Archive Result

Soundfile 20020427GRNLLRMyurLam01

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Nijmegen

Topic Nyur Lam

Transcriber Caroline Vossen

Date 24-4-2021

Welcome to this week of lamrim teachings. Basically lamrim really means.. actually this is really how do we lift ourselves from whatever level we are to an ultimate buddha level. That is really what lamrim means. It doesn’t mean what some people say: “Oh yes, this is a Gelugpa teaching”. You know, things like that we would like to identify. Some people say: “Dzogchen, oh yes, that is a Nyingmapa teaching”, things like that, you know. It is certainly, it really instead of helping, it does create difficulty. So really what I would like to have is very open minded, it doesn’t matter wherever it comes from, but what does matter is that this is one of the most important methods of developing the individual, to get better in the spiritual path. I mean it is THE, T, H,E underlined three times.

00:02:22

You all know, we all appreciate open mindedness. We look at France and look at its election and we look at the choice between the right wing and the extreme right wing, and it is not good, we say that. All Dutch people will agree with that more or less. But we should also be open minded in our spiritual path as well. You know, politically we know very well we have to be open minded, but spiritually we can be very conservative either. Again, that doesn’t mean you have to mix everything. If you mix everything, you get New Age, you know the New Age doesn’t do that well anyway. So I mean that helps, I don’t mean New Age doesn’t help at all, it helps a lot but it doesn’t deliver the level where you want to be delivered.

00:04:25

Having said all this, and I have given a number of different lamrim teachings in the lamrim form, in the form of the odyssey to freedom, in the form of the three principle path, in the form of the foundation of all perfections, everything I have given a number of times, even in the form of liberation in the palm of your hand or in the form of Tsongkhapa’s short lamrim. I have not given Tsongkhapa’s big lamrim teaching in the west, but I have done all that. And I have done lamrim as really teaching and explanation, I have done lamrim as just simple discussion and I have done lamrim as very formal teaching, very, very formal way of teaching. And when you do it very open discussion, very informally, it is good but sometimes it creates some difficulties. The difficulty it creates: it looks like learning just like in a learning institution where you explain, learning, like it becomes a school type of thing. And if you do it very formally, again it becomes so mystical and it doesn’t get in touch with people. So this time I hope to do a mixture.

00:07:36

Okay, now, I think you know the qualities of the lamrim, and all of them will come through. I thought it is always good we base it on one lamrim somebody already composed a long time ago. And then the request came to me to do a teaching on the lamrim dudön, which is by Tsongkhapa, which is not the short lamrim but it is called the shortest lamrim. You know if you look at Tsongkhapa’s lamrim there are three different ways: there is the big lamrim, the lamrim chenmo, then there is the medium lamrim, we call it small lamrim and then the lamrim dudön is the very very short one, lines of experience you call it, rather than lamrim dudön. So I got a request coming and saying lamrim dudön because you would like to work with a Dutch translation and working script. So I try to accommodate as much as I can but I really wanted to base the teaching this time on what we call nyur lam, which is a sort of quick path by the third Panchen lama.

00:09:31

And I will try to bring the lamrim dudön in as much as I can. If I am going to talk too long, then we are not going to finish this, it is quite big here, I thought it was short but it is quite big. I received teaching on this, I believe when I was eight years old, eight or nine. And this is my first lamrim teaching from kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Loseling Drepung. And I think the days that he taught was about twenty eight, twenty nine days. And the system we do back in Tibet is that these lamrim teachings start at twelve, twelve thirty in the afternoon, latest by one they will begin, then they will go up to three or something, then we have a break and then we will continue until six or seven. And then there is no translation. It has about 170 pages, so I am not going to talk too long, but I am going to go through.

