Archive Result

Soundfile 20010421GRNL3P2

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location

Topic Three Principles of the Path

Section 2/4

Transcriber Choonhau Ng

Date 12 Aug 2021

Rimpoche: So, we did not lose so many people, so it might not be so bad. Lots of ladies here. Okay, so now I have to conclude the guru talk. So, those of you who are interested to practice, I would like to suggest you to meditate. And this is not compulsory, those who don’t want to meditate you don’t have to. Don’t think I have to be doing it, no, if you don’t want to, don’t have to. If you want to, you’re welcome. Okay here you make a simple guru here. Lama Tsongkapa. You see the picture at the back, Marian van de Horst have drawn, beautiful picture here. Don’t think about the picture but think about actual living. And you may see it, a Tibetan guy wearing monks robe, holding vase and teaching mudra.

0:02:37.3 This is one suggestion. In reality you can use anything, anyone, anybody you want to. As long as that individual is capable of doing job. Those of you who just don’t want to have anybody, you may just have energy or light. But most important thing here is representing enlightened beings to you. Having the quality, be able to help you, guide you. And having a connection to yourself, personal connection.

0:04:25.4 So, in that case and if you have Lama Tsongkapa form or your guru form, or any yidam form or buddha form. That case we recommend you to have letter om, ah, hung at crown throat and heart level. Light goes from the heart of letter hung at the heart, invites all the enlightened beings, particularly those who have been great masters. Such as Buddha Sakyamuni, Tsongkapa, your own root master, anyone. They will come, wisdom beings of their nature come, dissolve to the object of refuge now. And they all become inseparable that of all enlightened beings. Another words, you may have one figure, but figure is used as sort of path. Figure used as path. What you put in the path is all of those great beings. As oneness. Not contradicted. Not against each other but really as oneness.

0:07:05.9 Then make very strong request. Actually, this should have pre, to this refuge taking. Pre to this should have refuge taking. Taking refuge to buddha, dharma and sangha and generating bodhimind. For the benefit of all beings, I would like to become fully enlightened one. And for that reason, I would like to learn these three principles. And meditate, practice and becoming part of my life. I may be able to do this. I may be blessed to be able to do that. So, then the light and liquid come from the source of refuge. Reach to myself and all sentient beings. Purify our negativity in general just by the touch of liquid and nectar. Particularly, negative obstacles of having difficulties, misunderstanding, wrong knowing, wrong perceptions of guru devotional practice. And I and all beings become totally pure. I and all beings built perfect connection with our perfect guru.

0:09:44.4 And guru, the sources of protection must bless me, and bless me now. And then the duplicate whatever it is, light as light, beings as beings duplicate one comes and dissolve to yourself. You become oneness with that refuge. Light radiates from your body, reach to all places. Not only fill up this house, but going beyond and fill up completely, Tilburg. Not only filled up completely Tilburg, but it fills up Netherlands. Not only the Netherlands, fills up whole Europe. Not only the Europe but other continents such as Asia and American continents. And whole samsara, whole existence becomes pure. From the light coming from you.

0:11:57.6 Not only the environment becomes perfect, but all the inhabitants become fully enlightened ones. Thus, we fulfil our purposes. Purposes of helping ourself and helping others. Okay this is very briefly I shows you; you can do that yourself everyday if you want to. Or if you want to once a week, its fine. If you want to do it once a month it fines. Even if you don’t want to do, it’s fine. Choice if yours.

Now I’d like to move to the next verse. 0:14:33.9 Ge we tsu lo gong zhi nying bu so tur, Ge she tam ………. Ganden tam nu …… da gi ser par cha…..

I don’t know what order in the Netherlands but in Tibetan, the first word says, ‘Ge we tsu lo gong zhi nying bu tur’ the essence of all Buddha’s teachings. Okay, so the essence of all the Buddha’s teaching. Now what is the essence of the teachings of the Buddha? Before we say this, one thing I forgot to mention to you, is homage to the guru is also shows you, it is coming from Buddha. It is from Buddha, from the Buddha Manjushri and Lama Tsongkapa and so and forth. It is the continuation of the practice that has been going for over two thousand years. It is not just simply one person who thought some wonderful idea and training that into practice. Nor it is one or two person of that century and this century, suddenly decided to appear and started to sharing, it is not that.

