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20040714GRSR6

Jewel Heart Summer Retreat July 14th, 2004. Morning

For the benefit of all sentient beings, one would like to listen to great teachings such as this and practice whatever one learns in order to become a fully enlightened one for the benefit of all living beings. With that in mind, would you kindly listen.

The teaching to which you are listening has the four qualities that we have already mentioned. What we have covered up to here is, basically, okay, let’s look at it a little bit.

Preliminaries

Actual

Conclusion.

Preliminaries are the six preliminaries, including the single-pointed request, which we touched upon slightly and about which most of you have knowledge.

Actual practice is the root of all development, which is guru-devotional practice. Having such a guru-devotional practice, now we must ask what we are to do with it. This question has two parts. We must firstly remind ourselves to fulfill the mission of our lives. And how do we do this?

There are the three scopes:

Common with the Lower Level

Common with the Medium Level

Mahayana Level

Out of the first, Common with the Lower Level, we have covered (in the Odyssey to Freedom bookmark) the steps from ‘Embracing Human Life’ to ‘Refuge’ and we even touched upon Karma yesterday. And then the Refuge- the cause of Refuge, why we need to take Refuge- we mentioned each of those Lower Level topics a little bit. Just slightly, slightly. But we touched upon them enough to gain the feelings (of being afraid of falling into the Hell Realms), particularly when I talked about the lightest Hell Realms called the Yang Su (?Tib), into which we might be reborn. That discussion was good enough to bring about the sense of urgency, because the sufferings that are described in the Hell Realms are very similar to the sufferings that we experience in the Human Land.

If you read the traditional texts, though, it seems that the suffering beings go ‘there’ and get caught in a certain place (Hell Realm). I’m sure that those of you who read the Lam Rim, might read it as that.

But practically speaking, [the sufferings of the Hell Realms] really happen in the human land. We very well have seen what has happened in the torture chambers that Hitler created. We see what is happening now to in these prison camps and how little we know about what is going on. History tells us that there is a Hell Realm in the Human Realm, too, among the human beings.

There’s no doubt that there are a lot of innocent people who are somehow caught in there. It could be any one of us. ‘It could be me,’ we must think to ourselves. How lucky we are that it is not. So the purpose of learning about the Hell Realms is to gain the feeling(awareness) and the understanding (of hoe precarious our life is) and to recognize that there is the possibility of this- falling into the Lower Realms- happening to us in a future life, or even in this life.

Therefore, in contemplating the Hell Realms, we should develop a sense of urgency or fear that will push us to take refuge.

So now I have covered Taking Refuge, but I thought I should talk about some of the aspects of Refuge that I don’t think I mentioned.

I must talk of the benefits. I will do so in a sort of straightforward way of counting.

The foremost benefits of Taking Refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are, in doing so:

1. You will have entered the path of Buddhists, Buddha’s path.

2. It provides you with the base that allows you to obtain different vows. We talk about vows making a lot of difference. Without Refuge, you cannot take any vows. Refuge is the base for all vows.

3. It allows for the purification of negativities. Taking Refuge at least reduces them, and, for some, it completely purifies them.

4. It allows for the accumulation of a tremendous amount of merit.

Quoting from something?: Tem Thuba Chuba

“When taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha: if there were a pool the size of the whole universe- the size of three times the whole universe- it would be too small to fit all of the benefits of refuge-taking. And as in that example, when you drink, how can you expect to measure the depth of the water by taking only a handful?” There is no way you can measure it- just like that: the fortunes that you develop just by taking refuge are immeasurable.

5. You will not fall into the Lower Realms.

For example: as I said before, there are the six realms, there is the samsaric god realm, the small ‘g’ god realm, where reside those who know the past, present, and future (they are therefore sometimes referred to as ‘three-timers’).

Let me explain a little first… one of the sufferings that they have in the god realm is very different than what we have. Those in the god realm don’t suffer at all during their lifetime, but just before they die, seven days before, they are presented with a sign of death. And when they receive this sign of death, they really become completely crazy, and there is nothing that can help them.

One of these gods, during the Buddha’s lifetime, saw himself as taking rebirth as a pig in some swamp in the Human Land. He became so worried and so scared that he began taking refuge to one of the Arhats, named Kangboh,,a disciple of the Buddha. And just by taking refuge to Kangboh, his karma changed and he took rebirth in the samsaric gods realm.

So if you have such a benefit in taking refuge to an Arhat, then certainly you will have more benefit than that in taking refuge to Buddha!

6. It fulfills our wishes

7. It helps us to become enlightened very quickly

These are the benefits of taking refuge.

Now I would like to touch upon the advices of taking refuge. These are the most important, and I would like to touch upon them. There is

1. Common advice

2. Individual advice.

Individual advice consists of both

1. positive advice

2. negative advice.

Tibetan Buddhism and especially Lam Rim usually discuss the negative first.

The negative advice is:

By taking refuge to the Buddha, you do not take refuge in other spirits, ghosts, and so forth.

By taking refuge to the Dharma, you should not hurt any creatures.

By taking refuge to the Sangha, you should not have any non-virtuous friends.