00:11:50

But the most import thing is the motivation, that is very important. Why do you want to sit in this difficult situation: overcrowded, over squeezed, has to sit under or whatever, and pay your money. Why do you want to do that? So I am sure I would like to learn it and this may be the motivation, but what we recommend to have is ‘I would like to gain the three kinds of wisdom out of this’. The wisdom one is wisdom that follows from learning. Wisdom two is the wisdom that follows from analyzing, and wisdom three is the wisdom that follows through meditation. So why do I want to do that, for what? Because I want to obtain the best ever possible, I don’t want to settle for anything less. That happens to be according to the Buddhist tradition, the stage of the Buddha. And for that reason, if you make that motivation, your sitting, your difficulties and your money paying, everything may have some gain in your spiritual path. Otherwise it is wasted. Okay, so the choice is yours, if you want to waste everything or do something right. And you all are educated intelligent persons, so you know what to choose. My job is to inform you. And your job is either to accept or reject. Okay, so that is that part of it.

00:16:02

Part number two I also have to say here. This is a sort of formal lamrim teaching. So I do expect everybody will sit tight. I do not expect anybody to get up and walk in between, unless they are sick. So the breaks are really breaks and the sittings are really sittings. Okay. Now those of you who are.., normally I do a lot of relaxed way, sort of made a little interesting thing here, sometimes people come here one day and sometimes you don’t come the other day and things like that, sometimes it is necessary to make adjustment but normally it is not recommended. This is not a month long teaching, it is just a week long teaching. And some people have to miss it because of something important, whatever the reasons, family reasons, they have to miss it. And when you miss it you have to mark yourself from which level of the teaching to which level of the teaching you miss it. Mark that very clearly and you have to substitute it later. And substitute it from someone who has attended the teaching, and someone who has this tradition of both oral transmission as well as explanation together, from somebody you have to listen again the thing you are missing Let’s say if you are missing from line 3 page 72 to line 8, page 76 or something, if you do that you have to get that again reviewed in between. Okay. So I am sorry, it is a little restricted this time, not so much, but that should be the way.

00:20:16

And the way and how we would like to do is and the first I will give you the oral transmission part of it, which means I am reading the Tibetan and you will hear the sound. That is about it. And that is called oral transmission. Why? This is coming continuously, the sound is transferred continuously from live person to live person, not through tape recorder, not through VCR. The difference is because this is practice. So non-practice, simple knowledge alone can be brought through electrical media, but when it if for practical purposes, electrical media will not do, it must be live. Then if possible, I would like somebody will draw the outlines in chisel (?). Not right now, but in the beginning. Probably we will put something around there, and so then somebody can write the outline and then you can copy it in your notebook. Because the outline will be the basic mediation structure. So what you are going to see is you have very brief outlines, then you see that from one basic outline it is expanding it to different levels, and then it is sort of concluding back to the outline. So you are going to see that. And when you see that, it will be helpful, when you are meditating, it will help. Some of the outlines will be a quite cultural thing, and we will try to avoid that if we can, so they are not breaking steps. So alright, with this I will read first.

00:24:05

Oral transmission

00:33:21

I think I will leave it up to here. When you are spending a lot of time, not only in sitting here and learning, but even after, when you meditate, when you practice, it becomes a daily part of your life, you are really looking at a tremendous amount of time. So that time whatever you spend, the time, the energy whatever you spend, you should be able to spend on something that for sure is worthwhile. Isn’t that true? So like for me, if I have to spend that much time, I will be really scared. Because the time you have in your life, it is sixty, seventy, eighty years, ninety at the most. So out of that, you are taking so much every day. And when you pile that up, it becomes a tremendous amount of time. So for me, I’ll be very scared to experiment something which is not really proving anything. I can’t take the risk of being a guinea pig for scientific experimenting. So what we need is something which has already been experimented like a drug that has already been approved by the authorities, people are taking it and it helps, that is the only thing we can take. So how do we do that? In old Tibet, how was that? Where I come from, how do we do this? We will make sure that the teaching is coming from Buddha himself and there is a continuation of lineage teachers, and others. Lineage means just simple lineage. We can look into one lineage, there are hundreds of different lineages. A lot of people have done this and they have been helped and they have been proven to be right. And that is one way we make sure we are not wasting time.

00:38:30

So, that is why we look at the lineage and lineage trees and who follows who and all those are important to satisfy myself or yourself this is the continuation. And the continuation of what? Two things: the detailed, vast parts of the teachings, and the profound part of the teachings. So the vast part, when we say we are talking about the transcendental teachings. And how do these transcendental teaching come from Buddha? From Buddha to Buddha Maitreya, and then Asanga and his nephew etcetera. The other one is the profound one is from Buddha to Manjushri, then Nagarjuna, Shantideva etcetera. So early in India there are two different lines: the profound wisdom line and the transcendental line, two separate teachings going, two separate institutions where they study, all this they have early in India. Both of them combined together, both of them have been obtained, learned by Atisha. Atisha who brought that to Tibet.

