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20010925GRAABWL

CD of 09-25-01

For the last three Tuesdays we have been talking about the unfortunate incident in New York and Washington. We have said that it is related to hatred. The verses we talked about happened to be exactly about this issue. We talked about it and hopefully it is of help to some people. In any case it is an extremely vivid example of how hatred hurts people. I have repeatedly said that hatred hurts people. It hurts you and me and everybody. That is the example: the past, present and future tense of the hatred.

We also talked about how we can use that hatred, how we can change it into compassion. I hope it will have done some service to the people. To continue now lets do the next verse.

Verse 92

If for the sake of fame

I give away my wealth or get myself killed,

What can the mayverse of fame to them

Once I have died, to whom will they give pleasure?

Here, we are still dealing with anger. This complete chapter 6 is dealing with anger. The opposite of anger is patience. How can I meditate on patience for the people who obstruct me, my friends and teachers, my masters, my nearest and dearest? They are obstructing me from becoming famous. They are standing in my way to have a good name. So how can I tolerate that and have patience for them?

Somebody could come and praise you, ‘Hey, you are so generous and so nice, you are just like the god of wealth. You are giving everything.’ If you like such a little praise, you may be giving a lot of things to that person, not because you really want to be generous and helpful, but because you like it when that person tells you how generous you are. So you give more. That is the habit we have. If somebody praises us and tells us how generous we are we are inclined to encourage them to take more.

It is interesting to read the commentary. It is a thousand year-old text. It says,

You give away your horse, you give away your elephant, you give away your jewels, etc, for the sake of just developing a good name, hearing people say, ‘He is very generous.’

Another version of wanting to be praised is being ready to get killed for it. You want to hear people say, ‘Oh, he is brave, he is a wonderful person, a hero, a martyr, not afraid of anything.’ Then you have to try to prove that you are a hero, jump in front and get yourself killed. All that just for that attachment to a mere word! Just for somebody saying, ‘He is generous, he is a hero’!

The commentary says,

When you have got yourself killed, what you are doing then with those few dry words,

‘He is a hero?’

You are dead, it is not going to affect you, you are gone. Somebody else may receive your purple heart, but you are not going to get it. You are not even getting some wonderful food or drink that you can enjoy, a beautiful dress that you can wear. What have you got? Nothing, you are dead. What are you going to do with your fame then? That is not going give you any joy, neither to your body nor your mind.

In other words, this praising is not so important. However, we work for it, we build up for it. At the same time, even if you lose your good name, that is also no big deal. So don’t make yourself suffer for it, torture yourself for something that is not that useful, not that helpful. Why would make yourself and others suffer, just because they stand in the way of you becoming famous or having a good name?

This is also talking about jealousy. You can become jealous of your competitor. You don’t get what you are after, and our competitor gets it. So you get jealous. But it is useless. It is not worth it. It is not worthy of the attention of a human being. That is what this particular verse it telling us. Furthermore, the next verse is giving you an example:

Verse 93

When their sand castle collapses,

Children howl in despair.

Likewise, when my praise and reputation declines,

My mind becomes like a little child.

This is an interesting example, right? It is a goal for many of us. We want to be famous. We like to be known. When we achieve that, we are happy. If anything happens that stops us from getting there, we get angry and upset. The Buddha is saying that this is wrong. In our life we consider that important. But Buddha says it is not. He says crying about that is like when children make sandcastles. These castles are not real. No one can live in there, they cannot be used as castles. But for the mind of the children, these castles are real castles. They will say, ‘I am building my castle.’ They will look at it and be happy. The kids will have attachment to their castles. They are playing with that. If anyone comes and tries to destroy that castle, puts their foot on it and smashes it or pours a bucket of water over it, that child will be very upset and say, ‘He has destroyed my castle.’ The child will cry helplessly. It will run to father or mother and ask them, ‘Help me to get that person who has destroyed my castle.’ If we are the parents, we will support the child, but we know very well that this was not a real caste. Just in the mind of that child it was a castle. We sympathize with the child. We say, ‘This is a child, it is not mature enough to understand that this is not really a castle.’ This is the understanding of ourselves as grown-ups.

