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Soundfile 20050619GRAASR21T2

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

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Transcriber Wee Lin

Date Oct 22 2023

Welcome and good morning everybody. I hope you people have nice night last night. I don’t know what had happened with the Princeton but the basketball, we had a nice interesting fire puja and the it is quite nice those of you have seen that. At the same time I would also like to say I was informed this morning that a young kid about 12 years or something, not from our group but a local from that Victory park where we did the fire puja, I think kid must be thinking of swimming so jumped from the bridge into the water. The water is about 8 feet so f… is about 20. I was told so he came up as a body. It is very sad as it is almost about the time we were doing the fire puja. I hope everybody will pray for the departing consciousness of the kid, the young person. I was also informed that another buddhist centre in Ann Arbour called Crazy Cloud that moved in when we moved out. I was told it was burnt down last night, burnt down completely. So we sympathise, pray and send our condolence or respect. In other words we join together with their difficulties, we express our feelings and everything.

0:03:30.4 Now as we see the kid jumping down which indicates our life is extremely impermanent. Yes it is very nice that we get together, we see we show the best of each other to everyone. It is wonderful and all these but the reality is life is extremely fragile and that is really vivid example of impermanence. So take the message from that not only the sad part of losing the life of that person but it also gives message it could have happened to any one of us at any time. There is no guarantee that you are not going to go till such and such a year although we plan to live to 80s and 90s. The young ones would think to 60s and 70s and when you get into 60s and close to 70s you would think about 80s and 90s. All of those we do, however it is absolutely certain there is no guarantee. We can go anytime any minute. A great Tibetan teacher in 1700s a great Amdo Lama said nobody knows whether tomorrow is going to come first or the so called next life going to come first. That’s for sure nobody knows.

0:06:22.2 In one way this is our reality and it is also important to remember that’s our situation, that’s our reality. Therefore we have a such a wonderful life, a life that has tremendous capability. You can do things that no other lives even can dream of doing it, particularly those of you here. Those of you who are not closed mind person, those of you who are not completely influenced by sort of very extreme thoughts, extreme ideology or extreme religions or anything. We have a tremendous amount of opportunities. The opportunities that you can help yourself. You know I am coming from the background of reincarnation so when you are looking from the background of the reincarnation life changes. When you transit to [another] life it is changed. Nothing ends at the time when you die. Nothing ends. It continues. The question arises is how it is going to continue. Is it going to be better or worse or what is it. So the Buddha gave answer to this.

0:10:20.5 [Buddha said] that is your choice and in your own hand. This is the most important point. Buddha’s view is that of self-responsibility, you are responsible [for your own life]. This is also the essence of karma, the real meaning of karma. If we talk about karma people think it is something that you can do nothing about. That’s not true. The truth is we create our own karma and therefore we are responsible for it. Because of that of that reason, we have a choice whether you want help ourself or hurt ourself. Our negative addictions and emotions always want to hurt ourself. Our positive influenced thoughts and efforts always want to help ourself. Yes it is somehow a little mystery, the positive helps and negative hurts. Nobody really truly knows for sure.

However it is also open knowledge that when we do something good, something good happens and when we do something bad, something bad happens to us. Although there is no proof that when you do something good, something good is going to happen and when you do something bad something bad is going to happen. Although there is no proof we have open knowledge and there is no perfect scientific proof it is not true.

0:13:02.5 Besides that we have open knowledge. That message is enough for us to know and to understand. Therefore it is sort of our mission in our life is to help ourself. It is wonderful to be able to help all sentient beings but to help ourself is the most important. If you don’t help yourself, who else is going to help you. Then there is not so much of a mystery. The way to help yourself is to do good things to build the positive whatever you can. Any negative thoughts, actions, try to reduce them and try to get out of your thought and the system completely. Try to engage your total life in positive activities. That’s not too much to ask? Maybe. That doesn’t mean you will not have some mischief here and there, we always have that. It doesn’t matter. What counts is the basic idea, commitment and thoughts that count. We have mischiefs here and there because we have negative emotional addictions. These addictions will force us to do this and that all the time.

0:15:28.6 It doesn’t matter. There is something called purification. Every deed, negative or positive is also impermanent, it is changing. The negative can change into neutral position, neutral can change into positive position or vice versa, the other way around too. So all are possible and happen in our life. It is entirely in our own hand and nobody else’s. I said earlier if you are influenced by certain extreme things, then you may not be able to help yourself. That is because your own beliefs, your own thoughts will deprive you the opportunity to see things and you, all of you here are not in that category.

