Archive Result

Soundfile 20020427GRNLLRMyurLam12

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Nijmegen

Topic Nyur Lam

Transcriber Caroline Vossen

Date 14-11-2021

00:00:00

This oral transmission went up to this six paramitas now. So we are a little bit ahead with the oral transmission, the oral transmission is a little bit ahead of the explanation.

Now, out of those eleven steps, what is the first one? Equanimity, right? Equanimity I have talked to you: read that, the transcript is much better than I try to say something very briefly. Yes, that is good enough. Then the next was recognizing every sentient being as mother sentient being. I think we talked about that a little bit.

00:01:35

On each one of them you have to have a meditation. If you forget meditation, then you are really done, you have gone wrong. On the equanimity level, when you say the Four Immeasurables: “May all sentient beings be equal”, that is not good enough. That is not enough at all. And if you just simply say: “May all sentient beings be equal”, that is simply praying, that is not even meditating, that is simply praying. That will do nothing good, so you have to meditate. You have to have the lama lha on your crown, first you pray that equanimity may develop with me, then light and liquid purifies, all the preliminaries up to ‘kun du lama lha…’(citation 00:02:52), you do as the preliminary tells you.

00:03:20

Then in the transcripts of the lojong, you will see it that you will focus on a neutral person, a person that you neither hate nor love, just a stranger: the person you saw on the train this morning, and that pops up in front of you, and watch your mind. What attitude do you have towards that person? ‘Just a guy, just a person. I don’t particularly care, I don’t particularly hate’. Why? Because there is no reason why I particularly like him, there is no reason why I particularly hate him. So that feeling is a feeling of.., it is normal, there is nothing wrong with that, it is a normal feeling in normal life. And in the love and compassion business, this is not right. Because in the love and compassion business, this is your business, and you are not taking care of, you don’t take advantage of being in this business there. So you have to develop respect. “Well, I respect him, he is a human being”, and that’s it. But that is lip service, you have to go deeper than that. So you really have to go deeper than that, and see that person is not just a guy but a human being with feeling, somebody’s son, somebody’s father, somebody’s brother, somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s very close, dear person. So that person becomes a little bit more special than ‘just a guy’. If that person has a beard and slightly looks like a Muslim, then we think: “Oh, that could be a terrorist”. Our mind is such, we could!

00:07:28

There was an Indian guy, who was in the plane from Detroit to New York, and everybody in the plane didn’t want to fly, they all wanted to get out because of this. And they didn’t want to talk to him, they just wanted to get off the plane. Then the pilot talked to that person and the person said: “I am Indian” and the pilot looked into his passport and said: “He is Indian, he is okay” (laughter). And on another occasion a pilot refused to fly because the guy was reading the magazine upside down. Somebody saw it and he looked like a Muslim and he was reading the magazine upside down. Some hostess saw, it, talked to the pilot, the pilot came out and looked, and found out: he is a Muslim guy, reading the magazine upside down, meaning he doesn’t know how to read English, so he was reading it upside down. So the pilot wouldn’t fly, so they didn’t fly until he got out. Finally he got out and then the plane went with a two hour delay.

00:09:41

So this sort of feelings are not equanimity feelings. And not only not equanimity, we don’t even have respect to a human being. Normally, in the normal Lamrim teachings, you will notice people won’t emphasize this. But what I notice is there are so many things in the Tibetan traditions we take for granted. But in the West you have to emphasize it. So the most important thing here to emphasize is the respect. So, if you don’t have respect for people, then how can you expect love and compassion? It is absolutely true. They say equanimity or no equanimity, that is the comparison with the people, trying to bring everything to the same level. But before we even do that, it is so important to gain respect to all human beings. Not as people, not as human being, to see each and every person with a face, with a name, and train your mind in such a way, that we don’t just see ‘the guy standing there’, or ‘the Muslim guy reading the magazine upside down’. ‘It is just a guy, it could be a terrorist’. It oculd be, but you don’t want to see that, you want to see respect to a human being, a man or a woman.

