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SHANTIDEVA’S GUIDE TO THE BODHISATTVA’S WAY OF LIFE CHAPTER 8: MEDITATION PART I

Oral explanations by Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche

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Talk 3: 3-09-04

Welcome here tonight. We are continuously talking about meditation, the way how to think about it and the structure of meditation. The structure of the meditation mostly comes in the Thursday night teachings, based on the concentration chapter of the (Odyssey to Freedom) and the way of thinking is taught here on Tuesday nights, (based on the meditation chapter of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara.). I would like to remind all of you that you have to combine those two together. You will get the structure and what to think all together. Transcripts of both classes are available on the website. You can download and print them out and do whatever you want to. Just don’t use them for toilet paper!

Everybody should have the verses of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara with them. Today I would like to cover the section from verse 9 to verse 16.

Verse 9

If I behave in the same way as the childish

I shall certainly proceed to lower realms.

And if I am led there by those unequal (to the Noble Ones),

What is the use of entrusting myself to the childish?

If you look into the Odyssey to Freedom meditation chapter, it tells you very briefly what sort of facility you should look for to meditate, what sort of companionship you should keep. Here in this text it tells you what sort of companionship not to keep. That is how it really works. So this verse talks about ‘behaving in the same way as the childish’. This translator uses the word ‘childish’. Sometimes the word ‘ordinary’ is used. This text is a Sanskrit text, over 1000 years old, translated into many languages. The Tibetan term is so so kye bu. It can be translated as ordinary, common, childish, non-special. We have no control over what terms the translators are using, but when we are studying this we have to know what they are referring to. The translators are not supposed to write commentaries on each point. I like this translation of Stephen Batchelor’s. His work is a straight forward translation, not a commentary, although it is a little bit too long. It should have been much shorter. There are too many words. Many translations are actually more like commentaries. They don’t really translate the text. I was told by a number of people that the translation by Allan Wallace is a very good translation. I don’t know how he translates the term so so kye bu, but here ‘childish’ is used. (Allan Wallace: foolish). So so kye bu literally means: kye bo: person, so so: separate-separate. That will mean nothing to you. A separate-separate person is someone who is controlled by separate karma and takes separate different births, according to the karmic function. This is the understanding we get from the Tibetan. We live like this. For example, we here have the common karma to be together right now. But we are all going to follow different routes, because of our different karma. Some will take rebirth as samsaric gods, some will come back as human beings, some will go as dogs or hell realm beings. Everybody will go their separate way completely. Because of karmic reasons we experience separate things. In English that is hard to translate directly. It wouldn’t make sense. That’s why it is translated as childish, ordinary, and so on. Also, this term so so kye bu gives you the sense of not being somebody superior. It means common, regular. That means all of us. We all are not superior. We would like to be and it doesn’t mean that we are not good people. But we are not superior persons. None of us are, unless there are some with hidden qualities that they don’t reveal. That is very possible, but otherwise we are all not superior persons, nothing to be surprised. That doesn’t mean that we are inferior.

There are several ways of looking at non-superior persons. One other term is ‘chi ba’, meaning child. Those of you who are familiar with the Hindu tradition will notice that they use similar terms. The other day I watched Cable Access Public Community Channel. There are so many Hindu and Christian teachers giving regular courses. They are aired on the community cable channels. One of the Hindu teachers was giving a talk the other day in Hindi. A written translation was provided as he spoke. He was saying in Hindi, ‘You are all children’ and the written translation was coming up all the time, saying, ‘Childen, childen, children.’ He was saying, ‘I don’t blame you people, because you are all children.’ This is the Sanskrit system, calling the not superior persons children. That is completely a language thing.

There are different ways to understand the word child. From my perspective as a 60 year old, somebody who is seven years old or even a teenager is a child. From the perspective of a brilliant person a not so brilliant person is a child. Then, learned people will look at their students and disciples as children. You will hear very often descriptions like ‘spiritual son’, ‘spiritual daughter’ and so on.

Here, childish people are those who have lesser understanding and are called children by those who have better understanding. It is nothing to do with inferior or superior. It is the ancient Indian Sanskrit culture. I have to say this here because many of the following verses will continuously talk about the childish. It is better if I mention that here in the beginning rather than explain it in the middle somewhere.

