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4040

Gelek Rimpoche

Mind Training in Eight Verses

A commentary on Geshe Langri Tangpa’s Famous Root Verses

From an oral teaching in Jewel Heart Cleveland August 2005

Transcriber Hartmut

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Welcome here and as usual, whenever you do any one of those Buddhist and particularly Mahayana Buddhist activities, the first is motivation and the second is dedication. We are beginning here, so the motivation is what we have to deal with. If you have some understanding of the precious bodhimind you should visualize that and if you don’t have it, have a mind of learning that and for the time being, have a very little thought to substitute the bodhimind. That is: for the benefit of all living beings I would like to become fully enlightened. That is very Buddhist language. If you are not familiar with this it is like saying: I would like to get the best I could through the spiritual practice – through any religious practice.

From the Buddhist point of view we refer to that as total enlightenment. It means total knowledge – knowing everything. It is the highest measurement one can take in one’s spiritual development. For a person like me who spent all life – 60 years in the Buddhist field – if you say that total enlightenment means total knowledge – I have one understanding. But the language itself – what does total knowledge mean? You may think it means great knowledge, being very learned. It is but it is much more. It is not only internal and external knowledge, but also the internal joy. This is slightly connected with vajrayana, so it is not wrong to refer to it as a blissful, joyful state of mind, which in addition to that has total knowledge.

With my background, it is understood that when you talk about total knowledge, it doesn’t mean dry knowledge at all. It means the ultimately blissful total knowledge of everything, internal as well as external – fully developed. The word “total knowledge” alone may just give you the idea of someone who is very learned and knowledgeable. Here it includes all internal and external development. Dry knowledge is not that great.

In typical language this is known as the Buddha state. Since that doesn’t mean much to you, I am trying to give it more meaning by saying it is total knowledge, the “awakened state”. The real message behind all the words is the ultimate state of development you can achieve, wonderful, joyful, blissful nature state along with knowledge. These come together simultaneously, and one does not block the other. In our ordinary level, even though we don’t have great joy, but even the one we do have does block other thoughts, ideas and knowledge. It cannot function simultaneously. Especially if the joy is really great you cannot think of anything else. Don’t pretend that you don’t know what we are talking about! (laughs) We all know.

That clearly shows that one blocks the other. The technical Buddhist language calls that “seeing as it is” (Tib: chi ta wa) and “seeing what it is” (Tib: chi nye pa)

When you see “what it is” that blocks “as it is” and when you see “as it is” that blocks “what it is”. That is our handicap. When you come to total knowledge, that is the point where they don’t block each other.

Very traditionally, in 2600 year old language, the example is that of a transparent fruit. If you put that on the palm of your hand you can see the fruit as well as the lines in the palm of your hand. That’s because the fruit is transparent. Since it is a 2600 year old example, they probably didn’t have glass at that time. Now we can say that if you put a glass in the palm of your hand you can see the glass as well as the lines in the palm of your hand.

One does not block the other. That is what we call simultaneous. That is what we call union. We talk about male female union, but that’s what it really represents. One doesn’t block the other. You can function simultaneously. You have the joy state and you have total knowledge. The word is “total” – that includes past, present and future. That is the state of buddhahood. It is the state that can be achieved by any great spiritual path. Any individual can achieve it, no matter who or where you are. You can be male or female, black or white, or whatever you are. We have to capability.

That’s why every practice, whatever you do, is geared towards this. This is our goal, the goal of spiritual practice. Other than that are ordinary goals, not the best. That can be anything, like a better life, better health, better this and better that. But the recommended goal is buddhahood. That’s how the previous masters have travelled. So when I say, “For the benefit of all beings I would like to become a Buddha” that’s what I am talking about. That’s the motivation.

With this motivation I will learn and go through with this practice. The subject requested today is “lo jong”. That actually means “mind training”, because lo means mind and jong means training. But it is not the “Silver Mind Training” that was popular in the 60s and 70s. The purpose of this training of the mind is to develop a very peculiar, specific thought, referred as “precious” thought. In Sanskrit that is known as bodhicitta – I believe bodhi refers to Buddha and citta is mind. So it is the mind that seeks the state of total knowledge. I call it bodhimind. It is the ultimate, unconditional, unlimited love and compassion. This is as far as you can go with love and compassion. It is unlimited and unconditional is the most important thing. In our usual mind everything is limited. We have a lot of limitations. There are natural limits, there are physical limits. Then there are particular mentally imposed limits.

We have a lot of natural physical limits – which become worse and worse anyway - and also mental limits, like not knowing what to do, not having information. But especially we have self imposed limits, telling ourselves, “I can’t do that, I am not capable, I can’t do it, I am handicapped, I have been abused”, etc. If we want to count our sufferings, there is no doubt, we have a tremendous amount of sufferings that we experienced. Who doesn’t? Everyone does. But it depends on the individual, whether you want to limit yourself because of some excuse that you have been exposed to a particular suffering before. We create all these limitations for ourselves. The natural physical and mental limitations are a little difficult to break through. However, the ones specifically imposed on yourself – where you sort of ground yourself – are very easy to break, if you want to. But if you don’t want to, it is your choice. No one can force you. If we were back in the old Tibetan monasteries, they would beat you up. If you to the zen temples they come with that little stick from behind and give you a good whack.