It is the same thing when the enlightened beings, the ones who are spiritually mature or fully grown up, look at us. They see us going, ‘Oh, he is stopping me from getting famous, he is a terrible person, I have to destroy him.’ The enlightened beings are looking at that and think, ‘Oh that little child is crying for that!’ All that has actually been lost is some small opportunity to make yourself known better. It is an opportunity to hear somebody say, ‘He or she is a wonderful person.’ However, what we have really lost is just some mere dry words. We have not lost our health, clothes, food, faith or anything, except experiencing some little mental pain and suffering. And that little mental pain has only come because we have behaved like that little child with the sand castle. If I understand that there is just one little thing gone, then that is no big deal. What’s gone is gone. It does not really affect me. But if I focus on that pain and give myself additional pain then my mind is behaving just like a little child who lost the sand castle.

When you think very carefully, when you analyze that, there is nothing we have to cry for. Worrying about that, carrying mental pain for ourselves is additional man-made suffering. Remember, during the Lam Rim I said that we carry a lot of man-made additional sufferings around with us. This is an example for it. There is no reason why we have to worry and cry. We are simply crying because we lost the chance to become famous. What a big deal! It is just like children crying about their sand castle. They did lost something, but it was not really a castle. It is the same thing with us. Worrying is just additional pain. Buddha is telling us not to do it, not to carry that pain. Generating anger, hatred and jealousy towards a person who is standing against your wish is just like some children playing with the sand castle and some others throwing water on it. There is nothing really to worry about. That is what this verse is telling us. Here we are talking about fame and a good name. We don’t want a bad name, but we should not have to want to be famous. It is good enough to be a reasonable human being. I mean if you happen to become famous, that is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. So don’t misunderstand. Don’t say, ‘Buddhism tells you not to become famous.’ That is not true. If you do become famous, there is nothing wrong with that. But if anybody stands against you becoming famous, don’t get upset, don’t get angry, don’t develop hatred. Don’t get jealous. If you do, you are just like a little kid who is crying because it lost its castle.

If you observe carefully, it is quite easy for us to give up good food. These days it is even a fashion. People want a protein diet, which makes them lose weight. In a way it has its value for good health. I don’t mean to make sarcastic remarks, indicating that you should not have that sort of food. But this text is written over a thousand years ago. During that time people were not looking to be skinny. They are looking to be majestic, fat and healthy, prosperous. It was a symbol of prosperity to put on some weight. So even in that period, if you had to reduce your food and clothes a little bit it was quite easy for people. However, losing your fame is so difficult. Even at that time people wanted to be famous and good. At least you had to have a good name. This is the culture of the time. Today, I don’t know. If you become famous, good, if not, I don’t think we are looking for that so much, except the people who are in that line, some of them may have that too. You cannot rule that out. For those people, to give up their name is extremely difficult.

During the lam rim teaching it is also said that if you tell a spiritual practitioner not to eat that much, they will be able to reduce that easily. If you tell them not to wear new clothes all the time, they can wear old clothes too. It is okay for them, but if you ask them to give up their hope to become somebody, they won’t. Even those meditators who are meditating in the caves in the mountains where there is nobody around, still have that hope. When they see the domesticated animals grazing closer to the mountains, even these meditators sometimes think, ‘I hope there is some human being looking after those animals and I hope they will know that I am here, meditating. I hope that they will go back to their village and tell the people that there is some great person meditating up there.’ That kind of thing always comes into our head and that is what is emphasized in these verses. It is somehow deeply ingrained in our mind. It pops out of nowhere. Even a person who is sitting all year up in the mountains in the cave will sometimes get the thought, ‘I hope somebody knows that I am sitting up here and they will tell the villagers that there is a great man meditating.’

Remember, there was a story of an early great teacher, the Kadampa lama Ben Kungyel. At first he was a farmer. He had something like 30acres. He was also a thief and robber. He himself said,

Earlier, I was cultivating 30 acres of land and did not have enough to cover my needs. So

during the night, I was a thief, running through the villages, breaking into people’s

homes

and stealing. Still I did not have enough. During the day time I went to strategic places

and robbed the travelers on the road, but still I did not have enough. Now that I have

given up everything and sit here meditating 24 hours a day, the food cannot find my

mouth, so much of it is coming my way.

