Archive Result

2

New York Thursday Evening

3/18/04

Gehlek Rimpoche: Thank you and welcome for this Thursday night. As you probably noticed, I couldn¹t speak on Tuesday night in Ann Arbor because of snow, so there are no transcripts for that. Last Thursday, I was here and spoke to you off the top of my head because I had two folders exactly like this one and rushing out I grabbed one and when I sat down here I realized I had taken the folder of Tara in a Box. Tara in a Box is an interesting book about Tara, White Tara, and its healing activities, which mostly a friend of ours in Chicago, Brenda, edited. Basically it is from one of the transcripts, actually a transcript, literally. So they somehow put my name on it. Brenda produced Tara in a Box and it is coming out this month, I believe. No, next month‹April 15th or 16th is when they¹re releasing it. It happened to be in the folder I took. I was not talking about Tara here, so what happened is basically I talked about zhine. However, I somewhat lost track of where I¹d left off the previous Thursday.

I¹d like to trace back to the points we talked about. We already talked earlier about the prerequisite points, and now we reach actual zhine and lhak thong and the combination of both. Meditation really comes down to the shamatha part of meditation and the vipasyana part of it, then the combination of shamatha and vipasyana together‹these are very important. Shamatha/vipasyana is Sanskrit and zhine/lhak thong is Tibetan. Talking about shamatha or zhine, I already explained what zhi and ne are. So zhine or shamatha is not just focusing and concentrating but also a focus and concentration that brings peace and sustains that peace. That¹s why zhi ne refers to one who has obtained that peace and remains in that peace‹that is thezhine part of it. Lhak thong is specially seeing. One who sees specially, who has special insight. Vipasyana is insight: we know that ³insight meditations² teach vipasyana, right? Or insight meditation. So vipasyana is lhak thong, specially seeing. Looking at these two, one provides the very stable point where you can completely focus and stay, and the second point gives you a penetrating deep insight to be able to really look in depth, look in detail. The old Tibetan masters gave the following example: If I focus on the pillar over here and I develop zhine and lhak thong, my mind would be such that even if somebody hit me on the head with an ax my focus would not budge from here. And as I a look at the pillar, I¹m not only looking at the pillar itself, I¹ll be looking deep into it and seeing every particle or molecule in it. I¹d like to borrow Professor Thurman¹s term here‹subatomic particles. So you really have to think, ³Not only can I see it, but I can clearly count every molecule inside that pillar.² So that sort of mind gives you an example of zhine and lhak thong.

We are still at the beginning. We already said that zhine has to be before lhak thong, and vipasyana has to follow shamatha, so I don¹t have to repeat it. If you can remember those points, now the question is how do we develop individually. Here I have three points basically. Point number one, how do I develop zhine or shamatha, focus; and how do I develop lhak thong or vipasyana, seeing inside; and how do I combine these two together and maintain them. Three major points. Out of the three, let¹s deal with the first one; that is, how do I get into this zhine business? This is a traditional Tibetan teaching so you have to bear with me a little there will be three of this, and three of that. I sort of gave up on that already when I started teaching the Odyssey to Freedom, the Lam Rim here there were three of this and that, five of this, eleven of that, and ten of this and that. That¹s how I learned that in Western culture you don¹t have that as much. You do have it. If you look at courses they teach in universities, they do have a lot of that. But somehow people in general don¹t like to think that way three of this and four of the other. But I think when we talk about zhine itself, we do need to have the necessary points. How do I meditate? How do I know what I have achieved? What is the measurement? What are the absolutely necessary requirements? Those are the three main points.