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Training of the Mind here is breaking the blocks you have – any blocks. You can think of blocks like “I have been….” and anything that follows. You can pick any excuse and tell yourself, “I can’t do this, because I have been this and I have been that.” Since this is a lojong teaching I can tell you two things:

First, every limitation we have is impermanent. It is not permanent. The meaning of impermanence is that it is changeable. It changes every minute, every second, at all times. It keeps on changing. Therefore it is changeable. So let us make it absolutely clear to ourselves that every difficulty we have is impermanent in nature and therefore changeable. Let us make that clear in our own mind with absolute clarity, without any doubt. It is changeable. That is the first thing you can take home. I didn’t say it was easily changeable. It won’t be easy, you know. But it is changeable.

Secondly, there is an absolute reason. All the limitations we do not inherently exist. They are not established in and out of themselves. They are not in our life all the way from beginning to end. Though it is not inherently existent, nevertheless it does exist within us. So what makes it exist? Terms and conditions. That is the interdependent nature of existence, or dependent arising. Everything within us is interdependent nature of existence. That means that so many terms and conditions come together to make something existent. They depend on terms and conditions. That is the absolute reason why they are impermanent.

I would like you to take home two things: all our problems are impermanent and therefore changeable. The first training of the mind is to defeat the thought, “my problem is so big that I can do nothing.” Revisit that and think about it. It is a true fact. It is not just that Buddha said so. If you really think carefully you will see that everything is impermanent and subject to change. You are not going to find anything that is not impermanent. Everything we use changes, the clothes, our hair, our body, the size of our body, the wrinkles, everything. And it is dependently arising. If you leave the conditions as they are you will get wrinkles. But if you go and have a face-lift, the conditions change and you look different. Your eyes may go up a little bit, but other than that you have no wrinkles. So these are dependently arisen and therefore impermanent.

As this is true for external things we see, deal with, eat, wear, etc, internally equally everything can be changed the same way. If nothing is inherently existing, it must be dependently arising and therefore our existence is in interdependent nature. Our sufferings, our problems, as well as our advantages, privileges and everything, are dependently arising.

However, that is not even the purpose of lojong. The purpose of lojong is to bring you the precious mind. In order to bring that we cannot remain overwhelmed by our personal internal problems. These can be so much sometimes that they dictate our life completely. It is very different for individual persons. For some people it is a nagging pain that they carry continuously. Some people hit the ceiling in temper tantrums and their mind is a taifun of rainstorm cloudy weather. It happens and then goes away. Some other people carry their problems with them continuously, year after year after year and suffer tremendous consequences.

I tell you a little bit about the consequences. The first is that it completely deprives you of opportunities. For example any opportunity in the spiritual field where you can do something fantastic. It deprives you even of opportunities in the material sense to make your life reasonably comfortable. It also deprives you of the opportunity to have a good companion. This problem has no advantage for whatsoever and a total disadvantage for everything. Yet you are in love with that problem – we all are. We cannot let it go. We are afraid of letting it go, we are afraid of losing it.

Why am I talking about this? The major part of the lo jong is focused more on the basis of thinking about others, but if you have not established thinking for yourself and then try to think for others, it is not going to any good. On the contrary, sometimes it can even lead to something else. It is extremely important to first deal with ourselves, our own problems. We can blame any conditions. There is no condition that we haven’t experienced before. We have had every experience of every bad thing. We do, all of us. It happened to us in life after life. So we are carrying the scars of those wounds. But now it is time for us to get ourselves off, and if you cannot, who else will? If you don’t do your job yourself, who else will do it? We spend all our lives up to now being stuck with these problems, and if you don’t do anything, they will continue. Not only that, we will carry them into our next life. This is going happen, even if you don’t believe in reincarnation. To me reincarnation is real. So it will continue. So now is an opportunity for us – a very great opportunity, from two important points of view, from internal spiritual points of view and from external chemical assistance and conditions and from all points of view it is a great opportunity. So one has to take care of that.

Now moving to the lo jong – it is training the mind in the way of the bodhisattvas. Buddhas, bodhisattva, bodhicitta – these are all Sanskrit terms. As I said earlier, the goal of Buddha’s teaching and particularly Mahayana Buddhism is to become Buddha. The very true, genuine question rises within us: why should I become Buddha? Why do I need to become Buddha?

We have a good old friend, an African-American lady, who asked me one day, “This budha business, what are we really talking about here?” So I want some kind of easy way out said, “It is just like when we talk about God.” We were out walking and she thought for a long time and then she said, “Rimpoche, if Buddha is God, I have no interest to become God for whatsoever.” I was trying to get out of answering that question the easy way, but I got myself more into the soup.

So you have to think about relevance of why should I become Buddha? Why should that be my goal? It is not really relevant to us right now. Why are we in the spiritual path? We are trying to get rid of our suffering. We want happiness and joy. Becoming Buddha is not relevant to us. That may be true, as long as we think we can be completely independent. If I don’t depend on anything or anybody, then I can say, “I don’t care what happens to anybody, as long as I make it.” We don’t like to admit to thinking that way, but deep down, when the situation forces us we will have that idea; we will entertain that idea. It is the dominating idea within us. We call that “self cherishing”, some self centeredness. As long as we don’t see the interdependent nature of existence, as long as we don’t see how small the world is we can’t really appreciate that.

We say that we care about Iraq, but on the other hand we don’t care. It doesn’t matter how many people die there or whatever happens to their country, as long as it is not an American and America. That’s a general perception. Now more personally, as long as it is not my home, I am fine. I hate to see my neighbors disadvantaged, but better them than me. We do have that idea. So truly speaking, while there is no peace and joy and harmony in Iraq, although there is no gun shooting here, we are also losing our own kids there. That is the interdependent nature. One cannot be independent. We cannot shut our borders, we cannot seal off our territory, we cannot control the environment in our country just by ourselves and be happy and enjoy. It doesn’t happen that way.