The positive advice is:

By taking refuge to Buddha, you respect every image, drawings, pictures of the Buddha. and even if you are judging the thangkas, and sculptures, you can judge from the artistic point of view, the material from which it is made, etc. but you don’t ever say ‘this image is no good,’ because in so saying it becomes insulting to the Buddha. You can say the art is not good, or that the material is bad, but don’t judge its value.’ It’s good art’ or ‘It’s not good art,’ ‘it’s a good design’ or ‘it’s not a good design,’ is okay, but don’t give it a value judgement. But then when someone is buying a valueless thing- there might not be such a thing as a valueless Buddha image- with good motivation of helping and protecting you may be able to say ‘well, this may be worth about that much,’ but you wouldn’t say it just because you know how much it’s worth. You say it if you have to say it, with the motivation of helping others.

By taking refuge to the dharma, you

By taking refuge to the Sangha, you do not generate a schism

These are the individual what-to-do’s and what-not-to-do’s at the Individual Level of taking Refuge.

Common Advice is as follows:

By remembering the qualities very often: the kindness and compassion that Buddha has by his sharing his experiences with us, we must develop gratitude to the Buddha for the knowledge that we received from him; gratitude to the Buddha for the possibility that we maintain these qualities. We should think in this way as often as possible when we take Refuge.

Make Offerings: By remembering, by making offerings, especially food offerings, because we constantly have to eat, 3 times a day. So everytime you eat, make offerings, and this will not only fulfill the advice of refuge, but it is also an act of generosity, as well as an act which accumulates merit. So it is something that we have to do everyday, a number of times. And you don’t have to make it show biz. Some people like to make it show biz, you know? They pretend to be ‘I am a spiritual practitioner’ and when the food comes you do this and that and all kinds of things: shout, sing, and all that. I fyou are in the right group, it is okay, but in normal cases, just do as I would: (says in Tibetan

‘Buddha, the peerless master, Dharma, the peerless protector, Sangha, the peerless, may we make offerings to you, the three precious jewels.’ And normally you can just say this, from your heart. And if you are Vajrayana practitioners, then you have ‘Om, Ah, Hum’ blessing for the food and make that as an offering to all enlightened beings and then use the food as an inner fire offering. (20:13) This is a simple way to make an offering.

And then we must remind ourselves that a part of the offering, quotes something in Tib, …We utilize food as a form of medicine- not to make us fat (laughs)- (quotes Tib again) food is just simply used to sustain our lives. So it is not recommended to over eat. It is not for me to say, however. I keep thinking to myself, it’s not meant to make you fat, don’t overeat and all of that sort of thing because that’s not right for me because it then becomes that you preach what you don’t practice. And I don’t want that! So that is the food offerings.

Then there is the tea and coffee offerings. The first thing that you drink in the morning- tea, or coffee, or whatever, then you have another short offering. (Quotes Tib.) Say this

‘I and my circle, throughout all of our lives, may we never be separated from the protection of the three precious jewels. By continuously making offerings to the three precious jewels, may their blessings be obtained. Buddha, the peerless master, dharma, the peerless protector, sangha, the peerless helper, we make these offerings to the three precious protectors.’

This is actually a drink offering. So the first thing that you drink every morning, whether it is water, orange juice, tea, or coffee, so if you can think that in your mind, that does the same thing as food offerings. And these things, if this becomes a habit, without any fuss, then you’ll have an act of generosity, and you’ll have made offerings, and will have made an inner fire puja, and all this.

Since we are not monks or nuns, we don’t have additional commitments. If we were monks or nuns, (23:10)- well, in actuality, Buddha meant all of his disciples, but for some reason, we leave it up to monks and nuns- we would have the commitment of offering leftovers, too. But, anyway, we don’t need to talk anymore about that.

Compassion: we must remember the compassion and kindness and caring of the Buddha and of all the great masters who followed him. We must try to follow the same path. We must also think often ‘I will lead all other beings to this path.’

Reliance: Whatever activities that you do, whether they are good, bad, difficult, or whatever, try to do them while relying on the Buddha, Dharma, or Sangha. So don’t curse or swear at people in the name of Buddha, Dharma, or Sangha. Don’t do so even as a joke.

So, now I have covered the topics of Refuge that I didn’t cover last night as I had the mind of rushing.

Now, we’ll come back to the topic of Karma and the meditations on Karma and its qualities.

Karma is

Definite. It is definite because whatever effect you have created, you are responsible for that effect. You are responsible for your actions, and so you will gain or lose according to whatever is the nature of the action. You did it, so you will lose or gain accordingly. That is your act, so you are responsible and must accept your responsibility.

Fast-growing. If you don’t take care, the good ones (karma(s)) get destroyed by anger; the bad ones, if you don’t destroy them, there’s no automatic mechanism for us to make them go away. So we have to make an effort. Everytime, we make positive ones, we have to make lot of effort. The bad ones, we don’t have to make any effort, and that is because we are perfect in the negative activities. We are experts in negative activities. You cannot find any better experts! We do not have any automatic positive mechanisms which destroy negativities, so you have push purification. You have to really make an effort to purify. And if you don’t, then it’s there, and it’s bound to give you the result, and it increases. It increases.

