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Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life–The Wisdom Chapter Part 4

with Gehlek Rimpoche

Ann Arbor – September 13, 2005

Welcome, everybody. During the break since the last class, a number of things have happened in Jewel Heart. Some people have been able to do some good work, such as nice retreats, prostrations and circumambulations. We also had a very interesting weekend talking about Ganden Lha Gyema guru-yoga with the special ear-whispered teachings. The whispered teachings were taught by loudspeaker! Also His Holiness the Dalai Lama is in the country and doing great things. On the one side, these are all wonderful things.

On the other side, we all personally saw the natural disaster from hurricane Katrina, and the tremendous amount of suffering that took place within our own country, with our own people. This most powerful and economically advanced nation in the world also suffers from natural disasters, and not only do we suffer, we even don’t know how to respond immediately!

Such a tremendous amount of suffering has come for a huge number of people, particularly really poor people. If you think about how it was for them, they were told to evacuate, they knew they had to leave; but where could they go, how could they go? No money, no place to go, it was impossible. Watching the news, we all experienced this tremendous pain since the hurricane. It is good news that the loss of lives may not be as high as estimated earlier. However, we don’t exactly know how many really lost their lives.

To me, this disaster we all saw is a vivid example or demonstration of the truth of suffering. According to the Buddha, the four noble truths are the principle how we function in our lives, and what we are. There are two negative truths, then two positive truths. The first noble truth is the truth of suffering. Sometimes our suffering is vivid, sometimes it is indirect, however, we all have that first noble truth. The hurricane and flooding is a vivid example of the first noble truth.

It can happen in the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world. We cannot deny that’s what we are: the richest, most powerful, most scientifically and militarily advanced country in the world. However, here also how many rotten things are happening, like the homeless in New York. This disaster clearly shows how many poor people were crammed together in the low-lying land in New Orleans. I presume that the low-lying areas were the cheapest because no one wanted to live with the threat of flooding.

In a way, this hurricane not only brought suffering, but it also exposed what we hide, the many poorest members of our society, the economically challenged people. When you’re economically challenged, then you are challenged in everything, including health, right? The tragedy of all these poor people crammed in one area has been shown throughout the world.

All this is extremely painful way not only for those who lost their lives, or their loved ones, but also for all of us when we are watching. Although we are watching through television, we felt and experienced the pain, we all share the pain.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama said on Larry King Live that what happened is karmic. Definitely, no doubt, it is karmic, because if there’s no cause there’s no result. When there’s a cause, the result is bound to come. From that angle, definitely it is karmic.

But sometimes people can misunderstand this. Whenever we say something is karmic, people think it is the fault of those who suffered. If you make the statement that it is the fault of the victims, I can categorically tell you here that His Holiness didn’t say that, and it is not true. I emphasize this, because sometimes it sounds like ‘blame the victim’, and it’s not that. I would like you to know that very clearly: it is not blaming the victim at all.

It is karma, the karma of not only those who lost their lives or loved ones, but the karma of all of us together. We all feel the pain, how sad, miserable, and horrible it is. You yourself know what your feelings were during this periods. We all experience the pain and suffering, some more, some less, but whatever it may be, we all shared this. It is all our common and specific karmic consequence, for sure.

That is why all first noble truths are karmic consequences. That suffering is what we don’t want. We all know that very clearly, so we must do whatever we can to help, support and assist the people there, spiritually and emotionally as well as physically and materially. We must translate our compassion also into practical actions.

It is a great thing to meditate on compassion and offer our compassion mentally. However, it needs to be practically implemented. I was very happy to hear that a number of people from Jewel Heart wanted to physically go there and help. Whether you literally are able to go or not, the thought of going there and sharing is a wonderful thing and I really appreciate and thank you.

If you try to go, you will also have different conditions and difficulties, too. Particularly now, when finally the great Army of the United States is involved, any individuals wanting to do anything will not be able to do much because they have every kind of equipment and can pick everybody up within a matter of hours.

We must find our own practical way of helping. We are a very small and poor organization, yet we hope to raise at least $10,000, for the Salvation Army. Our former director, Marilyn Hall, has taken charge of that; and already has set up a website with the Salvation Army, so you can go there and support through your donations, whatever you can afford. I believe the email is going out today. I heard that other Dharma centers are also raising donations, and some of them already raised $100,000 on behalf of His Holiness.

