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20021112GRAABWL

CD of 11-12-03

Shantideva, the composer of the text we are studying from, was an extraordinary person. He did not give the image of a learned scholar. He was more or less known as a person who only knows how to eat, sleep and go to the toilet. He was a great example of a person who hides his qualities and when the time comes, it will reveal itself. One time he was invited to go to a nunnery to preach to the nuns. The nuns thought that the monks were insulting them by sending this person who knows nothing but three things. So they decided to insult him in return. They collected all their robes together and made a big pile for him to sit on as a throne. When Shantideva arrived he thought for a minute whether it was out of respect or out of a wish to humiliate him that they made this throne and he knew instantly that it was meant as an insult. So he raised his right hand to the top of the pile, pressed down on it, until the throne came down to the floor. He sat on it and the throne started to go back up. Then he began to teach this text, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, in one sitting. More than a thousand years later, we still read this text in different languages.

Right now we have reached Chapter 7. This text is completed based on love and compassion and gives advice on how to function in life on that basis. This chapter is on enthusiasm. Enthusiasm means overcoming laziness. We are learning how to overcome laziness and build enthusiasm. It is part of the Six Paramitas, the Transcendental Actions of the Bodhisattvas. These are generosity, morality, patience, enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom. They are very important tools that each individual has to apply in each and every job we do. In one way you could see them as something special and separate. But actually, in every job and activity, we have to apply these six tools. If we do we will be perfect. If not, there will always be shortages and difficulties. All of them should be combined with each other. Generosity should have enthusiasm in it, morality should and patience should. There should be enthusiasm of enthusiasm and that of concentration and wisdom.

Generosity is necessary, otherwise even though you have enthusiasm, you work very hard but get nothing done. If you are not generous, you are putting a limit. You are not going all the way, but try to cut corners. That is lack of generosity.

Morality or ethics is also necessary. Without that you won’t achieve anything. It is also discipline. Without discipline in your enthusiasm you will be excited for a while to deal with spiritual practice and suddenly you want to get in to something else. So you drop your first activity and jump into the next, from there you suddenly move on to something else and then back to the first. Without discipline everything will drop between your fingers. You will lose one project after another. If enthusiasm is not disciplined, you are not organized. It is not functioning properly.

Patience is also needed with in conjunction with enthusiasm. Otherwise you will lose your will to preserve with difficult things.

Without enthusiasm itself you will become lazy. You will never be able to achieve anything. Everything has to wait till tomorrow and tomorrow never comes. As I mentioned earlier there are three kinds of laziness. One of them is addiction. If you are addicted to something that takes you away from what you are supposed to do, that is also laziness. For example I am very addicted to being a couch potato. It gives me a big stomach and stops me from moving. I like to just sit somewhere and hope that whatever I need will come and walk towards me. I will find someone to bring me things. Some people have different addictions like needing to be busy for nothing. You have to run here and run there. You think you have to show your face everywhere. You pop up in one place, say hello and run away. You want to do everything. You want to see everybody and see hello to them, but you can’t wait for the other person to give a reply. You already move to somebody else. Somebody from Europe complained to me about that. He said, ‘When I visit America there are all these friends and they say to me, ‘Hey, how are you?’ but before I can say whether I am well or not, they have already gone somewhere else.’ Some people do have that addiction. They think it is the art of living. Others are addicted to not dealing with anybody. You would like to keep the curtains closed and treat 3 o’ clock in the afternoon as if it were 3 o’ clock in the morning. Yet others are addicted to drinking or smoking the ‘unofficial’ dope, marijuana. According to Allen Ginsberg, the official dope is nicotine in the cigarettes. All these addictions delay our achievements, either in the spiritual field or in any other area of life. Whatever you are supposed to do is not getting done.

The second addiction is underestimating yourself. ‘I am not capable’, ‘I know nothing about that’, ‘I am not good enough’, ‘I had my chance, but I blew it’, ‘I can’t, I am burnt out.’ All that is laziness.