So what do we really need? Now, there will be a lot of headings under this one. You¹d better be prepared to write a sort of tree like the ancestor tree. So what are the requirements? The first requirement is you have to have an appropriate meditation place. And an appropriate meditation place, we talked about that the other day, right? There were six points for a nice appropriate place. Remember that? Good, thank you. So I don¹t have to touch it again. So let it go. Is that enough? We are talking about what we need in a place. What I did not talk about too much ŠI think I touched on it last Thursday night, is you shouldn¹t have so many needs. One shouldn¹t be too needy, ³I want this, I want this, I want that.² We like to keep a lot of things and collect a lot of things‹one shouldn¹t be doing that. We are great at keeping the things we collect. How many of us have unnecessary things we keep? So much, so much. When you move, you realize how much you have. 20% or 25% of the things you don¹t even take with you, you just leave them there. Whoever comes in, they¹ll have to either dispose of them or use them or whatever. We do that, right? There¹s so many things we collect, and we are extremely good at that. I have an interesting character. I was brought up, or it¹s my character‹I throw things out. I honestly do. And everybody gets nervous because there are times I¹ll pick up a garbage bag and take whatever is being stored, canned food, anything, and throw it out. I really do that, and people get threatened all the time, those who have stayed at my house. Also I¹m very good at it, honestly‹things that are left in my basement or garage I will clear them. When I first came to Ann Arbor and had that little house on Cherry Street there were so many things in the basement I couldn¹t even walk. So I kept on saying if such and such a thing belonged to anyone to please take it. Otherwise, I set a date, I would clear it that day. Nobody really believed it, but I hired a truck and got a person and threw everything out. And there were bicycles there and everything, I threw them out. And Steve Kronenberg thought, ³Those Tibetan lamas are a little different. Sometimes they really mean it when they say they are going to throw things out. Let me go and have a look.² So he came by bicycle, just as the truck was moving with the three bicycles on top. Steve saw the truck and chased it on his bike and was able to get two bicycles and bring them back. They belonged to Aura and I don¹t know who, somebody else. So I did throw everything, I am good at that. One of the most difficult things is that we look at something and say, ³I may need this one day.² But when will you need it? Maybe once a year, or you may not need it at all for five years. So why keep it? Let it go. Here they tell you, don¹t keep those things. And don¹t have too many desires. You don¹t need three hundred pairs of shoes unless you are Madame Marcos or something. So whatever it is, you don¹t need it. That¹s good enough. And if you have too many things, you can¹t even look after them. In my case, it things don¹t fit me anymore. I¹ve become bigger and bigger, and the things become smaller and smaller, they don¹t fit. But one should not have so many desires, ³I want this, want this, want that, want that.² And that is one of the important points against developing zhine‹wanting too many things. And it takes up all your time. And we already have very little time, right? We have to get up early, run, work, because we have to pay our bills and come back, do this and that, and then you have all those little things to look after, that require maintenance. They count this as the number two point‹not having too much. The necessary things, you should have. Necessary things are really necessary. That doesn¹t mean you should have only one shirt or only three shirts, it doesn¹t mean that. Whatever you need you should have, but not more than that.

And then the third point is satisfaction. Whatever you have, be satisfied with it. This is beautiful. If you have a great house, take it, nothing¹s wrong with it. If you have a Rolls Royce, take it, nothing¹s wrong with it. Keep it, use it, nothing¹s wrong with that. But if you don¹t have one, don¹t cry over it. And if you have a Chevy, that¹s good enough, be happy about it. That is one of the Buddha¹s best gifts, this satisfaction. Satisfaction is a very, very important thing. It gives you peace, gives you the opportunity to do anything you want to, gives you time, and gives you happiness. And dissatisfactionŠof course, in our American culture, we use dissatisfaction to push ourselves always. Because if you have a nice job, it¹s not good enough, you have to have a better job. And if you have a better job, that¹s not good enough, you have to have a better paying job, and all those. And if you have a better paying job, that¹s not good enough, you should have a job where you work less but with more benefits. All those ideas are the build-up for American culture, it may be good, but it makes you unhappy. It makes you unhappy becauseŠyou know why, I don¹t need to talk about it. It makes you unhappy. But if you are satisfied with what you have, you may not make that much progress in the material world but you get tremendous happiness and satisfaction. Competition is the key in our culture and we use it to build ourselves up. But competition, I don¹t know whether that is really the best way to build ourselves up. According to Buddha it¹s not, because Buddha really wants us to be satisfied. They even say that the Buddha¹s best gift is satisfaction, to be satisfied with whatever you have. And if we look at our life, then look at the lives of our ancestors, or even at what people had a few years or decades ago, what we have is tremendous. But if you keep on looking at Donald Trump, then you are never going to be satisfied and then he will fire you [TV hit show, You¹re fired!]. So that is satisfaction.

