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20030401GRAABWL

CD of 4-01-03

I would like to talk to you about our wonderful programs we have. Particularly, next week end there will be a seminar with Geshe Palden Drakpa. He is really an excellent geshe. There are only a few of that caliber available. He was almost in the same class as me. I think he was one class after me. He is very learned and one of the most important teachers in Drepung today. He is older than me and is one of the few who had their education in Tibet. He came from far eastern Tibet and walked to Lhasa with great hardship. He entered Drepung and was soon one of the outstanding people. The Ganden Tripa, the head of the Gelugpa tradition is on his level. Geshe Palden Drakpa chose not to take the high titles but remained humble. I was first asked by the programming people to talk on the Five Paths, but when I heard he was coming I told them it was better if they asked him to teach that. Gareth Sparham is going to translate. He is teaching at the University of Michigan in the Asian Department.

The Five Paths he is teaching on will give you the fundamental principles whether it is going to be a Mahayana path or Hinayana path. If you learn the lam rim you also have to learn how to put that together with the 5 paths. I taught this once before. There are tapes and transcripts available.

Here we are continuing with the Bodhisattvacharyavatara. We are in Chapter 7 – Enthusiasm. We talked about verse 44, which gives you the positive results of virtue. The next verse gives you the negative results of non-virtuous actions. Today we are at the level of the negative consequences.

Verse 45

But as a result of non-virtue my skin will be ripped off

By the henchmen of Yama.

In this feeble state liquid copper melted by tremendous

Heat will be poured into my body,

Pierced by flaming swords and daggers, my flesh will

Be cut into a hundred pieces

And I shall tumble upon the fiercely blazing iron ground.

This doesn’t sound very nice, does it? But some people may enjoy it! If you go to certain clubs, they do shocking things. Non-virtuous actions are negative and they bring negative consequences. Positive actions have positive consequences. It is very straight forward. If you do something good you get something good, and if you do something bad, you get something bad. We know that, but we just fail to get it. We still do something bad and hope for good results. This never works. The karma we create is definite. If we create positive karma, we will definitely have good results. Bad actions will definitely have negative consequences. This is not prophesy or fortune telling, but true fact. Buddha has made that experience again and again himself and he is sharing that with us.

I always tell you that we are responsible for ourselves. Each and everyone of us makes the difference to us. Nobody else can really do anything for us. Second and third persons can help or hurt you, but the total control is in our own hand. No one else can do anything. The simple reason is karma. I can blame you, but I cannot make you experience the consequences of any action if you haven’t performed it. Not even a Buddha can do that. It is completely ourselves alone who is making a difference to us. These two verses giving you the pictures of heaven and hell show us once again, that there is good and bad. The description of hell reminds me of what people in Iraq are going through under the bombardment of the American troops. Believe me, I am not supporting the actions of Saddam and his people. It is so unfortunate that this stupid guy is in charge of Iraq. If you want to support the people there you have to think twice, just because of this crazy guy. But the reality is that good and bad things to happen.

When we hear about the hell realms we may think that it is some place 7 layers under the ground. But look at what is happening in Iraq. Thousands of bombs are raining down. If that happens to you, what else is that except hell? So we don’t even have to doubt where there is a hell or not. Then, some people experience similar things even in our own country. People get killed, they get burned in accidents. And the relatives of soldiers who are dying in Iraq, even though nothing is happening to them physically, are going through mental torture and anguish.

Since this verse goes into it, let me talk to you a little bit about the Tibetan idea of hell realms. Hell realm experiences are not the consequences of some little white lies, like the used car dealer – type of lies. It comes from killing human beings, like mercenaries who kill others for money. Accidentally killing is also different from purposely doing so. In any case, powerful negativities lead to powerfully negative experiences like in hell realms. Such people are not being received by dakas and dakinis who come to pick you up on soft cushions, carry you over the clouds accompanied by sweet music and so on. Instead, the messengers of the Yama are coming. They will drag those people upside down into the hot hells. Tibetans recognize two different types of hell, hot and cold.