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It is not possible. It is very much interdependent. So are we. That is true in the material world and it is true in the spiritual world. Everything is very dependent. The environment is very interconnected. It doesn’t have boundaries, with immigration and customs between Mexico and us or Canada and us. Borders are there, but the border guards can’t control the environment. They can’t control the air and the elements that pass through. They can’t even control the diseases that come across. The Asian flu gets here so easily. It just gets in. So everything is very much related and interconnected. Even if you don’t want to believe what Buddha says, this is true. So there is no point for narrow selfishness. That is very important to remember. So my happiness depends on your happiness. Your happiness depends on my happiness. It is that interdependent. If we get that, then everything else to do with others also become relevant to us. So to wish that I alone should be free of suffering is not good enough for me. I have to think, “What about my family, my fellow country people?” We are so related. There is no such thing as independently walking away. When you begin to see this then the idea of “I want to have freedom from suffering, joy, bliss” extends to my family, my extended family, my fellow human beings need this too – even if you can’t think of all other living beings. That’s how it becomes relevant.

In order to help all of them, in order to serve them, you need the highest position with the greatest capability and that is the state of the Buddha – from the Buddhist point of view. In order to help myself and my people I need to become a Buddha. If you realize that then the relevancy of becoming a Buddha rises a little bit. Otherwise, it is not really a goal for me and whether I become a Buddha or not, what do I care, as long as I don’t suffer.

The mind that wants to become a Buddha – that’s called bodhimind. And in order to bring the relative and absolute bodhimind we do the lo jong training. There are a number of different lo jongs. Today I have been asked to talk to you about the lojong of Langri Tangpa Dorje Senge, an early Tibetan Kadampa master. He has this Training of the Mind in Eight Verses.

The outline of that teaching has three outlines:

Preliminary

Actual

Conclusion

Preliminaries means prerequisites. Normally we get the idea that “before I get into this I have to do that.” But it is not really that kind of preliminary. It is a prerequisite, but you are already in it. Here the preliminaries include the generation of the motivation, which we have already talked about. Such a mind is precious and wonderful, but it is an almost impossible thought. It requires that all activities of “how can I help myself?” have to go before you can begin to help others. This is going to be the mind that wants to help others. But in order to know that, one needs to know how to help oneself.

We have a teaching series called “Odyssey to Freedom.” Traditionally called lam rim this developed after the 14th century. Before that it was called teng rim. Tsongkhapa changed it into lam rim in the 14th century. Earlier, in the 11th century, it was known as “Lamp on the Path”. Now we are trying to present it as Odyssey to Freedom. However, the basic structure is by first figuring out how to help oneself. That part begins with the guru devotional practice. That is a very important point. You can dismiss it as dogma if you like, that’s fine. But the relevance is there. Then it really begins with looking at our life, how precious, how valuable it is for us. You begin to find that you cannot measure your life in terms of any price. You can get life insurance, but you cannot measure the value of life in terms of dollars. You can leave your money to the family, but what about your life? It is beyond imagination. It really has tremendous value and it is important and difficult to find. It doesn’t last very long, it is impermanent. It changes and then we die. We don’t live forever. We have a manufacturing defect in our physical body. We can complain to General Motors if their cars are defective, but if they go bankrupt you can’t complain to anybody else. Really true.

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What happens after death? Are we going to disappear or continue? We know we will continue and when we continue, what’s going to happen? Either good or bad – both are possible. What is not true is what certain spiritual traditions are saying, that we have reached to this level and we are always going to get better. That’s not true. This is the junction, from which you are going to go up or down. We have been at that junction a number of time and we will be here again. But we are here now and it is the point at which we have to make our decision of whether we are going to help ourselves or not. That is also not so mystical. We are trying to make a mystery but it is not. When you help someone you will get helped. If you hurt someone you will get hurt. That’s what we call karma. If we do something good, good things will follow. If you do something bad, bad things will follow. That’s karma. It is the structure into which our lives fall. Karma gives us freedom to do things that help us. Sometimes we can’t help it. If we are some kind of strange animal, we can’t do anything. But this is a life in which we can help ourselves.

A little bit of dogma comes in between: if I can’t help myself before my death comes, what can I do? Take refuge – to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. That is Buddhist talk. But Buddha is a reliable object of refuge because he went through all this himself. He knows. He is like a guide who knows the path, who has the techniques and tricks and know how to take us through easily and quickly. The path itself is the dharma and those who can help us is the sangha. So taking refuge to them is a temporary solution until we are able to help ourselves. Other than that, it is we who have to help ourselves. No one else can help.

How can we help ourselves? There are two things: love/compassion and wisdom. Without those we can do nothing. Can we bring love/compassion to ourselves easily? No, that’s because we have addictions. We are addicted to our narrow selfish desires and addicted to our ego protection. We have addiction for hatred, for obsession. All these negative emotions stop us from helping ourselves. So we deal with this – through love and compassion and through wisdom. Then all our causes of suffering will be finished and we will have no more suffering. But that does not guarantee that my spouse and my family and friends, etc, will have no suffering. Therefore I cannot walk away, while “my” people are suffering. I must help them, just as I know how to help myself. But there are so many and therefore I need the best possible way to do this. Therefore I need to become a Buddha.

