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20030317GRRU

RU talk Monday, March 17-03

Thank you for having me here. In our normal programs at Jewel Heart we do some prayers. You people are used to doing all your prayers in English. We Tibetans have all our prayers in Tibetan or Sanskrit. Most of the mantras are in Sanskrit. The meaning of the mantras has been translated, but the mantras themselves have never been translated into other languages. We have a mantra of Buddha, and also one for the Buddha of Compassion, Avalokitesvara. That is the famous mantra OM MANI PADME HUNG. Then we also have the mantra of Tara. She is like Mary in the Christian tradition. In Buddhism she represents the feminine principle. There is a tremendous work we do through her in Jewel Heart for healing and all kinds of things. We just did an 8 day retreat in Ann Arbor about White Tara. What you can do there is tremendously valuable. When you get into it, you see that it is quite easy to do and the healing really does work. It makes a difference.

Another prayer we are doing in Jewel Heart is the Seven Limbs. Let me tell you a little bit about it. That is part of the Buddhist system even before Buddhism came from India to Tibet around 1200 years ago. The Indians taught the Tibetans how to pray. This kind of prayer is not just simply wishing. Normally we ask the Enlightened beings if they could help us to achieve certain things. But here, it is different. According to that there are a few things that we can do as well. We can make offerings to them. We can also purify all our wrong doings, all our negativities and non-virtuous actions.

I am not going to tell you too many details about that right now, because it is a huge subject in itself. But I may spend some time with you during the next 8 weeks, talking some more about purification. Just one thing now: We can purify whatever mistakes we make. We can make ourselves pure and perfect. Having made a mistake is not the end of everything. You can correct it and make things pure. It is not hopeless. You can do it. There are many ways how to do this. In our prayer we just have one line: I regret and purify all transgressions. If I talk about purification in detail we can go on for weeks. On the other hand you can summarize all in one sentence.

Offerings are not limited to physical giving. It includes mentally created offerings, which are even more important than the physical giving. If you have paid 10 Dollars you should think that you have given 100 000 Dollars and that you are happy to give this and willing to share. You mentally fabricate greater offerings and that makes your generosity a little more powerful.

Another part of the Seven Limbs is to rejoice. We rejoice in the good works we ourselves and others did. That helps tremendously. Our problem is jealousy. If somebody is doing something good, we really get jealous. If, instead of that, we rejoice, we ourselves get more benefit.

At the end of the prayers we do a dedication. It simply says,

May all beings have happiness.

May they be free from suffering.

May they have the joy that has never known suffering.

May they be free from attachment and hatred.

Briefly, that is the basic framework for our prayers. The most important thing for spiritual practice is the state of our mind. So, in the beginning, we should try to have a good motivation in the sense of thinking, ‘I would like to help myself and others, my family, my fellow country men, the people in the world, particularly today, tomorrow and these days.’ With such a mind, if you say prayers, the result will be different.

I would like to begin by exploring what really spiritual development is. People have a lot of different ideas about that. Some are really great, some are not necessarily that great. Let me tell you what it means for me. Because of my background I carry the title of ‘Incarnate Lama’. I have been selected 64 years ago. I have been given a title and am supposed to be something extraordinary, furthering the spiritual development of myself and others. As far as I know, there is nothing there. At first I thought, something would happen by itself, if I focused, something would come up, like turning on a television. I was thinking that maybe I could just read it from there, but nothing happened. I had to learn everything, just like every other kid around. I just had the title. A lot of other kids didn’t have the title. I had some privileges, but also a lot of disadvantages. The other kids could run around and play. I couldn’t. I was supposed to behave holy. I have gone away very far from my childhood training, that’s why now I cannot act holy at all. That is my problem. To reach to something that is valuable for life, to me requires a tremendous amount of struggle, study and contemplation, meditation. That really goes with it. Since my great masters were so extraordinary, it does not seem to be that difficult now. The time has gone by, and now when I look back, they have given me a lot. At the time when I was learning and taking it in, I don’t realize it. I just tried to get through, day by day. But when you look back, it was so much.

To do something spiritual, first we have to know what we are doing. We have to have some knowledge. That does not mean that we all have to be scholars or masters, but at least you have to know what you are looking for and how you would go about achieving it. If I don’t know what I am looking for, I will be doing something and somebody else will come and tell me, ‘Hey, that’s wrong, you should go to the right side.’ Then I will say, ‘Okay, then. I will go to the right side.’ But then somebody else will come and say, ‘Oh my God, what are you doing? You should go to the left side.’ Then I say, ‘Okay, then let me go to the left side.’

One of my teachers told me earlier, ‘You must know what you are doing by yourself. You can’t be like a prayer flag in the wind. When the wind blows from the east, the flags will move to the right side and make a lot of noise in the wind. When the direction of the wind changes, the prayer flags will turn exactly to the opposite direction and make a lot of noise. When there is no wind, the prayer flags will just hang down.

That means that I have to know what I want. We are all looking for the so-called spiritual development. What does that mean? Is it something that suddenly hits us on the head? That is not impossible. There are stories and accounts where that could happen. But is it likely to happen to us in this time, in our period? No. I am sorry to give you bad news. For us it is going to be a gradual process within the individual person.

I am going to tell you about this in bare bones-bottom line terms. I cannot talk to you about sophisticated, philosophical points. I am just a simple guy, plus my poor command of the English language makes me completely handicapped. I never learnt this language.

Side B of tape

Is that too short or too long? If you keep continuously coming here, if you are interested…