I always had to disagree with people who came from the Christian tradition and told me that they were happy to leave all that talk about hells behind. I had to tell them, ‘There is bad news here too.’ So the messengers of Yama come and take you. Your body is that of a young, sensitive kid and they will take the skin off your youthful body and then cut up your flesh, just like we cut up a steak. Now, at least if the knives were sharp, it wouldn’t be so bad. But they are bad, dull knives and they have to cut many times. So it is even more painful. It is like with me. The doctors find it hard to take blood samples from me, because they cannot find the veins easily. And then they poke the needles in here and there, drag a little bit of blood, stop and poke somewhere else and try again in a different place. That pain makes me think, ‘Can you imagine what happens if they actually start cutting up my body all together?

But that is not all. The place where the torturing takes place is also not temperature – controlled. It is 400 degrees hot. You also get no water to drink. Instead they melt down copper and zink and pour the molten metal into your mouth, which burns everything inside of you, not only the outside. And yet you don’t die.

In that manner, there are 8 hot hell realms and 8 cold ones. In one after another the suffering increases tremendously. Just in the first one the beings kill each other a hundred times a day. After each killing, the beings are revived to do it all over again. The devils there don’t let you die. You rise again, pick up the weapons, fight and kill – a hundred times a day. And that is lightest one. It gets worse and worse.

We cannot claim that this is all not true. These are not made up stories to frighten people. And even if that were the case, just look around the world today. Hell is a reality. Baghdad today under the American bombardment is hell. The bombs and the resulting fires tear people to pieces and burn them. Fortunately, they die only once and don’t have to rise up again and go through it again.

In the hells the connection between body and mind is much stronger than in the human land. In the human experience, when you bleed, once the blood leaves your body you don’t feel it. The pervasiveness of the mind is cut off at that point. But in the hell realms it continues. When your body is cut the flesh and the blood fall down on the burning, iron ground itself. The burning sensations of any body part that was cut off is felt by the individual. The pervasiveness of the consciousness throughout every part of the body is not simply disconnected when a body part is cut off.

Buddha said in the Vinaya sutra, the sutra on morality,

The consequences of non-virtues are that one gets burned in this life, future lives. One experiences the consequences on one’s physical and mental continuum itself.

Karma is very complex. For any other aspect of the Buddhist teachings and philosophies I can come up with logical reasons that are commonly acceptable, even to today’s scientists. After all, scientific evidence never contradicts logical proof. In all areas of Buddhism you can come up with convincing logic and evidence that meets scientific requirements. It can be shown and argued for. But karma is beyond our capacity to do this. It is beyond our comprehension.

Mere belief is very hard for me to handle. I was brought up in a tradition where you question and debate everything and personally, I am a very critical person. It is very hard for me to buy anything. It took me a very long time to be convinced that Osama bin Laden was really behind the terrorist attack on Sept 11, 2001. I couldn’t say it aloud, so I kept my doubts to myself. I didn’t dismiss it, but I had my doubts, until former President Clinton made an interesting statement. He was interviewed on Larry King. He said that at the time he was in Australia. Pointdexter was in New York, in Tribecca, when it happened and he called Clinton to tell him what was happening. Clinton told him that he only knew 2 sources that were motivated and capable enough to do this to the US. One was Iran and the other was bin Laden. Clinton said that Iran would not do that, because they feared being bombarded, so it had to be bin Laden, since he had no country and could run and hide everywhere, from mountain to mountain. To me that was a strong reason. After that I was convinced. So I will not buy anything unless there is a convincing reason. I would be happy to go along with what people say but I wouldn’t really buy it.