In addition, Jewel Heart also hopes to build at least one house for those victims who have been relocated in Michigan in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity. All the Midwest Jewel Heart chapters will combine together and physically as well as financially, whenever we find the opportunity, build at least one home for one family to be able to relocate and live there. Some of them may be living here a long time. Some of them may even live their whole life here, who knows?

So that’s what we hope to do, and it is giving us an opportunity to be able to do a practical translation of compassion, going one step beyond sending our good thoughts, sort of physically, literally to be able to translate that meditative compassion into action. I hope everybody will take the great opportunity and join these efforts.

You may be thinking that we are doing too many things. Some of you may think it is very important to work with the mind, and not so important to work with the physical. This is not true. Working with the mind is, of course, important, yet you have to be there physically, and literally as well. You cannot be tremendously generous mentally and tremendously stingy literally, not even wanting to spend a penny. That will not work. Even if the motivations and actual thoughts may be wonderful dharma actions, if the dharma action of the motivation and mental activity cannot translate into practical terms, then that is not right.

Look at the stories of earlier lineage masters, how generous they have been in practicing the three kinds of generosity. Number one is the generosity of dharma. In Buddhist language, dharma means spiritual, so this generosity means sharing your knowledge and experience. When you share with people, you assist, guide and support them. This is what we try to do as our major work in Jewel Heart. We share whatever little information we have, compared with such a huge, vast amount of information within Buddhism. Buddhist information is based on experience, on experienced development. So whatever tiny little bit it might be, maybe just a drop from an ocean, whatever we could pick up from the great traditions of Buddhism, of the Mahayana, of Vajrayana and of the Tibetan Ganden-Kagyu tradition, we share this.

We bring whatever we consider pure, like refined gold, solid, \ experiential living tradition through teaching, courses, sangha activities, and various things. We are using every possible means, electronically and technologically and also in the good old way of person to person. We are trying to do this in every way we can. Not only we are making it available to those who come in the door of Jewel Heart, but we are also getting ourself out there, putting it out through transcripts, through the Internet, through all these methods, including even going into the prisons and to try to assist them, try to show them how to meditate and bring a little peace and harmony within themselves even within the four walls of the prison. We also assist members of Jewel Heart in their spiritual practice by providing retreats, meditations, and so on. That is one way we are acting as generosity, out of dharma generosity. I may not have mentioned many other things that we do.

Not only Jewel Heart as a group, but each and every one of these present or past members who have had to move separately to some other areas also set up individual examples of how one conducts a good life. One of these was Michael Felt, a member of Jewel Heart here who relocated to Tennessee. He was an example in that local community, showing how one maintains peace within oneself, within the individual. He was the example, showing what little things he picked up here. He didn’t go out and say, “Hey, listen, I want to teach Buddhism!” He conducted his life that way. We have a number of people like this in quite a number of areas. Unfortunately, Michael passed away through an accident of falling from a roof, so I’m sorry. We pray for him and also dedicate our virtues that we individually as well as collectively accumulated over the years through our life for his benefit.

When I say benefit, it means two things. One, to purify his negativities; and two, so that he connects with his good karma and as a result of that takes future rebirth in a good, great human life, better than what he had earlier, and also comes back home with his all connections with the dharma teachings. Not only comes back home, but completes whatever work he is doing and lead millions of people through that path. That’s what we pray for when we say we are praying for his benefit: it means these two things.

The second kind of generosity is the actual literal, physical act called generosity. Not just mental, not just meditative. Whatever you meditate, you will be able to translate that in a literal sense to share whatever little extra resources you have. Maybe instead of wasting money on a pack of cigarettes or a joint or a glass of wine, you may be able to use it for useful things like generosity without feeling much of a pinch. Most people here don’t have much of a financial cushion, as we all know. Almost everybody is living sort of between hand and mouth, but when you look into it, you have extra change, extra money for this and that. You don’t really need cigarettes, which are bad for you, for everybody else, and for the environment. You don’t really need intoxicants, which are bad for you, bad for others, and which bring bad habits.

