Archive Result

10

GEHLEK RIMPOCHE

New York – Thursday Evening

4/15/04

Gehlek Rimpoche: Welcome here today. I believe today is the last day that we are talking this eight-week course. And if you look back at where we began and where we reach, we’re really beginning to reach where we begin to focus. The focusing point what we are talking about, the zhi ne, the meditation, the point on which you focus I gave you two different focusing point. Focusing point on subject is like an image, image of the Buddha, and I gave you reasons why should they be image of Buddha rather than anything else and I gave you a very detailed reason about it. Then last week I gave you mind as a focusing point, and I looked back what I did talk about the mind. Perhaps I tried to pack so much in one evening and maybe it’s a little too much for you people, but I was also counting on not only what I said and what you heard but also you reading the transcript and all that. So tonight I’d like to give you an opportunity if you have any questions on that, particularly focusing on mind or anything else. So I’d like to give you an opportunity. And if not, then I’ll try to clarify a little bit more about the mind and give you a brief review what will be the next one. Next will be a five-week course. If I’m not making a mistake, it is June 10th, Thursday June 10th we will be beginning here a five-week course, and I’ll give you a very brief what we’re going to cover for that. So first, if any one of you have any questions or anyone who would like to make statements, who would like to argue or question or whatever. Dimitri, go ahead.

Dimitri: Last week I think you said that one of the techniques of meditating on the mind is to watch the thoughts. And if you have a train of thoughts, you keep watching it until you get to the end and recognize that it’s void or where it comes from is the nature of mind. But I was thinking that it’s sort of like a very thin line between doing that and just having discursive thought because ordinarily we’re sort of…

Gehlek Rimpoche: Say it slowly. I don’t hear it.

Dimitri: My question is basically if you’re doing that method of watching the thoughts to get back to the original source, what’s the difference between that and just when you’re ordinarily having discursive thoughts and I’m sort of following my chain of…like daydreaming, it goes on and on. How do you ever get back to the original mind from watching your thoughts?

Gehlek Rimpoche: I don’t know how did I give last week, I packed so much in one day. But if I remember correctly, or if I mumble-jumbled, I’m sorry, but I did really thought I did talk to you about six different ways of looking at the mind itself. I’m glad you asked that questions because I thought I may have to repeat that, that was my thought. I’ve been traveling today, but I had five minutes before I picked it up in bathroom. So I thought about it. I said, “Maybe I did too much all thing together.” So I’d like to repeat this, perhaps you didn’t hear. And also might have confused between six different ways of having mind and six different ways of observing, that might have confused too.

So let’s say way how I meditate on my mind, and I said there are six ways of it. Number one: leaving the mind as it is. What does that mean? Leaving the mind as it is. These are not simply talking about mind, it’s linked up with a practice. So particularly among all other practices, these are very importantly linked with the guru-yoga practice, as you know. Everybody has different ways of guru-yoga. In our cases, we have excellent guru-yoga. Liberate one is the Lama Chopa, medium level we have Ganden Lha Gyema, the hundred deities land of joy or whatever, and all of those. But even in the six-session yoga you have that. And that is finally dissolving guru who is nature of all enlightened beings, whether it is yidam or whether it is Buddha or whatever it might be, dissolving to the individual, right? So don’t let me repeat that. That is a totally different subject. So I have to link it up here, that’s why. And when you are dissolving to it…and there’s a lot of different ways of dissolving. In the case of the Ganden Lha Gyema or Lama Chopa, everything, everybody dissolved in one principal guru in Lama Tsong Khapa form or they say the Lama Lozang Tawan Doje Chang(?), so a combination of it. Lama Chopa, all the trees dissolve to one, and finally lama dissolves. Guru dissolves to yourself from the crown. In the Ganden Lha Gyema, there are not so many. Two disciples dissolve from the side and then the guru Tsong Khapa and dissolve to yourself. And in the six-session yoga, guru Vajradhara dissolves, it comes out and dissolves to yourself. So anyway, and in certain sadhanas and lama merit in the form of light, and the red light or blue light of that of size of bird’s egg dissolving, right? So you all know that. So at that level, that very object, whether it is light, whether it is physical form or whatever it may be, and dissolving. And dissolving is not simply just dissolving. If you look in the dissolving system, it is union. It is sort of a reunion of pure mind. I may use the word primordial mind or nature of enlightened mind in the form of primordial mind and present life’s present mind combining together, this is a big union. The separation of so many, at least for whole life, and it is a big union.