All the following verses talk about the importance of role models and companions. For people who want to meditate it is extremely important to have good role models as well as have good companionship. Usually in western tradition we don’t have role models as companions. We like to keep them separate. We all like to have great role models and inferior companions. We think, ‘I have to be the most important person, so I am able to make the right decision and guide him or her.’ That is the normal western culture, no big shock. There is nothing fancy about it. Here, Shantideva is talking about both, role models and companions. We want to copy what the role models do. We look at how they behave and function and try to function the same way.

Tibetan Buddhism and particularly Vajrayana Buddhism always talks about the importance of the guru. Hinduism does too. The role of the guru is considered to be very important. There are many reasons behind that. One is that the guru acts as role model. Every time when I have difficult decisions to make I will think, ‘If this teacher of mine were there, what would he do?’ Then I will get some perception and on that basis I will try to function. Whenever I have a problem, dealing with addictions and delusions and anything, I will do that.

Sometimes people are seeking my advice, especially in Asia. They ask you everything, particularly in South-East Asia. When there are difficult decisions, people ask a spiritual teacher. So then I have to advise them. There are business people, bankers and so on who will ask me for advice on business decisions. I have no economics back ground for whatsoever. I don’t even know what the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq are all about. I only know when the arrow points up or down on the television screen. So these business people ask me, ‘Should I buy this?’, ‘Should I sell that?’ or ‘Should I pick this business?’ I try to avoid these things all the time. But sometimes you are caught right in the middle and can’t do anything. Let me give you one example.

Some years ago I was in Singapore staying in somebody’s house and that person asked me, ‘There is a house on the market. Should I buy it?’ I tried to avoid the conversation completely. I managed that a number of times, but then one day they were driving in during the day and didn’t go to the office. I thought, ‘Oh, now they are probably making the decision about the house.’ And he did come up to me and said, ‘Excuse me Rimpoche, would you mind coming with me for a short look at that house. Other people are also making offers. If I want to get it, I have to get it now.’ So what could I do? I just sat in the car and went with them. I am sharing that with you, because I had no idea what commercial value that house had. I had no idea what the real estate value was. I did know that it was in a very expensive area. That’s all I knew. So I was thinking, ‘If Kyabje Trijang Rimpoche was alive, what would he do in this situation?’ I was looking for my role model. Then the funniest thing happened. We saw this big house and climbed up some steps. Suddenly I saw the appearance of Trijang Rimpoche’s attendant and he said, ‘Kyabje Rimpoche says, ‘If this person buys that house there are no physical, mental or emotional illnesses here. From the business point of view I know nothing. You should know better.’

Now I had an answer. We went through the house, upstairs and downstairs. Other buyers were looking too. My friend there was looking at me. So I told him, ‘You are not going to have any illnesses or anything. There is not going to be any misfortune or bad luck. From the financial viewpoint , I know nothing.’ So, when you have a spiritual teacher as a role model and if you are in a fix, there is always some help coming in.

So the guru as a role model is important. The value of having a guru is something else again. This is just about guru as role model.

It is actually also important that our companion is a good role model. The companion’s influence on us is very strong. Even if you try to do something great yourself, the companion can easily influence you and turn you 180 degrees around. That is why all these following verses are going to talk about that. If you don’t have good companionship and you behave like your companions you are going to do the same old things again and again and that is not going to lead you anywhere better. Perhaps it is even going to lead you downwards. Instead of liberating yourself you can be led further into samsara and even into the lower realms. That is why you need good companions.

Verse 10

One moment they are friends,

And in the next instant they become enemies.

Since they become angry even in joyful situations,

It is difficult to please ordinary people.

Childish companions are not good to be around. They change minute to minute. One minute you show them a nice face and say something and they are very happy. The next minute when you say something else, you get it. Not only in a small way, but sometimes they even change extremely. A friend can become an enemy, just because of a mere word.

This is absolutely true. Look into your own life. When you get together with somebody, it is all nice and happy. Then suddenly you break up. When you look at the point of breaking you see that it is just a simple, dry word, just a dry, meaningless word that you don’t like. It could be just a simple act. That is why they call us childish, behaving worse than children. For us it is so important, but in reality it is worse than what children would do. We are supposed to guide our children in their lives, bringing them up and we ourselves behave in that manner. Just a simple, dry word can change the individual from one minute to the next.