Not only we have human quality, human values and human mind, and we don’t tie our mind. I lived in India for long time about decade and have seen with my own eyes the terrible bureaucracy India has. British colonialism left such tremendous terrible bureaucracy. On top of that they kept on building their own rules resulting in more bureaucracy. So I get the picture all the time, it is they tying themselves up, putting the ropes around, tie their own hands, gag their mouth and tighten themselves. That’s the image I always get unfortunately with the Indian Bureaucracy. They tie themselves again and again and so even they want to do something, they cannot do it because they tie themselves up completely tight. So much so that virtually no one can get anything done and no one is willing to take any risk, any blame or anything. It is normal routine to have maybe hundreds of people just signing on the file, seen, seen, seen and revert to the boss. Even you want to get a telephone or even if you want to get a house or whatever, it had to go through with all these which may take years. Honestly that’s the rule they tie themselves with.

0:19:50.0 So when you sort of get into the extreme view of anything I see the same thing, you tie yourself up, your mind is being limited by your own thoughts. Tied yourself completely. So then you become the position of these three monkeys, hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil. If you protect yourself from evil, that’s fine but you protect yourself from everything. So that’s not right.

0:20:36.4 That’s what I said, that we particularly many people here in this room have more opportunities than everybody else, almost everybody else. Because we are exposed to a tremendous depth of information, a tremendous depth of spiritual knowledge. There is no end to that. Each and every one of those Buddha’s thing, it can be very simple, can be of tremendous depth. And why the depth? The depth helps the individual to get different choices or getting deeper and the variety of things because our negative emotions and negativities that we indulged in also have a tremendous variety and are so complicated. So for anything the antidote has to be equally complicated, have to have tremendous amount, otherwise you will be forcing yourself to do one thing [at a time] which is not going to be helpful at all. You will get burnt out, you get fed up you do all these.

0:22:19.1 Anyway the opportunity what we have here and these in Jewel Heart in general and me, what I am trying to do is whatever little background, little knowledge, little information that I have, I try to present that to the people so that they can consider them and then they may be able to help themselves. The retreats that Jewel Heart hold are also for that purpose. And we do have almost like three or four retreats in a year, two long weekends and two long ones. This long ones like a week long or ten days, we divide it into two, Summer one and Winter one. Not because Summer and Winter but the subject what we do is in Summer the talk is open and has no restrictions. Everybody can come in. The idea what we have, earlier I was giving completely not so much difference between Summer and Winter and some of our senior people suggested they want exclusive. I am just kidding. In the Winter we try to do Vajrayana teachings which have certain prerequisites. It is not restricted but it has prerequisites. The Summer retreats we don’t have that, we will present mostly without prerequisites.

0:24:53.2 However everything that you are going to hear is coming from the Buddhist background. Not necessarily making you a Buddhist but it is coming from Buddhist background so it also carries some kind of Buddhist, I hate to use [the word], but Buddhist baggage. For example this morning when you first sat for the meditation and the Mike talked to you about refuge, right? Where is Mike. You talked about refuge, right?

So even you sit here with the beautiful chanting here actually we are saying I take refuge in Guru, Buddha, Dharma and sangha. Commonly you know it is refuge to Buddha, dharma and sangha. You may be wondering why Guru here. Because just like I told you, Buddhists have baggage of taking refuge to Buddha, dharma and sangha. Just like that, Vajrayana carries the baggage of taking refuge to Guru. Guru is Buddha, Buddha is Guru if you want to know. I will go that much, nothing more.

0:26:58.2 But one thing I would like to tell you. When you are taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha you are seeking the protection of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Protection, not necessarily though it may help but not necessarily having protection from car accidents or whatever, like jumping from the bridge, it is not that. Though that may help but that’s not what we are talking about. [What we are talking about is] taking protection from negative emotions, taking protection from hatred, taking protection from obsessions, taking protection from the activities that one indulges by the influence of hatred and obsession. Those are the major protection. So it is not just wearing a bullet proof jacket. It is not that type of protection. That’s number one.

0:28:43.2 Number two protection is the protection of from, when you die taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and while thinking about Buddha or compassion or Dharma either wisdom or whatever, if you die in that manner, within that manner, then you are most probably not going to take rebirth in the lower realms at all. Buddha guaranteed that. And Buddha doesn’t give false guarantee. So if you don’t think [about the refuge], then we can’t help that. But when you transit with that it guarantees that. And that is second protection.

0:29:58.5 And third and final is, not only protect from those negative emotions but their imprints of those negative emotions that will block the individual from to be able to be total knowledge, total knowing. Enlightenment is total knowledge. They call it stage of awakened, stage of total knowledge and whatever they may call that. It is the total knowledge and that will be blocked by the imprints of [negative emotions] not the direct negative emotions themselves but imprints of that. So protecting from that is the final protection.

So when you say refuge protects, remember this is not like the armoury like in olden times you carry [shield] and should somebody try to hit you with sword you carry the [shield] on your hand [for protection]. It is not that. That is how the protection works.

0:31:27.3 I just want to share that with you. Then another thing we also say here is, may all beings be this and this and that. So as I said last night, compassion and that of greater compassion we, where I come from, divide compassion into two categories. Normal compassion and greater compassion are two separate things although it is one and two separate things, one mind of compassion with two different aspects, two different focus. Compassion is actually feeling. Feeling that has gone beyond the pity, looking down, condescending or undermining the individual all of those. That has to gone beyond that. It is real feeling, just real feeling of how much the suffering that the individual really has.

