Archive Result

Soundfile 20020427GRNLLRMyurLam02

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Nijmegen

Topic Nyur Lam

Transcriber Caroline Vossen

Date 12-6-2021

Now what I forgot earlier to tell you, a most important thing is that Manjushri told Tsongkhapa: “Is my three principles not good enough for you?” And he said “No, this what I kept as backbone”. And Manjushri said something to Tsongkhapa, another thing, I thought I should share that with you. Everybody knows who Manjushri is, right? If not, it is supposed to be the Buddha of wisdom, in other words all buddhas become to be one physical form, it is called Manjushri. All buddhas, not one Buddha, but all buddhas of past, present and future aal together decided they will have one stage, that is called Manjushri, the wisdom Buddha, right?

And so what did Manjushri say to Tsongkhapa, that what they call great profound, like in the vajryana, this and that, that type, all of those type, vajryana and all of those: don’t push it right now, don’t do it, leave it alone. But they are important, of course they are important, no doubt, but leave them alone right now. But first try to make these three important things is: the determination to be free, bodhimind and wisdom, see whatever you can gain experience on that. If you can manage that, everything you do will become a direct cause of either total liberation or totally becoming buddha. So in other words, Manjushri adviced Tsongkhapa: “ Don’t spend time to try to do vajryana this and that, all this type of thing, first try to spend time on this. When you establish that well, everything will work very well, if you cannot establish this, nothing will work well. That is Manjushri’s advice.

00:03:27

Now if that is so, the question is, how do I train myself - this is really a training of mind- how am I going to train my mind? Now let’s say two divisions, I mean two outlines here. Outline number one is, now we call it: the root of all development, gurudevotional practice, guruyoga, root of all developments, every development is gurudevotional practice, let’s say guruyoga, that is easier. That is one and two: with the guruyoga how do I train my mind? On the basis of guruyoga, or with guruyoga, how does one develop? That will be the second. Alright, you got these two, right? These is the really basic things, the first is they talk about the guru. This is a little strange for Westerners, if you are not used to Eastern practice. The first thing you are going to get is a big picture of the guru in front of you. That is a little strange to the Westerners, but when you really go the traditional way, and if you really look for your developments, this is what it is. So first guruyoga and the second is with the guruyoga how do I go. So it is done with the guruyoga, not without guruyoga, with guruyoga how do I do? These are the two.

00:07:02

Now the first guruyoga you have to divide into three. First you have preliminary for the session. Oh no sorry you have to cut it into two: the actual session, and the in between session, this is Nyur Lam. The actual session means, when you are actually meditating, what do I think. That is the actual session, and the in between sessions, that is under the first. Alright, so now the actual session. The actual session means when you are actually sitting down and meditating, what do you do, that is what actual session is. So you have three in the actual session itself: the preliminary part of it, then the actual meditating itself and the end of the session. We are talking meditating one hour or if you are meditating three hours, we are talking about that: preliminary, actual and conclusion. Alright, you got that right: preliminary, actual and conclusion. This is we are talking about one session,this follows every session. Let’s say if you are meditating.., those people who are going to retreat, let’s say if you meditate six times or four times, three times a day, so you apply this preliminary, actual and conclusion in each sitting. It is important but the first one, the first sitting you should have this preliminary quite detailed, the second and third you have shorter preliminary and the actual everything quite detailed, that is advisable.

00:11:03

The preliminaries are six. Out of six the first one is actually cleaning the room, cleaning the place. So in other words, what they are telling you is that when you are really meditating, make your room clean, the first thing. Don’t leave your room untidy, you know every underwear is flying here and socks are flying there. It is not a suitable place for meditation. That is one. Two: making good offerings, beautifully presented. Then the third one is: making a comfortable seat and sit in a special way. Not only you sit in a special way but you take refuge and meditate on the Four Immeasurables. Then generating the field of merit, means you visualize the field of merit. Then making seven limb offerings to the field of merit you have generated, the seven limbs including mandala offering. So then the last one is properly pray and whatever you are praying, you bring it from the bottom of your heart. Okay, that should be the six preliminaries.

