

Aud: You said not to retaliate. But on the other hand you also said previously that you don’t have to feel guilty if you defend your life and have to harm someone by doing that.

R: There is no contradiction. Defending one’s life and not hurting another person are two different things. When you defend your life, you are not saying, ‘I have to defend my life, so here you go’, and kill that person. I am defending myself to the extent that the other person is unable to harm me. All the martial arts people will teach that, if they are good ones. So even in ordinary society that is well known. Protecting myself and hurting other people are two different things. I don’t think they are contradictory, if you look carefully. But if you are weak enough and that other person is about to kill you and you get a chance to kill them, if you have to do that, it is very unfortunate, but it is very different than deciding to kill someone who is not threatening you. There is a big difference. I have no idea how the law will treat that. I guess it depends how good a lawyer you have. But in the karmic law there is a difference.

Aud: In Chapter 5 there was a verse that talked about how difficult it is to resist a bad action. You said today that the strength of good and bad karma is equal. But you also said that it is ten times harder to do a good action than it is to do a bad one.

R: That they are harder to do does not necessarily mean that their power is different.

Aud: Then on what basis are you saying that their strength is equal?

R: It is the way they function. That is equal. It is very hard for us to develop the positive karma, as opposed to negative karma. But that does not say anything about the power of negative and positive actions. It is me, the person functioning who has a different capacity.

Thank you so much.