00:41:39

Alright. So in Tibet Atisha gave this teaching to Dromtönpa. Dromtönpa is the closest person that Atisha ever allowed to be. So Atisha is giving Dromtönpa this teaching and one time Dromtönpa asks Atisha: “When people come and ask you teaching, you give initiations, you give this, you give that, why are you giving me this lamrim business and everybody else you are giving initiations and all this, why?” So, Atisha said: “I could not find anybody else to give this except you”. So that is so important, and thus Drom Rinpoche becomes the real sort of head of Atisha’s followers later, after Atisha passed away. And then Drom Rinpoche also becomes very popular and extremely popular in Tibet, even until today. And Drom Rinpoche is also in the lineage of the Dalai Lamas too. So he becomes so popular until today for those thousand years. It is all because of those lamrim teachings, it is credited to this

00:44:00

Then Drom Rinpoche has given teachings to a group of people. And they are known as Kadam da ma pa (? Term 00:44:48), means Kadam practitioners. And why I am saying this, actually there are three different branches coming out of Drom Rinpoche: one is called Kadam dang a wa (term? 00:45:19), the other is called Kadam lamrim pa, the other is called Kadam shu ga pa (term 00:45:26), like three different Kadampa traditions, all three are from Drom Rinpoche. So all of them again, all three different teachings have been able to be received by Tsongkhapa. I am trying to make it shorter, otherwise I am giving you history lessons. Je Tsongkhapa received these teachings from all three and he practiced so many years, practicing here means not only meditation, but purification as well. Finally Tsongkhapa had a vision of all these lineage teachers from Buddha until his teacher for a very long time. Especially of Atisha, Drom, Potawa, Sharawa (? Name 00:47:29), of these four people, Tsongkhapa had a continuous vision for a whole month. And it is like talking person to person. And Tsongkhapa can ask any questions, they will give teachings and all that, it has been like that for a whole month.

00:48:07

Finally at the end of the month, when the vision is getting over, they all dissolved to each other: Sharawa, Potatwa and Drom, three of them dissolved into Atisha. And then Atisha put his right hand on Tsongkhapa’s head like this and that is why a lot of Tibetan lamas when you get blessings, they put a hand on here. You know, Atisha put his right hand on Tsongkhapa’s head and said: “You be helpful for the sentient beings and I will help you to obtain enlightenment”. And because of that reason and also the request from the other people, Tsongkhapa wrote the Lamrim Chenmo which is in translation over here. So Tsongkhapa already had a vision of Manjushri at that time too. So when Tsongkhapa began to compose the Lamrim Chenmo Manjushri said: “Hey, what I taught you is not good enough?” So then Je Tsongkhapa said: “No, it is not that your teaching is not good enough, but your teaching of the determination to be free and bodhimind, and wisdom is the backbone of my Lamrim and I add a few methods that Atisha introduced over here. That was Tsongkhapa’s excuse. So I am cutting the stories short, otherwise it will be very long. So finally, again, a number of people will think Tsongkhapa is the first person who introduced lamrim in the Tibetan tradition. Yes, in the organized manner, in that way yes, but truly the lamrim really comes from Buddha not Tsongkhapa.

00:52:10

And what happened is, what je Tsongkhapa really did, is that he collected all of them together and organized them together, he sort of became editor who edited the collected works rather than himself as author who composed this. So then what they found is that Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo was so detailed and it has a lot of debates and a lot of viewpoints and refuting and presenting his viewpoints, it is a little too detailed for so many people. It is great for a lot of people, but in order to help some more, then Tsongkhapa made this short lamrim, so it becomes two lamrims. And then after that the first Panchen lama wrote quite a short, only practical practice oriented lamrim called the Delam, which is Smooth Path. And in between the fifth Dalai lama wrote a lamrim called Manjushri’s Words. So this one: the second Panchen lama was saying: “There is not a need from me to write but a lot of people did ask me and also I needed a little expansion of the fist Panchen lama’s, so that is why the Nyur Lam has come.