00:14:29

Then now I have to go detailed. So, the first one we are talking about is cleansing. We are not only talking about cleansing, we are talking about where can you meditate, where can you not meditate, what sort of place should be for meditation, and all of those we are talking about. Whether it is a monastery, whether it is a temple, whether it is a forest or whether it is a nice little quiet place, or just in the open air, if you feel safe and comfortable, then it is a good place to meditate. If it is completely open air, where there is nobody, in no- mans-land, which is very rare in Europe and the United States now, unless you go to Montana or something, but it is very common in Tibet because Tibet was like Afghanistan. Nw everybody knows Afghanistan. Tibet is just like Afghanistan, so there are a lot of empty open lands there. Maybe I should talk, maybe I shouldn’t talk. I should talk, why not. Alright, if it is open land, completely open and miles and miles you see nobody, if that is so, then you make your own little room. You build it. The way you make it is, you say: “Ah, that’s my Eastern boundary, that is my Southern boundary, this is my Northern boundary, this is my Western boundary”, and at each of those boundaries, you generate one of those protectors. Buddha had four protectors, four directional protectors. These are called’ ‘ ju go..’ (Citation 00:17:24), each one of them is called King of the South, East, North etc. So during his lifetime Buddha had four protectors. If you look in those Lamrim trees or Lama Chöpa trees, like Marian has drawn them, below the lotus, almost outside, there are four big guys standing there. You know four big guys are standing there, you say: “Oh, these are the four kings of the four directions”. So you say: “ This is my Eastern boundary” and the guy Jugoso (name?) is there, “ This is my Southern boundary”, Mingsang (name?) is there, “ This is my Western boundary”, Pakyepo (name?) is there, This is my Northern boundary”, Namtuse (name??) is there. That is how you make your room. You have completely open land, which is not so questionable for us, because we don’t have such land.

00:19:09

And also, even though you are in your own home, it is nice if you can think: the wall on the east, the wall in the west, the wall on the south and the wall in the north of your own room you can think they are the four Buddha’s protectors: the protector is the wall, the protector is the wall. The wall is not separate from the protector, the protector is not separate from the wall. If you can think that it will be helpful. Then the question of cleaning comes. And the cleaning whatever you do doesn’t matter. And I am not going to talk detailed because you have study groups. The study groups really study in those details, so that is why I am not going to go into those details. It doesn’t matter: if you sweep the floor, if you vacuum the floor, you wash the floor, you wipe the floor, whatever you do, it does not matter, it has to be clean. And if you look in the study groups they will tell you, removing the dust is not the dust, it is the dust of negative karmas and the broom is not an ordinary broom, it is the broom of wisdom, and the vacuum cleaner is not an ordinary vacuum cleaner, the vacuum cleaner is the powerful suction of emptiness which sucks all relative existence,.. and all that type of thing they will talk to you. Okay, so I will leave it at that.

00:21:26

So in short, dusting, cleaning, whatever makes you feel nice and comfortable. And that is what you are looking for. Now the next is – since this is an Eastern religion-, this is the religion that brings images and here we have creation of the altar. So how do you create an altar? So on the top, the most important place is normally occupied by gurus. And that includes guru Shakyamuni. Buddha Shakyamuni is counted here as a guru rather than a buddha. Okay. So the Shakyamuni should be the most important guru, because he is really the founder is Buddhism, it is he who shared the path, that is why he, the Shakyamuni is the most important. Some people will say: “No, no, make Tsongkhapa the most important”. Some people will say: “ No, no , make Guru Rinpoche, guru Padmasambhava the most important”. Some people will say: “ No, no, no make the Dalai Lama the most important”. So they all have their own reasons. When the Gelugpas want ot make the Gelugpa important, they put Tsongkhapa in front, Nyingmapas want to make Padmasmbhava important, they would like to make padmasambhava I the ceter, the Tibetans would like to make both the temporal and spiritual leader the most important, and they put the Dalai Lama I that. But basically for us the general practitions, the most important thing is Buddha, there is no replacement, that is really the most important thing is the Buddha, so don’t ever forget. That is the most important.

00:25:54

And then whoever you want: You can put Tsonkhapa here, Guru Rinpoche there, the Dalai Lama there, your own spiritual masters there, you can put them, but put them nicely. Please have some kind of artistic touch. Don’t bring every photo that is collecting dust over there and dump it, don’t bring a photo, postcard and dump it on the ground, that will not be an altar. Okay, that buddha image, whether it is bronze or brass or copper or gold or silver or mercury, clay or wood or whatever it is, think in your perception, think this is the real buddha. This is important, you have to think this is a real one. If you don’t think it is a real one, then it becomes art deco. And if you think this is a real one and putting some respect and looking as your object of refuge, then it becomes an altar. The big difference is whether it is going to be art deco or an altar depends on how you look at it.

00:28:20

Okay? Now then there is so many pictures, so many things that come, so that’s why below the gurus then you have yidams. And then you have buddhas, then bodhisattvas, then arhats, then dakas and dakinis, then dharma protectors, and that also has samsaric and non-samsaric dharma protectors. And non-samsaric dharma protectors are objects of refuge that you can put in there. And the samsaric dharma protectors normally you don’t put on the altar. Those of you who have been to Tibet, you have seen the old Tibetan monasteries, the protectors have a separate little box in the corner somewhere, you see the whole altar and then the protectors have a separate place. And that is non-samsaric protectors are not part of the altar but in a separate place, giving an honorable place, that is what it is. Even you see in old Tibetan cultures in India, such as Ladakh, Sikkim or Bhutan, you see that. They call it Gong kang (00:30:31 ??name), the protectors have a separate room rather than being mumbled jumbled together. But then if you see the new Tibetan set-ups in India they are all mixed right now. So that should not become a source of confusion in the West.