Because of that union, because of very important faith, understanding, devotion, and all combined together, mind brings to the level what I call NBB state. NBB state is state of joy, that tremendous joy. It is almost like you are drunk with joy. It is like a drunkard drunk with joy. It’s almost like you’ve gone crazy, a drunk-crazy type of thing. I shouldn’t use so much of words, it may get into something else, so I have to be careful not to use too much. So anyway, the mind yet drunk but not crazy. It is almost like all crazy but not mad, not gone mad, yet lucid, absolutely clear. And that level is called NBB state. There’s a further more description of NBB state if you want to in one of those Lama Chopa teachings that I did in Ann Arbor a few years ago, two years, two Winter Retreat I did. So you have them in there. Anyway, that state is called state of NBB state.

The moment you lose the clarity…I talked the other day what does clarity mean, what does clear stand for, what does lucid mean, right? So don’t let me repeat, otherwise we’ll never be able to talk. So we give you the example, make it clear it, I give you the example of spotless crystal glass with the pollution-less pure water with the cloudless sunshine. That is the example of clear. Clear not on the object what you are looking but clear on the self, the observer, the watcher, the meditator, the mind itself, that level of clear when we say clear. That is the example. When I’m saying knowledge, the definition of mind is clear knowledge, right? Clear knowledge, [Tibetan], clear knowledge. The knowledge, when you talk about the knowing part, I mentioned to you the pillar when you are looking at it, you are not only looking at the simple big pillar but even with the mind to be able to understand every point of molecule in there. So when I am saying clear and knowledge, that category, that quality, that level of clarity and that level of knowledge I’m talking about, not just simply. And that is not clear that you are looking at it and there is nothing blocking, it’s not. It is clear the mind itself to that clear. Clear and lucid yet drunk with the joy, joy of reunion. And at that level, this is the object we have found. So that object is supposed to be observed. So leave it in its natural, don’t try to make anything, let it be, observe. That’s number one way of looking.

Number two way of looking is not only just that NBB state of that, but the clarity of the mind itself, how clear it is. Is it like clean crystal glass with fingerprint, or without fingerprint? Pure water with little mud in it, or without mud in it? Sunshine with a little cloud cover, or without cloud cover? That’s looking at the clarity.

Third, any thoughts that pops up…now your question comes here…any thought that pops up, try to understand that. Try to understand means try to recognize, and then meditate. There we talked a couple of different things, right? How we meditate, whether you have this guy who is throwing that sword and cutting the arrows, like the sword person when the arrow comes and cut it. Every arrow comes, cut it. I even told you the arrow man’s wife told him, “Don’t use the last arrow, let me go here.” So she came and danced and all that. I did not make this story for no reason. The reason is because when we talk that, people remember more. It also gives you a very good example of losing focus. So when you are dealing with the thoughts, either you cut it or you let the thought follow and see where it leads to. Give you the example of [Tibetan]. When you keep a bird in the cage and carry in a boat and traveling through the ocean, and at the middle of ocean…it’s the old time…middle of the ocean if you let the bird go, bird goes around everywhere, cannot land any other land, it’s all water. So any other land the bird cannot land, finally bird will come back and land on the same boat. So if you follow the thoughts around, thoughts cannot get anywhere and after a little while you begin to realize you’ve been running around your thoughts and it comes back. Or the third one is let the thought follow and change it. Thought change it, change it, change it, change it, change it, and into what happens at the end, let’s see how far it can go. And there is not…they can go there far. After a little while, it has to come back. So these are the way of looking at the thoughts. But for laypeople like us, the recommendation here is the arrow man and the sword guy, cut it. And when you get used to it, you can follow. Though they give you the choice, but recommendation is cut it, cut it. So I did tell you, somebody told me you have to keep on peeling the orange.