0:33:40.9 Sometimes some individuals would allow to point that out, sometimes some individuals would like to act, thinking “Oh ya I understand your difficulties.” You have some feeling then you think “oh ya I know how you feel.” Honestly speaking, you don’t know how I feel. Truly, really excuse me, you may have some idea how I am feeling but you don’t, you don’t know what I have in mind unless you are reading my mind. So sometimes when you say I know how you feel, its kind word but it may not become kind to the other person. It may become very condescending. Recently I had a couple of number of those incidents happening so be aware of it. Yes you have some idea how I feel. That’s fine but you really don’t know how I feel. So the compassion must go beyond all condescending looking down pityness, all of those. Yet feel and actually join in. No one wants sympathy, no one. So if you could sort of join in, try to give support and that is important in normal compassion.

0:36:00.9 But greater compassion is focus on all living beings. And the feeling is the suffering and the pain of all living beings which is almost impossible for us to be able to do that. Almost impossible yet at least we can pray to be able to do it and walk towards trying to be as much inclusive as possible. Don’t try to take [anyone] out. Though our negative addictions will definitely make us take this [one] out, take that [one] out. You know the selection, the choice of individuals suffering that. Although we make no difference for whatsoever what we only give is simple good thoughts. Even then we do make selection, rejections. You come number 8. Chandrakirti , a great Buddhist wisdom teacher, in his book he called this number 8, number 1. And then when you try to look, it never becomes number 1. Somebody asked him how can that be number 1, he said number 1 when I count from bottom up.

0:38:10.8 We do that. The greater compassion tries to tell us don’t do that. Make everybody equal. To be honest with you, without greater compassion when we talked about bodhimind it is actually a joke. Though we have to talk, though we have to pretend to be going through that but it becomes a joke. So without bodhimind, total enlightenment becomes a joke. It is very interesting. Mahayana Buddhism introduces the goal what spiritual practitioners can achieve is enlightenment. Enlightenment depends on bodhimind. Bodhimind depends on greater compassion. These are harder part. Logically if I sit down and think about logic it is very difficult to establish. Everybody says wisdom is difficult but logically you can think and figure out. Bodhimind and compassion is harder.

0:40:01.9 The number 1 question, why should I care for my enemy. How are you going to answer that. You need to engage in a dialogue with your own mind. Your mind will ask you, why should I care for my enemy who slapped me last year in public and who had embarrassed me. Why should I care for that person? What logical and acceptable reason are you going to give. You may say, that is because that person is a human being. Our mind may entertain that. That’s about it. Anyway that’s what I said. At least we work with prayer. And when we wake up in the morning, first practice that I really recommend you to do is just simply wish that you can act compassionately with whoever you are dealing with, including ourself. For god’s sake, don’t forget yourself, ok?

0:41:54.8 That is the most important. A lot of people, the moment we say compassion they start looking out and ignore themselves automatically. But myself is a human who is also suffering equally like those people we see who are suffering. We automatically reject self but it is trapped in experiencing all the torture within that body of ours, trapped in there, experiencing all different things, equally suffering. So we have to also help ourself. There are a variety of ways of helping ourself as I had told you yesterday. No matter how many practices you may see, it is only you and you yourself alone that can help you. Yes, we can introduce Buddha, we can introduce female Buddha, we can introduce all kinds of meditations that you are already exposed to but again it is you who can help yourself. If you don’t do it, all these meditations and techniques and all these shared by many great teachers that are available in every language, in English, plenty of them available but if you don’t do it, nothing is going to happen. You are responsible for yourself. You are the only one who can help yourself. That’s it.

0:44:00.0 So with compassion in mind and I would like to bring to the subject of dha dha ???. I am making this compassion, at least the wish to help ourself and help all others. You know sometimes, not only sometimes, every time when I read the very profound Tibetan practices and sadhanas like what we did last night, whenever we read it at the beginning, it always says “ I and all sentient beings.” Though many times the translators try to leave that out. But if you read the Tibetan, they will say “I and all sentient beings,” “ I and all sentient beings,” “I and all sentient beings.” They [the translators] not only left the “I” out but the “I” was sort of most important brought in, “I and all sentient beings do this, do this, generate compassion, take refuge, do this, do this, say this, pray this and meditate this, for this and that. ” The “I” becomes important.

0:45:37.0 I emphasise this as there is tendency in our society to think compassion is meant for the others and not for yourself. Sometimes you even say if somebody hit you on your right, turn the left one. If you can do it, great but I don’t see that as compassion or tolerance either. Compassion is caring and if you keep on turning your cheek left and right what does that do? Nothing. You get pain, that’s it. It doesn’t help anything. It helps better if you run away, hahaha, they can’t hit you, you can avoid being hit. Ha ha ha. But if you are able help something, you can turn your cheek right and left, that’s fine. Anyway the subject what I have introduced here is the Tara, the female Buddha.