Then the next point, for people who want to develop zhine, is not to have too many activities like buying, or selling, and that includes chit-chat and things like that. In the Buddha¹s traditional teaching, too many activities such as purchasing, selling and chit-chatting with a lot of people unnecessarily are specifically mentioned. And becoming a medical doctor and an astrologer are considered as too much here. You know why? Because they take a lot of time. The medical doctor here refers to Ayurvedic and homeopathic doctors. And astrologers are included because astrologers are busy calculating all the time, playing with numbers, and a lot of time goes into it. So you can¹t be a doctor or an astrologer if you want to develop zhine. And I think that is the fourth point, right?

The fifth point is good morality. This is questionable, what does that mean? What does good morality mean? The word in Tibetan is situnda denba(?), one who keeps one¹s vows properly. The word in Tibetan refers to the vows. There are a tremendous amount of vows that we take as Buddhists. I¹m sure every religious tradition and every culture has vows. But in the Buddhist tradition, we have a tremendous amount, really. Number one, we take a refuge vow. When we take refuge, we take a refuge vow. Next are all those self-liberation vows we take, right? If you are bikshu or bikshunis, you take that vow. And if you are a novice, you take that vow. If we are laymen, we take laymen vows. There are eight different self-liberation vows. [Tibetan] There¹s a thief called forgetting, so the thief has taken what I was about to say. Anyway, there are eight of them. Bikshu and bikshuni, the bikshu novice and the bikshuni novice. Gelongma, there¹s one. [Tibetan] Now it comes back to me. The first three vows are the layperson¹s vows. Five vows are the celibacy vows. A number of us have taken vows with or without realizing it. For example, I have a friend in Ann Arbor who took one of those vows without knowing what she was doing. His Holiness was giving something somewhere, and she went and took this vow. Plus we take bodhisattva vows, and we take Vajrayana vows. All those vows carry a tremendous number of commitments. Many of us don¹t even know what they are. It¹s a very tricky thing. In the case of Vajrayana vows, one never talks about the Vajrayana vows before you take them. And once you have taken one then you have to do steady practice and you have to pick up what the commitments are, before that you are not even allowed to read or talk about it. And once you have taken it, then you know afterwards whatever it is you have committed yourself to.

As a result there¹s a tremendous amount of breaking of vows. So just breaking a vow alone doesn¹t make it a not perfect morality. So what is perfect morality, what is it not? That is the question here. [Tibetan] When you look at vows, there are two types. One kind of vow has to do with avoding negativities. In the other kind you vow not to do something because that is the Buddhist rule. So one is in keeping with Buddhist rule, and one is vowing not to engage in what are by nature negativities. So if you break the vow that is just a rule, that doesn¹t necessarily break your perfect morality. It¹s fine. I mean, it¹s not fine, but it¹s OK. If you break the vow that has to do with negativities, even then that doesn¹t break your perfect morality either. It¹s funny. It¹s funny because it is a negativity, even then it doesn¹t affect perfect morality. So then how can that be? [Tibetan] One should hesitate to commit what by nature is a negativity. You don¹t just do it and think, ³It doesn¹t matter,² you don¹t do that. Just have a little hesitation. Even if you have to do something, you do it with hesitation. It¹s funny. In our culture, we say either you do it or you don¹t, right? Whatever the expression is‹do it or get off theŠI don¹t want to use the word. So anyway, we say that. In this context it¹s different. If you have hesitation, that gives you a lot of leeway. Why? Because it means you know how negative emotions function. So you have hesitation.

But then there are the four major points, killing a human being, or stealing something of value. That value really depends on time and conditions. In the United States, if you steal something worth fifty cents or so, it¹s really not a big deal. But if you are in a very, very poor country, and steal something worth twenty-five cents, it can hurt the other person quite badly, so that¹s where one has to judge. In Buddhism, there¹s tremendous freedom as well as tremendous confusion both together. There is freedom because you are not told that Buddha doesn¹t do such and such, nor is there an order that says it¹s ³dik, dok,²cut and dried, it¹s not like that. It¹s sort of variable. So there is a lot of confusion and people will interpret the variables‹so much so that in the Japanese Buddhist tradition almost every Buddhist monk gets married because they reverted something and made some rules in between. So all of that goes on, but Buddha really gives much freedom. It more or less depends on the economic conditions and the value of things where you are and how much what is stolen hurts the other person. That¹s how the stealing business is really evaluated. And I guess by law it¹s not allowed, but in the karmic lawŠwell, I better not say it. I better shut up, OK?