Nagarjuna has an interesting example: (Quotes Tibetan.) The basis on which to make a judgement is whether the person is intelligent or stupid. If the person is intelligent, he or she will purify her negativities. And even if she is unable to completely purify, it won’t be so heavy. And then he gives the example: There is a ball/block of iron. If he or she flattens the iron into a sheet, and then throws it onto a river, it will not sink, but will float above the water instead of going down. So Nagarjuna says that this is a metaphor for intelligence. The other one would pick up the piece of iron and throw it in the water, and it will go down and never come up. This is the metaphor for stupidity. (Quotes Tibetan) So this is why he said, ‘if you are intelligent, even your heavy negativities will become light; if you are stupid, even if your negativities are light, they will become heavy.’ Because you don’t do anything. So that is why karma is fast-growing.

(Quotes Tibetan)

If you create karma, unless you do something, negative or positive, unless it is destroyed, you are bound to meet with their results.

(Quotes Tibetan)

No matter how much time has passed, when the conditions are right, the results are bound to happen. When the conditions are right, the results are bound to be. So no matter how long it has been, no matter how much time has passed, that is not an issue. When the time is right, when the conditions are right, the result is bound to happen. It may take a million lifetimes- it doesn’t matter. It may happen very quickly. (Pause.) Which is probably not possible, but we are called the lakesava, we are called ‘the karmic people’, so we do have a possibility of receiving the results of the karma created in the early part of our lives in the latter part of our lives. There is this possibility for us, as we are very special cases. Otherwise, it is not an immediate thing.

If you have not created the cause, no matter whatever you do, no matter what, the result will never happen. That is what is meant by fast-growing. One does not meet the result if one has not created the cause. And, if you have created the cause, no matter how long it takes, you are bound to meet with the result. And that’s what makes us responsible for ourselves. Our good deeds. That’s why I said ‘your life, the wonderful life that we have- we earned it, we earned it, because we did work hard to get it.’ So what happens to us in the future depends on us- nobody else.

Buddha said (quotes Tibetan), talking to his disciple-monks (quotes Tibetan), ‘Previous human precious life: thank you for this beautiful bikkshu, the full-fledged monk! Full-fledged monk: please, don’t let me down in the future!’ So, that is Buddha’s advice for his disciples. So, though that is not directly addressed to us because we are not monks, there is a message in there for us, and that is for us to think, ‘Previous, precious human life: thank you for this beautiful life of today! Today’s wonderful spiritual practitioner: don’t let me down in my future life!’ This is exactly how we should be thinking.

(34:30)

So… if you don’t create the cause, no matter what you do, there will not be the result of that cause. You know there are people who really try to have children, really try their best. Up, down, whatever, morning, evening, afternoon, night, whatever they do, take pills, have injections- and nothing happens! When you don’t have the karma for something, no matter what you do, you won’t get the result. So that’s what it is. And so the advice that Buddha gives to those who have this kind of problem is: satisfaction. Be satisfied with what you are. Be happy with what you are. Don’t try to be somebody else. If you try to be somebody else, you will be miserable all the time. You can’t be somebody else. It will make you miserable.

So, now what? We often talk about the good, bad, do good, don’t do bad, but we never really talk about them carefully. So I thought I would touch upon the ten negativities. Unless we touch upon them a little bit, some may be confused. Some think that when we talk about Killing, that it is only about human beings, others think that that refers to all killing. So I’d like to talk a little bit more about this.

The ten negativities:

By body, there are 3

By speech, there are 4

By mind, there are 3

The three negativities of the body are:

Killing.

(Quotes in Tibetan the two versus above the quote above in relation to a result never happening without its cause) The karmas that people have created will never go wasted, even if hundreds of eons have passed. The result will happen when the conditions are right. They may wait hundreds of millions of eons.

To be able to complete the killing karma (and other types of karma) there have to be 4 basic points. (When we are talking about the negative points here, you have to understand that the positive points are just their opposites, okay?):

a. Base. Base means: whom you are going to kill. The person has to be other than yourself. This is why people have problem with euthanasia, because of this reason.(40:20) Here, we are talking about human beings, and it has to be a person other than yourself. This is the Base.

Mind/ Thought. Thought is divided into 3 categories.

You have to know what you are doing. That’s why the ‘crazy’ people are sometimes exempt, even by law.

You have to be affected by one of the 3 poisons, the afflictive emotions of obsession, hatred, or ignorance.

You have to have motivation (this looks like detective work!), you have to have the desire to kill.

c. Action. Action is the act of killing by any means- through poison mantra, exorcism, or by whatever means, whether by ordinary or spiritual means. This includes black magic and voodoo- they, too, are still considered to be acts of cold-blooded murder. Even if it is a group exorcism, committed by a great monastery, it is considered a killing action here, no matter what the excuse might be. Even if the killing has been done by a very ‘high’ or great person – Buddha spares no one.

d. Completion. That person must die before you. In order to get the perfect karma of killing, the person you are killing must die before you. If you are killing somebody, and that person dies before you, then you complete the karma. But in the case where you die, the karma of killing of that other person is not complete, There is no completion, no closure. You may ask ‘did he die?’ then you may say yes or no, maybe you both died, and then you’d be better off, you won’t have complete killing karma, even though you killed the person, because the person you killed died before you and there was no closure.

Also, if you make a mistake, you will not get perfect killing karma. For example, if you had the thought- you knew what you were doing- that you wanted to kill John, but instead you accidentally killed Joanne. In this case, you wouldn’t have complete killing karma because you made a mistake! This is because the mind/ thought level- knowing what you are doing- part of complete karma is incomplete.