0:47:26.7 Just like Buddha himself, you have the Buddha’s life story. Buddha was born as a human being and functioned as a human being. Even married and had children and all these. And finally renounced not the family, renounced negative emotions, renounced and rejected the power of hatred, rejected the power of obsession and ignorance. In Buddhist principle basically they give you three things. One is renouncing, second is compassion and third is wisdom. We call that three principles. But there are a number of Buddha logists and Tibet theologists who said don’t use the word renounce. I myself included because it makes people immediately think of rejecting home, leaving family and all these and almost get the idea of having to shave your hair though if you already bald you can’t shave anything more and then go into the forest or monastery. People get that idea. So lots of people said don’t use word renouncing. However the true idea is renouncing.

0:49:35.1 Renouncing something. It is renouncing the hatred, renouncing the obsession and rejecting the ignorance which is the essence of the first principle in Buddha’s practice in the spiritual path. You don’t renounce yourself, you don’t reject yourself, you don’t renounce your family, if you do that then you are rejecting compassion unless you are going to say “you are not all sentient beings, get out of my way”. Anyway because of that renunciation because of the compassion and because of the wisdom, Tara had been able to become Buddha just like Buddha Sakyamuni’s life story had shown. As you always see there are two different stories. One says Buddha was born as a human being, prince of India and then develop this and this and that and that’s one way. Another one says Buddha was fully enlightened for a long time and then he had this life story of what had happening and that’s where Hinayana and the Mahayana story slightly differs.

0:51:41.0 In reality both are correct. No one is wrong. Both are correct. It is true Buddha had already obtained enlightenment for long time, it is also true Buddha went through with the life of whatever that Indian Prince story is. Both are facts. Likewise for the story of Tara too which was during the official Buddha named Sound of Great Drum a couple previous aeons ago. The story I am going to tell you is available in English. It is by Taranatha and is called origin of Tara Tantra. It is available in English so you will be able to find it.

During that Buddha’s period there was a wonderful lady called Yeshe Dawa. I am not sure but that name was translated into English in that book. If it is translated it is probably called Wisdom Moon or something. Actually if you translate name it will become funny. I personally don’t like people translating names. Translated names become something very funny. Anyway if you translate Yeshe Dawa, Yeshe being wisdom and Dawa means Moon it becomes Wisdom Moon. She had been taking all the steps, step by step, generating compassion, greater compassion, bodhimind and developing wisdom. One thing I am skipping in between because for me it is obvious but for you it might not be. I will like to emphasize I am learning lot of things that I have taken for granted as obvious but may not necessarily be obvious for you all. So what happens is when you generate bodhimind, bodhimind will come out as both action bodhimind as well as prayer form. Action Bodhimind comes with a lot of activities and the no matter how many they will talk to you, six paramitas, ten paramitas, hundreds of this and that but bottom line is no matter how many numbers, certain teachings may tell you thousands but bottom line will come into two, nothing more, nothing less, two.

0:55:56.9 One is the contemplations that we engage in, we contemplate, purify and accumulate merits. That’s purification. In this country purification is known, is it? Not known in the sense I am talking about but purification is known.

I have to take break, its 10.30. I will take break so because I don’t expect you to sit till 12. So break is not going to be very long, it’s going to be , you are going to hear some gong, and when the gong sounds please come back.

0:57:33.4 Welcome back everybody. Thank you for coming back. Ha ha ha ha. I was talking about bodhimind just generating bodhimind. Bodhimind is actually nothing more than wishing, wishing everybody to be free of misery and wishing [self] to become total enlightenment. It is sort of self purpose and purpose of others. They are joined. Sometimes I say it is two prong mind, one prong is seeking total enlightenment for self, the second prong is totally dedicating for benefit of all beings. So the moment you say bodhimind, although it is ultimate, unconditioned love and compassion, it is also seeking personal benefit and dedicating it for the purpose the getting the personal benefit is to serve all sentient beings. It is sort of a double pointed, sort of double edge sword type of thing. With that mind, in order to achieve both, you need this method of contemplation of merit. I call it merit. Merit is actually the bottom line, philosophical point of view. It might not be right but the bottom line is the positive karma. And purification is nothing more than avoiding and getting rid of negative karmas. That’s it.

1:00:22.5 Some people may think you have to pay for your negative karma in order to get rid of it. There is truth in that but it is not true. Because it is impermanent, it is changeable. When you make the conditions right, it will change. That actually is the meaning of wisdom, everything happens because terms and conditions are right. So if the terms and conditions can be made right, everything can be purified, everything can be developed. That is according to the Buddha. It is reality, reality of interdependence mature of existence. This is interdependentness. Because everything depends on terms and conditions. And that is wisdom. And that’s what we need and when we have that, then it’s established that, then it’s a matter of building it up and matter of making it perfect. When you do that, that’s it. In one way, it’s quite simple. That is how that Yeshe Dawa had become fully enlightened. While she was contemplating her colleagues and friends and the sangha members suggested to her, “hey every great being became male. So you should become male too.”