00:12:38

The expression, - I don’t know whether you do it in Dutch or not- , but in America they have the expression: ‘just a guy’, ‘just a woman’, ‘this woman’, ‘just a guy’… It is not disrespectful but it looks down on the person. But respect is the fundamental basis of all love and compassion. So, we may make a respect before this equanimity and make 12 steps. I think AA is twelve steps. If we put this respect there, it becomes 12 steps. You could do the same meditation. ‘May I be able to develop respect to all people’ not with people as a lump, as a collection but with people as individuals with a face and with a name. Then the analytical meditation to this: this is somebody, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s son, somebody’s father, somebody’s mother, somebody’s sister, somebody’s brother, somebody’s husband, somebody’s wife: in that way the closeness, the human nature comes in.

00:16:00

When the humanity is established, then it equally becomes more easy to develop compassion or hatred because it is no longer an object but somebody that means something to me. So it really makes it easier to develop attachment, hatred or love or compassion. That makes it much easier, as we see. If a minister in the government makes a decision, and it affects me, we don’t feel much. If the minister happens to be my uncle, and my uncle made the decision, then it hurts more, or you like it more. And that is when we have a close feeling, anything, good or bad, love and hatred is much easier to develop. Okay. And then move to this: this guy and that woman to equanimity. Then move to the mother business. Each one of these meditation you have to close just like usual: lama lha, light and liquid, each one of them. Don’t take it lazy steps, as we are taking here. Because you have to do this,… you don’t have to do this every day, you can’t do it every day, the whole thing, even if you want to, but you do it gradually. You do study this in the study group and when you are alone, you do that meditation.

00:19:41

Don’t try to meditate the whole thing in one day, every day, it is impossible, you would spend all your time to do this. So you just do something here, something there. Do it with control. You have to make plans how you are going to do it in your study group. And that is going to be one of this bigger tasks for which you didn’t have before, you people’s bigger tasks, you and me and Marion and Marianne here and Ineke, your task will be to divide this, to talk with the individuals and to bring it to the meditation level. Don’t just make it a teaching, have a discussion and answering and bringing the meditation level, for each individual. You have a very small group, you don’t have a group of 25, you have 7, 8, 9 10, groups are that much, right? So make sure it really becomes an open conversation, and also make sure that you have this questions and answers and discussion. And the meditation too. And then you yourself also have to organize how much you can do. No one can expect you to do the whole Lamrim meditation every day, no way.

00:22:54

How did you do it, when you and Hartmut were sitting in Malaysia?

Alfred: (inaudible) (from translation:) Rimpoche had told us to start with guruyoga, then after a year we saw him again, he said: now you can start with the first steps of the Lamrim. We went through, and started again and again from the beginning, and gradually we built it up further

Rimpoche: But then they had different circumstances, right? They studied in a cave. How did you get your food?

Alfred: (translated): Only Hartmut was in a cave, I went somewhere else, to Thailand

Rimpoche: (laughs): So who gave the food?

Audience: (inaudible)

Rimpoche: So the local people gave you food, very good. So it is different circumstances. Here in Nijmegen, that will not be there. You have to work, you have to pay your bills, it is not going to happen.

00:25:29

So but you got to meditate, and you can’t do everything in one day. Something like the Foundation of perfections you can say every day. Even when you don’t meditate in that, but you say the words, at least it completes. So then on each point you will meditate here and there, in ab organized manner: within a week I am going to do this. That much, that is how you organize. Analytical meditation, when you do analytical meditation, you have a tremendous amount of thoughts which are going to come up. Curiosity. Alfred has been asking some funny questions, I have been irritated with him. He wanted to talk to me half an hour and I thought I don’t have time. Then he wanted to talk over dinner. And I don’t eat dinner. For me.. Anyway, the curiosity is a good thing, and particularly at the beginning level, a lot of curiosity should come up. His curiosity is more on an enlightened level. So here, when we come up, we are going to have a question on the guru , a very big issue. We are going to have curiosity on the issue of impermanence, not the gross but the subtle. We are going to have curiosity on the refuge, we are going to have curiosity, tremendous curiosity on the reincarnation. Yes, and all of those, and even in the hell realm. Unfortunately we cannot take a tour. You know, if there is a nice vehicle that we could drive through the hell realm, we could have taken the tour, but we cannot. But in Singapore – or is it Malaysia?- there is a public park of hell realms.