00:55:40

So basically there is a lot of lamrims, actually. But the most well-known are eight lamrims, they are known as Eight Great Commentaries. Plus one more, that is Pabongkha’s teaching of lamrim which is noted down by Trijang Rinpoche. So all nine of them together are known as Great Nine Lamrim Teachings, which for the first time were given together by Trijang Rinpoche and I was fortunate enough to be there, I think that is 1956 or 1957 in Lhasa. And at that time there were three to four thousand people. And I do remember the number of days he gave is thirty six days. But if you look at the notes it will be different, in the notes, the dates are Pabongkha’s dates but the teaching itself I think was thirty six days. So even over here it is something very interesting if you look, this Liberation in the Palm of your Hands is noted down by kyabje Trijang Rinpoche. So kyabje Ling Rinpoche, - there are two teachers of the Dalai Lama, Ling Rinpoche and Trijang Rinpoche-, they have taken teachings both together from Pabongkha. But since the Liberation in the Palm of you Hand, it happens to be Trijang Rinpoche, so after Trijang Rinpoche and in his direction, they have nine lamrims. If you go to Ling Rinpoche, you don’t have nine lamrims, you have eight lamrims, because that is how lineage changes in the Tibetan tradition. I thought it is a good example for you to see how it changes.

00:59:59

So if you look in the nine lamrims that will lead up to Trijang Rinpoche, and those who have not taken teaching from Trijang Rinpoche or Ling Rinpoche or any other, they will go up to the eight. And then finally they go together in Pabongkha. And this sort of change goes every generation, and that is why I say right from the beginning there are so many lineages. But each and every individual person has to be able to trace their own lineage. Why? Because that proves your teaching what you received is from an unbroken lineage. Unbroken lineage proves purity. And that is the reliable source where at least I can feel comfortable to spend time of mine. Again we mentioned Pabongkha because it is nearby, it goes from Pabongkha to, again so many different lineages go up to the first Panchen lama. And then so many lineages go to Tsongkhapa. And that also goes through so many different lineages to Atisha. And that also goes to Nagarjuna or Asanga, and that goes to Maitreya Buddha or Manjushri, and that reaches to the Buddha. So this is what it means: it is coming from Buddha and the continuation, that is how I briefly tried to introduce.

01:03:17

And most importantly what you can see is the picture that Marian van der Horst has drawn for me, that lineage tree over there, the photo over there. The original I have. And if you look at that photo, at the center you can find lama Je Tsongkhapa, Je Tsongkhapa three being. That is called the Lama Chöpa lineage tree. And then you have instead of je Tsongkhapa you have Buddha and that is called Lamrim lineage tree. Okay, the center of that one is called Lama Lobsang Tubwang Dorje Chang. The center of the Lamrim lineage tree the Buddha is called lama Gyalwa Chekye Tubwang (name 01:05:10), means the Lama Lord Buddha. So you may see two different things, so you have to know that is the Lama Chöpa and that is the Lamrim tree. I am sure these question are in the head of a few you anyway already. Then there is another tree like this without so many lineages, but Buddha in the center and that is called the refuge tree, that is similar to this. So it tells you how complicated this is anyway, even the lineage trees are so many. But in Tibet it is not complicated, there is plenty of choice.

01:06:43

Okay now, briefly Panchen Rinpoche says here the reasons why he composed this is not only people’s request, but he himself would like to have a good grounded lamrim level and if you can establish this ground well then getting higher development is no difficulty and that is the reason why he wrote this. So what is the most important here? Knowing what stages you have, and order. Because what happens in these sort of practice: if you don’t know where is what, what is what and who follows what, these are absolutely important. And if you don’t have that, your practice is disorganized. Just be a good person, good enough, good sensible, is not good enough here. You must know what is what and what follows what, and that is why the Panchen lama made a big deal saying: how many are there, which is the order and that is important, so he said: “I would like to write here as much as I know, I can”. That is what he said.