She thought about it and she said, “there is no separation.”

“There is no difference.” The original language says separation but in other word, there are no difference. What difference does it make? Whether you are male or female there is no difference. Well you can’t say that but sometimes that makes difference especially if you are at the wrong place, at the wrong time, it makes a difference. But otherwise for purpose of enlightenment, for purpose of helping sentient beings, for purpose of accumulating merits, for purpose of purification, for purpose of achieving spiritual goal, for purpose of achieving anything, material , spiritual, anything, whatever, there is no difference. If there is a difference, then there is a superiority thing. And nothing is superior. No male is superior, no female is superior from that point of view. They are all same and that’s why she chose to remain in female body. You make offers [ for her to become male] but they can’t make [ her chose]. It is she had to chose. It shows in her own hand, you can make offer, but she can say thank you but no thanks.

1:04:40.9 She did that. She not only did every work, every contemplation , every purification , everything in female form but even obtain total enlightenment in female form. Even thereafter she started functioning in female form. She could manifest if she wants to, she could manifest a huge gigantic Yamantaka look alike, I am not talking about Shiva, ok? Ha ha ha. She could manifest gigantic Yamantaka look alike but she didn’t. All her manifestations you see are in the female forms, even wrathful ones are also female forms. So all female are might not be so sweet and nice as they look. Looks can be very deceptive, right? Ultimately she had functioned as any other enlightened beings, functioned as any other Bodhisattvas, functioned as any other Buddhas had functioned. You have to think in Buddhism there are many Buddhas but one official Buddha [at a time].

1:06:58.2 It is sort of way in the tenure of Buddha Sakyamuni’s office or Sakyamuni administration. Unfortunately doesn’t change even after 8 years [like US presidency], ha ha ha I am just joking. Hopefully it does. So anyway so it is Sakyamuni’s tenure and Sakyamuni happened to be the official Buddha out of 1000 Buddhas lined up for one eon. That doesn’t mean there are no other Buddhas. Even among us here, you cannot say there is no Buddha, excluding myself. You cannot say there is no Buddha. So there are lots of Buddhas. In Tibetan we translated Buddha as Sanghe. It is made up of two words, Sang and ghe. Sang here is clearing all obstacles. Actually obstacles are sometimes translated as afflictive emotions. And those are the direct obstacles.

1:09:22.2 And then the overcoming direct negativities is easier than overcoming the imprints of those negative emotions. Imprints means there are no direct negativities left and there is not even possible for them to arise again but the imprints are still capable of obstructing the individual. So Sang here means clearing both the active negativities as well as the inactive passive imprints of negativities. Both are cleared so it is called Sang. The Ghe word is development. Develop total knowledge, total knowledge, that’s why it is translated as enlightenment. Knowing everything. Anything to be known, knowing everything simultaneously. Don’t think it is going to drive the individual crazy. No. Because the individual has the capacity. In other words, that individual is able to utilise its mind capacity fully at the full extent, fully able to use capacity of the mind. That is total enlightenment.

1:11:20.7 Anything to be known the human beings are capable of knowing. When a human being is capable of knowing everything then it becomes enlightened. That’s my understanding, at least. And that’s where I put enlightenment. So when we say Sanghe, it is total knowledge awakened state, totally cleared all obstacles and that is something we all are capable of achieving. We have the capacity, it is value of human mind. We all have it. Most of us have a little loose screws here and there but some have a little extra screw loose, some have extra tight screws but otherwise that’s what it is. That’s why enlightenment to me is not only a religion factor, not only faith based thing but it is logical. And it is doable because of the human capacity. We need willingness, we need confidence within ourselves. That’s why bodhimind give you the willingness and the confidence. And that’s why bodhimind is a must.

1:14:08.3 Further more, if you look the wisdom really shows you, you can do it. Wisdom is known in the Buddhist world and people who hear about it and are interested in it will hear about emptiness. Emptiness and you think about something empty. No, no, it is not. It is interdependentness. It’s called empty because nothing beyond interdependentness exists and that’s why it is empty. Knowing emptiness here will be actually knowing what you think beyond interdependentness, what else do you think is there. Finding it, bringing it then see what it is will be like what Nagarjuna said, ( Tibetan) So what is this person? Earth, water, fire elements or other than elements or collections of elements, what is it? It is not, then what is it? That is the wisdom and that wisdom tells us it is not not there is not the point. Point is what do you establish by negating? What you think someone big over there is the one creating everything either the individual within ourself or someone external. When you see it is not there, then what you re establish is because of the interdependent nature of existence. Because we are dependent we now know no matter how big we think the world may be it is very much dependent.