I remember a friend of mine, a Rimpoche, a young Rimpoche in Tibet, I don’t know whether he’s still alive or not, he lives in Switzerland. I think it was 1957, during the Monlam Festival, Tsitso Rimpoche, who was a very cute guy, was robbed and raped by some police people when he was walking between the prayer halls and his home. So he took out the policeman’s gun and shot the policeman and he died. He killed a man, a human being. So, according to the monastery rules, he can no longer be in the monastery. So he had to leave because killing a human being is considered totally against the vows. The disciplinary people kept saying that he had to be kicked out of the monastery, though his own teachers, and himself and everybody else, kept saying that he didn’t have to leave because he didn’t have the motivation part of the killing karma. They continued to have arguments over this, going around with books and arguing the whole time and then the case went beyond the monastery to the Central Government in Tibet. At about that time, Kyabje Trijang? Rimpoche, a disciple of Kyabje ? Rimpoche, at that time intervened and said ‘well, it’s not really a killing, but for the sake of future generations, you should withdraw from the monastery.’ He sort of made a settlement. Here the monastery was on one side and his teachers were on the other. They had conference after conference where they tried to prove their points by bringing proof from all different texts from everywhere., including from the Kanyu, the Buddha’s works, commentaries from the Indian scholars, and TsongKapa’s works, and everywhere! Both sides had very strong points. So many quotations! It took months! Day after day, groups of people were arguing all the time. (50:14) All of the known scholars were participating, poking their noses into it. Finally, Kyabje Trijang? Rimpoche intervened and said ’Well, you’re right, you don’t have killing karma, however, get out of the monastery!’ He thought it would set a bad precedence because, in the future, everybody would argue the same thing.

So this is an example of how, when the mind/thought portion of killing isn’t there, one does not have complete killing karma.(51:10)

Such is the case of killing human beings, the closure of which is defined by making that human being no longer a human being. However, it doesn’t mean that if the act has not been completed, then you don’t have any killing karma! If you haven’t completed the killing, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have any bad karma. It may not be complete killing karma, but there is bad karma.

So, that is an argument, in my opinion, that even goes for the pro-choice people, too. No one really says that having an abortion is a good thing to do. I hope nobody does! But it becomes necessary, for those who are helpless. There should not be a law that punishes the individual. I think that is what the point is- not whether you are against life or pro-life or whatever, and also from the killing karma point of view.

Stealing

a. Base. The base is other people’s material, wealth, whatever you are stealing. You cannot steal from yourself.

Recognition. The recognition here is that you want to take it even though the owner does not want to give it to you.

c. Action. Action can be anything: cheating, lying, manipulating. Whatever it takes to fulfill the desire of yours to transfer whatever that thing might be that you are stealing. By whatever means- that is the action.

Sometimes we even have to be careful when we are doing fundraising- making people feel obligated to give by putting them in an awkward situation. This could be stealing karma, though perhaps incomplete. If you get the money, then there is closure.

It is also very applicable if you are on jury duty.(55:41) Certain decisions that have to be made can also involve stealing karma.

During the Buddha’s time, there was talk about value. What is value? What is valuable changes from time to time, place to place. If you keeping on stealing wooden nickels, I don’t think you are really going to have stealing karma. Wooden nickels don’t really have value. And traditionally, in India during Buddha’s time, they talked about kashabani- it was almost like monetary value that they put on certain things that were worthwhile buying. In this country, the wealth is so great, that if you want to just buy a soap or towel, I don’t think that that is stealing (though the Muslim law would cut your hands off for doing so! If a child under 10 is caught stealing soap or a towel will have his hands cut off! I don’t know if this is the religion’s law or man-made law- I have no idea.)

With stealing, you really need the recognition. Buddha said if someone wanted to steal some other monk’s nice robe, and there happen to be two robes instead of one, then the monk would still only get the karma of having stolen one. The second one is a bonus! (laughs) There was no intention to steal the second one. If you know the Vinaya rules, then you’ll know how to steal! (laughs) You’ll know how to get around!

The emotion here is attachment. Stealing is attachment. The emotion for killing is hatred.

d. Completion/ Closure. The closure here is: I’ve got it! I got it! However, if you keep on thinking, ‘I’ve got it now, but can I really keep it?’ then there is not closure. Maybe this is the way to do it: get it, keep it, but have no closure! (laughs)

So the desire here is that you want something to be completely separate from its owner. You want to take it away from its owner. I won’t go into the detail of ‘What makes someone an owner of something?

Sexual Misconduct

Base. The Base is the ‘wrong basis.’ Normally what we say is the base is the word we often use for cursing in Tibetan! Your mother is the wrong base. (laughs) Your father is the wrong base (laughs) that is the vivid example. The base is also the person who is objecting to the act. According to Buddhist teachings, it is wrong to: [have a sexual act] during the last few months of pregnancy; to do so when one has taken a vow or commitment not to; to perform [sexually] at inappropriate times, like doing so shamelessly in public. (1:01:52)

Recognition. Recognition is not whether it is right or wrong, but recognizing that you are doing something. Even the crazy are not spared here.

Closure here does not have to be the completed activity. You hurt the person whether you complete the act or not. Sexual misconduct is slightly different from the others in this. The other s are either ‘I’ve got it!’ or someone has died; but with sexual misconduct, you don’t have that closure. If you hurt that person, that is enough. I won’t go into detail. (quotes Tib.) So that’s it.