A funny old story in the Tibetan teaching system tells of a person who claimed to be a spiritual practitioner like us. Maybe he was a little bit better than us because he maintained holy gestures, wearing red robes and carrying a mala in his hand. These are the signs of holiness, remember? We did that, in the sixties with long hair like mine, maybe even much longer than that.

While this fellow was sitting and praying, somebody said to him, “Well, I’ve got three choices for you. I have a goat here. Would you like to kill this goat so we can have a nice dinner? Or would you like to rape this beautiful woman? Or would you drink this intoxicating alcohol?”

The guy said, “No, no, no, I can’t rape a woman. I’m a monk. No, no, no, I can’t kill the goat because this is a living being and I’m a compassionate person. Intoxication, yeah, that’s something I can adjust to, so OK.” He picked that bottle up and drank it and by the time he woke up, he’d done both of the two other things! That’s what intoxication does.

Therefore, intoxication is not necessary for us. It is an infectious disease. “Not only do I like to do it, I like to make others to join me. Not only do I like to spoil my life, I’d like to spoil your life as well.” That’s what I mean by an infectious disease. That is unless you know what you’re doing with this. If you are using the marijuana as a medicine for certain purposes, I’m not sure whether that’s legal or not, but personally I might not have that much objection. What I mean is, that if you know what you are doing, or if you have a high spiritual development and you can utilize that for your better purposes, it is beyond my judgment.

Other than that, in normal circumstances intoxication is not necessary. It is an additional expense when you don’t have money to begin with. It is unnecessary, and I am talking about all this because of generosity. What not to be generous with is that one, because generosity must have its own wisdom to decide what should be and what should not be. It is wonderful to share a nickel with the person who is begging or demanding in the street. It’s wonderful, provided it is helpful and a service to that person. If it’s going to harm the person, then the wisdom of the generosity will tell you not to do it.

I’m going to say something here which may disappoint many of you. This is about me and me alone, my and my alone. When somebody begs me for something, even if I know it is not good for that person, I’ll make sure that person knows it is not good for them, but if even then they still want it, I’ll give it. That’s me and me only, not Buddha, not Buddhism, not Tibetan Buddhism, not Gelugpa tradition, nothing. It’s me, and that’s what I do. It’s maybe my weakness, maybe how I read generosity, whatever it may be. I know it’s not good, I know it’s not right, even then I do give it. I don’t mean you should do it. You have to make your own decision using your wisdom.

This second generosity is doing the literal things, like giving support to the hurricane victims. This is one example and we just had the fourth anniversary of 9/11. All of these happened within the United States. Outside the US, every day a tremendous amount of suffering is going on, everywhere, in Africa, in Asia, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. In Iraq it is a man-made disaster going on, killing going on all sides, everybody killing everybody. Suffering is going on everywhere, yet somehow, when it comes all the time, it’s no longer news, we no longer pay attention.

Even with me, whenever I used to hear how many people were killed each day in Iraq, it hurt. After you have heard that every day for years, then when you hear that 30 died today, you think “Oh, not so much. It’s not so bad.” This is how our mind responds to something continuing, this is how our compassion works, so it’s not very good. “OK, 30 is not so bad.” Actually, 30 people lost most precious thing that person ever had. You can lose nothing more than your life. That’s what it is.

When you are literally helping, apply whatever you are meditating on – generosity, morality, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, wisdom –to this action. One good thing that comes out of unfortunate events is that it gives us an additional opportunity to be able to get in touch with our heart and our compassion, compassion that has been actually implemented in the literal sense of whatever we can do, like giving medicine, food, shelter, and so on. This is the literal generosity, and we should do that.

The third and most important generosity is giving protection from fear. Fear is always the dominating, most tormenting pain that we all experience. We are born with it, die with it, and it follows us throughout. Sometimes it is huge, sometimes little, but it’s always there, hiding sometimes as cautions, sometimes as a warning, sometimes as a threat, and it’s always tormenting us. The biggest pain and suffering we have is fear.