1:16:33.3 Very much dependent, dependentness. Fortunately or unfortunately within the dependentness nature you can create all kinds of good things and bad things. And especially if you are a powerful one when you do something terrible, something unkind or something bad it affects a large number of people like the present administration. Unfortunately it is [like that]. That doesn’t mean America is doing something bad. We must also see that clearly. American people are kind people. They always care. Of course they care for themselves first. Who doesn’t? And then they care for others too. They are caring people, compassionate people. So because of interdependentness all of them can function. Because of interdependentness each and every one of us can make a difference. Each and every individual action counts. It has effect on the large society because it is interdependentness. It is so simple we call it society, we call it political party, we call it club, we call it senate, we call it congress but it is nothing but a collection of human beings who are supposed to represent a large number of people. Whether they represent or don’t represent but it is the collection of people. That’s why each and every individual makes a difference. That is the meaning of wisdom, that’s the meaning of emptiness. Because there is nothing solid something in there. There’s room.

1:19:42.0 Nagarjuna always says (tibetan), who can accept emptiness can see everything functioning. Who cannot accept emptiness cannot accept everything, you cannot do everything because you are limited. That blocks, you are limited. You don’t have that much freedom. You don’t have that much choice because you have been cut out here and there by different rules and regulations. As I said this morning talking about the Indian bureaucracy and now it is that National Security Act, whatever that is. It is patriotic. It started cutting the individual rights from a distant corner and gradually it will come in the centre. But that can also change because it is impermanent, because it is interdependentness and what makes it change is the awareness of the individual. It’s the same thing in the spiritual path. External political society everyday life is the sort of example for us. Internal spiritual thing is something that we learn and work and function. Because of that male or female body doesn’t matter. Even at the wrong place the wrong time, it doesn’t matter. It has its own little system. Right?

1:22:29.7 Because of that it is really interesting. In our society today it you are female and functioning on the male level wherever when you have to compete in the field of business or whatever, you have to push more. You also have to prove as a female, I can do this. You have to work harder, push more likewise this Yehse Dawa Tara went through the same thing. She tried to liberate almost the double the number of people other than those living Buddhas around at that time. They are not competing but competition in a good way, you know push hard to point of capability and then push more. So there is nothing to be surprised when the female has to work harder and push hard to show that she can do it. It is harder to prove in the male society. Tara went through the same thing. Because of that she got the name Tara. Tara is Sanskrit name. It is Dolma in Tibetan. Dolma means liberator. She got the name of liberator because she had been able to re double her efforts and tried to double the job that all those male Buddhas had been doing. So she got that name of Liberator.

1:24:51.6 [She was also known as] quickly achieving and heroine. And even compassionate and all these types of different names. During the course of the week you are going to see 21 different Taras according to this 21 Praise of Tara. You are going to see 21 different Taras. You also going to see 8 different Taras of 8 Fear protection Tara, actually 8 indirect and 8 indirect so 16 different Taras for Fear protection and 21 Taras. That also there are 2 different versions. One we going to have normal fully and another one I presume we are not going to have time to explain nor do I have drawings to be able to show to everybody so we decided to put the explanations and the pictures on the table. There are different 21 versions with multiple hands and multiple faces and all of those and I would not have much time to explain. So we are going to put up that somewhere on the table.

1:27:21.6 No matter how many, if there is time I can bring in 108 different Taras and all those. There are red, there are yellow, there are black, multicolour, rainbow Tara, there are wrathful, there are peaceful, loving ones, all kinds of Tara. But no matter whatever you may see there is only one Tara. Sometimes they will be in the way of Maha anuyoga Tantra in the highest tantra explanation. Sometimes it is in the common lower tantra. All of those are manifestations. However you are not going to find Tara’s manifestation of a huge Shiva. I was joking earlier. So whenever you have time I will refer you to read the Tara nata’s source of Tara tantra. You may want to know about tantra. What is tantra? Tara and all of those are coming out of tantras. In the Buddha’s teaching, in the Buddha’s way of liberating individuals Buddha introduced two systems. One is common system which we call sutra. That is Sanskrit word. Both Tantra and Sutra are the words spoken by Buddha’s teachings given by Buddha. Maybe I am giving wrong explanation, but wherever there are some mystical touch in the teachings they are Tantras and the non mystical touch teachings which are simple and straightforwardness are sort of commonly known as sutra. You can think in that way.

1:30:06.2 But on the other hand, tantra is worked on three important points. One is the physical aspects of whatever Tantra is all about and that is the Buddha of that tantra. In this case is Buddha Tara. The second important point is the mantra aspect of it. Every Tantra must have a mantra because of the essence of the tantra is mantra. Every essence of tantra is mantra. Both are Greek to you. I am doing great job here, he he he, giving you all Greek. I am sure you heard the word mantra in many places. Whether there is a direct translation of word mantra or not, the bottom line when you say mantra, it gives you again the understanding of protection of mind. Again same thing, protection here is not the bullet proof vest that you wear, but it is the protecting mind from being taken over by negative emotions. Negative emotions here such as hatred , obsessions , fear, including even depression. But sometimes if you don’t have the wise way of handling, instead of protecting, it contributes [to the negative emotions.]