Commiting sexual misconduct against your parents is listed first here- I don’t know why. Then, all rapes are considered sexual misconduct- no matter who the person may be Anything that goes against one’s vows, that is sexual misconduct. If you smoke, even if you don’t inhale- that is closure here. You don’t have to ‘inhale’ [in this analogy]

Let’s say if a male is performing the act, and is hurting someone- man, woman, whomever, if he is penetrating beyond the thin skin of the sexual organs, then just penetrating itself is considered closure. If the man were to put it into someone’s mouth beyond one’s teeth, then that would be considered closure. If one were to use the ‘third door’ (quotes Tib.), and one were to penetrate beyond a centimeter, then that would be considered closure. (quotes Tib.)

It was interesting, I was talking with Therup Rimpoche- he became lay at almost the same time that I became lay in Delhi- two years ago, and we were talking about what had been happening at the time that we had decided to give up our vows. He was talking about how he had been manipulated by certain families. They threw a party, and he drank beer, and somehow they forced him into a room with someone and locked them in there together. In normal circumstances, he said he didn’t do anything. However, according to these rules, he did touch her somewhere, so therefore, he considered that touching to be closure. That is how strict the rules are. So he picked up the lay dress, and declared that he was no longer a monk. So, I just wanted to share that, so you know that sexual misconduct doesn’t mean that there is necessarily penetration. (1:08:30)

[Tea/ Coffee Break]

Lying. Black Lie. It’s interesting. Traditionally, only Killing and Lying were mentioned- they didn’t say ‘Killing a Human Being’ or ‘Telling a Black Lie.’ They didn’t specify like this. This is because telling a lie which isn’t as serious as a black lie is better than telling a black lie, and killing something other than a human being is better than killing a human being. [But all types of lying and killing are negativities to some extent], so they didn’t want to emphasize just the one type of killing or lying. It’s always better for us [to avoid any kind of killing or lying.]

Base. The base is taking whatever you’ve seen or heard and telling the opposite. Whatever you know, whatever you’ve seen, whatever you’ve heard, and making it opposite.

Mind/Thought/Recognition. The Recognition is switching. If you saw it, but say you didn’t. If you knew something was right, and wanted to switch it, and then tell someone that it is not right.

This Mind has all three poisons, attachment, hatred and ignorance, as a part of it.

Motivation. Motivation is Switching.

Action. The action is speaking, telling the lie. Or it may just be expressing, without a word, though with a clear message. It doesn’t have to be blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t have to be loud. (1:13:42)

Closure. The closure here is when others have understood the message. That is enough. Whether they buy it or not, all that is needed for closure is for them to have understood.

Creating Schisms.

Base. The base is trying to separate two or more friends.

Mind/Thought/Recognition/Delusion. This is just like Lying.

The Motivation/Desire is the desire to make friends no longer friends. Actually, it doesn’t necessarily have to do with friends. It can be the desire to make those who get along well not get along well.

Closure. Closure here is expression, whether it is sweet or sour. It is expressing your ideas and/or thoughts, either in a sweet way or in a rough way. That is all that is needed- the people don’t actually have to have been separated.

Harsh Words. This is almost the same as creating schisms. If you don’t have sort of bad feelings toward the group or individual(s) to whom you are speaking, the use of harsh words may not lead to the same downfall as what we are talking about here. This is because the Base here is associated with something that you want to harm or hurt. So if you want to help other people, then using harsh words may not lead to this karma, because the base would be different.

Base. Base here means really wanting to hurt someone.

Mind/Thought/Recognition/Delusion. This is just like before.

The Motivation here is wanting to hurt. This type of ‘harsh words’ may really mean abusive words. The words themselves are counted indirectly as harsh actions. (This is also similar to not speaking, or taking a passive/aggressive attitude, or disconnecting. You know how some people just say ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ and don’t speak to their parents, or don’t speak to their children. People do that. Though those aren’t ‘harsh words’, it is almost equally as heavy a negativity. But since we are talking about speech, let it be harsh speech.)

Action. It doesn’t matter whether [what is said] is true or not true, (1:19:26) Sine the motivation is coming from the desire to hurt, whatever way in which the abuse is presented, the words themselves are good enough. If the words are true, then they are harsh words; if the words are not true, then it’s even worse!

Conclusion. To complete this particular karma, saying the words is enough. The other person doesn’t have to buy it.

Unnecessary Chit Chat

Base. The Base is Useless- any words that are spoken without purpose. If you want to hurt, then it becomes something else. The base is just someone to talk to, someone to speak to.

Recognition/ Delusion. This is just like before.

The Motivation is just Yapping. You just want to keep on yapping. You just yap, yap, yap, yap, yap- like the Little House ?- they just keep on barking. It is the desire to just say something. Right, wrong, correct, help, harm, something- just say it!

Action. The action is the bluh-bluh-blubbing. When you think it is your job to do this yap-yapping- that is the action. When you fill up the room with the yap yap yap, that is the action. Even if you don’t fill the room, even you fill just your own ears with the bluh-bluh-bluh, that is action. Some people can’t help it- not only do they have to say something. Even if they have to stay quiet, they have this talking in the ear: bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh! This is considered action here.