0:18:08.2 This is hundreds and thousands of people who have practice this, one after another continuing and each and every one of them built their own developments and share their experience. Another words they try to tell you this is authentic. So, what it means, it means these traditional religions, whether it is Buddhism or Judaism or Christian or whatever, all of those there is sort of slight documented, maybe not exactly, but sort of documented record of number of people who have done this and who get benefit. Not somebody just thought it is a good idea to do that way. That is important. It carries tremendous value. It carries support. It’s not one person, two person. It is thousands of them. So that’s what we call it unbroken linage. It is important. Authentication. Okay.

0:20:23.2 Now I’d like to go to essence of the buddha’s teaching. When I say buddhas teaching, I’m not talking about one historical Buddha who came to India. We are talking about buddha of past present and future. What did the buddha of the past do, what did buddha of the past taught? And what did the buddha of the present gain? What we hope the buddha of the futures will gain. The buddha of the past shared their experience of overcoming negativity. The buddhas of the present have gained those experience. Have the development. The buddha of the futures that’s you and me, and what we hope to gain. That is the essence of teachings of buddha. You know the word essence is? Real instruction. We have seen lots of real ginseng essence, that essence. Essence really means whatever the energy there is supposed to be sort of extracted out and then put them together in tiny little package. That’s supposed to be.

0:23:16.8 so What buddhas wanted was to overcome their sufferings. And when they look where their sufferings are coming from, the found that they themselves are creating, not the buddhas, we ourselves are creating the sufferings. Yes, we say I don’t want suffering. I want happiness. But we are the one who are creating all our sufferings. When we don’t know this, that’s the confusion. And when we don’t know that, we are afraid of heavy consequences, I’m afraid of something, whatever anyway. And that is what we call it ignorance. And we also thought to protecting myself, challenging others. Getting angry with them. Fighting with them. Try to destroy my enemies. So, I thought I get better, and that’s not true. That is the anger part of anger, hatred part. Oh, it’s wonderful, it’s beautiful. I want it. It’s mine. You can’t have it. Only me. Alright if I don’t get it, I’ll make sure nobody gets it.

0:25:41.5 And we think that’s how we make ourself happy. And that’s not true. That’s the attachment. So, we are confused on that. Totally. That is the confusion which cause us all kind of problems in life. And we don’t even know what’s happening in our life. Sometimes it’s very good. We don’t know where it’s coming from. Sometimes it’s very bad. Normally when there is one bad, two, three bad will come together. And we don’t know where its coming from. And is difficult to break through. Alright? Isn’t that true? At least I have lady there who says it is true. So, the buddhas are seeing it, hey, don’t get confused. Buddhas discovered we are creating those. And how we are creating is without knowing we are creating. So, getting this is the root of all our problems are out negative emotions. How? We get anger, angry. We act according to that. We punch the guy. We create karma, negative karma. And that negative karma even we gain, even we win the fight today, that negative karma will hold us and we get punched back.

0:28:21.8 One time or another. If you don’t get angry. We not going to be punched at all. That’s why negative emotions cause our problems. Truly what we say is negativities cause. Negative karma causes problem. But negative karma is result of negative action. And negative action is result of negative emotion. That is how it comes. So, the bottom line of those, bare bones it will come to those negative emotions. So, the buddhas know that. The buddhas hope we will know this and we will act accordingly. So, the essence of their message is this. So, the essence of all the teachings of the buddhas is the first principle.

0:30:12.9 Ge se tam pe nam la nga me lam. The path that has been praised by all those who are on the journey. All of those who are on journey. Those who are travelling with us on the same road. So, what they realized is, compassion and love is absolutely necessary. If you don’t have those, you don’t make it. If you have it, you make it. So that’s why all the great travellers on that journey, praises love and compassion, because it is the magic. 0:31:48.1 So it’s called, De se tam pe nam la nga, path that’s praised by the bodhisattvas, buddhas. Praised by everybody else on this road praised this.

0:32:26.9 Why this is key? Key is love and compassion. If you don’t have that key, you cannot open your home door. You cannot get in. So, you will be left outside with the raining cold weather, like the Netherlands weather. But today is exception, today you can’t be left outside, right? Gan den tam du nam jung wo de, third one. The fortunate ones’ doorway. It’s not the translation problem of Netherlands, it’s the translation problem of English, because I don’t know what is right in Netherlands, so I cannot say it’s good or bad. But when I know the translators inaudible, it should be good that’s what I’m thinking.