1:33:20.8 There was an incident in my life when I was in Delhi. There was a young woman who was the daughter of the Prime minister of Tibet when Tibet was independent. She was going completely crazy. Her father was alive at that time. Both parents were alive. I was young and crazy rebellious, going through what you people went through in the 60s though I was a little late. I think it was late 60s, mid 60s somewhere. So going through in that period. That prime Minister called me and said would you please help my daughter? And explained what she was really going through. Then he told me, “mig me tse wai ter chen chen re zig” helps a lot. So I started talking to her “ mig me tse wai er chen chen re zig “ and doing all these. Perhaps I didn’t do completely what I could have done, maybe not, because I was more thinking of restrictions than service. Anyway then she kept on saying “ mig me tse wai ter chen chen re zig “ “ mig me tse wai ter chen chen re zig. “ Then it sort of made her get away from her craziness but it brought her down deeper. Sort of instead of opening up and making it sort of narrowing down and ???. The parents were very old fashion that’s 1960s, mid 60s, the father was probably in early 80s. Even in Tibet he was known for being strict. That guy would never have become prime minister in old Tibetan system. 1:36:22.6 Later when the Chinese came the Tibetans aristocrats were saying what to do, what to do? This guy was known for his straightforwardness and no corruption for whatsoever, so he became Prime minister all of a sudden from very junior post. He was my neighbour in Tibet, next door neighbour. We had a beautiful garden and he had a house in there. There was a funny rule that they cannot open any window looking into our garden, funny rule. When he was Prime Minister he came up with a scarf one day as Prime Minister to see my father and he put up the scarf. In one way he was great Rinpoche, on the other hand with that he requested “May I have tiny little window, just so that air can pass through.” That was his request. He was that type of person, old fashion. And he actually made a very small window, not big one. But the way he talked, he said, “just tiny little, air can go through or air pass through, some breeze can come,” ha ha ha.

So very strict. He gave the daughter no time except kept on saying “ mig me tse wai ter chen chen re zig “ day in and day out.

1:38:08.5 So sometimes it doesn’t help. It becomes worse. Because of way you handle it. It’s your mind you are dealing with. It is so fragile, so complicated and so sophisticated. Sometimes it doesn’t help, it becomes worse because of way you handle it. It is the mind you are dealing with, it is so fragile, so complicated, so sophisticated. Tiny little thing can go, just one spark like how anything goes wrong with little electricity, you know everything brroom goes through. Just like that.

It is mind protection. Mind protection in the sense when the word of the mantra comes out and along with that if you think of the meaning. I might as well use the opportunity here to explain because Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha is the mantra we will be using. No matter whatever Tara with one face two hands, Tara with 8 faces whatever or 30 hands whatever you see, the mantra remains Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha. While I am talking the mantra I might as well explain it. I have to explain anyway so might as well explain here. Because you will be saying it.

1:39:53.0 When you look at all [mantras], this is common knowledge too for everybody. This is not only Buddhist, it is Hindu too, all tantra actually, all tantras whether it is Hindu tantra or Buddhist tantra or whatever, all tantras carry the mantra of OM. OM alone is considered an extremely important mantra. It is also known as jewel mantra, it is jewel like, wish fulling jewel like mantra. This particular mantra Om is the combination of three syllables, that is AH, O and M together. If there is no AH, then there is no life in that mantra. OM without life. Besides that you can’t say OM [when there is no AH]. In English O becomes O and then M if you put together you may say able to say OM just like OM Café. OM Café is with O and M. You don’t have any other letter there. You can say it. But in Sanskrit, Tibetan and eastern language you can’t. There is no life. AH really is the life. Even O has AH within that, believe me. If you have to say OM without A it won’t be there.

1:42:30.0 Every letter, every syllable has AH as a life within that. Otherwise there is no life and that’s why Buddha said (Tibetan) AH is the most important of all. If you can’t say AH, you can’t make noise. You can’t create sound. If the kid, or baby or infant cannot say AH they cannot speak, they cannot make noise. They cannot even cry. That’s why AH is there. AH is important. And if there is no M, it either remains O O O and doesn’t become OM. So the combination of three syllables has an important point. The sound that you are producing has an internal correspondence. The internal correspondence is our body, our mind and our speech, our sound. The external word OM, three of them correspond with the internal body, mind and speech and sound. This is how mantra works. It is not just the word out there, it has something to do with me. In downtown Albion Michigan here, everybody who is walking around, knowing or not knowing, is dealing with body , mind and speech. Everybody who is walking around knowing or not knowing is dealing with OM.

