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20020212GRAABWL

CD of 02-12-02

I would like to wish everybody a happy and good New Year. This is the Tibetan New Year, which is actually the Lunar Year. I think even in the Western Lunar Calendar this would be the case, right? So may you all have a Happy New Year.

True happiness relies on our own mind. If our own mind is really good, then happiness is there. If our mind is not good, then no matter whatever we do, we don’t get that much joy and happiness.

It is interesting. You have been singing: May all beings have happiness.

This is a very good chance for us to visualize that happiness comes out from our heart in the form of light and reaches all sentient beings. That means everybody. First the people who are close to you, your nearest and dearest, followed by the second and third circle and finally, you wish everybody happiness. This is a wonderful thing to do and with the beautiful singing it goes very well. When we are talking about bodhimind, we are talking about how the Bodhisattvas set up their mind. We are really talking about bringing joy and happiness to people. The whole Bodhisattvacharyavatara has no other message than this. No matter whatever chapter or verse you are reading, the main thing is talking about love and compassion, bringing joy and happiness to people. We are in the middle of the discussion whether we should respect people equally as we do respect Buddha. We have read a couple of verses already and accordingly we should respect people just as much as we do respect the Buddhas.

Compassion and faith are both love-oriented minds. As I said earlier, if you think that you have compassion, but you don’t have respect, that compassion does not become compassion. It becomes something else. That something else is looking down on people, feeling pity, thinking, ‘Oh, that fellow is suffering so much, poor thing, what can we do? Just give him a nickel!’ That type of thing is very disrespectful. That is not compassion. You have to make a distinction between compassion and pity. Compassion and pity both draw your sympathy, but compassion has respect and pity doesn’t.

You also have to compare compassion and faith. When you are looking at the enlightened beings, you don’t have compassion, but faith. It shifts. The object of compassion is sentient beings. Let’s talk from the angle of Buddhism. The enlightened beings are objects of faith. The aspect of compassion wishes the beings to be happy and free of pain or to be free of suffering. Faith is admiration. You don’t have to say ‘Great Respect’. If you have admiration, you automatically have respect. There can be no doubt about it.

Normally, with regard to faith, I am looking for intelligent faith. I am looking for the mind that acknowledges the quality and reliability of that person that you are having faith in. And not only that, you would also like to be the same way as that person. With these three things added up, it becomes intelligent faith. Otherwise, in the usual language, we understand faith just to be following something, without examination, without any question, simply because it is something to be followed. That is non-intelligent faith. If you want to interpret that further, you would have to say that non-intelligence means that there is no intelligence at all. You can’t make it any clearer. It is almost blind faith or stupid faith. I am not even sure whether it is even faith at all. In that case, anybody could tell you anything. They could point to the west and tell you, ‘This is east.’ Then you will say, ‘Yes, sir, it is east.’ You may have to do that in military training sometimes. From my understanding, I don’t consider that to be faith. I don’t know whether in the English language that would be called faith, but when we are talking about the faith that is necessary for spiritual development, it wouldn’t be faith, for sure.

It is simply blind lack of intelligence. It is a pathetic situation on the spiritual path. Such a person doesn’t know anything. So what is so great about it? The yellow clothes [of a certain guru?] Anybody can get yellow clothes. But people fall for the decorations, the sound, the environment, the beating of gongs, the smell of incense. They look at these beautiful pictures and tangkas and think ‘Great’. If you are like that, you know how intelligent you really are. That is not even faith, it is just blindness. People like that can be completely misled by people such as Jim Jones and Heaven’s Gate. The individuals fail to use their intellectual capacity, their mind, their education. You do need to use that. If you don’t, you will be just like the toys that the kids play with. If you wind up one of these toys it will bump up and down. So you can become a toy person. Toy persons are possible because they don’t have brains. They don’t have a mind. People like that are possible even in the presidency and everywhere. We have seen it.

In the spiritual path one cannot do that. If you cannot make up your mind, if you cannot use your intelligence, if you cannot use your analytical mind, if you cannot figure out right and wrong, then you are in the soup. And that may be a mud soup.

If you use your mind you will see that compassion is comparable to faith. The moment you change the object from enlightened beings to non-enlightened beings, it should become compassion and when it changes to the enlightened beings, it should become faith, but profound faith.

Profound faith is only possible, if you really know why you want to do something, why you are following this spiritual path, why you are spending your time, money and energy. When you have such a profound faith, then it doesn’t matter if somebody else comes and tells you that what you are doing is not right. You will just say, ‘That’s fine, do whatever you want to do, but don’t talk to me.’ You know the reasons behind what you are doing, you know for yourself for sure what the right thing is.