00:31:14

Now the second question is: where do I sit? Now we have the altar… Oh, I forgot. If you know Feng Shui, then it is very good. And if you don’t know Feng Shui, what you normally do is, normally you try to face the altar south. You know why? The sun rises from the east, and sets to the west, so it moves directional, so that is why the altar is put north, facing south, is recommended. In some places they will not be able to do it, because the house shape is such, you may not be able to do it, so you don’t have to stick to that rule. So then the second choice is sitting at the west, facing to the east.

Caroline: The altar facing east?

Rimpoche: No, sitting at the west and the altar facing east. And if that is not possible, then opposite sitting to the east and facing the west. Even that is not possible sitting at the south facing the north is okay. Not joining of the south and east, south and west, facing that corner is also okay. In other words everything is okay.

00:34:12

Alright, so now if you don’t have those images and all this, it is good to have it, - I mean now there is no problem-, everybody can buy a photo or a postcard or something, there is not problem. But traditionally in Tibet, it is a big problem. So the teaching will tell you: if you don’t have an image it is okay. Get a little piece of slate, that stone or even a piece of wood and put leaves or even grains there and think this is buddha, that will also do. And many of the great masters, who had a great deal of developments have used that, they don’t have money to buy expensive images so what they did is: they picked up a piece of wood and they put something here and something here and they said : “ This is my buddha”. So that is what they do, that is okay. It is just like kids playing. Kids put pebbles here and say:“This is buddha”, just like that, that will also do. You know what they tell you: they tell you the mind is more important than matter. Okay? So if you have both matter and mind together, very good, if not, mind is more important than matter.

00:36:47

Alright. Now sitting ourselves. So where do we sit, where do I sit to practice? I created an altar so I would like to sit in front of the altar so that I can look at it. So this is more a long time meditation and all this but also every day if you can do it, you can, but if you cannot do it, it doesn’t matter, but for a long time meditation, where you really sit, you make it, underneath your seat you draw a swastika, like Hitler’s sign. But there are two systems in Tibet, the swastika is going in this direction, and the other is going that direction. So the direction Hitler used is actually the Bönpo direction, I am sorry, the non-Buddhist Bön direction. If you read the Tibetan books they will tell you ‘Yundrug.. ‘ (citation 00:38:53), meaning Yungdrug is swastika, saying the direction should be the dharma style that is what it means. So the dharma style goes in one direction and the Bönpo style goes in the other direction. That is why they say dharma style. But the reason why they write swastika is that actually you are supposed to have a crossed vajra. But the vajra is the hand implement of a yidam. And the hand implement really means the yidam itself. So you don’t want to sit on top of that. So you use a swastika so substitute that. So that means if you see a carpet that has a crossed vajra, - these days you find it-, don’t use it, you are creating unnecessary negativities. And certainly you are not going to sit on the carpet that has buddha’s form or guru form or things like that, you don’t want to sit on it, right?

00:41:04

Okay. Then on top of this, that swastika, you put kusha grass. That is Indian culture. Since these teachings comes from India, they pick up the culture. Why? Because in India kusha grass is cleaning stuff: actually broomsin India are made of kusha grass, for sweeping material. So one for cleansing, two: the kusha stands together, in the hair you get mixed up together but kushas don’t get mixed like that, if it gets mixed up they break. So the kusha, all those branches don’t touch each other, it stands straight. So by putting that under your seat, it also symbolizes your mind will also not get knotted and remains standing. And then when you put the kusha, you have to put all the roots inside and the branches out, in other words if you are going to put a couple of kushas then you can put them underneath as you are sitting. But if you are going to put the kusha around, then you put the roots in, branches out. Alright, and then on top of that make a comfortable seat. Some people are comfortable if the back is a little higher, some people are not. And whatever is comfortable to you, you have to make that. And especially these days in the West, when you look at meditation cushions, sometimes they have big cushions and then this big square thing comes up. And first when I saw it, I thought: “ Oh, it is strange”. But I think for Western people it is comfortable to sit on it, because half it is sitting like a chair and half it is not. It is comfortable, good, and I understand that Trungpa Rinpoche is the one who really thought of that, and I think it is good idea because for Western people half you are sitting on the chair at least. So that may be comfortable. So it doesn’t really matter, whatever is comfortable for you, you can choose that.

00:45:45

Okay, now your cushion, altar, both are there. Now we have to touch the second, that is offering. So you have to have beautiful offerings, as good as possible you can afford. Whether it is going to be the water bowls that you are going to offer, or the light or candle holder or flower vase or whatever you are going to put it in, as expensive as possible. And if possible pure gold, oh I forgot, platinum, and gold, pure silver, pure silver means old fashioned silver, I am not talking about sterling silver, pure silver, old fashioned silver, and then sterling silver, then brass, copper, white metal. Actually, if you get nice clay.

Audience: Crystal?

Rimpoche: A crystal bowl, yes of course, or glass or then clay, you know, sometimes you get those coffee mugs made out of clay. It is beautiful clay

Caroline: China?