0:34:48.0 Okay so, gan de tam du nam jung wo de, the fortunate ones who are seeking freedom, there is only one key for them to get. That’s the bicycle key. Dutch bicycle key. If there is no key the bicycles locked. So, locked bicycle means we are confused. I mean its useless you can’t use it. So, to make it useful, you have to open lock. And opening lock alone is not enough, the person must know how to ride bicycle. Which is not an issue for Dutch people, every Dutch people knows how to ride bicycle. Others are not necessarily true. If you give me bicycle, I might be able to ride by putting one leg by the side, maybe, may falling. If I have not knee pain, I might be able to go. See the culture difference. Last year Ed Hopperman told me, I get you an automatic cart next time you are here.

0:37:30.6 If you don’t have cart, it looks like Dutch people don’t have bicycle. So that’s like this. Like bicycle, the key is the clearing the confusion. Which we call wisdom. And what confusion, confusion of life. The mystery of life. Not knowing where the problems coming from. Not knowing where the joy is coming from. And we have some idea what joy is, what misery is. But very often we get wrong. True, we keep on drinking, thinking ah, that is great enjoyment, great kick! Yeah, we think that. And we do it again and again. And we are wrong. We know we are wrong. But still, we can’t help it. Still, we keep on drinking. So, which we call it addiction right? Exactly the same thing. These negative emotions do to us.

0:39:41.9 They are like alcohol. And we know that it is not good. But we can’t stop. That’s exactly what it is. Once we clear the confusion then we are able to stop. So, Tsongkapa says, I’ll explain as much as I can. It’s not that Tsongkapa has difficulty to explain but we have difficulty to catch it. So, though it is his letter to some Ngawang Dragpa, but actually it is Tsongkapa’s letter to us. So why he says as much as can? Cause we may not be able to capture what the message is. And that also in short form. You understand?

0:41:28.9 Gan da se pe de la ma sha se… So, Tsongkapa saying for whom I’m writing this? I’m not addressing this letter to those who want to have rich and famous life. The first word, one who has no attachment or something. Actually, what Tsongkapa is telling, he is saying I’m not addressing to those people whose main goals of life, mission of life turns into making rich and famous. So, another words, who are very much actually attached to life’s material success. It is not subject to who Tsongkapa would like to deal with. Because its useless for them. This will not make them famous; this will not make them rich. This will not give you a promotion in your job so for them it’s useless. So, he was saying I’m not addressing those people.

0:44:24.1 What I’m addressing to the people who wants to make best use of their life. And I’m addressing to those people who are interested to the great beings such as buddhas, Jesus and so and forth. So, another words, this word will give you a message saying whether it is useful for me or not, depends on my goal. Maybe I’m talking about our goal this morning, remember? You and I had long talk. So, it is important. Because whether this is going to help you or not depends on that. Then he said, these are Tsongkapa calls them fortunate ones, great ones. Because everybody can love to have money and fame. That’s not big deal. You may not make it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have desire. Right? Everybody does have certain limited desire. Everybody has.

0:46:47.2 Some have unlimited desire, crazy. They think nothing but making money. Talks everything but all purpose is just to make money. It is also interesting to notice, a lot of those people what we call it, those kings, and those dictators, and what they have, their desire is to control. To be king. Or to be dictator. But what would they say, it is funny thing, they say altruistic. Hitler never said to make me better, did he? He said to make German better. He said all Germans better. And Milosevic never said I should be the president, but he always says to make this Serbians better. So, when we are talking about these principles, freeing ourselves and compassion and love, we have to be careful.

0:49:42.4 Compassion is wonderful. It has to be true compassion. The compassion should not justify all means for ends. Are you with me? If you justify means for end, that’s exactly what dictators done. In the past one hundred years, maybe more. Kings and queens, I’m not talking about Dutch queen, she is not dictator. The earlier ones. So, all of them have used altruistic, for benefit of Germans, or Serbians, or Mao, the Chinese. So, all of those if you really look at it, even today if we look at inaudible, So, when we talk about altruistic love and compassion, we make sure we talking about love and compassion. We are not talking about justifying all kind of means. Hey it is true; the compassion has to be true to everybody. That everybody includes your family members. So, we have to remember that.

0:52:30.2 That’s where we begin to justify the means to receive end. Ignoring the living person in front of ourself. So, the earlier Buddhist teachers have told us, if you do not know how to love yourself, and you are incapable to develop love for others. And if you do not know how to take care of yourselves, you are not capable of taking care of others. So that is why the first principle, seeking freedom for yourself is solid. And honest. And then seeking love and compassion for others is become solid and honest. Because the second principle is totally on the basis of first development on yourself. Are you with me? Good.