When you are watching it, the nature of that mind should not be like that you have fallen asleep or you have fainted. If you have a fall asleep or fainted type of thing, it’s no memory. So when there’s no memory, then it is not right. In our normal mind, just our untrained normal mind, it is completely imbalance, dysfunctional due to what? We are very vulnerable to excitation and laxity, too much relaxed. I’m borrowing this terminology from Alan Wallace. Alan Wallace is using this terminology, excitation and laxity. Right or wrong, I don’t know. So even you are focusing on mind…did I talk to you about the six different ways of looking? We talked, right? So when you are meditating, the problem is…Alan Wallace used the word as “attention disorder.” Nice. Very unusual from the traditional teaching, but he’s right. And it’s very good, it’s brilliant. And whatever he knows, he used the right language I really think. So he writes these attention disorders are to be remedied through the cultivation of stability and vividness, what we call traditionally nature to remaining and vividness, clarity. So does that answer your question, or it’s too much?

Dimitri: (inaudible) error blocking.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Error blocking is recommended at the beginning, though there are a lot of different ways I’m giving you. But then I also mentioned to you six different ways of looking at it, meditating. I think that I did mention that to you. Like looking at the sunshine that is free of cloud. Or looking at that big bird soaring, soaring big bird. The soaring is you don’t put too much effort. If it’s a small little bird, you get this beautiful bird that comes, hummingbird, you know; but you go, it’s so much. But if you look at the bigger ones, it is its own power, you don’t have to do so much of flapping that, they keep on soaring, they manage. So that’s why don’t work too tight try to hold it. If you try to hold it too tight, what happens is you have these excitations, then a wandering mind will come. And if you too loose it, then this laxity or sinking mind comes in. So the managing, if you begin go think, “If I hold this much tight, then there’s danger of losing my focus.” I talked to you last week using the vocabulary I called memory remembrance. And in the Alan Wallace he has used mindfulness, and I think it is a very nice way of using it. Though we have one word, mindfulness, it’s called mindfulness meditation and all that. And every meditation, whatever we are saying I’m using the word remembrance. And Alan used that mindfulness here, and he says ability to sustain voluntary attention continuously upon a familiar object without forgetfulness or distraction. Meditation has to be on a familiar object because if the object is not familiar, then you can’t meditate. That’s why we say Buddha image, don’t look at the Buddha image. First you look, then you have image, get used to it. Look at the mind, get base point. That makes a familiar to the person, not something new. Focusing on new is difficult, familiar is easy. So when we say remembrance, has to have three quality, that is object should be familiar and one should not forget. Remembrance here is…I told you, it’s not like learn how to ride bicycle. Learning how to ride bicycle is something it stuck, and I don’t know where it sticks, physical or mental or maybe both. So even you don’t do it and whenever you have an opportunity, you can ride the bicycle without learning. Or any subject that we talked and you learned, and whatever we learned from the talking then you remember and then you say, “Ah,” and that doesn’t become mindfulness. Mindfulness has to be continuous mindfulness. Not 24 hours a day, but as long as you are meditating. So remembrance has to be always. And I gave you an example when the elephant was training in India, they tied the elephant with the thin thread, not big rope. If you have a big rope, the elephant will throw it away. There’s no way any rope can tie the elephant anyway, you know that. But if you tie it with very thin thread, elephant is always worried about breaking that thread and looking all the time so you hold the elephant that way. So that is the example I talked the other day.