And then, another of the four root downfalls [Tibetan], black lies. It¹s not the used car dealer¹s lie, that doesn¹t count here. It¹s the black lie. The black lie is for instance when spiritually you pretend to be something or other. One goes around pretending, ³I have tremendous development² and one has no way of judging it‹that is black lie. But if I say I have it because I really think I do, now, there¹s a question. If the person who is claiming to have spiritual development, if he or she is confused, then do you get the black lie downfall? I don¹t know. Probably not. There are people who claim to be such and such to the point that they believe in it themselves, literally believe it themselves. I think I might have mentioned this before. Remember the example, in Nepal there was one called China Lama near the stupa. I think I mentioned it either here or on a Tuesday night. This lama believed himself to be the highest Mahayana priest to have ever existed in the area, in all of Asia or something. He really believed this, and told people so openly. Is that a lie? He¹s a pathological liar, but still I don¹t know whether he gets a downfall. Probably not if a lie is such that I cheat a person into believing something untrue, and that is my motivation and I use any tricks at my disposal to change the other person¹s mind‹that is the act of the lie really complete. So pathological liars who believe themselves to be one thing or another, I¹m not sure whether they get a downfall or not. Then there is sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct is any sexual activity that hurts another person, really. A very, very vivid example of sexual misconduct is rape, that¹s a very vivid example of sexual misconduct.

So [Tibetan], if it¹s none of those four, plus you have hesitation because it¹s by nature a negativity, that qualifies as perfect morality. I don¹t know if it¹s perfect morality or not, but at least it¹s not wrong morality. It¹s good enough to count as perfect morality. One didn¹t kill anyone, one did not steal anything of value, and one did not engage in sexual misconduct, and one did not tell a black lie. Those are the four major points for a spiritual person. In order to develop zhine, you have to have good morality. So this was the fifth requirement.

The sixth is one shouldn¹t have too many mental thoughts, terrible thoughts, thoughts going everywhere, not sitting still, just thinking this, thinking that, jumping around. So the requirement for zhine is already telling you to keep your mind straight. That makes six points. And you need those six points. There are certain traditionsŠnot traditions, even in the Buddha¹s teaching, in the sutra itself, there are thirteen points listed sometimes. But out of the thirteen, these six are a must. They¹re even known as zhine sodu(?). That really means the shamatha-required six points Shamatha¹s necessary six points. So that should be good enough to cover the first point.

Now, the second point, how do I meditate? How do I do it? How do I work to develop this zhine? I¹m sorry, I¹m dealing with an ancient text that has prerequisites and actual true points. The prerequisite are what we talked about the whole of last year. First the six preliminaries, right? Then developing bodhimind. In order to develop bodhimind, you have the common with the medium and the common with the lower level practices. In other words, the prerequisite for this is the whole Odyssey to Freedom or the whole Lam Rim. So no wonder you are getting the meditation instructions at the end of the entire Lam Rim, you begin to see why. You know why? Because it is the prerequisite for this. Especially bodhimind. Developing bodhimind is extremely important. Why? If you don¹t have bodhimind, whatever you do in meditation will not be a Mahayana practice. And if you don¹t have the resolve to seek freedom or to liberate yourself from samsara, it would not even be a Theravada practice. And if you don¹t have the motivation to seek freedom in future lives and you don¹t have the refuge part, it wouldn¹t be a Buddhist practice. The practice is consistent. Zhine will be the same whether you do it from the Hindu point of view, or from any other tradition¹s point of view, the zhine itself is the same. But what makes it Buddhist, what makes it Mahayana, these are the prerequisites. Are you with me? And then to make it a Vajrayana practice, there¹s another set of prerequisites. But we are not talking about Vajrayana here, though more or less all of us will probably develop zhine at the Vajrayana level, even though we talk about it here. At the Vajrayana level there are no instructions for zhine whatsoever because when they reach that point, they will refer you back to this level. They will say ³as explained at that level.² Any Vajrayana text you read, will say ³as explained at that level,² so it will refer you back to here. So what do we actually do now? What do I do? How do I sit? The other day I talked about that a little bit. How do I sit?