Closure. When you speak the words, that is closure here. ‘Blah blah blah’ is closure. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve pleased or hurt the people to whom you are talking. If, though, you have the desire to do something, and want to make a change, it is no longer useless. For example, if you want to sell something, or you want to buy something, if you are inquiring about something, then it is no longer useless chit chat, for you now have a purpose. Now change becomes the nature of the action- it is no longer yapping.

Now, we move onto the negativities of mind. We call it naksung in Tibetan- I don’t know what it’s called.

Audience suggests ‘coveting.’

Coveting.

Base. The base here is things that belong to other people. It’s close to stealing, really.

Recognition/Delusion and Motivation are the usual: wanting to have it.

Motivation: I want this to belong to me.

Action. The action is whatever you do that is influenced by the motivation. It can be nice and sweet, or it can be a harsh action. It is whatever action that leads to the conclusion.

Conclusion. The conclusion here is not getting it, but the wish to have it. The wishing is it. Suppose you want to have that nice glass over there, decide that you want it, and then you talk to the person and say how wonderful it is…

I was thinking this… about two years ago, Marianne Thunderhorst has a nice little piece of jade, nice old Chinese jade. It has some kind of stick, and it rolls (rubbing hands together). So I saw it and I said “ That is very nice, it’s beautiful, what is it?’ and the seller said ‘It’s to massage your face.’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah, very nice.’ She then gave it to me, but I didn’t take it. No matter how much she forced it, I didn’t take it. And then a year later, she had it delivered it to my house in Michigan. So I keep on thinking, ‘I might have been involved in this.’ Somehow I was involved a little bit. I don’t mean that I didn’t have the desire to get it- it was very nice and wonderful. And then I got it! So, the motivation was not there, but the action was definitely there. But I don’t have this downfall, because there was no motivation. So I have shared this story to give you the idea of what naksung really is.

So, the closure is your desire. You don’t have to get it.

Let’s say there is this glass, and you say it is so wonderful blah-blah-blah., or, I wish I had it blah-blah-blah, and somebody gives you another glass, a different one- then you don’t have the base. (laughs) You wouldn’t get the completion of that karma. Although there would be closure- it may even have come from before- because you really wished to have it, you performed, you did what you could to get it. I’m talking about the easy way, and it goes in a big way, like oil.

Malice (1:29:25) This is very simple. It is just like Harsh Words. You have the desire to hurt the person to whom you are talking. [This is base and motivation]

Action. The action is twofold: It is the use of harsh words; it is also using no words- keeping completely silent.

Closure. Closure here is the saying of words of hate, or the making of threats, or the giving of a warning. All of these would be considered closure.

Wrong View

Base. The base is something [some view] that exists.

Thought/ Recognition. Recognition here is slightly different. It is like making something up or telling a story. It is the desire to make the story be truth and make it stick within people’s minds. Let’s say that there is karma, but you want to tell people and make it stick that there is no karma. Saying that it’s a lie. Or it’s like saying that the result doesn’t depend upon cause. This is just one example. Or saying ‘There’s no Enlightenment. It’s all lies. I haven’t seen it. What is it?’ These are the Buddhist examples, but there are others, too.

Action. Action is any action you take to make that work, whatever you desire.

Closure. Closure here is whatever you do to hurt people. Not simply saying or doing any of this, but if doing so actually hurts people, then this is closure.

So, it looks like we have completed the ten negativities. The positive side of the ten negativities is very similar.

Killing

Base. The base is a living being.

Mind/ Recognition. Knowing that it is wrong, and the desire not to do it.

Action. To stop the act that would lead to killing.

Closure. Closure is deciding not to kill.

All others follow in the same way: You decide not to lie; you decide not to cheat; you decide not to steal; you decide not to hurt.

These are the positive and negative actions that make a difference for ourselves, from tomorrow onwards.

How do I know which is more powerful? Less powerful? More important? Less important? These are the questions.

The base upon which we commit these actions makes a big difference. Like Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, your spiritual masters, and your parents- they are considered to be more powerful bases than all others. Any positive or negative action that you do against them will have a more powerful effect.

For example, abusing your old parents, and your mother particularly, is considered to have quite a powerful effect here. This is because, even if you don’t get along well with your mother, you don’t have to abuse or hurt her. This is considered a very powerful base. Unfortunately, the parents of this life are counted as important in all these actions- good or bad, both. Your parents are considered almost as equals to the buddhas and spiritual masters and all that. So, one might say ‘buddhas are special, my spiritual master is special, but my mother is my mother, so let me take advantage of all she does’- we have to be aware of this. (1:37:42)

Our thought [also determines how powerful the action is], and here it can be either positive or negative. The positive thought is strong compassion and the negative is strong hatred.

Then there is the reality. Whatever you are doing, whatever you are giving- like say generosity, whether you are giving a lot or a little- that makes a difference. Quality and Quantity both make a difference. Quality, especially, makes more of a difference than quantity.

The person who commits the action also makes a difference. If the person has taken vows, then the actions will be more powerful both positively and negatively. If a person with a vow kills a human being, and a person without a vow kills a human being, then although both would be killing in the same way, the consequences would be different. With the vow, it would be much worse. Without the vow, it would be killing, so you’d get killed very often. But killing with the vow is considered much heavier.