So remembrance or mindfulness has to have continuation of mindfulness. There should not be any forgetfulness or distraction at all. Any forget, if you forgot you are lost. That is big thing, it’s black and white cut here in meditation. If you forgot your object of meditation, you are not meditating. Even you may be sitting or your hands may be like this, like this, whatever the way may be, you are not meditating because you lost the focal point. So even you sit five minutes, you may have 300 sessions of meditation within that. It’s nothing wrong, nothing wrong. For us, it is very usual, very normal. If you try to follow thoughts, how long you can do. And it is most interesting for me personally, when you try to fall asleep, going to fall asleep you have that you want to wake up, you don’t want to wake up, you want to go to sleep, you don’t want…or you have to get up in the morning, something like this morning I got up 5:00. So I went to bed like 2:30 in the morning and got up 5:00. So when you wake up, the clock goes, you don’t want to wake up, and that’s a nice time to see where the thoughts are going, and thoughts going to go to sleep and you trace it. And then there’s alertness comes up, you have to get up, you have to get up, you have to get up, so alertness comes up. And that’s how you can follow your thoughts, and these are an easy way at this moment – going to sleep, getting up, going to sleep, getting up. It is only two little thing going, so easy to. And then you are sitting in the plane or driving, and then your thought, “It is a long run,” you don’t even know where it has gone. So that’s what happens, right? When it’s limited between the two, it’s going to sleep or wake up, sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up, you can follow your thoughts where it’s going though you’re going to sleep. That’s what happens.

So the quality of remembrance or the mindfulness is it is a continuous voluntary attention. Beautiful words he uses. Some are too high for me, but voluntary attention continuously upon familiar object. Voluntary, because otherwise you have to force. You don’t want to force. The elephant sits there with thin thread. If elephant pulls, thread is going to go, there’s no way, right? If you try to tie the elephant with a rope, they don’t like it, they will throw it. But thin one they’ll just watch it and worry about it and keep on watching all the time, won’t move even, worry that thread will be broken. So continue. It’s voluntary attention continue without forgetful, without distraction. If there’s a distraction, then the clarity is lost. If you forgot, you forgot. You are gone. And if you have to force it, then it’s not right. It becomes faulty. When I go back and one remaining thing, when you talk about faultless meditative state, faulty meditative state. Forcing becomes faulty meditation. And also it’s not like this big bird soaring. It will be like a hummingbird try to keep up standing there, so that’s what’s going to happen it’s not effortlessly going. Three quality, right? So in Tibetan we call it dran pa and zhi zhing(?). Dran pa I try to translate as remembrance. It is remembrance but, however, mindfulness is great. Zhi zhing(?) is another word that I said if you keep on focusing on this mindfulness long, as the result of that you will develop another mental faculty which is sort of watching, a spy, or some mind comes up. And Alan used this “meta attention.” It’s college language, I believe. Meta. And describes this, the ability to monitor the quality of attention, swiftly recognize whether it has succumbed to either excitation or laxity. The job of this particular mental faculty is to watch whether you are gone two of the problems – wandering excitation or sinking laxity. So these two mental faculties are the key for meditation.

So far we have introduced the object on which you can meditate, what is all about it, and all the systems, and what is the right thing, what is the wrong thing, and then on what you practice mindfulness, and then what are the obstacles you’re going to face, two of them. Two of them, excitation or laxity. There’s no other problem, or you’ve gone completely. That’s either way you go, when I think too much I’m gone or fall asleep. But then each one of these two has to be divided into two categories. One is gross level of excitation or subtle; and the second one, sinking is also gross and subtle. So two obstacles in meditation, and each will be divided. The division is not important to see at the beginning. At the beginning when you encounter the problem, the problem will challenge us automatically but it will be gross only. Subtle will not challenge us until we have overcome the gross wandering or sinking or excitation or laxity. Until we overcome the gross, subtle will not challenge us at all. Subtle is not…question does not arise for us. For us it is the gross level only. So in connection with dealing with these two problems, we have five faults on meditation. And these five faults have to be overcome by eight awareness. When these five faults are dealing by these eight awareness, we reach in certain different levels. There is nine stage on this. It’s not nine bhumi level, nothing, just nine stage of this. And how these nine stages are connected with our meditation by four mindful points. That’s not usual four mindfulness – mindfulness mindfulness, body mindfulness, I’m not talking about that. There’s another four of them. So that will be the theme of the next course. Five weeks I’ll spend on that and try to see how we can handle.