That is also why one should not patronize other people, no matter whatever they say. You know some people are very positive. They like to push their positiveness onto other people by patronizing them. That’s not right. You can say what you think and if the other people don’t listen, just withdraw. You must learn that. Say it once, and if they don’t pay attention, don’t get upset. Don’t act emotionally. Whatever the causes or consequences may be, do not indulge in emotional reactions. If you do so, then instead of helping, you create more trouble. That is exactly what is happening in this country. For example, we have divided opinion on women’s rights. There is pro-choice and anti-choice and pro – life and anti – life. They don’t call it that, but there is all of that, whatever that may be. These issues have become very emotionally charged. When you are so emotionally charged, you actually lose the point that you want to bring about. It becomes a huge issue of something else. That is because of the emotional involvement. Any emotional involvement will create more trouble than help.

This is how our mind works. If you charge up your compassion emotionally, you will have a huge problem. Everybody is going to run away from you, because you have emotional compassion. It will be a big problem for anybody to talk with you or sit with you. Luckily we don’t have people with emotional compassion, although it does happen to a certain extent.

Compassion and faith are very comparable. We have to understand that quite clearly.

Verse 116 gives you two different sentences. It says that the benefits which you receive from the enlightened and from the non-enlightened beings are equal. However, the qualities of the enlightened and the non-enlightened beings are not necessarily equal. The next verse reinforces that further. It is true that we can get benefits equally from the enlightened as well as from the non-enlightened beings. But when you talk about their qualities, they are not equal, particularly in terms of peace. This is not talking about peace and war but about peace from negativities, from negative emotions. That is what peace really is, freedom from negativities and from negative emotions.

From the point of view of peace and morality, concentration and knowledge, you cannot compare the enlightened and the non-enlightened beings. There is no comparison at all. By the perfection of peace you become enlightened. By perfecting morality you become enlightened, buy perfecting concentration you become enlightened, by perfecting all qualities you become enlightened, by perfecting knowledge you become enlightened. You cannot compare perfection and non-perfection. If you could compare them, then you would have transferred from the enlightened to the non-enlightened level spiritually.

You cannot compare perfection and non-perfection. C- is C- and A+ is A+. They are equally students, but there is a great difference between them. C- will perhaps fail, but A+ will not. When there are no negativities left, including imprints, then you become enlightened. That is called the perfection of peace. You are no longer non-enlightened. Ultimately, when you purify every wrong thing, with imprints and everything, then it has become perfection.

When you have ultimate perfection of morality, then you become enlightened. Until then, you have a variety of moral issues. Everybody does, all the time, because we are not Buddhas. We do have those problems. That is not a surprise. Some have very big moral problems, some have very small ones. That depends on the individual. But we do have problems. Our morality is not perfect. No one is, until they become fully enlightened. There will be no such a human example, unless they are enlightened, who is absolutely perfect in morality. There is nobody, including those who write books about morality and immorality. That is because we are not perfect. Some people say that this is human nature. But it is not human nature. We are just not perfect. Then, another big issue is: What really is morality? I am not going to go into that here today. I think Mr. Bennet will do that job. So when you think about it you understand that Enlightened beings and non-enlightened beings are not equal.

From the point of view of concentration again, they are not equal, no matter how great concentration power you may develop. You may be able to sit without any obstruction at all for months and years at a time, but that is still not equivalent to the perfection of concentration at all. There is a big difference in quality. The same goes for the knowledge. The enlightened and non-enlightened are therefore not equal in body, speech or mind, knowledge, activities, or anything. Not only is that not equivalent, but not there is not even anything that would be common for the enlightened and the non-enlightened. It is very rare to find someone with perfect qualities.

Verse 117

Even if the three realms were offered,

It would be insufficient in paying veneration

To those few beings in whom a mere share of the good qualities

Of the Unique Assemblage of Excellence appears.

What wonderful words! This is actually saying that the qualities of the enlightened beings are far better, far more excellent than anybody else can have. It is exactly what I told you earlier. Not just one quality, but in their numbers, measurements, kinds – everything. All the good qualities have been collected in one direction. All the faulty qualities have been collected in the other direction. We are on the faulty level. They are on the excellent level. That is the difference. Compared with the qualities of an enlightened Buddha, the non-enlightened beings don’t have even the qualities of a hair pore of an enlightened being.

That does not mean that we are bad. We are quite good, we are doing great, we are on our way, we are trying our best. We have awareness about everything. We are generous, kind, compassionate, caring, pay attention to moral issues, respect others. We have enthusiasm, we have concentration, wisdom. It is not good enough to be a Buddha, but we are on our way.