Rimpoche: It is not china.

Audience: Ceramic

Rimpche: Good ceramic things. If you don’t get that, then you know you can get whatever, white metal or one of those materials

Caroline: Crystal, glass

Rimpoche: Okay, and the small one is… there are a lot of those these days, some materials anyway. Anyway, the less expensive it is, you create less positive karma. The more expensive it is, that is why more positive karma is generated, and that is the reason why. Traditionally in old Tibetan culture, if you go to the Dalai Lama, or the Panchen Lama’s palace, most of the bowls are 24 karat gold. And then it comes to the old fashioned silver, everybody, even the ordinary village wherever you go, nomads in nowhere you find the silver bowls. That is the old fashion anyway. So it is not accumulating wealth, although it is one direction, in it is an investment meant for that as well. But it is also accumulation of merit and that is what they used to do.

00:51:02

Anyway, so then also the presentation of it should be done very artistic. You know like the Japanese food, if you are used to Japanese food, you know how they design it. I am just thinking of daikon radish, not necessarily the sushi, but the daikon radish. Maybe they have this much daikon radish, but they will shred in such a way it looks nice, it looks beautiful, actually only this much daikon radish, it is really true. That is the art of presenting. You know, if you just got a piece of daikon radish cut it and leave it on the plate, it is going to look very funny, you are not going to bite. But they shred it and make it in such a way it looks nice, …but if you really eat it... But what I am trying to say here is not only the material of the offering should be good but also it should be presented with an artistic touch. And if you make it artistic and with beautiful deco it becomes deco. And if you don’t put it nicely, then no matter whatever, it becomes junk, so that is the difference.

00:55:00

The material what you offer here, you notice we have put water. The water is symbolic, symbolic because water represents purity. You are not really offering water, you are offering every needed material. So, in the Indian tradition, water to wash the feet. Whenever you come in, they come from a dusty area, so they will wash your feet with water, that is why water for the feet. And water for the mouth. Then water to sprinkle on your chest to cool down. The temperature is 115 degrees, you came walking in the sun, so they sprinkle water to get cool. Flowers for your eyes or for your hair, incense for your nose and taste for your tongue, that is food, and cloth for your touch. Actually touch for your body, that is what it is. So that is why we not only offer the water, we offer the food, we offer the sound and the smell, and taste and touch.

Audience: Music

Rimpoche: Yes of course definitely, music for the ears and for the heart as well. If you only listen here it is not that good, but if it goes deep down, from the heart you are connected it is good. Some music the heart will reject and then it becomes noisy, especially the Indian temple, my god, there is 24 hours wha, wha, going as loud as possible, then the heart won’t like to listen, you put ear plugs in or something. So in short: whatever is the best you can offer, you should offer that. There is a difference between offerings and generosity. All offerings are generosity. But all generosity gifts are not offering. Such as a great system in the West: we give our used clothes to the Purple Heart or the Salvation Army, all these are great generosity. But they are not offerings, because we can’t use it. We don’t select the best we can get and take it to the Salvation Army. And we select whatever we cannot use or we have too much of, and we take to the Salvation Army So it is a gift and not an offering. So the offering should be the best you can, which you don’t want to spend, which you don’t want to give. You know some little way you are attached to, that will be the offering. In short, the earlier Tibetan teachers say the yellow part of the vegetable and the blue part of the butter.

Break

01:02:21

So, now welcome back, you people had coffee, and I am going to enjoy my coffee, you can watch. While you are watching, I am going to tell you how to watch it. Okay, so now you are sitting and watching, watching the altar. So what do you do? You have very special way of sitting. It is Buddha Vairocana’s style. This is normal that should come as part of the meditation instructions. Normally when you instruct meditation instructions you instruct two: the physical way and the mental way. Actually, even for the cleansing, laying the altar, making offerings, all of them should come through the meditation instruction, sorry. So when you work in the Dharma coordination, Dharma coordination should be able to see this, which sort of instructions to follow at the meditation. And this meditation we even open for everybody on Friday nights, right? Anyway, these levels what we are talking here should be able to go into the meditation level. My thinking is the Dharma coordinators will think it in that way when you divide this should into the meditation, all of those. So what are the eight buddha Vairocana style of sitting? So let’s do this: hand, legs and waste, three main bodies. Okay, these are the major parts of the body, hands, legs and waste and then you have teeth, tongue and lips, these are the three facial aspects. So three facial aspects you count as one, and three hands, legs and waste, three together makes four. Then you have head, eyes, shoulders, breath. That is the other four. So if you make it like a little haiku : hands legs and waste, if you make four plus four is eight. I wish Allen was here, he would make one right now you know. Since Allen is not here, we may ask Simon Vinkenoog to write something if we give him two joints. He will make an offering of two joints.