0:54:37.3 We are talking about the second four line, who is this going to be helpful. In order to talk that, we talk who it is not going to be helpful. That is those who have strong attachment for the samsaric picnic spots. You know the book what I have in front of me, it gives funny example here. This book says those flies, those black flies always like inaudible… So he says that type of people I have no hope. And then other end, who have hope? Those who would like to best use of their life. And best way of fulfilling your life is to liberate yourself. And in order to liberate yourself, learn how they have done before. Think, meditate, like three steps. Learning, analysing and meditating. Three ways. So, he said this is I’m writing for those people. that’s it. Learning is extremely important. I must emphasis. I cannot emphasis enough. If you don’t learn, you never going to learn anyway. 0:58:00.7 tu pa me pa sam pa…. so, one didn’t learn anything and one who thinks and meditate. Earlier Tibetan masters give example, the person who doesn’t have two arms, try to climb on rock.

0:58:29.4 And tu pa dum …. Learning is the light which clears the darkness of ignorance. It is the best wealth you have that cannot be taken away by the robbers. It is the best friend who will not let you down when you are down. It is the weapon that you can carry and destroy all your negative emotions. It’s the best friend who can suggest you to do different ways. So, there is countless if you read Tsongkapa’s Lamrim Chenmo which is not available in English, if you read there, I’m sure there are like 30-40 pages only devoted to that alone. So again, here he says, those who have learnt, those who have analysed, those who are meditating. Those who are the hope. So, we would like to make ourself hopeful. We don’t want to put ourself in hopeless category, do we? Is there anybody who would like to go to the hopeless category? Anyway, its just a joke. Supposed to make you laugh but you didn’t laugh anyway.

1:01:14.1 That’s why what you learned; you think. What you think, you meditate. Really otherwise people in the West, I’m sure it’s everywhere, Netherlands is not an exception. People in the West when you talk about meditation, they say hey relax, that’s not meditation. That’s relaxation. You might as well lie down on the top of this bed. Good, its good relaxation. That’s not meditation. Meditation has purpose. The purpose is to focus. Why you have to focus? When you focus you bring your awareness. And when you have awareness, you have your mindfulness. That is the minimum lowest category of meditation. Minimum lowest, bottom line cheapest. And once you learnt how to bring, have a little awareness you begin to challenge your negative emotions.

1:03:38.2 Through analysation. And through concentration. And that is second level. And even you can do better than that then you can defeat your negative emotions. So, it has to be better and better. You don’t want to just sit there and count your breath till you die. If you do that you are waiting for your liberation till your cows come home. No liberating, just waiting you know. I’m making a little joke; I’m not criticizing meditation. Slightly you have to because if you think that is the only thing you need to liberation. It’s wrong that’s why I criticize. I’m not against meditation okay.

1:05:08.7 So by rejecting those who are not for here, and then he comes out .. ga den se pe del a… so then finally he said fortunate ones, listen to me. Without losing your awareness and without losing your focus. Then when you have to listen what he going to say first thing, he says num de ne ju….. ‘Listen with clear minds you lucky people who aspires the path that pleases the buddhas, who work to give meaning to leisure and opportunity and who are not addicted to the pleasure of cyclic life’ The third verse is ‘Lust for existence, change all corporeal, embodied beings, addiction to the pleasures of life cycle’ I think this is the one, yup.

1:07:29.4 Nam la ni jum ….. Another word what he is saying, unless you have a very strong determination to make yourself free from those negative emotions, there is no way you can really gain that freedom. Another words, what does this verse try to tell you? This verse tries to tell us, what our life is today. What our life is today is this, that we are attached, so are sort of fixed, attached, we are attached to a physical identity. Are you with me? Each and every one of you think about yourself. Each and every one of us are attached, attached I don’t mean we have attachment, we do, but we are somehow attached, put together with our psychical identity. This very physical identity what we have is not an uncontaminated identity, but it is a contaminated identity. Yet since this is contaminated identity, it is not pure identity. And it has its impure qualities. And one of them is not good enough. A break down, unserviceable. So, when that happens, we have to die.

1:12:13.0 What does dying mean? We take new identity. Since we attached to an identity so we try to prolong as much as we can on one identity and when we cannot, we get another one, continuing. This is called circle of life in buddhism or in most of spiritual path anyway. That’s called circle of life, or samsara. So, we cannot get away from identity and one identity does not last long, so we get new one. I also said this is contaminated one. Since it is contaminated, we get continuation of pains. Can you see it? As long as we are attached to that, and we have problem. Sometimes good life. Sometimes mixed path here and there. Most of the time bad life. Miserable, pain, suffering, angry, upset. And loneliness, angry with yourself, angry with everybody else. Fighting against the world. And all of those because we are attached to the contaminated identity.