The third laziness is procrastination. This is saying, ‘Yeah, I will do it, when I have time.’

Each of the verses in this chapter is giving us pointers on how to overcome laziness.

Verse 22

Yet the suffering

involved in my awakening will have a limit;

it is like the suffering of having an incision made

in order to remove and destroy greater pain.

In order to obtain total enlightenment we may have to endure a little suffering here and there. But that has a limit. It is just like when a doctor, in order to remove the cause of a great pain, removes something from your body. You have surgery to remove something that causes you trouble. The surgery involves undergoing anesthesia and cutting your body. This is inconvenient and painful. But you know that in the end the cause of your pain will be gone. Therefore, we happily go through with it. We also know that under anesthesia we wont’ feel that much. Likewise, when working for total enlightenment, you have to put up with some suffering here and there, but you can see the end result of total enlightenment. That’s why it is worth bearing. Even if you don’t work for enlightenment, the suffering is not going to leave you alone. It will continuously come and bother and torture you, all the time. At any time in our life, wherever we are and whatever we do, suffering comes and attacks us. Meeting a friend after a period of separation tells you. At first you have a little bit of sweet talk, but soon the conversation will turn to ‘So and So died and So and So is sick. I have this problem and that problem.’ This is clearly indicates that our life is full of pain. Whether you are working for total freedom or not, these pains will continue. And if we don’t work for total freedom, there will be no end to the pain. You can’t just get over it.

But if you are working for enlightenment, at some point the suffering will end. Even though it involves a little hardship it is worth going through with it. It is like the surgeon, who cuts your body and removes whatever is wrong in there. It is painful and difficult, but it has purpose and you will see the end of suffering.

Working for total enlightenment means working for the end of all suffering, not only for yourself but for all beings.

Verse 23

Even doctors eliminate illness

With unpleasant medical treatments,

So in order to overcome manifold suffering

I should be able to put up with some discomfort.

The learned, good doctors can sometimes can sometimes give you a treatment that is a little hard, in order to remove a bigger pain. If you have to take slight, little pains in order to eliminate bigger sufferings, you should patiently and enthusiastically accept that pain. That is almost looking forward to a slight pain in order to remove a big one. Practitioners are repeatedly told that a small, little headache of half a day can substitute the karma of taking rebirth in a hell realm. That is why it is fit to be patient with that sort of suffering. Some difficulties in obtaining enlightenment are far less than the sufferings you have to experience in the lower realms. In the hell realms there is tremendous suffering and that has no purpose. It is just punishing the individual. You are simply paying off your negative karma. But working for enlightenment you may have to endure some slight sufferings like your car doesn’t work, or you have a little accident. That is a tiny, little suffering but it is worth being patient with because it may substitute tremendous sufferings one would otherwise have to go through. It happens because you are working for enlightenment. Otherwise the same karma could ripen into some karma in a hell realm that would last for a long time.

On the other hand, look at the general suffering in samsara. It is extremely heavy and there is no end to it.

Verse 24

But the supreme physician does not employ

common medical treatment such as this.

With an extremely gentle technique

he remedies all the greatest evils.

The ‘supreme physician’ is referring to Buddha. He did not really encourage any violence, including violence against yourself. He didn’t say, ‘Torture yourself. Beat yourself up. Burn your finger as a lamp. Put some fire on your hair.’ All these actions are violence against oneself. Remember, during the Vietnam War, some of the Buddhist monks burnt themselves in the anti-war demonstrations. It is good to demonstrate against the war, but it is not good to burn yourself. You can express anything you want to with non-violent means. That helps. But indulging in violence is not that great. Buddha did not recommend this, also not for purification. He never recommended harsh treatment.

Now you may say, ‘But in the Bodhisattvacharyavatara it says to give your arms, your flesh and so on. How would you justify that?’ Buddha never recommended that to us on our level. To us it would be violence. We cannot bear the pain. It is very difficult for us. Therefore it is violence. At a certain level it may not be violence. It may become joy.