That is the whole path. Seeking buddhahood is what we call bodhimind. So then we dedicate all our efforts for the benefit of all others. Basically, that is the structure of a practice with purpose, that shows us what to do. That is Buddha’s wisdom. Buddha’s wisdom is not just one single thing. It is all of those things.

In this way I have brought in the prerequisite level practices of lo jong in the shortest possible way.

These are the general prerequisites. I wanted to give you just a brief idea if you are looking at Buddha’s spiritual path. That’s how it goes. The first step is helping yourself.

The second point then is how to help others. Why is that needed? Why should I bother? I can be happy without bothering with others’ problems. I am not the President of the United States and even if I am I don’t care (laughter). So why should I bother?

Now I have to tell you something from the background of reincarnation. Buddha was asked by his disciples and critics, “When did we begin?” Buddha didn’t answer. He kept silent. The reason he did was because you cannot find a time at which you can say, “This is where we began.” Therefore, the saying that “all souls are old souls”, is really true. There is no beginning and there is also no end of existence. There can be an end to suffering but there is no end of the individual, neither beginning nor end. The suffering aspect, the cycle of suffering, can be ended and instead we can experience the existence of no suffering, which is called nirvana. That is the idea of samsara being suffering and nirvana being freedom. But we have so many times gone through lives after lives and have conditionally interconnected with every other living being. Because of the change of birth and rebirth we don’t recognize that, because each time we carry a different physical identity. Sometimes our identities have horns and tails, sometimes we are bald headed, sometimes we have a lot of hair.

We change and that’s why we don’t recognize. Otherwise it is the same old “me”. Every time when we take rebirth, the whole set of friends, enemies, could not care less people, is coming up again – in each and every life. In other words, this is very strange. I am sure you have never heard it – and I have never said it before – but it is going to be the reality: there is not a single being in existence that you can point at and say: he or she has not been my mother. You may have heard that. But similarly, you cannot say to any living being that he or she has never been my spouse. There is never a single being that you can say that you have nothing to do with them. Since lives changed so many times, so many people have acted with us in so many roles.

The bottom line is this; every one of them has been my most nearest and dearest person, without whom I couldn’t even live without a minute. We have been in that condition so many times with every single person. You cannot show me a single person who has never been like that for me. Therefore, caring for all and having compassion and generating love for all living beings is extremely important.

Not only they have been that close to me once, but a number of time, countless numbers of times. In short, it is because of the transition of change of lives that we don’t recognize this, otherwise they have all been my good old friend, the good old person that irritates me, the good old person that I love, the good old person that I could never live without. The condition of those people is the same as mine. They are suffering in nature. What they want is joy and freedom, but what they are creating is negativity and suffering. Their intention is good, but their action is wrong. So I must help them. In order to help them I need some power, so that I will be able to do it. Otherwise, it is impossible and overwhelming. So therefore I like to become a Buddha.

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To become a Buddha is not an instant achievement. We have instant coffee and other instant things, but they are not that great anyway. There is no instant Buddha, because all buddhas are great. There is no instant enlightenment, because it can only happen due to causes. The main cause to become Buddha is the bodhimind, the precious, very valuable, wonderful jewel like mind, the ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion. That is that mind. That also has two: praying form and action form.

First we just pray to have that mind, to be able to become like that. Later, we will actually be able to do it. The first here, to be able to meditate and practice lojong, the lojong has its own little guru yoga. This requires meditation, which is from the Buddhist background.

In the space in front of you in space is your own spiritual master or lama. In reality it is your own spiritual master, but in the form of a totally enlightened Buddha Amithaba (Tib: ö pa me) . He is red in color, otherwise just like the usual Buddha. In his retinue is Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of compassion and also Vajrapani, to the left and right of him. They are surrounded by all enlightened beings, buddhas and bodhisattvas, dharmapalas and all of them.

You have to visualize that and create a big space in front of you. You have the space of the alter, the field of meditation, the objects of refuge. So in this case the recommended one is Buddha Amitabha. All the enlightened beings have a letter OM at their crown, AH at their throat and HUM at their heart level.

Those of you who are not very familiar it may be a little tough. Just think it is Buddha, and the only difference from Shakyamuni Buddha is that he is red in color. To represent body, speech and mind, he has OM AH HUM at crown, throat and heart level. You can just think that Avalokitesvara and Vajrapana are there. If you can’t see them clearly, that’s fine.

Light goes out from the heart of Buddha Amithaba, inviting the wisdom beings from wherever they are. The words normally used are “from their natural abode”. They come in and dissolve and become oneness with what we have imagined. What we imagine is called “commitment beings” and what we invite is called “wisdom beings”. So the commitment beings and wisdom beings become oneness. Why did we invite the supreme field of merit here? Because we would like to do some activities, such as the seven limbs.

First we prostrate to Lama Buddha Amithaba.

In English prostration means to bow down, etc. but in reality, looking at the quality of the object of refuge, admiring their qualities and seeking those qualities, is the full meaning of prostration. The English term doesn’t convey that message, but it is the best word the translators could find. The Tibetan word is chag tsal. Chag is the object that we can respect and admire and praise. Tsal is seeking the qualities they have. So that one little simple word can give you all those meanings in Tibetan. In English you may have to say “I admire and respect the qualities of the person, and I would like to have those qualities myself.” You don’t have to say the words, but you have to think that.