Ben Kungyel had an important benefactor. One day that benefactor was due to visit him. Ben Kungyel tried to impress the benefactor. He cleaned up his meditation room, put up new offerings and made it look very beautiful. Then he sat down and started meditating. He was by that time a trained meditator. That is why the first thought he had was ‘Watch your own mind.’ So he did that, watching his thoughts and that showed him that he did all this work of cleaning and making offerings merely to impress his benefactor. He did not really do it to purify or make offerings to the enlightened beings. He realized that his thoughts were wrong. He wanted this guy to come and then tell others, ‘I went to Ben’s cave and it was wonderful and very impressive.’ He realized that, got up straight away, picked a handful of dust and threw it all over the offerings, even on the altar and all over himself. He made it look horribly dusty. Then he sat down again and meditated. At the same time, another highly developed spiritual practitioner, hundreds of miles away, started laughing. The people around him asked why he was laughing and he said,

Ben Kungyel made such a wonderful offering today. He did not just throw dust on the offerings, but threw it into the mouth of that attitude that is just after a good name and wants to be famous.

We call this ‘worldly dharma.’ It is not pure dharma. It doesn’t do any good to you. Even your good work gets spoiled. So what Geshe Ben Kungyel did was to throw dust into the mouth of the worldly dharmas. Through that he actually did become famous. That was in the eleven hundreds and today, in 2001 we are still repeating the same story here in the United States. That incident took place in some cave in the Himalayas, somewhere in Tibet a thousand years ago. How wonderful this has become!

That is the reason why this verse of Shantideva’s also is giving us the opportunity to analyze whether that desire we have is good or not good. We create a lot of our suffering on that ground. The word ‘famous’ may not be appropriate at all times, but it is simply the desire or wish for something we want. We create a lot of enemies because some people don’t want to do what we want. They may also have the same thing from their side. So we give each other the cold shoulder and that creates the suffering for me, you and everybody. How can we stop that? We have to develop patience. This situation is also part of anger. It is another category of anger. It is the cause of hatred. Some people don’t do what you like and go against you, and they may do that once, twice, three times. It may not necessarily just be directed against you. They may just be doing their own work. They are trying to achieve their wishes and that clashes with your interest. That is how you create enemies. The people out there with whom we have nothing to do from the beginning, don’t become our enemies. Our enemies are first our friends. We may have nice dealings with them. They could be our partners in a company, they could be partners in marriage. Before too long you start arguing and fighting and that is how you develop hatred and they become your enemies. You develop hatred because of anger. You have the anger, because something is coming against you. You think, ‘They are reducing your privileges. They are undermining your wishes.’ That is why it is emphasized so much.

Verse 94

Since short-lived sounds are inanimate,

They cannot possibly think of praising me;

But as it makes the bestower of praise happy,

My reputation is the source of pleasure for me.

Looking at this in English, at least for me, it does not seem that smooth. I am sure, for you people it is perfectly okay. But I like to work on that from the Tibetan. When you just focus on the sound of someone praising, you find that just the sound itself does not have any mind at all. The sound ‘great’ does not have a mind at all. The sound cannot praise you, because it does not have mind. The sound does not discriminate between this person or that person.

Then the argument goes, ‘No, we are not talking about the sound, but about the person producing the sound.’ But when you check this carefully, you find that there is not really a cause to make yourself happy. Between the sound of the praise and me there is no connection at all. So don’t pay so much attention to this. What can happens is that even if somebody is praising you, on the other hand you challenger, your opponent, is made unhappy through that. It is just like you are becoming unhappy when they are getting their way. The enemy has the same problem. Somebody is praising you, not him. In other words, it is not the fault of the individual. So don’t generate anger and hatred towards an individual, because that individual is just simply doing his or her job. It is neither so much against you, nor so much for you. You need to have the understanding of that. That is what this particular verse is talking about.

Verse 95

But whether this praise it directed at myself or someone else,

How shall I be benefited by the joy of he who bestows it?

Since that joy and happiness is his alone

I shall not obtain even a part of it.

Lets say somebody is praising your enemy. I don’t think it is worth for the enemy to be happy. If somebody is praising me, there is nothing for me to be happy about. The person doing the praising may say, ‘I have been able to praise both you and your enemy, so I am happy.’ All right, let him be happy, but there is no reason why you should be unhappy about it. Also, if he is happy, you cannot share his happiness. Happiness is not that kind of object that you can divide and cut up into two halves.