Oh, I forgot one thing. Earlier when I listed the six points, we said we have to have pure morality. I forgot a very important point. The very important point is that even if you get one of those downfalls, even if you get one‹ because given our lack of conscientiousness we are bound to have them, we are bound to have these problems because we are human beings, we are not Buddha yet, right?‹if you get a downfall, don¹t rejoice, have regret and purify it. So that is counted in the perfect morality points. Even if you get a downfall, don¹t use it to show off. The traditional Tibetan instruction is don¹t carry your dirty underwear as a banner. Some people do that, wave their underwear banners, dirty underwear banners. So don¹t make it into a banner. Have regret and purify. It¹s funny. I give you one example why. If you are a full monk and you have one of those downfalls, any one of them, let¹s say for monks, for celibate people, the grounds for sexual misconduct will vary. If celibate people have sex they have broken their vow and there¹s no excuse whatsoever. But there¹s a beautiful rule, it is better than reading Playboy magazine, I tell you, honestly. Really, they talk to you in detail, in great detail regarding your use of‹they call them the three doors‹the mouth and two other doors. They even give you measurements for how far you can go in and all that sort of thing. It¹s really very detailed, more detailed than Playboy magazine. So anyway, if you get any one of those downfalls and you are a full-fledged monk, you broke your vow and you are no longer a monk. But then can you repair it and become a monk again? That depends. If you hide your deed, your downfall, if you conceal it, then you cannot become a monk again. If you don¹t hide it, but tell everybody, run around saying ³I did this and that,² then you can purify it and become a monk again. That¹s how it works. If you are concealing your downfall, it¹s called a hidden downfall, a hidden root downfall. And if you are not concealing it, if you are open about it, it¹s an open downfall. A person who does not conceal their downfall will be open, won¹t hide anything. That person is purified and re-ordained and can become a monk again, though they may not be as good as someone who never broke their vow, still they can become monks again. But if you start by concealing something, then you lie. And then to cover that lie, you tell another lie, then another lie, and then it¹s never-ending. Then you get into a huge pit, and can¹t get out. So that¹s why it tells you even if you get a downfall since one is not perfect, even so, regret it, don¹t hide what you did. Regret means don¹t hide. Not concealing what you did, again, does not mean you carry your underwear banner, but don¹t hide what you did. Perhaps you can say, ³I didn¹t tell you because you didn¹t ask.² I don¹t know about that. But at this level, that¹s not an issue for us. If you are a monk, it is an issue. If it is an issue, then you shouldn¹t hide anything. You should at least tell a couple of people straightaway, even within the hour, and definitely before sunrise or sunset the next day, definitely. Then the downfall is lessened. This doesn¹t apply to what are by nature negativities, but to what falls aunder the category of Buddhist rules.

So how do I sit? It¹s very simple. There are eight qualities of sitting they tell you. Why? Because out of all the buddhas, there are five different buddhas, out of all them they consider buddha Vairochana as the perfection of form. If you look into the five buddha families, in Tibetan Buddhism, even if you are talking on the level of sutra only, it is always geared towards Vajrayana. So, therefore, everywhere there are Vajrayana points. Vajrayana is stressed right from the beginning of guru devotional practice onwards to total enlightenment, there is a Vajrayana influence. So even here, with regard to sitting. Where did they get those eight qualities? Of the five buddhas, the perfection of form, the skandha of form, is buddha Vairochana. Right? We have physical points, skandhas form, feeling, intellect, volition andŠconsciousness. These five transformed become five wisdoms. These five wisdoms are maintained by five buddhas. In other words, how do I, an ordinary human being sitting right here at this moment, go into the buddha level? And that¹s how by feeling, by form, by sound, all of these are transformed. The five buddhas, five wisdoms. Out of five buddhas, the perfection of form is represented by buddha Vairochana, or the eastern buddha, buddha of the east, that is at the eastern end of the mandala. Vairochana is always in the east, east of any mandala. So Vairochana¹s style of sitting is recommended here. And Vairochana¹s style of sitting is the vajra sitting‹in the West they call it the lotus position. If you can¹t quite sit like that, the half-lotus will do. Most of you are sitting half-lotus, and that is recommended. But if you cannot, that¹s also fine. You shouldn¹t force it. As Allen [Ginsberg] used to say. What did he say? ³Sit on the ground. If the ground is not there, sit on a chair.² That¹s what Allen said, right? In ³Do the meditation,² he says. ³Sit on the ground. If the ground is not there, sit on a chair.² That¹s allowed. It is permitted. But it¹s recommended here to sit in full lotus on a cushion, or in half-lotus. So unless you are doing completion stage of Vajrayana practice, until that, for any meditation you can sit in whatever way is comfortable for you. That¹s why ³Sit on the ground. If the ground is not there, sit on the chair.² It¹s perfect.