Then you make offerings to Buddha Amithaba, actually arranged and mentally created. Actually arranged means what you directly put out. Lets say you buy $1000 worth of offerings and put them up. Even then it is nothing much. Mentally created offerings, on the other hand, are unlimited. Nobody has a budget on the mind. There is no limitation. You can create all kinds of different offerings that fill the space and that’s what you should visualize and mentally give. That is an act of generosity too. You may have a glass of water and one little flower and a broken piece of incense, burning or not burning, but in your mental exercise it is the best, most beautiful gardens in the world and all their flowers. There is most beautiful, nourishing food there and all other stuff that is available in all the world. There is the most beautiful environment. Then you offer also your fortune, your virtue, without attachment, without hesitation. That is a true act of generosity.

Attachment is very hard to cut. When you want to offer something, the question comes up, “But what do I do tomorrow? When do I pay my next month’s bill?” But in reality, generosity is free of true existence, in emptiness nature. That really cuts everything. It is funny. When you talk about emptiness, the move “Matrix One” tells you that what you see is not the reality. The virtual reality that has been created is almost the same as reality. From the angle of absolute truth, that is really what it is. It is not true. The delusions we have are like the agents in the matrix and they limit us and that’s how people can be controlled. Buddha almost talks the same thing. Einstein also says the same thing. I am not saying that the Matrix is teaching Buddhism, but that’s the reality. If you are looking from the angle of absolute reality, what is there to hesitate about, what is there to be attached to, what is there to be let go of? What’s there to hold on to? Nothing. That’s how emptiness in reality becomes everything.

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Why offering? Offering creates tremendous amounts of good merit. You can also take the opportunity to purify. In our absolute reality we have no faults, we are pure, no doubt about it. But we have engaged so many times with all these “agents” from the Matrix. It is these false delusions and impure things that have infected us so much. That’s why purification is so important. It is not just things like eating meat, which we want to purify. The focus is not so much on that level of purity, but on the pure nature which has no fault, however, in connection with those delusions we are affected and impure things do happen. It is like a contagious disease. The person may be healthy and pure, nothing wrong with them. But then they come in contact with a contagious disease and become sick. If you don’t treat that you die.

Likewise here, we are basically pure, however we have come in contact with impure things and if we don’t purify it could destroy us completely. We may not disappear, but we will have constant, continuous suffering. That is the definition of ‘destruction’ here. That’s why purification is important. Anything we did wrong, anything we contact, can be purified, because it is impermanent. It is changeable and it is dependently arising. So everything can be purified.

In prayer form you may say, “I purify everything”. Does just saying that purify everything? That’s questionable. You have to read and study a little more about purification. There are the basic principles of recognizing, regretting, not repeating and antidote action. If you purify with all these principles you can purify anything. There is no such thing that you cannot purify. That’s because it is impermanent and dependently arising.

Furthermore, we need quick cash, otherwise we can’t function. Where can we get good karma from quickly? From rejoicing. These are like little tricks. When someone does something good, you rejoice. When the Dalai Lama does good work, we rejoice. When Mother Theresa did great work, we rejoice. When Dr. King did good work, we rejoice. When Nelson Mandela did good work we rejoice. But if we keep on being jealous, we are not going to get anything. There is no point in saying, “It should not have been Mother Theresa, it should be me.” “It should not have been Dr. King, it should have been me.” That doesn’t work. But these thoughts to come up in our minds. We are addicted to jealousy. It doesn’t have to make any sense. When you are addicted, what you do doesn’t make any sense at all. Look at the people who are addicted to hot chili. They keep on eating these hot peppers no matter how much it is burning. The nose is dripping, we are sweating, but we still keep on eating it, right? Does that make sense? No. What blocks the rejoicing is the jealousy. When you see your neighbors doing something good you will say, “Yes, it’s great and wonderful, but….” So there is always a “but”, like “but they have an ulterior motivation” and all kinds of things. That’s because of jealousy. But if you rejoice you lose nothing. You gain everything. According to the Buddha, if the person is spiritually higher than you, if you rejoice in their work, you get at least half of their benefit. If they are equal to you and you rejoice, you get equal the benefit. If they are lower than you, then you get double the benefit.

This is very profitable business, no investment, no risk, very straight forward and the yield is guaranteed. So why not? At the same time we also request the enlightened beings to remain forever, not to walk away from us, not to leave us alone. They won’t, but you gain by asking them. Also you ask them for continuous teaching information, whenever and whatever you need. Finally, you dedicate all your virtues to developing these two types of bodhimind, the prayer form and action form, or the relative and absolute bodhimind. These divisions are not the same. Just to let you know that when you hear “two types of bodhimind” it can be either of these two sets.

Develop these two precious minds and decide: for the benefit of all mother sentient beings, I would like to become a Buddha. And I would like to dedicate all my virtues to that.

So this is like putting a down payment of all your practices for becoming a Buddha.

Then comes the request. You say to the lama

Lama Rinpoche Buddha Amithaba, I and all sentient beings, may our minds be influence by dharma. That dharma may go straight forward and not take a zig zag course. Our dharma practice may not be met by any obstacles. All wrong thoughts may completely be stopped in my mind. All perfect thoughts may grow completely, especially the love-compassion and bodhimind may immediately develop within us.

By making that request, all the retinue, like Avalokitesvara and Vajrapani and all other enlightened beings, dissolve to Lama Amithaba. He also happily and joyfully dissolves from the crown and becomes oneness with you. That completes the preliminaries or prerequisites.