And that’s it. And the conclusion here would be meditating on Lama Thubwang Dorje Chang. In the Lama Chopa, we use Lama Lobsang Thubwang Dorje Chang. Remember? And here we just say Lama Thubwang Dorje Chang. So Lama Lobsang is exiled!

We would make requests to him,

‘I and all mother sentient beings, may we remain in perfect morality, may we have perfect ethics.’

So there are always a lot of questions: What is morality? What does it mean in all these vows? So here you go, it is here in detail- at least the ten non-virtuous activities are in detail.

‘May we remain in perfect morality. May all obstacles be purified.’

And we strongly pray. Light and liquid come down, purifying all of our negativities in general, and, in particular, purifying that which makes us fall into those downfalls [we have just been discussing]. We visualize that we are purified completely, and that we have gained the realization of these important points. And as a result of this, may we have a constant, continuous good life, and constant, continuous good lives thereafter. And then we think ‘Yes, I’ve been guaranteed to have this,’ and then we wish that all living beings have this, too. This should all be part of the meditation.

Now, there are many more things there (?) that I’m not going to talk about.

By knowing what you should do, you now should do a lot of purification- as much as possible. You should do this by the application of the four powers.

1. Taking Refuge or developing bodhimind provides the base power.

2. Regret provides the actual force of the four powers.

3.The antidote actions- you know many of them. So whatever you do, let it be a good action. The best antidote is meditation on wisdom and mediatation on compassion. Then there is also mantra recitation, circumambulation, prostrations- any of these that you do should be something that is physical and that is a little bit difficult. It should be a physical inconvenience and mentally difficult. And do it not too overzealously. Some people like to come to teachings like this and say ‘hah! I like to do a lot of purification!” You know, some people don’t have any time to do anything, except for just getting busy and saying ‘ooh, I better say a bodhisattva recitation or something.’ Don’t be too overzealous, but be constant and continuous- be so in character, too. Make daily efforts to do some kind of purification before you fall asleep. If possible, make it the last action that you do before you fall asleep. Or somehow, if you are engaged in something else at night, and then you might not have the chance! Anyhow, try to be constant. It will help tremendously- (1:44:40) especially meditation on bodhimind. Shantideva said (quotes Tib)

‘no other positive virtues can do as much as meditation on bodhimind.’

Then the true, really true, absolute antidote and purification for negativities is meditation on wisdom. That’s it exactly. (Quotes Tib.)

‘Just even doubting [inherent existence through meditation] on wisdom alone will cut samsara into bits and pieces.’

(Quotes Tib.) You know doubt is a very interesting mental faculty. It has a positive side and a negative side. From the karmic law point of view, there’s a positive side and a negative side. The positive sides are:

Doubt protects you from a lot of downfalls- it especially protects you from being misled by someone.

Doubt protects you from misunderstanding.

Doubt protects you from doing things incorrectly. Things like what happened to Jim Jones, where blind faith made them do what they did.

The negative sides of doubt are:

Overdoubting: when you keep on doubting even though there’s no more reason to. Then you continue to doubt until you die, and then you’ve totally wasted your life. We might doubt even though we see that cause and effect is reality. We see it in our daily lives. We see it in every action –whether it is collective action or individual action. The things we do have consequences! We see that directly- and even so, we still doubt. ‘I have my doubts about it.’ That’s overdoubt- when everybody else knows it, and knows it clearly, and even then you doubt.

It is possible to have two people who are wrong, and one person right. It is possible to have ten people wrong, and one person right. It is possible to have fifty people be wrong, and one person be right. It is not possible to have one hundred people be wrong, and one person right! It’s not possible. So after a while, your stubbornness has to be withdrawn. Otherwise, it’ll become the wrong doubt.

Doubt can be both helpful and harmful- both. Doubt [in and of itself] is neither positive nor negative- it is neutral. But it can be used either positively or negatively based on your action, your motivation, your recognition, and your closure. So, doubt has value. Without doubt, you cannot have wisdom. So really, doubt has tremendous value and importance.

We are talking about the third power of purification- the antidote action. The real true power of the antidote for purification is wisdom. Why? Because wisdom works directly against the root of all negative emotions. All negative emotions are rooted in the ego; they are rooted in confusion; they are rooted in the ignorance-confusion-filled ego. (1:50:10) The target of wisdom is the ego; the aim of wisdom is to destroy this ego. When there is no root, there will be no branches, leaves, or fruit. That is why wisdom is really an antidote.

Bodhimind/ compassion meditation is so powerful because it is focused upon all living beings. And the desire is for total enlightenment. From the blessing point of view, it is very powerful. It is equivalent-less. And wisdom is the antidote.

When you don’t have either of these, then you rely upon mantra-saying, prostrations, circumambulations, and all the physical activities. The most powerful [form of purification] is [through the] mind, then sound and the physical activities come second. When our mental level isn’t strong, we’d better rely on the second two, otherwise we won’t have anything! We don’t want that.