Not only that: if we tell someone, ‘You shouldn’t do this’, they will probably get very upset. Instead of helping them, they feel harmed and hurt. That is the reason why we should not have the companionship with separate-separate persons.

Verse 11

They are angry when something of benefit is said

And they also turn me away from what is beneficial.

If I do not listen to what they say,

They become angry and hence proceed to the lower realms.

If such people tell us something they are probably giving us mostly wrong advice. In our normal character and habit or addiction we always try to present ourselves better than others. We think about how we can benefit ourselves better financially and how we can benefit ourselves by making ourselves look better than others. Our selfish interest is always in our character. It is almost in our blood. Therefore, if anyone gives good advice from a spiritual point of view, people may get very upset and angry about it. Good advice not only does not help them but they will also advise you in the wrong way. That is true. We hear people telling someone, ‘If I were you I would do this and that.’ That’s what we do, don’t we? When the other person doesn’t listen to us, we get upset. We say, ‘I have given sincere advice, but that person never listened. Now look, they got the consequences from not having listened to my advice.’

That’s one of the reasons why we shouldn’t have such companions.

Verse 12

They are envious of superiors, competitive with equals,

Arrogant towards inferiors, conceited when praised,

And if anything unpleasant is said they become angry;

Never is any benefit derived from the childish.

Such people will also have tremendous jealousy towards people who are superior. They feel tremendous competition towards people who are equal to them. They will look down and ignore and be ‘arrogant towards inferiors’, as the text says. They will also be conceited when praised. Now, if it is true praise, that is fine. But often, praise is something made up in order to butter the person. When somebody butters you up you are happy to accept the praise, even though you don’t have any quality to deserve that buttering.

When you look into the spiritual path, sometimes it is very much against the usual norms of ordinary life. Really. In Tibetan we have the saying, ‘The functioning of everyday society and that of spiritual life are quite separate, quite different.’ On the other hand we also hear that the every day life and spirituality has to go together and so on. That explanation is also available. Dharma is a treasury where you can pick up everything. This level is quite different from normal life. Normally, what we want is praise. Everybody would like to be praised. Then we are happy. If someone says to me, ‘Your book is good,’ then I am happy. When somebody says, ‘Your book is okay’, then that’s not so good.

I have another book coming out called ‘Tara in the Box’. Today I was happy when I heard that when you put ‘Tara in the Box’ on the google search engine, Walmart shows up. That means Walmart may be carrying my book. So I was happy. That is the normal reaction, right? But this teaching tells you, ‘Don’t do that. If Walmart sells the book, fine. Let them do it. If you get royalties from that, fine. Put them in your pocket. But don’t be too happy and don’t have such a pride and don’t work for that as a result. If you do so, you are wasting your time.’

Actually, for zhi ne, for concentrated meditation, this would be considered a waste of time. For that you are not supposed to do anything else except focusing, focusing, focusing. We have got to focus on the points that are important for us. That is why Shantideva says that if you want to focus you shouldn’t have a companion who influences you in a different direction. He is telling us about the bad qualities of companions. A companion who is jealous towards someone better than them, competitive towards someone equal to them and who looks down arrogantly on the weaker section of society, is not a good person.

That’s true. But we will think that it is good to have jealousy and competitiveness. Maybe not jealousy, but we really look for competitiveness. This is one of the things that drive our American [life]. But according to Dharma that is not great. You have to know the difference. You don’t have to follow the Dharma 100% only. After all, we don’t meditate all the time. If we meditate it is something like 40 minutes a day. It is important to follow but you have to make your own decision as well. You can’t have a life that is completely flat. You do need some excitement. Competitiveness can sometimes give you a force to do something. But in this context it is not considered to be a good quality. If someone praises you, particularly if it is not true, you may feel very happy about it. The happiness is not the problem, but pride is.

Verse 13

Through associating with the childish,

There will certainly ensue unwholesomeness

Such as praising myself and belittling others

And discussing the joys of cyclic existence.