End of file 23:43

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Now the actual training of the mind – what to think. There are two ways. We began with the preliminary mediation with Lama Amithaba and now I will read the 8 verses and explain whatever I can of these verses – I don’t know how much I can read - and we will try to combine them in the meditative form on the basis of 6 verses from the lama chöpa.

55. DUK NGEL TRA MO TSAM YANG MI DHÖ CHING

DHE LA NAM YANG CHOH SHEY MEY PAR NI

DAG DANG ZHAN LA KYE PAR YÖ MIN ZHEN

ZHAN DHE GA WA KYE PAR JIN GYI LOP

No one wants even the slightest suffering,

Or is ever content with the happiness they have;

In this we are all alike.

Inspire me to find joy in making others happy.

56. RANG NYI CHË PAR DZIN PEI CHONG NE DI

MI DHÖ DUK NGEL KYE PEI GYUR THONG NAY

LE LEN DEY LA KHÖN DU ZUNG JE TE

DAG DZIN DHÖN CHEN JOM PAR JIN GYI LOP

Seeing that the chronic disease of self-cherishing

Is the cause of my unwanted suffering,

Inspire me to put the blame where blame is due

And vanquish the great demon of clinging to self.

57. MA NAM CHE ZUNG DHE LA GÖ PEI LO

THA YEI YÖN TEN JUNG WEI GOR THONG NAY

DRO WA DHI DHA DHA GI DRAR LANG KYANG

SOH LAY CHEI PAR DZIN PAR JIN GYI LOP

Cherishing beings and securing their happiness

Is the gateway that leads to infinite excellence.

Inspire me to hold others more dear than my life,

Even when I see them as enemies.

58. DHOR NA JI PA RANG DHÖN KHO NA DHANG

THUP WANG ZHAN DHÖN BA ZHIH ZEY PA YI

KYÖN DHANG YÖN TEN YER WA TOG PEI LÖ

DHAG ZHAN NYAM JE NÜ PAR JIN GYI LOP

In short, the naive work for their aims alone;

While Buddhas work solely to benefit others.

Comparing the faults against the benefits,

Inspire me to be able to exchange myself for others.

59. RANG NYI CHEI DZIN GÜ PA KUN GYI GO

MA NAM CHEI DZIN YÖN TEN KÜN GYI ZHI

DHE CHIR DAG ZHAN JE WEI NEL JOR LA

NYAM LEN NYING POR JEY PAR JIN GYI LOP

Since cherishing myself is the doorway to all downfalls,

And cherishing others is the foundation of everything good,

Inspire me to practice from my heart

The yoga of exchanging self and others.

60. DEY NA JE TSÜN LA MA THUH JE CHEN

MA GYUR DRO WEI DIK DRIP DUK NGAL KUN

MA LÜ DHA TA DAG LA MEEN PA DANG

DHAG GI DHE GE ZHAN LA TANG WA YI

DRO KUN DHE DANG DHAN PAR JIN GYI LOP (3x)

Therefore, supremely compassionate Lama,

Inspire me to take the bad deeds, imprints, and sufferings

Of all beings to ripen upon me right now,

And to give to them my happiness and virtue

So that all beings may be happy.(3x)

We will probably do the meditation based on those 6 lama chöpa verses tomorrow.

Now the 8 Verses of Mind training of Langri Tangpa.

With a determination to accomplish

the highest welfare for all sentient beings,

who surpass even a wish-granting jewel,

I will learn to hold them supremely dear.

In Tibetan it is not the same order. The first line in Tibetan is different from one edition to the other. One edition has dag gi. That’s what it should be. Here this text says dag nyi but that’s okay. The last line in English is actually the first line in Tibetan: I will learn to hold them supremely dear. So I would like to look at all living beings, including my friends, enemies, persons in between, which I seemingly don’t care about and develop love and compassion for them. I don’t want to leave it at the level of just love and compassion, but I would like to lead them to the ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion and if I can meditate on and develop this, then I can achieve something more than praying to a wishfulfilling jewel. A wishfulfilling jewel, in the Tibetan culture, is something very serious. When you talk about the Genie coming out of the bottle, it is sound like kids’ stories. But actually, the wishfulfilling jewel is supposed to do the same thing. If you have a magic lamp you can do anything you want. But what you cannot do is get freedom from suffering. You can have a magic carpet and fly and have lots of jewels. That’s similar to Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. The magic lamp can give you all kinds of things, but not freedom from suffering. Nor can it give you ultimate enlightenment. Our problem is not only the delusions as causes of sufferings, but also the imprints of the sufferings. So this can give you much more than a wishfulfilling jewel. It can give you nirvana, freedom from suffering and ultimately, total enlightenment. It is supposed to give us inspiration. The inspiration is this: if you can obtain enlightenment then everything, whatever you wish and want to do, for you and for all other living beings, you can achieve it – without going through a lot of hardship. It is possible.

To fulfill that motivation, what action do we need? It is the love to all living beings – always. So in order to achieve the ultimate goal, I may cherish all sentient beings, always. I will not only cherish them but consider them “supremely dear”. I will develop love, look after all sentient beings, help them, protect them and serve them, more than I would my own eye balls. I may be able to do that for all living sentient beings. The action you need is to develop not only ordinary love, but a love that completely and totally is dedicated to protect all living beings like I protect my own eye ball. I may have that much love developed to all beings. That is what he first verse tells you.

