Archive Result

Sound file 20010707GRNYChangeMindDay(2001)

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location New York (but this might be Ann Arbor, MI as he mentions Ypsilanti and Dexter Michigan)

Topic e.g: Lama Chopa

Transcriber Susan Holcombe

Date January 18, 2022

Time 47:52:476

0:00:00.0 (Prayers: Heart Sutra, Jewel Heart Prayers)

0:50:302.0 – 12: 56:670 Singing in another language with chanting

English translation

12:56:670 Welcome. My apologies. I want to thank everyone for participating. This is the first time we have the ChangeofMind in the Thai Circle Magazine. I’ve been to New York a couple of times, a gathering in Central Park from morning to evening. I’m so glad we have an opportunity to gather, our different traditions, Tibetan Buddhism, and others, getting together. Opportunity to know each other, to share our thoughts and experiences, to share, help, benefit themselves and each other. I hope to extend beyond Buddhism, as we gather and share. The goal is to serve, help, ease the pain the individual. That is my first statement. The second thing: about Buddha and Buddhism. I’ve been around over 10 years and know many people. I’ve traveled all over the USA, Europe, and Asia, talking and listening and sharing ideas. No matter what you do or where you look, the purpose of religion is how we can help ourselves and how we can serve others. We love to look at mystical parts! The bottom line is helping ourselves and each other. This is the purpose of all good religions. From the Buddhist point of view, we learn the Buddha’s experience how he overcame his suffering. That is the essence of Buddhism. 4 noble truths is how he discovered himself. He was an Indian prince in a beautiful palace like the Tash Mahal. He was locked in and could not run away. He had to look beyond his boundary…wondering what is beyond the big tree in my father’s house. As a boy, I found a glue factory. Looking for what is beyond “the out of bounds” for him. One day he forced himself out. What did he find? He found suffering, sickness, aging, death…all of this. It was a discovery for the prince because he never knew these things. Am I immune being a great prince or will I be subjected to these things? Yes, you will be subject to these things…no one is immune from suffering. These lessons apply today. What about the subjects I should protect and help? What can I do? Can I help myself, my family, my subjects? Yes! I can do something! The way and how is to cut the suffering down. 2nd noble truth – we all create our own suffering because of our negative emotions – anger, jealousy, hatred, our empty heart…in this life and future life (if you accept). The solution is not to fight with symptoms but fight the cause! Challenge reduce irradicate negative emotions including ignorance. Ignorance is a funny language. If combines fear and confusion. I found these are the causes within us of suffering. We might deal with these things. Only we can help or harm ourselves. No one else. We are responsible for ourselves. We are. My future depends on me. Your future depends on you. Her future depends on her, etc. We are responsible to ourselves. There is no solution outside. It is within us. It is the internal thing not external thing, and the cause and solutions are internal, not external. This is what Buddha experiences, taught and shared. How do I deal with this? The old teaching of Buddha totally cares internally how I deal with internal emotions and how do I deal with negative emotions? Am I great? First, help us. We cannot help others until we help ourselves first. It is not possible. The first thing is knowing how to help myself. Then, share the process of helping yourself with others. That is how you help others. Love is wonderful. Compassion is wonderful. But that is not helpful. First is us and then we begin to help others. Love and compassion are great and wonderful but first we must build them in ourselves before we build them within others. You can look at any Buddha traditions and you will find these same principles. Am I right? Yes, I’m right. That is, it!

Now, how do we change our mind? The idea behind this is to establish how we change our addictions. We are all addicted for sure. We are addicted to anger. We are addicted to attachment. We are addicted to ignorance unless you are Buddha! Only you know if you are Buddha. We change anger to compassion. If we are strongly attached, we change that into pure love. If we are ignorant change it to wisdom! Wisdom beings (wise beings!) I believe the change of mind is to remind we and friends that there are something better. Bring awareness within ourselves and friends ….everywhere. When you talk about peace in the world, I believe we bring world peace by beginning here…ourselves, our family, “our back yard”. Begin here.

It is raining so if you must go, please go. I want to thank everybody, and I look forward to celebrating together and hope we lessen the mental pain, a little bit. I thank everyone and everybody. We will close with a dedication.

34:26:40 Another song with chanting in another language.