1:15:23.5 So if you want liberation, the only way to get it is, contaminated identity should be able to change to uncontaminated identity. That’s all. Really true that’s what it is. That is called liberation. That is called freedom. Okay so what make us not to change from contaminated to uncontaminated is our attachment. The best friend of attachment is jealousy. And best friend is anger. Anger’s companion is hatred. And all of them coming from confusion. So, key lies to, that’s the reason why negative emotions become a target. Because our total thing is holding there. So, all the practices we do, any tradition or non-tradition, old age new age all of them, all of them is trying to get this. So that’s where we try to go. We don’t know that; many people don’t know that. So, we say, wonderful. They see the beautiful garden out there, we breath fresh air, we get nice dirt smell, smell of earth, and we get some nice tree fragrance. Ahh wonderful.

1:19:08.4 Why? Relief of some pains. Relief of certain sufferings. We listen to beautiful music or sometimes we jump around with that music. Some people like to look at beautiful art. And some people will watch so much of that beautiful art you almost imagine that you become that art. And some people listen to poetry. Some people go to shows, any art shows. We enjoy that because it is relieving some sufferings. Here they are talking about the total suffering. Once for all. So, you can be ahhhhh all the time. So that’s the bottom line. No matter whatever you do, whatever meditation you do, everything is, whatever you looking for is this. So, anyway unless until we develop desire to change that contaminated identity to uncontaminated identity, until then we cannot make breakthrough.

1:22:00.7 Tsongkapa says, nam da nying ju…… these four lines there. ‘Thus for existence to change all corporeal beings, addictions to the pleasures of life cycle is only cured by transcendent renunciation, so seek transcendence first of all’ it is Thurman’s translation, we are usually using Glenn Mullin’s, it is big difference, it’s not Thurman’s bad, but the terminology he used is renunciation. That tells you the first principle is absolutely necessary. If it is absolutely necessary, how do I develop this?

1:24:03.5 So the identity attachment, what does they do to us? To make us attached to what we call it success. Right? We call it success. Become famous, become rich, these are we call success, right? That is big question. Do you consider Bill Gates or Rockefeller perfect example of human success? Or would you consider Buddha, Gandhi or Mother Theresa? So that is you have to think. One thing we have to make permanently agreed here is to not waste our life. You know why? Because if we waste our life, it is waste. I think we all agree. We all agree that we have to fulfil our mission. And what we don’t agree is what this mission is all about. So, it is for you to think. Your mission is to follow Bill Gates or Rockefeller, or for that matter, some of those rock stars too.

1:27:25.8 All these guys, in the movie, Rambo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, all these are success or they have fulfilled their mission in their life, or in other choice is Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa. In the past Buddha, in the middle Gandhi and last Mother Theresa, which one you rather be? We may have to play that music, which one A, B. You know those Who would like to be millionaire, and then say A, Buddha, B, Rockefeller, C, Bill Gates, D, Gandhi or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Mother Theresa, or there are a lot. So, you have to make up your mind which one you really want, what your conscious tells you and what your rational mind tells you. Think about it you may have a big surprise.

1:30:21.3 Actually its good way of thinking. And if you choose to be Bill Gates, then you ask yourself why. And then you going to get money money money as answer, right? And if you think Mother Theresa, and then you ask why, you going to get compassion compassion compassion. So that’s how you can, you don’t have to tell anybody. You give test to yourself and make your own decisions. If you choose Bill Gates, I’m going to tell you wrong. But if you get CEO from Silicon Valley, they will say right! So here you go. Where is your attachment, where is your mind leads you, you have to make decision. Again, I’d like to emphasize you, I’m not saying if you choose spiritual path, you cannot think about money. I’m not saying that at all. I’m also not saying if you think about money, you cannot think about spiritual path. I’m simply saying that your major focus, your major purpose. Your main mission of your life, and that’s what I’m talking about.

1:33:39.8 So if you have strong attachment to what we call material success, then it is problem. But problem not without solution. Problem that we can worked out. And this will tell you the methods who to work out. Particularly this verse will tell you, 1:34:36.0 den ju yeng me pa…… How important our life is. What wonderful the life is. What capable this life is. And how lasting this life is. These are the important questions that we face tomorrow. So anyway, there is something important to think about tonight. Leave yourself free of your emotions. And ask this question. Which one, Buddha or Bill Gates? And then think about it. And don’t have to ask, tell anybody else. But then you yourself will have a surprise. And most of your will not think about Bill Gates, but somebody little lower than that. Anyway, here you go we will see you tomorrow.