I should give you an opportunity to ask questions. It is not that I have answers for everything, but lets see if we can understand something better. We should definitely give those who are listening on the internet an opportunity to participate. Many of them called me and talked to me later. I am sure they can send and e-mail and that way be involved in the discussion.

Audience1: If one of the worldly dharmas is praise, that means we should not praise others. But then, how does one make other beings happy?

Rinpoche: No, we did not say that one should not praise others. I said that if anyone is standing in the way of you being praised by some person you should not be angry with that. You should not generate anger or hatred, but you should develop patience towards the acts of that individual.

Audience 2: You talked about that meditator who was wishing to be praised. When we notice that in ourselves, how should we react?

Rinpoche: That is what we have been talking about. When such thoughts come up, don’t entertain them. Don’t go towards that. Don’t let them overtake you. These thoughts are going to waste you. It is a waste. You have done something wonderful, accumulated positive karma in order to benefit all beings and suddenly this thought comes up and every effort you have made so far is wasted. You are not physically wasted, but spiritually. That is why the spiritual path is very difficult. It is particularly harmful to give in to such thoughts. It is the mind that really makes the difference. It so easily swings to the right or left. The mind does not stand very carefully. Any little thing can give it a big shock and a big swing. That is our mind. Our body may be a little more stable, especially if you have a heavy body like I do. It may not swing that easily, but the mind, if you are not careful, it will be like a flag in the wind. Take the American flag. In a storm it will turn from right to left and flap around. The mind is like that. Therefore, if you entertain that type of mind it will be harmful to you. It is going to waste your positive efforts. It is going to waste you spiritually.

Audience 3: Can you go a little more into detail about the difference of having some self respect of having done, lets’ say a good meditation sitting and on the other hand wanting to be recognized for having that.

Rinpoche: You are talking about two different mental faculties here. One is pride. You are proud of having a great practice. I am proud of having a great, orange shirt and look good in it. What we have been talking about here is more the anger that arises from somebody standing in the way of me being recognized or praised. The emphasis is on the anger. We are dealing with the mental faculty of anger and hatred. What you have been talking about is the mental faculty of pride. That is also not good, but it may not be as bad as anger. Pride can create trouble too, but here we are dealing with anger.

Audience4: When somebody close to you comes at you with full anger, for most people the immediate reaction is that their own anger pops up – like toast. Are there any specific remedies in a situation like that when somebody’s anger can cause anger coming up in yourself?

Rinpoche: It is absolutely true. Whether you meditate or not, what is really required here is understanding. You have to understand why the other person is so angry, again and again. Maybe there is a valid reason why he is getting angry. Maybe he is no valid reason for whatsoever. He is just simply mad at you. If he or she has a valid reason, then it is for us to change. That person is uncomfortable with my ways. That person loses his or her temper because of my way of behaving. If I could change that, it would be great to him or her and great for me. If the reason for the anger is invalid, if it does not make any sense, then what do you do? Just don’t even entertain that anger. Don’t play with it. Recognize and let it go. If that other person can’t let it go and brings it up again and again, try to avoid that area of concern. At least, never counter react. If you counterreact anger, there will be more anger. Hatred brings hatred, violence brings violence. At the end it will become violent. There is no point in that for whatsoever. In your own mind you have to decide if the other person’s anger is valid or not.

Make sure that your reaction does not become passive aggression. If you think that their reaction is invalid and you think, ‘I must remain cool’, that could easily become passive aggression. It is not patience. It is a form of violence. It is very important to recognize that. It is easy to say, ‘I have stayed completely cool and he lost it like hell. The more cool I remained the more angry he became.’ That is violence. The other person gets hurt more. You have to avoid fighting, but you have to make sure you don’t slip into passive aggression. You could say, ‘I feel you are acting unreasonable and I can’t deal with you at this moment.’ That still may create a little anger in the person but it would be better than passive aggression. Passive aggression really hurts. The best way would be to nicely diverting the attention without becoming passive-aggressive, like saying, ‘Can we talk about this a little later?’

What puts you in a position to be able to do that? It is your meditation. You think about anger and recognize how harmful it is. You recognize that patience is virtue, one the most difficult virtuous states of mind. If you meditate like that, your mind will be influenced. This influence will help you not to become passive-aggressive. That is the support it gives you.