01:09:27

So now here he comes: the quality of the author: the author doesn’t mean the person who wrote the book, but the quality of the Buddha and the disciples that follow. And the quality of the teaching, and how to teach and how to listen. So in a modern way if we look at it, then it really becomes: who is talking, what and how. So the quality of the Buddha mostly you people know and if I keep on talking here, it is going to take a lot of time. But if you don’t know anything about the Buddha then it is also a little funny. So I like to say: when you look at the Buddha when we are really looking at it, a special stage, a sort of special.., should we say stage? A kind of special position where you can reach, and when you reached you don’t have any limitations, either from the knowledge point of view, information point of view, the spiritual development point of view, or negativity point of view, positivity point of view, it is sort of a stage really beyond our comprehension, it is almost like the things we project to, in normal Western culture, things we project to god, something like that level. All good things are credited to that, and all bad things have been taken away from there, that sort of idea. I didn’t say Buddha is god but that sort of idea we are looking at. Yet it is humanly achievable, that is the very important thing. As a human being we can become Buddha, we may not be able to become god, but we can become Buddha.

01:13:58

Okay , and then the second person most important here is Atisha. I mean there is a big gap between Buddha and Atisha but a sort of picking up. The biography of Atisha should be available, in that book over there that she had (Lamrim Chenmo). It should be there quite detailed, isn’t it?

Audience: yes

Rimpoche: Did you read it? It is there. No you didn’t read it. It is your book. Did you read it? It should be there.

Audience: Ten pages

Rimpoche: If not more, it should be that much. And also it should be in the Liberation in the palm of your Hands too, there should be a brief one, not this detailed. Actually you see almost every lamrim will have something, that is why I even as we are mentioning, even if we don’t have time and say “You go and read this here, and you read that,” you will find it. Atisha did stay in Tibet for seventeen years. Some people will argue with that, but that is a fact, I don’t have time to argue. Alright.

01:16:40

So, what sort of quality does this lamrim, not teaching but practicing lamrim give the individual, what kind of quality? They give you quality of actually every teachings are not contradicting each other. Every teaching that Buddha gives, is something special, special in the sense because it is given by Buddha. But everywhere wherever, whatever Buddha said it has special relevance for any individual in future thereafter for their practice. And this is important. In one way it looks as not so important, in another way it is very important. Why is it important? Because if that contradicts we have a tremendous problem. It is funny, if you look at it, Jeruzalem is the example. It is the holy place for all these three religions that come there, three or four, three. The most important holy place. So when you begin to contradict each other, then there is a fight between the Muslims and the Jews, and there is Christians too, and then who else is there? Because they are contradicting each other. Even among the Buddhists if you look at it, if you are contradicting, you will be fighting between the Zen, the Mahayanas, the Theravadins, the three of them will be fighting like hell. Even among the Tibetan traditions, Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, Gelugpa should be fighting and they did fight too. They did fight. So that is the problem, when you are unable to see the non-contradictory.

01:21:16

Let’s say Jeruzalem is the holy place of god, then you don’t have to fight whether that god is with image or without image or with mosque or temple or church, it will be okay. And we fight: we say yellow is better, the red hat is better, the green hat is better, the multi-color hat is better, that is what we have been fighting about. That is the problem of non-contradiction, it’s not there. The normal traditional example given here is, - I just remembered so I am just going to share it with you-, if you have been treated by the Tibetan doctors and you have a temperature, they will tell you: “Don’t eat meat”. And that is the same thing with Ayurvedics and homeopathics too. But when the temperature goes away and when your body is feeling very weak, then they tell you: “Eat meat” and especially the Tibetan doctors in Old Tibet tell you: “Drink bone soup”. That is one doctor telling one patient: “Eat meat” and “Don’t eat meat”. That is a contradiction. But it is not; it is different times, different needs. The same thing: by one Buddha at one level tells you: “Hey, this is the Buddha image, worship, pray, prostrate, make offerings”, and in another place it says: “Buddha is not a statue, this is a statue, a statue has no mind, Buddha is all knowing and you have to look beyond the statue, what are you talking about?” that is what they say. Then on another level: “There is no form, no nose, no ear, no statue, no image, no Buddha”, they will tell you. Again it is one Buddha, one me, whoever that may be. So at the different levels. So, how do you know? There we need wisdom, the wisdom that I mentioned, three of them, wisdom followed by learning, followed by contemplation, followed by meditation.