00:29:53

So about things like that, this curiosity should come up, and that we should discuss. I am not sure whether we can satisfy the curiosity mind completely or not. But to a certain extent, with a reasonable logical explanation, within a certain framework, it can work. I said: within the framework. If it is not within a framework, then it will go completely wild and crazy. The framework is really respecting the thing, whatever it is. For example: we look up here at the ceiling and we say: “That is color”, the cream color or the blue wall. Sorry, what is it? We say: “This is a color”. Why do we say this is the color? Because it is blue, blue is a color. So this is the framework. When you say: “It is a color because it is blue”, then you have to accept that. If you say: “I am not going to accept that, it may be blue, but it is not a color”, then you are going beyond the framework. Then we put on you a label of ‘two screws are loose’. Not one. Because it is blue, it is a color. Because it is a color, it is not shape, it is color. So that is how you establish the framework. And you can’t be crazy on that, you have to accept that. That is something we can see and we can know. Or, then we see: “There is a bicycle”. When I say: “This is a bus”, then I will say: “This is a bus because this is a vehicle”. So what is happening now? It is not true. This may be a vehicle, but not every vehicle is a bus. So, when we try to establish that framework, it is a wrong framework. So, the right framework, and within that you see the right logical reasons, then you have to accept this is true, otherwise there is no end to it. That is how we do. And that is how you study, and particularly in the 21st century. Don’t believe anything, really. That is very important.

00:34:39

Okay, now everybody is mother. This is the subject we are talking about. How are we going to prove that? How are we going to accept that? This is a difficult one. This, normally is proven because we have countless life, every life has a mother, so we have more lives than people existed, so even if everybody was your mother once, even then it is not enough to be mother. That is how we work, that framework. But it is based on reincarnation: when the reincarnation is not established, the reason you give, is an invalid reason. So, logically we cannot really prove it. But somehow here, between these traditions and the words of Buddha and our intelligence and intuition now, somehow we have to leave it there. We have to leave it there, because it is beyond our capacity now. But then the next one: remembering the kindness, this is an easy one. And we know how mothers act for their children, particularly if you are a mother. Your body may be here, but your mind might not be there. Particularly new mothers, having small children. So that is in itself a reasonable proof that there is kindness. Even when you are not a mother, you can see these mothers doing it, you see that mothers doing it, you see it at the right and you see it at the left, and then you establish it. So I mean, then you cannot deny it, can you? Unless you want to act crazy, in your deep mind, it will tell you it is true. Or that it may be, my experience is different, but it may be. Some people have a different experience, for sure. But mostly you will accept that way.

00:38:41

So that is how you creatively have to work, that is the material for your analytical meditation. That analytical meditation provides you with conclusions: yes, in general mothers are being kind for their children. Then on that point you make concentrated meditation. That concentrated meditation will bring up, it makes you part of it. When that is working, then you gain tremendous respect to people. And when you notice you are gaining respect to the people, then your meditation is going in the right direction. And when you are losing the respect, then the meditation is going in the wrong direction. So, don’t pretend your meditation is going in the right direction, it doesn’t always. When it is going in the wrong direction, you have to review it where it went wrong. Maybe the recognition of mother beings went wrong. Maybe at the equanimity level, something went wrong. Maybe I didn’t even do the basic fundamental respect to people. So wherever you find a wrong thing, you correct and you move.

00:41:27

Then, when you see the people have been so kind, wonderful, again I would like to emphasize it is a big problem with us: that is when we see al sentient beings, and then we sort of go into the holy atmosphere, something in the head lifts up and you go into the holy bubble. Then you see John, and you say: “Oh, John is John”, and then you see Mary, and you say: “Mary is Mary”. So everybody is this and that, so where is this big thing called ‘all sentient beings’? This has been the biggest problem in Buddhism, and it is a problem now and it will remain as the biggest problem unless we are careful. We project something we call ‘all sentient beings’, other than the people you know. So, we don’t have to have equanimity, we don’t have to have love, we don’t have to imagine people we know, with a name and with a face, we have compassion and love with somebody we call ‘mr Everybody’. That is because we did not focus on each and individual person with a name and with a face. But we can’t do it with everybody. But basically we do it with sort of random friends, random enemies, those I couldn’t care less about, any face that pops up, the face that you saw on television last night, the face that you heard on the TV or radio this morning, let these things pop up, and make this a human being, and deal with it as a person: somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s mother, somebody’s sister, somebody’s father, somebody’s brother, make that image of a person. Way before we talk or meditate on love and compassion, making that person a person is very important.