So I guess I’ve finished talking really. Any other questions? OK, two of you, whose hand raised first? OK, let’s go friend first, you. Nicole first and then you.

Nicole: I have two questions actually. One was in the analogy you were using about the bird flying off the boat in the ocean and landing back down. What is the boat?

Gehlek Rimpoche: Bamboo. (laughter) They’re talking about the mind, and those days there may not be couple of boats, not so many. And most probably, if it’s southeast Asia, mindfulness has to be bamboo boat. Just kidding. The example is bird cannot land anywhere because there’s all water so it has to land on the same boat. I don’t know what the boat is, but just like that the mind runs but mind cannot run and reach anywhere, it has to come back to our own mind itself. Can’t go anywhere, it cannot find anything. So if you let it go, so they cannot get anywhere very far, it has to come back to the same point. After a little while, it has to come back. Unless we are total knowledge, total enlightened, then mind will know everything and nothing returns. Until then, when we are single focusing, thoughts go on changing, changing, changing, it comes back to the thought itself. So I should say the boat is the mind and the bird is the thoughts. Maybe, I don’t know if I’m saying right or wrong. Second question?

Nicole: I was wondering, just a technical question. When you’re meditating and your eyes are open, should your eyes be focused clearly or soft, like out of focus?

Gehlek Rimpoche: The question is are we focusing eye consciousness or the mental consciousness. If you are training the eye consciousness, then you have to really see it clearly because you train the eyes. But it’s not training of the eyes so, therefore, whatever you are doing, it is fine. But if you recollect how do we sit, we did at the beginning, and they said seven ways of sitting of Vairochana buddha. Why Vairochana? Because it’s perfection of form. So in the Vairochana’s posture, I don’t believe Vairochana has open eyes like this; and it’s sort of softly looking, not shut. But there are certain traditions will teach you you have to look. You know why? These meditation texts will say [Tibetan], means focus. So they literally translate that into eye focus it, watching it. Tsong Khapa object for that, simply saying, “You’re not training your eyes, you are training your mind. Why you are making your eyes painful and cry for nothing?” Really. So the seven-stage way of Vairochana buddha is sort of softly half close, looking straight from the nostril level to over there about five feet or six feet. Depends how tall you are, sort of your body length, that’s what is recommended. So it is recommendation but, again, you remember it was said you can meditate on cow dung to yak’s horn if the zhi ne will be developed, but do not recommend do this and that. They say meditating on pebbles and trees and things like that does not serve much purpose. Meditating on Buddha, object of refuge physical form has a spiritual value over the training of the mind to focus. Then meditating on mind, then there’s nothing to look, it is empty, right? Empty, lucid and clear, that’s the three qualities. Free of any physical form is empty. Free of any obstacle thought that block, it is the clarity. And everything can be seen and understand like mirror picks up, not a person picks up. Person when we see it, we are so used to it, pick up everything as personal. We pick up so much on personal. The thing that pop up in my head is people tell, “Don’t die on me.” No one’s dying on anybody. People are dying. So you’re dying, you’re dying; you’re not dying on anybody. So too much picking up personally, “Don’t die on me.” We say that, right? So that’s why if it’s mirror, it picks up everything, nothing personal. If you don’t pick up, you are stupid, you have no knowledge, you don’t understand, don’t get it. You pick up but don’t take it personal. First like three qualities again here. Anyway, Andrea?