Since we joined that with the meditation on Lama Amithaba in front of use, by making that request we may be blessed to be able to do that. Light comes from the body of Lama Amithaba in front of you, goes through your body and fills it completely and purifies all negativities in general and particularly any obstacles to hold, develop and cherish all other beings. All obstacles, whatever they may be, are separated from your body, washed away by that light and liquid and get out of your body in form of an undesirable color, like dirty laundry water or in the form of scorpions and spiders. Some people may love scorpions and spiders, so make it something that you don’t like.

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It depends on the individual. I am afraid of both, so they are washed away in that form. Your own life quality, luck, fortune, knowledge and especially cherishing all living beings equally to yourself may be accomplished. Light and liquid purify negativities and build positivity. Think that this really happened, “I gained the power to be able to do this” – even though you didn’t. You have to tell yourself a little bit for a minute that you can do it. Don’t say, “I don’t think I can” or “I am supposed to say that, but I don’t know….” These are unwelcome thoughts at least for a few minutes here. Afterwards you can whatever you want.

The second verse:

Whenever I associate with others,

I will learn to think of myself as the lowest of all,

and respectfully hold others as being supreme

from the depth of my heart.

This doesn’t need much explanation of the words. They are quite clear. But behind that, we need a little explanation. Why do I have to look at myself as the lowest of all, when dealing with others? Do I have to entertain defeating my self esteem or what is that? That’s the big question here. The answer that I understand is that all the lojongs try to reduce or subdue or defeat the ego – not the self. There is a big difference between my ego and me. That goes for everyone of us. Our egos and our selves are two different things. I have to clarify how I use the word ego. It is not the term “ego” that psychologists use to explain how you have to build yourself up and rather than defeat it. I am using it in the way it is used by the public, for example when we say, “Oh, that is your ego talking”. We don’t want to entertain that at all. Also ego is such that it doesn’t give you the good pride, but the bad pride. That is the pride that we wouldn’t even call “pride” in American language. It is the behavior of knowing all. “I know”, “I did that”, “I know that”, “I have done that”, “I am aware of that”, “I have read that”, “I have experience”. All this “I”, “I”, “I”. In that way a number of us will say “I” 15 times in one sentence. That particular “I” is not self esteem. It is unwanted pride. It is the supreme feeling of being superior. People suffer tremendously from the superiority-inferiority complex. People do try to adjust that by showing off, wearing more expensive jewels, driving more expensive cars, dress up more. We have seen that. Time changes of course, but we have seen that. “Mr. Know-it All” will answer to anything you say with “I know”. Some people think they know everything, although they don’t know much. That is the pride we are talking about here.

What does that do? It deprives you of a great deal of opportunity to learn – because you think you know all; so you don’t want to listen. It is also very similar to having preconceived ideas. I am quite sure many of us came here with preconceived ideas. You would like to hear certain things and I would like to say certain things. These are the preconceived ideas we have and then we will have a big surprise. That happens. In the Tara practice that particular pride is given the metaphor of the lion. The lion thinks, “I am the king of all animals.” The lion will not distinguish between wild and domesticated animals. Old Tibetan earlier masters said, “one who has the heap of pride will never collect the water of knowledge and quality.” No matter how much they pour on that heap the water is going to drip down from every corner. Because you know all you don’t want to listen to anybody. You don’t want to think about. Whatever information you have, right or wrong, you are going to hold that and nothing else is going to go inside.

That sort of pride not only deprives you of opportunity but also makes you feel that you are superior to all others. A number of people do think that. Almost all politicians think that way – Democrats as well as Republicans. So they don’t have to work at anything or do anything. They know everything. But what we don’t know is what the reality is. We are living in a very artificial world. You heard me right. It is completely artificial. If you look deeply, it is all artificial: the house, the cars, the beings, the whole economic system we are caught in. It is a totally man-made circle in which we find ourselves. That doesn’t mean it is wrong. I am not saying that. Don’t misunderstand me. The whole economic system in reality is totally made up. Because of that it can collapse. Because of that it fluctuates. The fluctuation has both, advantages and disadvantages in the economy. The system is made in such a way that everybody has to work their butts off.

0:20

Look at it. Look very carefully in the United States. It is a wonderful country, fantastic and beautiful. But when the kids come out of university, how much debt are they coming out with? And they have to give that debt to them. If they don’t, they can’t make the people work. All the luxury items are presented to draw your attraction, so that you buy them. You pay something called “money”, something that you don’t actually have. It is everybody’s money. It is circulating in society. It is really made that way. Some have more, some have less – if you know how to play with that. It is totally playing. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to have it. Don’t misunderstand that. But that is the reality we are in. Truly, the life that is presented to us, the life we spend, it is all false. It is circumstantial, man made. Because of the circumstances we will perceive it as reality and it functions as reality, it serves as reality, but it is not really the reality. Can you do without it? No, you can’t. Society is built in such a way – you cannot go against that current, which is running. But you can go with it, without getting caught in it.

I remember, about 15 – 20 years back. I was giving a talk in Hongkong, in Kowloon, in the Peninsula Hotel. It was very well attended by rich Chinese and British business people. I was talking about the faults of samsara or something and some guy at the back raised his hand and asked, “What should I do with my Rolls Royce?” I said, “As long as you drive your Rolls Royce you are fine. But as soon as the Rolls Royce starts driving you, you are in trouble.” If you really look hard, we are all driven by the economic system. There are lucky ones here and there, one or two. But mostly everybody is caught in it. This is a dualistic life we have. I am not saying it is something wrong. This is the way it is. But I am saying that it is not true reality. True reality goes beyond that. What we see is the conditioned world, but what we don’t see is the reality. Honestly speaking.