01:08:45

Anyway, so now the question is: what do you do with your hands, what do you do with your legs and what do you do with your waste? Well, keep your legs together, either crossed or half-crossed or if you want to sit on the chair or whatever. Actually recommended for meditation is to sit on the cushion, but it is not compulsory. That is why: “Sit on the ground, if the ground is not there, sit on the chair”. There is always the ground, but with ‘when the ground is not there’ he means if you can’t sit on the ground, sit on a chair. So let’s say if you really keep your legs straight crossed, meditating, then should really keep your legs like this, what you call it in the West is lotus style, but in Tibetan we will call it vajra style, that is what it is. If you are really going to do it, then the left leg should go inside. The right leg is outside. So it is important the actual head of the leg will go under the thigh, not like that, it comes out that way. And then the hands should be in the meditation gesture, you go like this. And that also kept underneath like four fingers below your navel. Then the end of these two thumbs should be touching. Alright. So, some people would like to put the right hand underneath and put the left hand on top, some people would like to put the left hand underneath and put the right on top. Actually there is a reason: if you have more obsession than anger, you put the left hand down, right hand on top, if you have more anger and hatred than obsession then you put them the other way around.

01:13:30

This one recommends the left one should be underneath and the right one should be on top. Maybe they know in the future in the West in the Dharma Centers like this, they have a lot of beautiful young men and women together, so they decided to do that way. That is supposed to be a joke. So, they recommend you to keep your backbone straight. And people like Allen Ginsberg, he is so used to keep it straight, that when you give him a chair like this, he is very uncomfortable. He has to have an old-fashioned chair that sits straight and is cut straight like this, just like this, an old old-fashioned chair, it has to be a slab of wood standing straight like that, so he keeps his backbone straight. And keep your head slightly down. Do you know why? If you keep your head slightly down, it helps you with so many things: number one, we don’t have unnecessary pride. Pride is in one way is good, self-esteem is good, but unnecessary pride is not good. There are two things you really have to see: we build self-esteem but we don’t want to build this unnecessary pride. As a matter of fact, we do really have a lot of problems here in the West, particularly psychologists. The problem is they do not distinguish between the self-esteem that you build up and the pride you do not build up. They really get mixed up. I don’t mean every psychologist, but many do. There are a great many psychologists who do not mix them up, but the majority of them does mix them up.

01:17:32

And when they mix this up, then you build up an arrogant person. And interdependent, we are all interdependent human beings and they lose that principle of interdependence completely and it becomes an independent self, big one. They may be able to take the human beings out of depression a little bit, and then instead of making it a nice human being, they make an arrogant person. And there is service and disservice both. Anyway, what Buddhism really talks here: you want very independent person, a very determined person, yet humble is the word, they demand that. So you listen to the people and sometimes you listen to yourself and you notice: “ I did this, I did that”, I, I ,I, everywhere, me, me, me, I, I ,I, everywhere, which indicates no matter what you think, you have the arrogance in there. That is how you watch yourself. You notice that people say sometimes: “I said that already two years ago”, “ I did that”, “ I did this”, everything I comes. If you listen to yourself, then you should think: “ Oh, oh, I have a problem”. I should think that. So not to be arrogant, not to have that, that is why you keep your head slightly down. That is when you are meditating you do that. If you are teaching, then you will come and prostrate to your chair. Actually, I think this will come during ‘How to teach, how to listen’, that level it may come, but it doesn’t matter, wherever we are talking. In the teaching in order to think, in order to reduce your pride, you will come and you will prostrate to the empty chair of yours, thinking ‘so that I will not be the big one sitting here I will also prostrate.’

01:21:57

That is why in Lamrim teachings you will always come and prostrate to the empty chair and you sit when you are sitting you always come from the left hand side, that way, not this way, not to jump from the East or the right hand side, the left hand side. And you also say ‘ka ma…’ (01:22:24 citation): means like that of stars, like that of illusion, like that of dew, like that of a bubble, every phenomenon is impermanent. In other words even you are sitting up there today is also impermanent, the two hours will go. That is what you have to say so that your arrogance doesn’t build. So now you got this hand leg and backbone, right? And the head slightly down, and then the teeth, lips and tongue: the tip of the tongue should touch the upper palate. And you should leave your teeth and lips naturally whatever you are feeling comfortable with. Don’t overly shut, it creates jaw problem. Don’t overly open, some people will throw things in there. I don’t know whether you people read geshe Lobsang Tarchin’s book on the ‘Three Principles of the Path’. I read somewhere geshe-la is saying some guy has an open mouth, and you make these little things. They do that all the time in monasteries. When you look at them, they are sitting nice and that, internally they are playing all fools. They make little things round like this and if anybody opens their mouth they throw things in. Geshe Lobsang Tarchin wrote it in his book, you saw it, right? What book is it? Somebody told me, I looked it up in there, some Lobsang guy was opening his mouth, and he threw that, and then one day after so many days, maybe month of throwing, one day he got through. The book is ‘ Three Principles of the Path’, written by Lobsang Tarchin, a guy bin New Jersey, ex-abbot of Sera Me.