Andrea: I was wondering when you were talking about looking at those moments when you’re falling asleep and when you’re waking up.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Oh, that’s I’m talking about this morning only – get up, don’t get up, don’t get up, don’t get up.

Andrea: But is that part of gaining the familiarity of the object of your mind? It’s sort of like studying your mind, but it’s not the same as sitting and working in meditation.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Well, it can be same as sitting and working meditation, though you are not sitting, you are lying down. But it gives you the idea of mind that following thoughts. Thought, addiction, its effect and it is gravity that pulling you down, and awareness that you’ve got to catch the plane and you’re going to miss it. So it’s that awareness pulling up, and then your mind can watch back and forth where it’s going. It can be.

Andrea: Those moments when we’re actually watching our mind during the day, sometimes when all of a sudden it becomes much clearer to me in the course of the day what my mind is doing than when I’m actually sitting, is that its own form of meditation?

Gehlek Rimpoche: I don’t say it’s meditation, but it’s watching and then see what happens. Sometimes, hey, here you are, the thoughts is running, where are you going? Then it means exactly you are facing, challenging that running thought face to face and it disappears. It looks like they shy away from you, thoughts shy away, that’s another way of cutting the thoughts, right?

Andrea: Thank you.

Gehlek Rimpoche: You are welcome. Lady over there, yes?

Woman: What is that mind that is…it’s like a supermind that’s watching that mind that’s having the normal discursive thoughts?

Gehlek Rimpoche: I don’t know whether it’s a supermind. I will not say that.

Woman: Is it some other mental level or mental state?

Gehlek Rimpoche: I believe I just said a meta attention earlier. Meta attention. I don’t know what does that mean. A little mental faculty that pops up actually is not the major mind that focusing, it’s not the memory remembrance, the mindfulness that. A mental faulty pops up to be able to see whether you are focusing on the subject itself or you are gone to excitation or laxity, and that is that particular mental faculty. Right now we will not know what it is. Why? That will develop as the result of mindfulness. When you have a lot of mindfulness, as a result of that, this particular mental faculty pops up. It’s like you got extra sense because you have been focusing, focusing, focusing, remembering, remembering, remembering. Somehow your mind is clever enough to produce an extra sense who had no other responsibility except seeing whether you are overtaken by the wandering mind or sinking. That’s the one who is watching. The gentleman over here, you. I forgot your name.

Eska: Eska. Rimpoche, I was just wondering, when you talk about meditation on the mind and you call it empty, lucid and clear, and yet you call it relative mind, not absolute mind. I was just confused about that, that why it would… And also if you actually saw that mind, wouldn’t you be enlightened already in a sense?

Gehlek Rimpoche: No.

Eska: No. Because it’s relative mind.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Absolutely, it’s just mind. It is just mind, mister. (laughter) Why I call it relative mind? Because it is just mind. Why it is not absolute mind? The absolute mind will be looking more than this. Seeing mind alone is not an enlightened. Seeing mind alone is way before shamatha developed to us. Seeing mind and its reality is wisdom. That’s way after. Base mind and the quality of emptiness combined together becomes absolute mind nature. It’s a big difference. If you read the Mahamudra text…oh, I have here. [Tibetan] So like this you will see the mind clearly, yet you cannot point it out and say this is it, nor you can perceive, nor you can catch it. Let it be. [Tibetan] He said, “A lot of Tibetan meditators will say this is ultimate, they will deliver the total enlightenment in your hand. However, I, the Lozang Choekyi, the First Panchen Lama, I say this is a great way to learn shamatha and I said this is a simple relative introduction of mind.” That’s what he said. [Tibetan] It is a great way to the people to develop zhi ne, shamatha on that, and it’s a simple introduction of mind that’s relative mind. So without having wisdom of emptiness free of extreme existence, either existentialistic view or nihilistic point, free of that, until you establish that on top of the mind you get nowhere. One more minute. That is the difference where you can wait and watch and wait and watch until the cows come home, or you can do something. That’s the difference. Yeah, really. Mark?