For those people it is a different story. That’s why Buddha never recommended to be violent against anybody anywhere. That is a most important point. Buddha, the supreme doctor, never recommended to go through extreme hardship. He recommends an ‘extremely gentle technique’, and that is the technique of compassion. It is love. It is caring. That is so gentle. Don’t use violence against anybody. That includes ourselves.

Violence is not something new in society. It has been around even in those days. Certain traditions even encourage violence. That is not fit for a supreme doctor. That would not eliminate negative karma. You may raise the point: Then, what did Marpa do with Milarepa? Why did he have to build a multi-storied building, tear it down and build it again? He asked him to construct round, square, triangular and square towers and tear them down again.’ That is a different situation. Not everybody is a sorcerer or black magician like Milarepa was in the beginning. Early in his life, his life was very much tortured by an uncle, and his mother could not take it any more and wanted to take revenge. That is why she sent Milarepa to sorcery school, where he learnt destructive methods to kill and harm. At that time there were no nukes and bombs, so black magic was the only way. At the time the daughter of his uncle got married he used his powers and made the house where the marriage was taking place collapse. All the guests and relatives, including lots of innocent people got killed. At the time some witnesses saw a huge scorpion digging out the central pillar of the house with his two horns. Others saw a crazy horse that dragged the foundation pillar from underneath the building. Many people died and Milarepa and his mother raised a flag made from torn clothes and announced their revenge publicly. That is what hatred and revenge does.

In order to purify that, Milarepa had to build 13 storied buildings several times. Then finally he became one of the most outstanding yogis ever known to humanity. Most people around him thought he was a filthy, useless beggar. Even when he became a great yogi and was seen flying in the air to different places, the farmers in the fields were saying, ‘Oh, there is the evil sorcerer again. Lets get away from here. If the shadow of his body touches us we will have a problem.’ They remained scared and suspicious for a long time until they came to know that he had become a great yogi.

For Milarepa this rough treatment was suitable. He had committed such terrible crimes that he needed a lot of purification. Revenge is really a terrible thing. I even wonder whether what we call ‘justice’ is not a hidden kind of revenge also. By punishing somebody, especially with capital punishment, what purpose is achieved? People say, ‘He killed somebody, therefore he should die too.’ To me, that is unjustified justice. Killing yet another person is not making anything better. We just add up another level of violence and suffering. We make sure that violence goes on and grows. Who are we to punish anybody? Who wants to punish whom? The karma is created already. Whether you punish them or something else happens, that person’s karma will get them. There is just double suffering. We as a society impose punishment and that person’s karma will give them punishment. Then God may want to punish them on top of that. So to me, even the word ‘justice’ is difficult to understand. Some people say that to mete our justice you are punishing the perpetrator on behalf of God. If God is not capable of punishing a person, who are we to take over the punishing? I don’t get it. That’s why I am against any punishment, especially capital punishment. All it does is hurt people who are already in trouble. That will only create more negative emotions. Buddha never recommended this. He, the supreme physician, according to Shantideva

With an extremely gentle technique

(he) remedies all the greatest evils.

Love and compassion, that is a gentle technique. The Six Perfections are a gentle technique, generosity, morality and so on. Morality is important. We can’t ignore it. Patience, enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom are important. Altogether they remedy all negativities.

Verse 25

At the beginning, the Guide of the World encourages

The giving of such things as food.

Later, when accustomed to this,

One may progressively start to five away even one’s flesh.

Actually, in Tibetan it says ‘the giving of vegetables.’ Well, I guess vegetables are food. In the beginning it is good to share your food, clothes and so on. That means whatever extra you have. You don’t have to take off your last shirt and give it away. That is gentle generosity. It is kindness. It doesn’t ask you to give away all you have, get in debt, don’t pay your bills and get in trouble. To be generous is great. It is applicable when you have taken care of yourself. Then it can really begin. You can’t be generous at your own detriment. It should be a gentle technique, not a harsh technique.