01:26:50

So that is why it is natural, not too much open, remember somebody will throw things in, not too closed, leave it natural. And keeping your head straight, not in this way not that way, if you go this way you will get pain here, so keep it straight. Okay, two shoulders straight. Alright. And now then comes the air exercise. The air exercise is what you breathe in and out. And you should not make noisy breathing. Some people will teach you, you have to breathe very strongly, they do. Especially if you are following the Tulsa? ( name 01:28:28) tradition, that Sikh religion. And Sikhs are not really Hindus, the Sikhs are Sikhs. Originally it is correct. Really, the Sikh gurus are actually manufactured by the Hindu tradition. There are ten of them, no more, only ten gurus. And each one of those Sikh gurus are riding horses and carrying swords, weapons. The reason why they did is the Hindu-Muslim problems and the Hindus are supposed to be non-violent. And so there was a , -I mean historically speaking, I am not talking now-, there was so much Muslim invasion in India early, India lost almost all its Hindu-Buddhist culture to the Muslim control, and to fight violently against the Muslims, against the Hindus, those Muslims who are attacking Hindus, and to attack them physically violently, to attack them the Sikh religion is created by the Hindu religions, it is about two three thousand years ago.

01:30:53

And that is why it represents the wrathfulness in the Hindu tradition. And then years went by and then the Sikh religion became independent by itself, it has nothing to do with the Hindus. Because they wear turbans now, the Hindus don’t wear turbans. The turban is actually to protect from weapons. But later they say it is going to keep you warm. And it becomes so warm, and at the middle of the day at twelve o’clock every sadaji will act crazy. I had better not go in that direction. Anyway, in the Sikh tradition they will give you a very strong breathing exercise, they have a very strong breathing system and that is just to rise the wrathfulness. Because the tradition is built that way: they are really the bodyguards of the Hindus, originally that idea, even the breathing exercise is also wrathful. And now if you look at the Hindu-Buddhist tradition, a non-violent tradition it will be the very small, shallow breathing, very soft breathing. And particularly in the Buddhist and the vajryana tradition, you make sure you breathe through your nostrils, not through the mouth. Alright, so, to prove that, in that mahamudra text of the Gelug, it says ‘sam ten te we..’ ( 01:14:39 citation): so it is a beautiful, comfortable cushion on which you sit with the seven postures and clear your air nine times. You understand that breathing nine times, so I am not going into detail because the study groups will show, particularly the meditation groups will show you the nine rounds of meditation. But some people will say that breathing is the beginning of meditation, it is not. Then what is the beginning of the meditation? This is a good question. A number of people will say different things, but this question was raised by Tsongkhapa during his lifetime: What is the beginning of meditation? He just made an open question and let it flow around, a number of those questions, and one of them is that. And nobody really answered until about hundred years later. And then the First Panchen Lama came and said: “ The beginning of the meditation is checking your motivation.”

01:37:41

So the idea is: why do I want to do this? And then the answer will be: “ I would like to do this because I like to feel good, because I like to impress my friend, because I would like to have some special power, or some supernatural power, something more than the other person has.” So any of that category we label here as a materialistic mind. If it is materialistic mind oriented, then we are wasting a lot of opportunity. There is a tantra, you will hear this during the initiations all the time, but this tantra says: ‘ten den je pe..’ (citation 01:39:17). So this tantra really tells you: do not seek material benefit, if you are seeking material benefit, you are not going to get any spiritual benefit. If you are seeking spiritual benefit, you are going to get all your material benefits automatically. So if it is material desire oriented, either it is followed by obsession, hatred or ignorance. In that case every work whatever we do is not going to be good, it is going to be bad. Atisha told the Tibetans: “ If the root is poison, the branches trees and leaves are all going to be poison. If the root is medicine, the branches, leaves and fruits are going to

Atisha says: “ You get material benefit”. It is true. If you meditate how to overcome your competitors, adverstisements, you are going to get benefit. Just like Pepsi and Coca Cola. Did you get the picture? Some did. If you look a few years back, there is a very clear picture there anyway. So then Tönpa Rinpoche asked: “ What do they get in their future lives?”. Atisha replied: “ In the future the hell realm, the hungry ghost realm and the animal realm is what they are going to get” That was Atisha’s reply. So therefore, meditation should not be used as a tool for building material benefit at all. It is a beautiful tool and using it for material benefit is really overkill. Okay, maybe that much should be enough here, otherwise..

01:44:08

Audience: The eyes?

Rimpoche: Okay, thank you. Didn’t I say anything? What would you like to do? Big open eyes in the air waiting for the five color rainbow to show. Would you like to do that? Some people will tell you to do that. But where I come from, they will tell you to leave them alone. Actually, look straight from your nostrils, to five or six feet level to that side. Not too high, not too low, sort of leave it there naturally. Why about five or six foot? Maybe the Dutch people have to leave more than five or six foot, mostly they are from the biking and they are big and tall anyway. For us five and a half is good enough. Five foot six, that is my size, so I’m short among you.