If people keep on praising you all the time and you don’t have the qualities that they are praising and you keep on thinking, ‘Yes, I am doing great’, then at the end you could be in a similar situation to Saddam Hussein. That’s exactly what happens. It also happened in the old, great Chinese dynasties. These emperors were praised all the time. Then, when the revolution was taking place in China, the officials closed the doors of the Forbidden City and told the emperor that everybody was happy and everything was wonderful, right up to the moment when the door was broken and people were running in. That is a big problem. It happened to the old dynasties and to many dictators and now it happened to Saddam Hussein. He was praised by his followers and didn’t know his faults. So finally he had to hide in a hole and then of course he had to get out of the hole and by that time he was a crazy person. He was literally mentally crazy, completely mentally imbalanced. He’s got to be, judging from how he was caught.

So when you are praised all the time you start to believe that. I saw one person in Kathmandu called China Lama. I don’t know whether he was Chinese or whatever. I went with an American friend on a mission from the American Library of Congress in order to procure certain books that were coming out of China during the Cultural Revolution. I was selecting books in the library. This friend of mine, the director of the Library of Congress, was talking to this China Lama. China Lama was telling him, ‘I am the highest Mahayana priest in the world.’ I looked over once and it was clear that this person really believed that. He was telling that to everybody and believed it himself. His knowledge was probably next to nothing. As for his qualities, he was a very funny person. At that moment he didn’t realize that I was a Tibetan. He brought two other monks in and was telling them in Tibetan, ‘Please prostrate, please prostrate, I will give you money.’ He wanted to impress the director of the Library of Congress by these two monks coming up and prostrating for him. And these silly monks actually prostrated for him and I don’t know how much they got for that. Probably 50 cents or 10 cents or a wooden nickel. But he believed that he was the highest Mahayana priest in the world. A fool. If a fool is praised in that way, he really believes that. You don’t have to look very far. Saddam Hussein is the example.

If you see such a person who likes being praised without having any qualities, it is a clear indication that we should not have them as a companion or role model or have them meditate with you.

In other words this gives you the sangha qualities. Most of you are sangha members. You have to check with yourself whether you have those bad qualities with you or not. If you have them, discard them. Make yourself a better person, fit to be a precious sangha member. As a sangha member you are not only a member but a companion of all the people meditating together. You have to be fit to be a companion for this group of people. You have to look for that individually by yourself. No one here will tell you, ‘You shouldn’t do this or that.’ If they do so, you could get angry, as we have heard in the verse above. That is our character, it is in our blood. Things like this tell us how we can improve ourselves.

The conclusion here is: If you have such a companion, not only he or she is not going to help you, but instead hurt you and harm you and you cannot contribute anything to that sort of a person. Then, because we have strong attachment to samsara, we really like people to praise us. We really like people giving us things.

Verse 14

Devoting myself to others in this way

Will bring about nothing but misfortune,

Because they will not benefit me

And I shall not benefit them.

If you have such a companion and spend time with them – not necessarily being devoted, as the text says – then instead of helping each other you are going to hurt each other. This is the example of the non-virtuous friend. The traditional lam rim teachings tell you that the non-virtuous friend doesn’t come with fangs in their mouth and horns on their head and tell you, ‘I am your non-virtuous friend.’ That’s what we project through movies and our normal projection when we think of the devil. We picture this little guy, with little horns and a little tail, who says, ‘I am the devil’. That’s what we identify as ‘devil’. The Buddhist traditional teachings tell us that there is no such person called ‘devil’ with horns, fangs and tail, saying ‘I am your non-virtuous friend. The non-virtuous friend will tell you, ‘I like you, I love you, I care for you. Hey, you are wasting your life. This is not the way to do it. You should make money, you should cheat these people. Here is your opportunity. Do this, do that.’ Right? There are all these political [games]. That is referred to as non-virtuous. That gradually leads the individual out of a perfect spiritual practice into some imperfect life.

It is wonderful to have a little wine. It is not going to hurt you. It is medicine. One glass doesn’t do any harm. You have one glass. Then the non-virtuous friend tells you, ‘Have another one. You know you can take it. It is no big deal. I know you can do it.’ Through that, gradually, in the end you will become an alcoholic and will have a great deal of difficulty to go through the12 steps to get out of that habit. That is how the non-virtuous friend works.

Alcohol is easy to point out. Cigarettes is another example. ‘Hey, one cigarette is not going to kill you. It doesn’t matter. It gives you a kick. Let’s sit outside together.’ Finally, you have to sit outside even in the middle of winter during a snow storm, so that you can have a few drags on your cigarette. That is addiction, not to mention the illnesses that it brings with it, cancer and all these things.