Protecting from fear is the most important generosity, and the most threatening fear is the threat to life. The biggest threat you can say is, “I’ll kill you!” Right? You can do nothing more than that. No one can threaten anyone by saying, “I will take you to hell!” At the most they may say, “I will see you in hell,” they may say that. No one can do anything beyond killing you. No Buddha can take you to hell, and no god can take you to hell. The biggest threat anyone can make is, “I’ll kill you. You will suffer. You will lose your life.” That’s the biggest threat.

Therefore, the biggest generosity against fear is saving a life. Saving the life of a fellow human being is the most important generosity. Whenever people are in danger of losing their lives, if we can work against that, in whatever way we can, it is a tremendous dharma practice. In addition to that, we add our usual our motivation and usual dedication; if you do it like that, saving a human life is a tremendous spiritual work.

Saving a life is giving protection, and not only a human life, other lives too, the lives of animals, even insects. It is the generosity of protection of fear, not only through meditation, but actually giving protection.

That is also an act of compassion, an act of the bodhisattva way of functioning. With even one action like this, so many things are involved! The compassion that we share, the protection that we try to give as generosity is a great practice for us. Practice is not limited to meditation. Practice is not limited to saying mantras, or saying prayers. Saving a human life and so forth are the real practice.

I began with saying that there are three generosities, so this is third generosity, saving a life. If you save a human life, it has more value because human beings have more value than animals. I’m not saying we are better, but human beings have more opportunity than animals. If you kill a human being, the negativity of killing a human being is greater than the negativity of killing an elephant, although an elephant is bigger than a human being. That’s why saving a human life is the most important thing. When you are engaged in the first generosity, the generosity of helping the victims, this will also include saving lives as well together with this, and this is a very, very good way of practice.

It is my fault that I did not emphasize this in Jewel Heart much earlier. We don’t have a big organization which helps and supports refugee here and there. We just have a tiny little project supporting an orphanage in Tibet, providing them with lunch. Half good, half bad because of circumstances, Jewel Heart has been running this project and it is still going on. We have put about $50,000 towards that. We also have the occasionally functioning, occasionally not functioning depending on who is handling it, support of young incarnate lama. Other than that we don’t run refugee aid here and there, like many other dharma centers do. That’s partly my fault.

An occasion like this, right in front of our noses, is an opportunity for us to be able to function and give help and support. Although I am supposed to be talking to you continuously about Shantideva’s wisdom chapter, I think this is an important point that I needed to share with you.

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Next week I won’t be here on Tuesday because I have been asked to participate in a conference with His Holiness in Houston. I’ve been told Thurman and me and two scientists who are Nobel Prize winners will be on a panel to entertain for a whole day. I don’t even know what the subject is, but I’ll be there, so pray for me not to be a disgrace! If I remember correctly, Tony will talk next Tuesday class continuing with the sixth link of the twelve links of independent arising.

As I have said previously, I have personally selected each and every one of the Jewel Heart instructors. Each and every one of them has spent years with me.

You people are lucky, and I’ll tell you why. One of our first Tibetan Buddhist teachers was Geshe Wangyal, who taught Robert Thurman, Jeffrey Hopkins and many others, and started the Tibetan Learning Center in New Jersey. Geshe-la was commonly known as the “holy horror.” He yelled constantly and showed a tremendous temper. Geshe-la yelled at me three or four times, even though I had nothing to do with Geshe-la.

One time in 1964 I came as a visiting student to Cornell up in Ithaca. I didn’t even speak a word of English, not even “yes” and “no.” Geshe-la invited me to dinner, and made big arrangements at his monastery. Geshe-la probably was that I would come wearing a monk’s robe, but on the contrary, I had a nice two-piece suit and tie, and nice boots. Geshe-la, standing with a scarf to receive me, looked at me and said, “Look at you! What do you think you are, a monkey walking through the temple?!” He yelled at me straight away for a long, long time. Then he gave me a very nice dinner, no doubt about it. At the end of that, he gave me $200. That was a lot of money for 1964 especially when you are a refugee student from Tibet and you have nothing. I think I totally owned $20.

The second time I saw him, Geshe-la said, “Now you are not monk anyway, so you better stay in the United States afterwards.” I said sort of OK, but didn’t say yes completely. Next he said, “I give an allowance to all these dharma teachers each month to buy their soap and toothpaste.” I forget how much, maybe $25 or something. Then he said. “But I will give you $500 if you stay!” I didn’t really agree to it, and I left.