Audience: We are more.. (inaudible

Rimpoche: That’s right, much more.

Anyway. Okay, thank you for asking that because I forgot about it. So if you are seeking material benefit, then … really we do a lot of them. Even good Dharma practitioners also do a dharma practice for material benefit, really a lot of them do. The material should not be the only thing. We are not talking about money and wealth alone, the material includes success, more success than money or wealth, ‘ I have been successful’. So when you are looking for successfulness, you are really looking for samsaric benefit, you are not looking for non-samsaric benefit. So when you are seeking success, any positive karma you do, will be cause of taking rebirth in samsara. And anything beyond that, seeking liberation, going beyond that will be non-samsara, whether it is going to be self-liberation or enlightenment. So what they try to recommend you here is: try to do the later one, don’t do the earlier one.

01:49:21

So here we are still touching at the sitting and then especially generating pure thoughts, a special mind. What kind of special mind do you need to generate here? The special mind here, actually we are talking about the bodhisattva’s mind. Normally when you talk about positive thinking, you are talking about having intelligent faith to buddha, dharma and sangha, having intelligent faith and trust to karma, for generosity etcetera, we talk a lot. But over here we are really talking about bodhimind. So some kind of bodhimind we have to generate here. Very briefly at least we have to suggest to ourselves: in this world every being that we can encounter, contact, this is not the first time we are contacting with that person. I have had dealings with this person so many times in my previous lives, good and bad both. And both of them a countless number of times. Even let’s say positive, the most positive: they have been my own mother so many times. Every time they have been my mother, they have saved my life a number of times. A number of times when I was born as a little animal, my mother has saved me from the other big animals eating me up, killing me. When I was born as a human being my mother has protected me, again from falling, breaking my bones or being eaten by animals or electrocuting myself, and a number of times, countlessly saved my life. I can’t even count it.

01:53:43

That is why they have been so kind to me. And today I have opportunity to repay their kindness. And also not only I have the opportunity, I have great opportunity to help them forever. And that is I can make them fully enlightened. And I want to do that, I want to do that even if they are not my mothers, I don’t care whether they are my mothers or not, but I really want to help everybody and make everybody become fully enlightened. But right now, I don’t have power to do this. And therefore, I need to become fully enlightened so that I have the power to do that. So this also you have to keep on meditating as long as you can, as many times as possible, because that will be the beginning of establishing bodhimind. So within that, the first meditation, since it is the Buddhist point, the first meditation will be refuge. So how do I take refuge? So now as I mentioned to you earlier how you sit, why you are breathing twenty one times, many times our mind is sometimes positive, sometimes negative, sometimes not even focused. So by counting the breath coming in, going out, coming in, going out, coming from right, going out from left, coming in from left going out right, coming in together, going out together, when you are focusing that, you actually withdraw from the attractions you have been focusing on, and made yourself an opportunity where you can get positive thoughts in.

01:57:44

So now the whole meditation will basically come in this form. We follow the form as it is right here. So that is: right in front of you at about five and a half to six and a half foot at most, at that level, the verse whatever we are going to say: ‘rang ge ..’ (01:58:21citation): in other words, it is saying: the space in front of me, in that, they really introduce you where you are focusing. I am not saying where you are looking at, but where your focus is. If you are look at where you are focusing at, it is good, even when you close your eyes, it is not recommended but it is helpful in the beginning. It is not recommended because it will have some problems later. So anyway, space right in front of me at the level where my nostril is, over there, about five and a half to six feet away in that space. So in that space you generate a throne, traditional cultures will tell you: a throne that is lifted by eight lions and all that. You may be able to think that, you may not be able to think that, it doesn’t matter. You should be able to think, if your focus is shifted from the throne to the lions, you should be able to know this throne is lifted by eight lions. It should be a very open throne, a very spacious throne, and high and respectable and made by jewels. And at the center of that throne you have a lotus, moon and sun cushion. So on that, in reality my own root master in the form of buddha Shakyamuni, yellow in color, the right hand is in the earth touching mudra , the left hand in meditating position. Buddha is wearing a yellow robe, having all these thirty major and eighty two minor qualities, special marks, cross legged. He is also surrounded by the lineage masters, lamas, yidams, buddhas, bodhisattvas, dakas and dakinis, dharma protectors. In other words, you visually draw a picture of your root master as buddha Shakyamuni surrounded by the lineage masters and all others. Each one of them is sitting and next to them are at least couple of books, their own teachings. These people are very happy with me and I am very grateful to them. Alright? So this will be establishment of the base of meditation.Okay, now this is the image you have to draw. So every lamrim meditation, all these outlines will come. Every lamrim meditation you have to do within that framework.

02:05:23

Okay, so maybe I should stop here. I wish I could do a little more, but I don’t think I can.