Then the next point is the eyes? How should the eyes be? Normally we close our eyes all the time, we do. It give us a sort of quiet thing. But Buddha here recommends, don¹t close your eyes. Closing your eyes will make you think something, momentarily give you a boost, but it doesn¹t last, it immediately goes away. So it is recommended not to close them or open them completely either and look everywhere. They should be sort of half-closed, almost looking along your nostril level, wherever feels most comfortable. And if you can¹t see it, look at the Buddha images. They always have Buddha looking like this, [eyes slightly downcast] right? Always. You don¹t see Buddha looking like that [eyes cast upwards]. You won¹t see that. So the eyes should be looking towards the tip of your nose, but not looking at the tip of the nose. If you trying to force that your eyes may become crossed, so don¹t do that. The books will tell you to look at the tip of your nose, which means straight beyond the tip of your nose wherever feels comfortable, whether you want to cast your gaze three or four feet away or five, ten feet‹wherever feels comfortable.

Then the way you sit should not be too far back or too far forward. Sit straight. Keep your two shoulders straight. Not like this, not like that, but just straight. About the head, it shouldn¹t be held too upright or too tilted forward. A lot of meditators will sit like this or like that, whatever, but here it says don¹t do it. That doesn¹t meanŠso many great meditators sit like this. When I was a kid, about 5 or 6, I had a great master, a great teacher. He didn¹t have many students, only two disciples at the time I was there. One was a former businessman, and one was a very well-known geshe. The very well-known geshe later not only left Tibet, but came to India, and His Holiness took a lot of teachings from him [NAME/?]. And Gen Rimpoche was teaching the Lam Rim to them, and they were meditating in the evening. There was a little courtyard where Gen Rimpoche¹s room was, and the courtyard happened to be the roof to the businessman¹s kitchen. His house was below, and he had rooms and a kitchen and all that. So I think the roof of the kitchen happened to be the courtyard where we sat at night and were supposed to meditate. I was put in between those two and I just wanted to get up and run, but I couldn¹t. So I looked at this geshe and he would be sitting like this [mimicks someone slumped sideways, eyes closed], all the time. No matter how many times I looked, he¹d be sitting like that. And I¹d look at the businessman, he¹d be sitting [slumped forward]Šnot asleep, but sitting like this. And they wouldn¹t get up. To me it felt like hours, but it might not have been. It might have been about an hour or maybe an hour-and-a-half or something. I don¹t think it was more than two-and-a-half hours, but for me it felt like the whole night. They would not get up so I had to sit there. And they did sit in a funny way, but here it says not to. Keep your head straight.

And your teeth and lips, let them rest wherever it¹s comfortable. Not necessarily shut and squeeze or just don¹t open, wherever it is. And it is recommended that the tongue should touch the gum on the inside of your upper teeth. Tip of the tongue should touch the gum. You know why? So that will automatically not let your mouth fall open. You can¹t really open your mouth and keep your tongue up there, it won¹t work. The reason why they tell you to do this is also so you don¹t get thirsty too quickly, that¹s what they say. I don¹t know.

The next is the breathing business. Don¹t breathe hard, [breathes loudly] like this, don¹t do that, but sort of slowly, gently, let the breath flow in and out. OK?