1:45:01.4 Not only I said everybody, so not only the body, mind and speech of the person who is going to say the mantra but the body, mind and speech of Tara as well, the enlightened Tara. You are bringing two sets of body mind speech, one body mind speech, here facing ourself, the other body mind speech here facing the other one. So that is simply OM. Om does that. If you have proper understanding of OM or AH or HUM, in that case OM is body, AH is speech, HUM is mind. You hear OM, AH, HUM. A lot of people say that. And if you don’t say OM AH HUM the OM alone carries all those. So it is very important mantra point of view. So what is it protecting. Protecting the body mind and speech of the individual. How is it going to protect? Protecting the ordinary level of my body mind speech and transforming it into the extra ordinary body mind and speech of what I have created in front of me, in this case is the Tara. So changing this one into the quality of that one is called transformation, That is how tantra works. Protection, that’s how it works.

1:47:15.1 Then Tare, Tuttare, Ture. These words carry actually the total explanation of Buddha’s experience on the spiritual path that Buddha shared to us through the method of four noble truths. You hear Buddha’s four noble truths. The reality of everything is four noble truths. There are two positive truths and two negative truths. The two negative truths are what’s happening [with us], that is truth of suffering which we have plenty anyway and we continuously create that suffering. And that is cause of suffering we continuously create. These are the two negative truths. The suffering that we have, even our physical body itself is suffering and that’s why we call this a contaminated body. Though the human body is wonderful and great and the human life is fantastic and this and that, yet it is suffering. It ages, it develops wrinkles, it loses power of seeing, we wear glasses, it loses power of hearing, we wear hearing aid. Do we add something to the nose? (laughter) smelling aid or something. Talking about the smelling, I did talk about last night. Somebody mentioned to me that there are certain centres and certain teachings that recommend people who want take their shoes off to wear clean pair of socksIf you really insist to take your shoes off, wear clean pair of socks. Underline the word, clean. Otherwise it adds up.

1:51:22.3 We don’t need the smelling aid. It is suffering. Everything whatever we do we have suffering. Whatever we think is great, like the summer heat is terrible, so we put air conditioning on and we were shivering here in the morning. Now it is a little bit better. But I have been shivering here this morning. And I am sure a lot of you too. [The air conditioning] is supposed to be a relief and wonderful but you know it gives you pain and misery when it gets too cold. Then too hot will give you the same thing, right? So it is suffering in nature. And these are easy sufferings.

Then there are difficult sufferings, physical, mental and emotional. It is not your fault. But we go through these physical suffering, mental and emotional sufferings. Physical sufferings I don’t have to explain. We are all expert now of physical sufferings. Talking about the physical suffering, I always wish that people could stretch their legs and things like that but it sort of really little but of too much here. Let’s see what we can do. This is our physical body, it is suffering in nature. Same thing with the mind. Mind also gives you [suffering.] Sometimes even when there is no reality it makes you looks like it is real. It is ready to choke you, kill you and put you to the hell realm, all of those. There is no truth in that, no truth in that. That’s why Buddha goes to the extent of saying no nose, no tongue, no ear, no thing so no ghost, nothing. The idea of having ghosts and, you know ghosts overpowering is delusion and anybody suffering with that, just reject that idea and remind yourself this is not true. Therefore whatever sound you hear from that should also be rejected because it is not true. It is a false. So that’s mental suffering.

1:56:32.3 Emotional suffering we go through all the time. Everywhere. We always cry before we see the dead body. That’s what we should not do. Emotional suffering gives us that. And where does that suffering come from, not from external sources. These sufferings are not like that rice we grow and the corns that we grow, don’t grow that way. They don’t grow in the field. We all know that. Maybe uncle Tombo’s?? suffering maybe growing in the field. But nobody elses’. Ok? Those of you know uncle Tombo’s story you know what I am talking about. Otherwise [emotional suffering] doesn’t grow in field nor can anyone give you the suffering, nobody. No one is the creator of suffering, ok? No one creates sufferings. No God is creator of suffering. So where do they come from? They come from our own karma and that karma was made out of our own negative emotions and delusions. Our negative deeds created our negative karma and as the result of that we suffer. That’s it, bottom line, according to Buddha. If this is a lie, then Buddha is liar. That’s it.

1:58:49.7 So it is ourself [who created the sufferings.] The two positive truths is just counteracting. Whatever positive things we do, accumulation of positive karma and wisdom and compassion replace creating the cause of suffering. The cessation replaces the suffering and that’s why two positive noble truths replace two negative noble truths and that’s from where we work. This is our base of working. All our spiritual exercise is based on that. And that is the meaning of OM Tare Tuttare Ture. There are two ways of looking Soha. One is lay the foundation or build the bases, transforming this ordinary body, mind and speech into the extraordinary body, mind and speech, pure body mind and speech. Laying the foundation of that is Soha. Or [ the other way is] union, union of impure body mind speech through transformation becomes pure, same as HUM.

Introduction of Tara is easy. Working is through mantra and through meditation. This is a brief explanation of OM Tare Tuttare Ture Soha. This is your mantra, this is through which you work.