These are the reasons why you should have companions who don’t make you indulge in those things. This verse 14 tells you in conclusion that these childish people don’t help each other to produce positive karma, but they help each other to build negativities.

There is a great story during the Buddha’s life time. It is about two people called Pa kye bo and Ma la ne. After every teachings Buddha gave, this Pa kye bo would go around and tell everybody how wrong it was what Buddha had said. Ma la ne would say, ‘You’re right.’ He was like the cheer leader for the other one. I am not very sure how the story goes. I haven’t seen it for 50 years. But in the end, I think Buddha predicted one day, ‘This guy (Pak kye bo) will burn to death within 7 weeks.’ Pa kye bo heard that and said, ‘So he doesn’t like me. I am going to prove that I will not die by fire.’ So the two of them decided to build a house on an island in the middle of a lake. That way they thought there was no way to die through fire. But they used some kind of glass as building materials. Somehow the solar energy went through the glass and things inside started catching fire and they burnt to death. These two complimented each other in building negativity. If I get time I will tell you this story next time a little better.

Verse 14 concludes how important it is to have good companions. If you have bad companions they are going to destroy you. You are not going to help them and they are not going to help you. The next verses add up on that.

In the Tibetan one line of verse 14 goes into verse 15. There it says to get away from such childish companions.

Verse 15

I should flee far away from childish people,

When they are encountered, though, I should please

Them by being happy.

I should behave well merely out of courtesy,

But not become greatly familiar.

Why should you get away from these childish companions? If you have strong attraction and you see them you will be very happy. ‘So nice to see you, you are wonderful, you are beautiful and great’. How many times do we have to say that? Then you are happy and they are happy. There is nothing wrong with being happy to see them. There is nothing wrong with saying ‘Good to see you.’ If you can leave it there, happy to see a good friend, that is wonderful. But if you can’t, if you want to go more inside, if you want to develop more attachment, more attraction, more obsession, then we begin to develop the distinction of ‘Mine’ and ‘yours’ and that will bring these two powerful emotions of obsession and hatred. That brings us a lot of difficulties.

Verse 16

In the same way as a bee takes honey from a flower,

I should take merely (what is necessary) for the

Practice of Dharma

But remain familiar

As though I had never seen them before.

This verse focuses more on the monks and nuns, rather than us. Originally, monks and nuns were supposed to be totally depending on their benefactors and the society and the monasteries for their food, clothes and shelter. That was true during Buddha’s life time. But it is not true thereafter. It was not true in Tibet. There were a tremendous amount of monks in Tibet. The monks had huge businesses. The monasteries were among the biggest land owners in Tibet – believe it or not. The biggest owners of irrigated land were the monasteries. Unfortunately they had been the biggest organizations to exploit the poor farmers and villages. It was terrible. That was the culture. Corruption. Buddhism is great, but if you don’t practice what you preach these problems come. This is true almost everywhere in the world today, including South-East Asia. Those of us who know monks in South-East Asia will know.

I am not criticizing monks. Don’t misunderstand. As sangha, they are objects of refuge. But a few individuals are there [who don’t behave right]. I talked to a monk in Kalantan, in Eastern Malaysia. He said, ‘According to the Vinaya rules, monks can’t touch money.’ That is true. The Vinaya rules say that. But he was happy to accept cash or checks by putting his hand inside his robe and through that he took everything. He took everything through the robes. He said, ‘I am not touching it. My robe is taking it.’ That is one individual example. But it is also true for whole monasteries and temples. Look at India. The temples there are the biggest money collectors. All the poor people go there and throw whatever they have in the hope of getting some good returns. The same thing happened in Tibet.

Traditionally, if monks and nuns go after gifts they are not fit to be companions, not fit to be sangha. I am not going through the verse 16 in detail but I want to talk about the essence. Buddha himself had a beautiful statement. He said,

When the honey bees get the nectar from the flowers, they neither harm the color of the flower, nor its smell or the flower itself. They just take whatever essence they need and then fly away.

Just like that, whenever you need to touch any worldly, material things, use it, but have no hang over, but fly away. Allen Ginsberg always quotes Blake in that regard.