Mark: Rimpoche, does Alan Wallace or do you make a distinction between his terminology, meta attention, or the idea of self consciousness or self awareness? Or does the idea of meta attention include something which merely being conscious…

Gehlek Rimpoche: Self aware…well, I’m thinking in Tibetan. I’m thinking of this little mental faculty you develop after mindfulness concentration, and if that mind. Because the way he described here and monitor the quality of the attention, swiftly recognize whether it has succumbed to either excitation or laxity, which means referring to the mind called zhi zhing(?). So if it is zhi zhing(?), it has nothing to do with self awareness, nothing. Nothing to do with self awareness. And his Tibetan is really good, and his understanding in this level is very good. So the meta attention is probably the right thing to say, though it is too high English for me. OK, thank you. So Colleen?

Colleen: So, Rimpoche, this meditation that we’re doing and bringing the joy and I think is samadhi, that seeing the mind clearly and that clarity, that is what we have to develop first and then use that mind to meditate on emptiness to reach enlightenment.

Gehlek Rimpoche: That’s right. That’s absolutely. [Tibetan] So without that stability capacity developed through shamatha, without which you can never gain the wisdom part of it, it is always. I think that came at the beginning of our talk, remember? Eight weeks ago, six or seven weeks ago we’ve been talking that. That’s what it is. This gentleman over here?

Man: Thank you, holy teacher.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Huh?

Man: Thank you very much. I’ve been looking to hear some of these answers, thank you.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Thank you.

Man: If you are able to achieve the single-pointedness of mind on the mind and you have that clarity and your body is starting to experience the bliss that you spoke of, and you go to start doing your analysis of the nature of the mind, can you speak a little bit more about how when you start bringing the conceptual thought or the discursive thought, how you don’t lose the single-pointedness on the mind?

Gehlek Rimpoche: That is what the Zen people tell you exactly. When you have the fish in the water, fish moves and the water doesn’t move. That’s exactly what it is. The Zen people talk all the time. This water with the fish moving and the fish goes around, the water doesn’t shake. Exactly that single thought that will come, analyze and it moves within that, the fish will not go out of the water, fish doesn’t shake the water, and it will be able to see it. Or one of the way of looking here it even says, even though you have certain thoughts, the moment of the wind blow on the ocean may move the surface of ocean a little bit but doesn’t happen anything at the deeper level. So the deeper level you have strongly focusing yet single mind that moves like fish in the water begin to analyze. That’s what my understanding. Thank you. Did I see a hand here? Yes, you first.

Woman: Thank you, Rimpoche. I have a very basic question, that I learned how to meditate with my eyes closed and I’ve been trying very hard to focus on an object, and I was wondering if you have any suggestions for that.

Gehlek Rimpoche: According to my own experience, if you close and you try to focus, for a short period you can focus better but it doesn’t last very long. If you don’t close your eyes and you begin to think, it lasts longer for sure. Did you hear me? When you close your eyes and try to focus on an object, looks more vivid, looks more clear, looks is there, but does not last very long. Then it goes away. But if you don’t close your eyes and you start projecting the object, let me say if you visualize object, little more romantic, without closing eyes, it lasts a little longer. And long run it helps not closing eyes. Short term it looks better with closing eyes. Thank you. Then it goes to the gentleman here.