So, I would be the last person to tell you to blindly believe anything. But when it comes to karma this is way beyond our capacity to reason and figure out. We can give examples like growing fruit trees. We get good seeds, good soil, we provide water and fertilizer, we make sure the temperature is okay and there are no bugs and then we definitely get nice, sweet fruit. You can even see the continuation from the fruit to the next fruit tree. If you plant the seeds of your apple that you have just eaten, you get another apple tree. You can see the evolution of things take place. That is the easy part. But there are levels of karma that are unseen and we cannot catch them with our usual faculties. It goes beyond our capacity. In that case you have to rely on a person who has greater capacities than we have, more awareness. In case of the bin Laden situation, for me that authoritative person, who I could trust was Clinton. His explanation was logically and acceptable. Plus Clinton had until recently been the President of the United States and thus had all the information. He put two and two together and figured it out for himself. He is an intelligent person.

At the gross level of karma where you generally make statements like ‘You do something good and you get a good result’, that is fine, but it is the subtle and very subtle levels that we can’t trace or even reason about. Scientists today talk about quantum leaps, where things apparently disappear and pop up somewhere else. But I don’t know enough about that and about how much that has to do with karma, so my only alternative is to find a reliable person. So I go back to the original source. Even then, it is not just Buddha who said it. All other world spiritual traditions will emphasize causes and results. Buddha did not have a conference with Jesus or the Prophet. It is not like the 3 great auto makers, Ford, GM and Chrysler in the 70s who got together and decided to make cars that only last a few years. Unfortunately for them, they forgot to invite the Japanese! Although the founders of the great spiritual traditions never got together they all emphasize the same thing: if you do good you will reap good results and if you do bad you will reap bad results. It must be true. At least you have to give it the benefit of doubt. You definitely cannot say that it is not true.

As Allen Ginsberg always said, ‘I am not convinced that there is reincarnation. But if it is true I don’t want to be deprived of the opportunity.’ He was also an intelligent guy. We have to take the same approach. I am not here to sell you hell. That is not my product. We don’t have it on the shelves of the Jewel Heart store.

Furthermore, Buddha said,

If you have a seed of a sweet fruit, as a result the fruit you get will be sweet. It cannot be sour or hot.

If you grow hot jalapeno peppers and hope that you can a sugar-sweet fruit you are wrong. It is never going to happen. Likewise, non-virtuous actions will give you negative consequences. Positive actions will give you sweet fruit. Buddha says that intelligent people will know that.

Even the arhats, the ordinary enlightened beings, from the Hinayana stages, experience this suffering. Any pain, any dislike, light or heavy, all come from non-virtuous actions. Just like that, any good things, even a nice, little cool breeze in the middle of a 140 degree day in downtown New Dehli, are the result of virtuous karma that we have created.

On that ground, Nagarjuna adds,

Non-virtues give you all the sufferings, all lower rebirths included.

From the virtuous actions come all happiness, joy and all beautiful lives.

So, again, this confirms that non-virtuous actions give you negative consequences, while good actions get you good results. You have to get that message: Karma is definite. There are some people who say, ‘I have done something terrible and I want to square it up. So let me do something good.’ That is probably not going to work that way – unless you do it very well. For something good you do you will get a good result and for the bad you are going to get bad results. They are not going to mix. There is not sweet-sour chop suy available. You can only get that in Chinese restaurants. Remember the example: you are growing a fruit tree and plant jalapeno peppers around it. These two will have their own fruit, but they don’t mix. The fruits will be sweet, the jalapeno peppers will be hot, unless you cook them together into a chop suy, or unless you graft one onto the other. Then you might get a spicy apple.

Buddha further says,

Many people think that a small non-virtuous action won’t be a problem. Don’t do that. When you want to poison somebody, you only need a tiny amount to destroy a huge body.

You are not going to eat a whole poison dinner. Just a little is enough to make you sick or kill you. Likewise, also a small good deed can give you great results. People who make nice patterns, somehow it flies and you are set for life. It can happen. So don’t think it is only small and it doesn’t matter. A tiny spark can cause a forest fire. Every year we hear about these devastating forest fires, caused by a spark, a discarded cigarette or by one stroke of lightning.

Buddha continues,

Even tiny virtuous actions are worthwhile. If you save drops into a bucket, before too long the bucket will be full.

Time is running and I have to stop.