If you try to hold the joy,

You do the winged life destroy

If you kiss the joy as it flies

You will live in eternity’s sunrise.

So it is not only the 2600 year old Eastern tradition, but the western tradition says it very similarly. But we can’t do it. We would like to take from the flower until it is destroyed. We like to take everything, nothing will be left. And we will have a hang-over. We cannot let it go.

I was hoping to do a few more verses, but I better stop. Do you have any questions?

Audience: This is a question regarding your talk in New York last Thursday. Someone asked you about taking wisdom as the focal point for zhi ne. I am now quoting from the transcript. You responded,

If you find the point of seeing the lack of true existence and you focus on that the conclusion would be the lack of true existence. Maybe there is no mental picture, but there is a subject point. If you find that it means that you are focusing on the wisdom point.

My question is: Could you talk about, when that time period of focusing increases, does your perception of the focal point change as time period increase?

Rimpoche: The perception of the focal point may or may not increase as the time increases. But what changes is the capability to focus. It increases. The perception doesn’t change much if the time increases for a few minutes. When it reaches to the vipasyana or lhak tong, then the perception will completely change. I remember I gave this explanation from the angle of needing zhi ne first and lhak tong later. If I had a power point presentation I would have put that outline up.

The reason to have concentration first and vipasyana later is that the concentration gives you stability. Even though you concentrate on your understanding of the subject emptiness, you are going to gain the power of stability more so than the power of penetrating the point. That is what I meant. So I don’t think it will change the perception at first, but rather the stability. Later, when it becomes very stable, you don’t change your major focal point, no matter what happens. Then your focal point will be more penetrating. You will go deeper inside and find how there is no [solid] existence and why there is no [solid] existence. You will do that without losing the stability and that will lead you to achieve the combination of shamata and vipasyana together. Even then, first comes shamata, then vipasyana and then the combination. Actually, that is not quite true. It goes like that: first shamata and then the combination of shamata and vipasyana comes together.

Audience: Can you talk a little about the difference of giving unnecessary praise to somebody and giving encouragement when they lack self confidence?

Rimpoche: To build your self confidence, there is nothing wrong with reasonable praise. Also if somebody says to you, ‘Hey, you are my king or my queen’, that’s fine. Nothing wrong with that. But if someone tells you, ‘You should have been a Phd doctor, because you really have all these qualities. You have so much knowledge.’ If you don’t really have that but you think you do, then that will hurt you. So praise that talks about qualities that you don’t have is not good. Someone could tell you, ‘You should be in place of Debbie Stabbinaw [???] You should be there instead of her, because you are great.’ Or someone could tell you, ‘You should be Lyn Rivers’. Then, if you think, ‘Oh yeah really, I am’, then that’s going to be a problem. If somebody tells me, ‘You should be Carl Levin’ and if I think I am, then that’s going to be big trouble. No one is going to respect me like Carl Levin. If I accept that praise I am a fool.

Audience: You talked last Thursday about the joy that can come from concentration. Is there any way that such a joy could be disturbed by anything other than your own mind? I am thinking about instinctual forces that can overpower your mind, like sexual attraction. Is it always only mind that causes afflictions?

Rimpoche: Of course there are all these emotions. Whether you consider them as part of mind or separate from mind is a question. These emotions will always overpower us until our mind becomes strong. Focus and concentration makes our mind really strong so that these emotions cannot overpower us. Some people think that emotions are part of mind. To me, they are mental faculties, not mind itself. They do overpower the mind constantly. This is the reason why we need focus and quietness.

Audience: Is concentration and focus a mental faculty as well?

Rimpoche: Concentration is a mental faculty. Concentrating helps mind to stay and not to move. When that happens mind has power through its own nature without another mental faculty telling you to sit and think and focus or another mental faculty that is watching whether your mind is moving around or not or another mental faculty that is following. We have to play all these games because our mind doesn’t stay. These mental faculties do contribute to being able to focus. Do we count the concentration itself as a mental faculty? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. The focusing mind is pushed by several mental faculties, particularly two most important ones: Remembering and watching. These two push. Earlier I said that concentration is part of the mental faculties. If you follow up that point and say, ‘Under which group out of the 52 mental faculties does it belong?’ then I would probably have to say, ‘I am sorry’.

Thank you so much. Lets say the dedication.