Man: Thank you very much, Rimpoche. Actually you answered my first question about the eyes closed, eyes open. But I’ve also heard of a type of meditation which has been described as panoramic. And my understanding of that is that you don’t just focus on let’s say your breath or an image of the Buddha or whatever; but whatever is in your field of all your senses, you let that all come in or be there and you’re expanding your focus, if you will. I suppose if you’re not careful you could completely lose your focus. But does this fit into the framework that you’ve been talking about, or is this a completely different subject? I saw it in the context of dzogchen. Thank you.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Thank you. I cannot comment because my knowledge in dzogchen is zero. But when you reach in certain level, and then you can have panoramic views and you can have tamarki-shes-pa(?), if the dzogchen you’re probably familiar with that tamarki-shes-pa(?). And then you call it cig-car-ba, it’s not constantly following but coming all together. So all of them may be visible at those highly developed people. But in our level, as far as I know, I don’t know how it works.

Man: So forget about it for now.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Well, I will not say forget about it because there’s the dzogchen part of it. But you can try. See if you can keep the focus, it’s fine. If you are losing your thoughts thread, then it’s not suitable for you. You make your own judgment. Thank you. Yes, the lady over there? You will probably be the last question, OK? Thank you.

Woman: Thank you, Rimpoche. A few weeks ago you were talking about achieving zhi ne and if you were involved in…the text said if you have a certain type of profession that it would be a hindrance, or also the environment that you might be trying to meditate in should be of a certain quality. If your life…if you have a certain job where there’s a lot of stuff which is very contrary to…

Gehlek Rimpoche: Did you say savage?

Woman: Contrary.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Yeah, yeah, before that, what did you say? If you have a lot of savage, didn’t you say that?

Woman: Certain job, certain job. Not savage job. It could be savage job.

Gehlek Rimpoche: I’m sorry. I thought you may be in Iraq or something.

Woman: No, no, no, not yet, no.

Gehlek Rimpoche: Not yet did you say?

Woman: I’m teasing.

Gehlek Rimpoche: OK, thank you.

Woman: Anyways, do you have any advice how you can overcome the physical job-oriented or environmental obstacles?

Gehlek Rimpoche: Although our purpose of meditation is to give training to our mind that we will be able to meditate all the time, everything whatever we are doing. But, again, until we get so used to it, develop in certain level, we will not be able to do that, particularly this zhi ne type of meditation where we try to develop mental stability as well as lucidness together and you need to be in a lot more suitable environment. So we began the course with the quality of environment, remember? [Tibetan] So the good land, good water, good this, good that, remember? So maybe even you don’t have as literally what the textbook has described, but however is suitable where there is not so much distraction, not so much thing, we may have to begin with that. However, that doesn’t mean you cannot have spiritual practice. Spiritual practice such as with the kindness, compassion-oriented. Even you are living, whatever you are doing physically, anything, unless somebody who has a butcher job or slaughter job and that person cannot think “for the benefit of all sentient beings I slaughter you,” you can’t say that, you can’t do that. Otherwise, more or less almost everything with this beautiful thought of bodhimind or this love-compassion combined thought can almost everything that you do in your work, including your daily chores such as doing laundry or sweeping. In the beginning of the Lam Rim and how many times we spend time talking sweeping the floor. And remember that Buddha had two disciples who was quite dull and made sweep the floor for a long time and developed, finally become arhat. So like daily chores, anything, sweeping. Artwork, expressing our feelings and thoughts through art, any art – painting, music, poetry, whatever, sculpture, whatever. Actually making the mind and an idea what you have is literally translating it into an art form; and by doing it, bringing joy and relieving pain of the people who observe, who perceive. That is exactly what art is. [Tibetan] So the purpose is to relieve that tiredness of body and mind of the people who are observing. So relieving the tiredness and the difficultness of the people, and it is the purpose. In that way, you can do everything with very spiritual, and you do see a great many artists do that. And you can use that for doing the chore, the laundry, the sweeping, cooking, taking care of children, taking care of all other people, sick people, children, elderly, everywhere, wherever. So the spiritual opportunity is everywhere. But if you go on the meditation in the formal way, shamatha here, that will be a little difficult to do at the beginning with the all variety of environment. Well, thank you so much.

[END]