01:26:19

Okay. So, when you know this, then there is so many varieties of different teachings of the Buddha, it is just like a cooking material. In cooking you have onion, you have garlic, you have oil to fry, you have water as liquid and you have major ingredients such as the white asparagus. And when you mix them together and make nice soup, it becomes nice soup. Yet if you try to make white asparagus, mustard and spinach, if you mix them together to be major ingredients in soup, it may not be very good. Probably not good, you can drink it, but it might not be very good, they cancel each other. If you make potato and leek together, it may work. It does work, right? If you mix the leek and asparagus together, I don’t think it will work. I am not sure, but I am not a cook, my guess will be it won’t work. So anyway, it is like a sort of major divisions you take, you take meat, you take vegetables, and then you take grains, like three major divisions you take. And so all of them is to give nourishment for the people who eat, to fill up our stomach and to taste good.

01:30:00

So likewise here they will also divide into three categories: the category known as mahayana, the category known as the middle scope, and the category known as the smaller scope. So you have this big ice cream, and you have this sort of in between ice cream and you have that very small ice cream. They are all ice cream. Alright. So now the point is: these two lower ones, the small scope and the medium scope together falls under the category of the hinayana. And I just said falls under the hinanyana, it is not the hinanyana path. So they use this word ‘common with the hinayana’. Common means you share it. Even if you are going to go to the mahayana level, if you don’t go through this, you are not going to get the mahayana level. It is like without steps, or the lift, you are not going to get upstairs. Does that make sense to you, or no picture at all? And also if you don’t have that ground floor, if you build the first floor and then the first floor will be hanging in the air, no ground at all. So although you may have an apartment on the first floor, you have to share the ground floor, without which the first floor above that will not stand up there, number one. Number two: you can’t get up there. Somehow you have to share it. And that’s why we have corridors, elevators, main gates, steps, and also security these days. So keep those in mind. And that is why you will know why there are so many varieties in this Buddhism. Not only so many varieties in Buddhism over there, but why do I, the individual person in downtown Nijmegen have to do all these different things.

01:34:44

Alright, so now I explain why we need it. So what is our desire, what do we want, out of anything, material or spiritual, or whatever we do, what do we want? What we really want is comfort, we want joy and we call comfort joy, that is why we want comfort, really. We want joy, we want to be happy, we don’t want pain, we don’t want difficulty, that is what the desire for everybody is. Whether you accept it or don’t accept it, it doesn’t matter. You can deny it but that is what we really want. If you ask yourself the honest question what do I want, every human being has that answer because why do you have to work? Because I have to pay my bills, if I don’t pay my bills I cannot live, that’s why I work, right? I don’t think anybody.., I mean everybody wants to be rich, but most of us are working to pay our bills, we are not really working to be multi-millionaire, at least not in this room, if I know correctly, maybe I don’t.

01:38:04

So the joy and happiness, that is what we are looking for. And there is a short goal and a long goal for this. The short goal is me, the individual person, be free of all pains, me the individual person be able to live in that nice level. So with this motivation and with this result, that set around, that set is called hinayana. Not only me, all my family, my family’s friends, my relations, all, when they are looking for more, all, that is called Buddha level, enlightenment. And that motivation is called bodhimind, it is the bigger scope. So everybody is connected with each other, everybody is your friend and family and all that, that big business comes in, so that is called bodhimind and the result is called Buddha. That is called mahayana. Okay, hat is the first floor and the first floor is built on the ground floor. That’s the hinayana level. Thus the common with the medium is built on top of common with the lower, and then the mahayana, the third floor, is built on top of these two. The two lower floors, the ground floor and the first floor, if you make it independent by itself, you are going to make one range, you are not going to build any top, you are going to build it independent by itself, it is capable of complete spiritual practice, including result. So is the middle level too. But we are not here to complete this range. We are here to build that third floor. That is why the foundation, this ground and first floor is there, in order to complete that. That’s why these three scopes, mahayana, common with the medium , common with the lower, three scopes are there. They are all interconnected. So for us that is one path. Okay, that is brief enough to introduce three scopes.