Now I want to conclude. By protecting ourselves from all of these wrongdoings, we should be constantly trying to improve ourselves. But you know, even when you try and do these things, you know, here and there, it happens. Don’t freak out. A lot of people freak out, and say ‘I lost.’ Of course you have, you are a human being. You are not a supernatural person, you are not Christopher Reeves! You are not Superman- even Superman loses sometimes. Don’t worry about it. You may be Buddhist, but you are not Buddha. So we lose, but it doesn’t matter, because we do have the root, we do have all these afflicted emotions, we do have desire, we do have hatred, we do have confusion- this is our normal nature. But do not leave them there as normal nature- recognize that the dharma means correction. Recognize that that is to be corrected. So by correcting downfalls as much as possible- constantly, continuously- it will affect the individual person, and will make the person better. Even a very angry person becomes a gentle person; the gentle person becomes a kind person; the kind person becomes a calmed-down (?) person; the calmed-down person becomes a great, loving person; and a great, loving person becomes a fully enlightened person. That is how it goes.

The purpose of getting this information is to help one work within oneself, and gain an understanding, and make improvements. Try and do this yourself, and pray that you may be able to do this. Dedicate all of the positive virtues you have and the positive karma you’ve created.

Tsong Kapa said (quotes Tib.) in a verse of Guyasamaja’s prayer- I think so:

What Buddha shared in his teachings was the importance of: embracing human life; realizing its importance; appreciating the difficulty of finding it; knowing how easy it is to lose it; understanding suffering in general- and in particular that in the lower realms; learning how to protect oneself through one’s own practice of taking refuge and through one’s own practice of karmic functioning. We need to think about all of this carefully, understand it, and make it become a part of us. That is how you begin to establish a spiritual path.

(Quotes Tib) That is what we call ‘establishing the foundation’ of the spiritual path within the individual. This also establishes the conclusion of Common with the Lower Level. …(2:00:10)

So now we have reached Common with the Medium Level. We do this in two ways. By establishing the foundation, you now know not to create the cause that will bring you a bad life. You might do your purifications, and you still might fall ill every now and then, but this is normal- there is nothing extra. But what this practice does is it makes these little difficulties substitute the [potential] long-time sufferings of the Lower Realms. So this you must really carefully try to understand. By creating this foundation- you have really done yourself a favour- you will not have to take on a lower rebirth.

But still, this is not enough. In this life, you will work hard establishing this foundation. In the next life, you might have a wonderful life, or you may have a very short life. Karma is interesting. It is such a funny thing. Sometimes people put such effort into this life, but don’t get any result- somehow it remains incomplete. Then you take another rebirth, which itself might be a short or long life. Stephen Hawkins is an example. Larry King interviewed some young kid who had written some poetry and had done a lot of other great things, and he died recently- that is another example. So what happened with these people is that they worked hard, but they don’t [experience the results of their hard work], so they then have a positive rebirth, and though they might have a lot of difficulties and handicaps, they have one great thing [as a result of their hard work in the previous life].

All of this is a part of karma- karma that you have created but not accumulated, or that you have accumulated but not created (?!). If you look into karma, there is so much detail- this is a clear example of how it might work. Because of your constant efforts, you will take a good rebirth, you will be brilliant at something for a short period- ten years or so, and then will die; or you will have a brilliant life but be totally handicapped; or you know, whatever, anything is possible. There are multiple karmic results.

So in order to make sure something like this doesn’t happen- you know this life is something extraordinary- this is what you need to do in this lifetime, because in another life you may not have the opportunity. Not at all. Even that young kid who died, even though he was brilliant, he may not have had the opportunity at all to do anything. Not having the opportunity doesn’t mean that the opportunity doesn’t exist, but that the opportunity didn’t get in touch with the person. We’re not talking about whether the opportunity is in the world or not. It’s always there. But the question is whether it becomes available to the individual or not. So it’s very possible that this could happen to us. So that’s why it is better to become completely free from the uncertainty of this samsaric life.

Now we are shifting our target to something different. The earlier target was the suffering of the Lower Realms. Now we shift to uncertainty. Suffering, yes, but now we are looking at the uncertainty of it. It is not so urgent as before. We know that if we die today, we are going to be okay tomorrow. But what happens thereafter? It is very similar to what we discussed before. We can take a nice rebirth, as a result of all this good karma; or, we could become Saddam Hussein. Why not? There’s no reason why not. Maybe not Saddam Hussein, but a similar type of dictator. Or we could become a crazy Jeffrey Dahmer. It’s all possible. Why not? The possibilities are there, unless we prevent them from happening. The prevention is: making ourselves free once and for all. This is the point of Common with the Medium Level.

When we think about this, we see that we don’t have the desire to do this. We have to build the desire. Then we need to know: How do I actually liberate myself? These are the two main points that we deal with in Common with the Medium Level.

Remember we were talking about food offerings? You don’t have to say the prayers loudly- unless you are doing it individually, or with our group, that’s fine. A few years ago, Ribur Rimpoche and Lama Tsolu Rimpoche (?) both came to see me in a Chinese Restaurant in New York City. It was a big, busy restaurant, and Ribur Rimpoche and Lama Tsolu Rimpoche(?) were wearing their yellow hats. They came into the restaurant and everybody was looking at them. There were seven or eight of them who walked in together to meet me, and we all sat at a big round table. And suddenly Lama Tsolu (sp?) starts chanting ‘[Rimpoche chants the food offering in Tibetan].’ [Laughs]

And everyone at the table joined in and everybody was looking at us and I thought ‘wow, this is interesting!’ I couldn’t tell them that they shouldn’t do it, but I was wishing that they could be a bit more normal! [Laughs] But sometimes you can be overly normal, and completely forget [your practice] when the desire to eat your food is too strong. That’s not right either.