(A couple of questions through the internet:)

Audience5: The recent attacks have been also acts of suicide. If one can believe some of the news reports, in the mind of the attackers it is not necessarily hatred, but religious faith seeking salvation. There may be a specific heavenly that is constructed in the terrorist’s imagination on the basis of a cultural framework and a set of beliefs. That type of suicide may have a specific meaning to the terrorists that may be difficult for us to understand. Can you comment on this?

Rinpoche: It is true. Unfortunately, when it comes to some extremist view, they are really extreme. Look back at the last century – how many wars have been fought! Look back into history. Many of the wars fought were on religious issues or beliefs. That is really very unfortunate. Religion itself really should not and will not teach or encourage violence. It is the interpretation of the individuals, particularly if there are some very charismatic teachers who impress a lot of people. If you look at the various cults that have come and gone, they are all built on things like that. It is human nature. Forget about religion. Look at what Hitler did. He tried to build a superior race. He tried to encourage the Germans to think that the Germans were superior and the Jews were inferior. He suggested to get rid of them, saying that the superior one should survive. The strongest one will remain All of that is playing on our good human emotions. That can be done in the name of religion, in the name of race, in the name of anything. People are exploiting other people’s good heart, their open-mindedness. I am sure that many of these terrorists really believe in this. I am not going to throw away my life unless I am very sure that there is something for me on the other side. I am not going to waste my precious human life unless I am sure that something is waiting for me on the other side. Their teachers and leaders are categorically assuring them and make them believe that. This is how extremism builds up. It is unfortunate and it is only possible because we are human beings and because we have open-mindedness. I am sure that they believe that they will be rewarded with salvation. I heard that apparently if you die in that manner you will have a wonderful birth and then seventy virgins are waiting for you. That is why it is so important to use our common sense, our beautiful mind that we have. We should use the education that we have. If we do so, we can protect ourselves, if not, we let ourselves down.

Audience6: Can you comment on the history of Buddhism in Afghanistan and how the seed of Buddhism in that country might affect the current situation? Also, can you comment on the history of Padmasambhava who lived in Afghanistan before he went to Tibet?

Rinpoche: Thank you for the question. I am not very aware of the history of Buddhism in Afghanistan, but Padmasambhava definitely passed through Afghanistan and a lot of other Central Asian places. I don’t really know much about the history of Buddhism in Afghanistan, but what I have heard is that these huge Buddha images that the Taliban recently destroyed were built by Ghengis Khan. I am not sure how true this is. I don’t know the ancient history of Afghanistan. Just in recent times, there have been so many changes in Afghanistan. Even while I was living in India, the Afghanistan government changed two, three times. The king was shunted out of the country. A couple of governments came through the strong support of neighboring countries like Pakistan, India, the Soviet Union and so on. People have suffered tremendously in every change in that country. Finally the Taliban came to power and that was also through the support of bin Laden who in turn was supported by Pakistan. Bin Laden initially went there to overthrow the Soviet occupation - with the support of everybody else. If you really look at how the people of Afghanistan suffered, it is sad. For at least the last 50 years they suffered continuously. That is really an object of compassion.

Audience7: As far as I know, earlier Afghanistan was part of Ghandar, which was India. At that time, it was full of Buddhism. That was the time the statues were made.

Rinpoche: Yes, earlier, in that period, all that area was India. Pakistan was, Nepal was, even Shang shung and the Central Asian area, all was India. I am going to close shop now.

In another matter, the launch of my book is going to be on October 9th. Paul Simon, Philip Glass, Patti Smith and others will be there and I am happy to announce that the proceeds from that will go to the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11th in New York. Particularly it will go towards the support of the children. It is actually not that we in Jewel Heart do not need money. We do need it badly, but the support for these children is even more important. We are after all a charitable organization and are therefore happy to participate in that. On October 26th, my birthday, there will be another book launch event at the Sheraton in Ann Arbor, and there will be some entertainment and we are going to dance too. Unless you are a monk or a nun, as a spiritual person you are allowed to dance. Monks and nuns can also still do the lama dance. In any case, we are looking forward to a good time. I will do a little presentation on my book, which does talk about anger, hatred and how we can overcome it. It talks about what a good life really means. It talks about how we die, how we can help ourselves, how we can provide ourselves with a good death. The title says Tibetan Wisdom on Reincarnation. It talks about that too. But further it really talks about life and death. There will be a couple of book signings in the Ann Arbor book store.