That is probably it, should be it. These are the eight points of buddha Vairochana¹s style of sitting. And these are recommended for meditators. Actually, that¹s how you sit to meditate. So we don¹t literally make you sit and do this, but you¹ve heard about it so you¹ve got to do it. Because if you¹ve heard it and don¹t do it, then there¹s no point. (Then there is one more point. [Tibetan] Maybe I¹ll touch on it next week. I¹m not exactly sure. I don¹t know why, both Tsongkhapa¹s Lam Rim Chen Mo and Zagala¹s Lam Rim Chung Mo) mention it. [Tibetan]It¹s a Vajrayana practice. So I¹ll try to touch that next week and see how far I can go into it.) That probably completes point number one‹the physical aspects.

Now point number two is the actual meditation practice. So how do I develop zhine? From the physical point of view, I now know how to sit. Next, what do I do with my mind? Mentally what do I do? Well, there are five points of what not to do. And eight things you should do. OK? So these are called the five faults and the eight mind accumulations. On top of that, there are six powers and four mindfulness. Five faults, eight requirements, six powers, four mindfulnesses. The four mindfulnesses are different from the mindfulness you are familiar with‹the mind mindfulness, feeling mindfulness, that¹s normal mindfulness. No, this is different. So that¹s what you have to have. Tsongkhapa goes on and says, ³Why? Because Maitreya Buddha says this, Asanga says this, Dharmakirti says this, Kamalashila says this, Shiladeva(?) says this,² and all the earlier masters and Indian teachers all say why it¹s necessary. It all boils down to how to develop a perfect samadhi level, a samadhi without fault. That¹s what the five faults, eight requirements and four mindfulnesses are all about. So the first one, what do I do before I focus on my point? Whatever point you may be focusing on. What do I do before? There are three major points you have to remember: what do I do before; and when I focus, how do I focus; and once I have focused, what should I do? So three main points.

So the first is what do I do before I focus? It¹s interesting. What you have to do before is you have to focus. Really true. You have to focus. But what prevents me from focusing, that is point one. What prevents me is if I don¹t enjoy meditation; or, the opposite, if I like being lazy. A lot of people, we all enjoy laziness a lot. So if I have that problem, what do I do? Because right from the beginning, we are not going to like to meditate if we are lazy. Even once we begin to meditate, we will not be able to continue. So, therefore, my first problem is the problem of laziness, right? So problem number one here is laziness, how do I deal with laziness? Interesting. What is the direct antidote to laziness? Laziness¹ direct antidote is zhin jung. Just like in Chinese. Zhin jung, I think it is a shortened word, zhin da jung wa. Zhin da jung wa means perfectly trained. What happens is when this meditation is perfectly acquired, you have tremendous happiness. Tremendous happiness and tremendous joy. So this joy in the body and happiness in the mind is the actual antidote to laziness. But how do I develop this particular joy we are talking about, zhin jung? Mental joy and physical joy. It depends on the enthusiasm we put in, how enthusiastic I am, isn¹t it? The joy, one, is caused by number two, enthusiasm. Yeah, if I know something. How can I be enthusiastic if I know nothing about it. So I need to have a good desire to do this. If I don¹t have a good desire, I¹m not going to bring that enthusiasm. If I don¹t have that enthusiasm, I¹m not going to get that joy. So the joy depends on the enthusiasm. Enthusiasm depends on the desire. Now you heve the three steps, right? So what does the desire depends on? I have to at least see some advantage. If I put my time into this, if I put my energy into this, what am I going to get? I need to know that. If I don¹t know that, there¹s no reason why I should have any desire. And if I don¹t have any desire, why should I be enthusiastic about any of it. And if I don¹t have enthusiasm, I don¹t have the result of that, the joy. We need to know the potential benefits of the meditation. We need to at least know what the qualities of meditation are. If I develop zhine, what do I get? I do have tremendous happiness in the mind and I do have joy in my body, and that is going to make me happy and joyful in this life. We are not talking about future lives. We are not talking about enlightenment or the long shot. We are not talking about that. I want to have that happiness and joy in this lifetime. I¹m not talking about down the road. Within a year. Actually, if one puts a lot of focus on this, it s said that zhine can be developed within six months. It¹s not that hard to develop, really not that hard. They say six months is all it takes. That does not necessarily mean that if you put in ten minutes a day, then after six months you should be thinking, ³Where is that zhine?² So probably not as quick as that, because we really have to put quite a lot of effort into it. But it is something that can happen within our lifetime.