Morality should be applied in the same way. Keep your commitment, honor your vows. Keep your discipline. Commit to what you can. Take the vows that you are capable of managing. That is gentleness. Patience is necessary. But don’t break the camel’s back. Then it is violence. The same goes for enthusiasm. Yes, you have to work energetically, but if you work too much you get a heart attack. Don’t overdo the exercising. That also goes for the spiritual path. Work with your limitations. Even when we sit here and discuss spiritual topics, we have to draw a line somewhere. Our attention span is not much more than 30 – 40 minutes. For that time we are alert and can express our views and participate. After that I as the talker become lazy and you, the listeners become fed up. That is not gentle any more. Again, the same is true for concentration. Don’t try to concentrate for longer than you can manage. You may go to sleep. Wisdom also should be applied gently. Wisdom must see how much you are capable of, how far you can go at any point in time. If you cannot make that judgment, it is a lack of wisdom. It is stupidity.

As you can see, each one of the Six Perfections needs the other perfections within. There has to be generosity in all the others, concentration with all the others, wisdom with all the others, and so on. That is what the supreme doctor wants you to do. That is the prescription from the supreme doctor for today.

I am going to stop here. Are there any questions?

Audience: Would you say that Gandhi’s hunger strike was an act of violence against himself or was it a gentle way of getting the attention of the world?

Rimpoche: Gandhi never indulged in a hunger strike to the death, except at the very end, when there was nothing else he could do to stop the outbreak of mass fighting between muslims and hindus. He never used the hunger strike till death against the British government. He did go on hunger strikes earlier to draw attention to conditions in jail. However, the hindu-muslim violence was so terrible. People were really killing members of the other religion for no other reason than that they belonged to that religion. Train loads full of people got killed, when Hindus had to leave Pakistan and Muslims had to leave India at the time of partition. When the treks of refugees from both sides crossed paths they started killing each other. Why was there this problem in the first place? It is was purely man-made. Although there had been some conflicts before it was due to the British Empire wanting to come back into power in India. The treaty with Britain said, ‘There can be independence in India and Pakistan, but if both parties cannot get along, the British Empire will return to rule the country.’ It was done the same way in Kuweit and Iraq, Palestine and Israel and so on. The British Empire was controlling the whole world from the late 1800s up to almost World War II. Their method was to create division and if because of that there was fighting, the British Empire would return and take over. Who would have thought that within quite a short time this huge empire would shrink to one little, insignificant island? Even the United States were in the beginning under British control.

If religion, which is meant to heal divisions and bring peace is being misused to create violence, it is terrible. Tibetans used to say, ‘It is making a devil out of God’. That is really bad. Buddhism is not an exception either. We have seen it in Vietnam. It is man-made corruption, which is using the great religions to achieve its aims. That is not a gentle technique.

Audience: If someone is executed by the state, wouldn’t that at least reduce the negative karma they would have to experience as a result of their crime?

Rimpoche: I don’t think the state has any control over karmic processes. I don’t think it reduces anything.

Audience: You talked a lot of non-violence in Buddhism. But isn’t there this story where a captain of a ship kills a guy in order to save all the other passengers?

Rimpoche: Good point. Actually, the gentle techniques should always apply, except in rare cases, in order to save 500 people it may be necessary to sacrifice one. If you fail to do it, your compassion becomes idiot compassion. That means it lacks wisdom. You would lose so many lives, just because you cannot get rid of one.

Audience: In that case, I have two follow up questions: Do you have to be enlightened to do carry out such a wrathful act of compassion? And secondly, if you have somebody like Ted Bundy who is definitely going to kill more people if he gets a chance, isn’t it better to execute him in order to protect society?

Rimpoche: I have no objection to imprison him. You have to, otherwise he will go on killing people. The judgment is so difficult to make. No one can judge anybody else, unless you have unmistaken knowledge. According to the Buddha, you shouldn’t judge anyone unless you are fully enlightened. Then you have total knowledge and you cannot make mistakes.