Somebody’s cell phone is ringing. Would you like to answer it? This happens. Once I was giving a lecture in Washington, DC. Actually, come to think about it, it was in the World Trade Center. In middle of the lecture, my cell phone rang. I had forgotten to turn it off. I ignored it and pretended that it was not my phone that was ringing. It was during the last conference that I attended in the World Trade Center. It was about ageing. Then, I still did not learn the lesson. The next morning I had to participate in a panel discussion with Joan Halifax and two others. While I was speaking, my phone rang again. I was giving the lecture with the microphone in front of me. There was a room full of people. My phone was in the pocket. So maybe it was not audible to everybody in the room, but it rang in the microphones of everybody on the panel! Joan Halifax looked at me and said, ‘Rimpoche, that’s you’. Then I could no longer pretend that it wasn’t my phone.

Anyway, in case there is somebody who has even the slightest part of the qualities of a Buddha, we might offer to that person all the three realms. Actually the three realms are the same as hell, heaven and earth. The Buddhist way of counting is different, but it means the same: under the ground, on the ground and in the sky. Even if you offer hell, heaven and earth to such a person, it will not be good enough. Such is the quality of such an individual.

Verse 118

Thus, since sentient beings have a share

In giving rise to the supreme Buddha-qualities,

Surely it is correct to venerate them

As they are similar in merely this respect?

So, again, anyone who is not enlightened, can only have the qualities of the non-enlightened beings. However, even though they only have the slightest qualities compared with the Buddhas, you should not only respect them, but they should become the objects of offering and of refuge. Even offering heaven, earth and hell is not good enough. Still, somebody could argue, that since the non-enlightened don’t have the qualities of the enlightened, it is not right to make offerings and take refuge to them. The reply is this: Non-enlightened beings do have qualities and these qualities will become perfect qualities and will reach the Buddha level. From that angle they are definitely fit to be objects of refuge and of faith. You can definitely respect them and make offerings to them. They are almost the same as the enlightened beings. Therefore, it is fit to respect people, just like we respect Buddha.

We are about to conclude this argument, but the book still has some more on that. Let’s look at the next verse:

Verse 119

Furthermore, what way is there to repay (the Buddhas)

Who grant immeasurable benefit

And who befriend the world without pretension,

Other than by pleasing sentient beings?

The minds of enlightend beings are straight forward. They don’t have any agenda. They don’t lead anybody into anything. They don’t feel close to some and distant to others. They really feel equal to all. They always want to help and benefit people. How can we make them happy? What better way to make those enlightened beings happy than trying to fulfill their wishes, try to help them in doing what they want us to do? Therefore, we should help sentient beings, respect people, give benefit to them. There is nothing better we could do to make the enlightened beings happy.

Now the choice is mine: Do I respect people more than the Buddhas or equally as much? My question to myself is: What is better for me? You have to remember, we are Americans. ‘What’s in there for me’ is our usual vocabulary. So it is better for me to give respect to people just as much as I respect the enlightened beings, because then I get double the benefit. Not only do I get the benefit of respecting people, but also that of making the enlightened beings happy.

Giving total respect to people doesn’t mean that I have to blindly follow whatever people’s demands are. People have different demands, so I must use my intelligence. I can use my intelligent faith to Buddha, but even in the case of Buddha, I am not going to have blind faith. That is where we have to draw the line.

The problem with the generation before ours is that –whether in the east or the west – faith has been translated as blind faith. It was held that if you don’t have blind faith, that was not good, you were questioning Buddha or God and that was considered to be something bad. That was the previous generations’ problem. But this is now the younger generation. We are now in the 21st century. We have to use our mind. We have to really develop faith. Without faith we can never develop anything. Faith is like the mother who gives birth to spiritual development. But the faith we need is the intelligent faith. It is the faith that knows the qualities of the person. You admire the person. From that angle we have respect and faith. This is the kind of faith we can follow. We don’t want to follow blind faith. If you rely on blind faith, better don’t bother spending your money on education. You don’t have to go to school or to college, if you can’t use your mind. It is a waste of money. Better be a hillbilly then. You get the message, right?

The intelligent faith is the educated people’s way of doing it. Non-intelligent faith is the last alternative for those who cannot use their minds. Hopefully they are guided by really, really good and reliable masters. Then everything can go right. That is the last resort available to these kind of people. The traditional teachings will tell you that this is meant for people over 60 or 70 years of age who don’t know how to read and write, who have no education for whatsoever. These people have no other choice except to follow. From the age point of view, they are already about to die anyway. There is no time to learn anything. The only thing they can do is have some faith and say some OM MANI PADME HUNG’s, whether they understand what they are saying or not. These people also need a way and that is the last alternative given to them. However, people like you, educated, intelligent people, you don’t want to do that. If you do so, you are kicking your own butt. We have a saying in Tibetan, ‘Your feet are blessing your head.’ You know, the feet are the lowest parts of our body and the head is the highest.

That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you.