Now we haven’t taken refuge yet, we are just building a refuge base. So we are in that level. Refuge and bodhimind go together here, that is ‘sangye chö dang..’ (02:06:14 citation): that is really the beginning beginning of any Buddhist practice, I mean the Tibetan Buddhist practice. The moment you sit down you say ‘sangye chö dang’ , whether you are thinking or not thinking, that is what we say all the time. That is the beginning, before you say ‘I take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha until I become enlightened for the benefit of all beings six paramitas etcetera. I will dedicate for the benefit of all beings, I would like to obtain enlightenment’. For that word we are getting to the half of this. So we say that very often, you have that in Dutch whatever you say. What do you say in Dutch, how do you say?

Audience: We say it in Dutch

Rimpoche: So what we really did is up to that level of the first word we say, we came to that point. So when we say ‘I take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha’, we can do that point only. Basically what you have to remember is all the purposes what we are doing, all the qualities what we are doing, these are your background information. For practical purposes what you do when you say: “ I take refuge in buddha, Dharma and Sangha”, for practical purposes what you do is the root of all development of guruyoga. Within guruyoga how to develop. Within guruyoga also you have preliminary, actual and conclusion. So at the preliminary level, when you sit down, the first thing to do is the preliminary level. That is six of them. Out of six, we came to this third, I think. ‘..’ (citation 02:09:05): in other words we came to the point where you sit on a comfortable cushion with seven styles, and then generate a pure mind, and then take refuge and four immeasurables. So we came to that point of taking refuge.

02:09:55

So tonight before you go to bed you have to think a little bit here. You have to think, you may not be able to think all the blabla, you may not be able to think all the Tibetan prayers we said, either in Dutch or Tibetan, but you should be able to think: the root of all development is the guruyoga, that also has two: during the session what to do, and in between sessions what to do. During the session what to do: we have three: preliminary, actual and conclusion, and at the level of the preliminary we have six preliminaries, out of which we have covered three today and we are at the point of taking refuge. So that much you think you will do. You think that kind of short statement twice tonight at least or maybe three times, and tomorrow morning, twice or maybe three times, then we will build something. Otherwise whatever we said here you will forget and that will not do any good.

02:09:50

So to have more teaching time, I suggest tomorrow morning when we come in I think we should say the Heart Sutra, I doesn’t take that long, and then you should say the seven limb prayer, taking refuge to Buddha and then maybe the first thing when you sit down, after the Heart Sutra, you may not need the taking refuge and four immeasurables you do. You might not need that tomorrow morning. Normally that should be done, but tomorrow skip that. Straight away go for the invocation: ‘ma lü..’ (citation 02:12:40). We have the invocation there, and the invocation and the seven limb. And then the short lineage prayer, maybe you don’t have to chant it, just say it. Say in Tibetan, there is no English, you can’t do it in English, it doesn’t even work. So when you try to say these lineage things in English, it never works. The same with the Vajrayogini, the same with Yamantaka, it goes blablabla and it doesn’t make any sense. Because virtually half of the words you cannot even translate what it means, so it doesn’t make any sense at all. And then we conclude that and make a short mandala offering, not a long mandala offering, and then we go on doing the teachings. So I think that way we will save some time there. Say if you can start at ten, then everybody can sit down, then I’ll come in, so just like today we will do that with the Migtsema, prostrations and then sitting down.

02:14:57

Actually this is not very good. Why? The preliminaries are the basis are the basis on which your development is really based. Now with the time limit you have to cut it short. But preliminaries are the basis actually, that is what it is. I remember a time when kyabje Ling Rinpoche was talking in one conversation, kyabje Ling Rinpoche was talking to me and he said: “Pabongkha Rinpoche never used to cut the preliminaries short”. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche said he was attending one of kyabje Pabongkha’s teachings of Heruka, he said there were a little over thousand people. And the teaching was supposed to start at twelve, midday. And some visitor or another, some former or present officials of the Tibetan government will come and visit Pabongkha. They won’t leave and Pabongkha will keep on talking to him and he said the ladrang institution will keep on serving food, so they won’t leave. So they come just before lunch for five minutes to see him and they sit there, they have lunch, afternoon tea and evening dinner. So there are a thousand people waiting out there waiting for this teaching. And they have to walk. Those of you who have been to Tibet know: they have been to the ?? and Pabongkha area, the teaching was up in the mountains, so they have to walk a little over two and a half miles in a rocky area. So they will go up there and waiting until six or six thirty and then the teaching will begin. It was supposed to begin at twelve it was supposed to finish at six thirty or seven and it will not finish until ten or ten twenty at night. And then all these thousand people have to go through the rocky area, no light, nothing, just half falling, half walking to get down to this level. And even during that time that late and they keep on continuously chanting. And sometime the chanting master will ask Pabongkha Rinpoche:

“Should I make it a little shorter?” and he will say no. That is what Ling Rinpoche told me. But what can we do now? If we keep on chanting, we will start at ten and we finish out chanting at three, and that will happen in that way, better not do it. So that’s it, I guess we should stop here for today. So whatever we have learned today, do kindly have it benefit yourself for your life.