Then Geshe Lobzang Tharchin (unfortunately both he and Geshe Wangyal have now passed away) who is the Khen Rimpoche Lobzang Tharchin who had a center in New Jersey and was the teacher of Michael Roach. He also knew Geshe Wangyal, and so he told me, “Don’t stay with him. He will yell at you all the time and you will not reply, you will sit there smiling. I know your character, you will sit there smiling, and he will yell at you morning till evening. You won’t like that, so don’t go. The $500 he wants to give you is good, but you will make more than $5,000 a month. Don’t stay there, don’t stay there!” So anyway, so I didn’t.

Geshe Wangyal-la got so mad! The next time I saw him was at the Buddhist conference in New Delhi arranged by the Mahabodhi Society. The moment he saw me in the conference he said, “You! You don’t want to stay with me! But I’ve got better than you! I’ve got Denmo Locho!” which means Locho Rimpoche. He probably asked Locho Rimpoche, and Locho Rimpoche probably said, “Eh…” and did not really say yes. But he yelled, “I’ve got better than you! I’ve got Denmo Locho for me! I told you I would give you more money than I give anybody else! You didn’t come!” He was yelling at me at the conference, actually right across the table. Instead of saying, “How are you? How have you been?” he said that!

That Geshe-la was a holy horror, well known for that. After he shouted at you, there was no more problem, he was very happy. He gave me an overcoat, literally stitched by his own hands. He made me sort of a brownish-looking overcoat, a beautiful woolen thing and that really fit me perfectly. But then in his system, that was probably an honor or something. His students told me later, because he gave one or two people some coats and something to wear. One of his students, Diana, (Diana is another holy horror, too!) wears a coat when she is teaching. Geshe-la gave her that or something, that’s how I came to know later. But anyway, as I was saying, you people are lucky, I sit there and smile or whatever. Whatever you people do, I was not a holy horror! I’m happy with that.

These Jewel Heart teachers have studied with me and even now they try to help you other people, the new ones coming in and so forth. We have a check and balance system, and we always check them for accuracy, which is most important. When they teach, we make two DVD’s – one we give to the teacher, and one I get and review it for accuracy. We also emphasize the art of presentation, and good preparation for classes. These teachers are good, I stand behind them, and we also have this check and balance system. Some dharma facilitators are becoming dharma instructors, and some new people are becoming dharma facilitators. Our programs are running very well. We need everybody to participate and join together.

That’s what I would like to share with you. So next Tuesday I won’t be here, but you will have the sixth link of the twelve links.

We have a lot of exciting programs coming over the next few months. For example, we have a Tara Blessing in New York on the 28th of September. If you saw the New York Times a few Sundays ago, the arts section carried a big article with a Tara picture. I was interviewed for that along with the Rubin Museum. We are looking forward to having this Tara Blessing and I will also be speaking in the Rubin Museum itself on Monday, November 14th, in conjunction with an exhibition of Female Buddhas.

Then we have Philip Glass coming to Ann Arbor and doing a concert for Jewel Heart on November 9th at Michigan Theater, and that is exciting.

This Saturday, Robert Thibodeau will give a workshop on Buddhism and astrology. As we know, Robert is very good with predictions. One of the predictions he made was very scary for me. During one Jewel Heart Retreat he was giving a talk, and then suddenly started giving predictions saying, “If I were you, I wouldn’t put my foot in a plane today and tomorrow.” The next morning, I saw on television that a plane had crashed. He is good at that. He was also right about George Bush and wrong, too, but that happens.

Also, Geshe Khen Rimpoche Lobzang Tsetan is also coming in November and teaching the Three Principles at Jewel Heart Ann Arbor.

The weekend before that, Glen Mullin is coming to do a Friday talk here in Jewel Heart followed by a whole day workshop on Saturday. His presentations have very exciting titles. It is tantra and it is the joy, bliss, sex and all that within tantra.

I guess that’s it. I’d better stop because I’ve been telling everybody to be on time, start on time, finish on time, and I’m the one who is breaking all my own rules!

[END]