Not only that. Because of this level of mind and body, you have completely control over your mind. In other words, you can use your mind to whatever purpose. Wherever you put your focus, the mind will remain there and focus, you¹ll be able to do whatever you want to do with your mind. It will not be like a crazy monkey, but like a well-trained elephant. Actually, Kyabje Trijang Rimpoche had a drawing of an elephant and some monks on the development of zhine, and I think we will be able to give you a copy of it. There are reproductions of it in his later books. (Maybe even in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, there¹s a Mahayana Sutra and Tantra Press, Geshe Lobsang Tharchin¹s edition might have given that too, might have. Then I saw it in the Geshe Rabten¹s Treasury of Dharma, or somewhere I think I saw it.) The mind is trained so it doesn¹t go around, in a zigzag, zigzag, zigzag, then comes crashing down. So it will not be like a wild elephant, your mind will be like a well-trained elephant. A well-trained elephant will be extremely helpful. Remember, this is Buddha¹s time 2,500 years ago. There were no bulldozers, all those big machines didn¹t exist. So the biggest, most effective force was an elephant. Whether you wanted to pull out the root of a tree or carry a tree or anything of that sort, an elephant was the most useful means of transportation, the most powerful transportation. So that¹s why they gave the example of an elephant. The mind is the most powerful tool we can ever have, but we cannot use it because we cannot focus. To concentrate and focus so much effort is needed. The mind has to be trained, it¹s a very raw mind, and as liberation seekers what happens is that at the level of zhine, the mind will totally focus on virtue rather than non-virtue. And, therefore, that is a great achievement.

Not only that. If you develop zhine, you will develop clairvoyance. You can also get some physical powers such as flying or whatever. All of those are possible. Not only possible, they come as a side effect of zhine. So when you see those, when you hear those, when you understand those, then you develop some desire. With that desire, you can develop some enthusiasm. With that enthusiasm, you can actually develop some of those powers. You are sort of taken from one thing to another. In order to get this, you get this, this, and this, and now you look backwards. So once you understand that with zhine, you develop clairvoyant or magical powers‹some people don¹t want magical powers, but no one will mind being clairvoyant. It will be fun to look at another person, look at them and see what they are thinking, while they are talking. The mouth moves and you listen. You see the mouth move, you listen, and then you see what they are thinking and it¹s not what they are saying. So then that¹s very funny. It will be like some bad movie where the mouth moves and the sound comes later, it¹s very similar to that. And that¹s a fun state actually. So I don¹t think people will mind having it, they¹ll enjoy it.

And the most important point according to the Buddha is that if you have zhine, you can develop lhak thong, or vipasyana, and that can cut the root of samsara. Then the purpose of many lifetimes, not just the current one, will be served. Not only that, in that way you will constantly, continually, have virtuousness running throughout every moment. Non-virtuousness will be tremendously reduced. So it¹s a very nice way of handling things. And that is the basis on which you will develop desire. I think I have to stop here because I¹m running overtime. OK, you have a question‹go ahead.

Woman: I was just wondering, you didn¹t mention the handsŠ

Gehlek Rimpoche: Whether you sit like this or like that doesn¹t matter. The Buddhist tradition will tell you to sit this way, especially, I think, the Tibetan Buddhists. The Hindus will make you sit like this or that. Doesn¹t matter, both will work. I didn¹t say anything about how to keep your hands. It depends on the individual. If you have more hatred and less obsession, then you keep the right hand underneath and the left hand over it. And if you have more obsession, and less hatred, put the left hand beneath and the right hand over it. I don¹t know. That¹s what they say. What that does, I have no idea. But they say that according to some kind of nerve system there is a hatred nerve and a desire nerve, and one presses the other, something like that. I don¹t know, whatever. So in reality, it doesn¹t matter whether you sit this way or that, or maybe you want to sit like this [gives a military salute], doesn¹t matter, as long as it doesn¹t draw your focus away. That is the Buddhist tradition, they tell you this. Hindus, mostly they¹ll teach you this. Then on the Vajrayana level it¹s different, right? So different mudras for different purposes. We need to be open right from the beginning. Yes, any more questions? Is that OK? Good. Well, I don¹t see any hands in the air, and I¹m sorry I ran overtime today‹sorry about that. Thank you.

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