In order not to have this false perception influence and control you completely the best is to keep yourself in humility. We have a saying in Tibet. We always get advice from our parents and the saying, “Don’t wear the sky as your hat and use the clouds as the string that keeps your hat on.” That refers putting yourself up much higher than you really are. That is troublesome. So it is better to maintain humility.

0:26

The person with quality never thinks, “I am superior.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a perfect example. Mind you, he is the Dalai Lama. Even though he is not at home in Tibet any more – he is in exile – but he is still the Dalai Lama. He goes round with folded hands, almost touching everybody’s feet, bending down completely. That is humility. Look at Gandhi, who did the same thing, just wearing a little dhoti, walking barefoot. He minded his business, going around with his goat and drinking goat’s milk. Then look at Mother Theresa, an internationally known figure, but she never went with her nose up in the air. When you look at quality, this is the quality I am talking about. That is the humility I am talking about. You can gain that humility. It depends on the thoughts within you. If you keep on thinking that you are superior then you will become Mr. Dictator, like Hitler or Chairman Mao of China. There are lots of examples, Stalin and even Saddam Hussein and that behavior, that character was developed and shows the superior feeling. And it uses that superior feeling to build up excitement within the people, when they don’t have such feelings. Hitler used the Jews to create that superior feeling among the Germans. He used the Jews as objects to beat up. Saddam used the Kurdish people and Chairman Mao used all the minorities, everybody other than the Han Chinese.

(end of recording - 29.03 – about one hour of teaching not recorded. Rest of this session restored from this transcriber’s own notes of having attended this teaching.)

Think instead of being low and having a lot to learn. Think that others have good qualities and hold them as supreme. Think, “They are better than me. They have great qualities.” Pray to respect everybody, including the so-called enemies. Look for qualities rather than faults.

Then meditate that light rays come from Buddha Amithaba’s heart and purify all negativities from your system, from your mind stream. Think that you become pure and your qualities grow.

In all actions I will learn to search into my own mind,

and as soon as an afflictive emotion arises,

endangering myself and others,

I will firmly face and avert it.

Dealing with the afflictive emotions means dealing with the 3 poisons. We don’t know when they come. They can arise any time. So then what to do? The solution is to use the mental faculties of mindfulness and alertness. We have our principal mind and then the secondary minds, which we call in Tibetan sem sem jung - mind and mental faculties. There are 51 of them and out of the 51, 10 are always active. But mindfulness and awareness are not in that group of 10, so they are not always active. Trouble arises and we don’t notice until long after the fact. It is like the thief has bolted before the police arrives. However, it is never too late to bring awareness in. The gap will be less and less long and after a while you will be able to catch yourself while it is happening. Then eventually, we will catch the negative emotions before they become full blown.

Often you may feel stuck, making no progress, falling into the same traps again and again. Acknowledge that, but neither excuse nor blame yourself. Otherwise you go in circles. Think: it is impermanent and does not inherently exist. With wisdom you can see that the afflictive emotions are nothing but false perceptions, circumstance-driven, empty in nature. The Heart Sutra says: there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, etc. So wisdom knows that the negative emotions are false and that compassion cares. So face them, don’t run away, don’t hide in a cocoon. Hit the negative emotions on the head with a hammer.

Then as before, light comes from the heart of Amithaba Buddha and purifies all negativities and again think that you become pure and all your good qualities grow.

I will cherish beings of bad nature,

and those oppressed by strong negativities and sufferings,

as if I had found a precious treasure

very difficult to find.

This talks about cherishing beings of bad nature. Are there beings of bad nature? Actually not, they just get a bad character. They are misguided. Buddha nature is always pure, but can be clouded by the negative emotions. I have a story: One day I was in New York in a taxi and the cab driver was talking about President Clinton, saying that he murdered 19 people and also all the witnesses! Such preconceived ideas and negative emotions overshadow the pure nature mind. Therefore make sure your own mind is free from preconceived ideas and negative emotions. The Kadampa lamas have this saying:

Generally we live in a degenerate age and there is not much we can do about that. But specifically, we can make sure that the degenerate age does not occupy us.

When suffering hits us we always ask: “Why me?” But you can send 10 million e mails with “why me?” and it won’t help. Instead think “I have found a great treasure.” Let’s say you got a speeding ticket. Then think, “May my getting this ticket prevent others from getting a ticket.” When you get sick think, “May my disease substitute for millions of people to have this.” You can also think, “This disease may have purified karma that would otherwise keep me in a hell realm for eons.” So this way we can use unlucky circumstances for practice and make best use of them.

The Tibetans kicked the camels out of the country, thinking they were bad omens. But the Mongolians welcomed them, because they were very helpful in the desert.

Don’t look down on suffering people. For example homeless people are not dirty, they are unlucky. Actually they provide a good opportunity for us to help. Even if you can’t help, but have compassion. In that way we should follow in the footsteps of the great bodhisattvas.

Then again, meditate light and liquid coming from the heart of Buddha Amithaba, etc.

When others, out of jealousy, treat me badly

with abuse, slander and so on,

I will learn to take all loss

and offer the victory to them.

Out of jealousy, some people may abuse you and give you the M-word or the F-word. Geshe Langri Tangpa says if that happens, take all the losses and offer victory to them. Don’t insist on being right. It doesn’t matter. Let them win. Take the loss and don’t argue.

But can you do that in this society? No. Here you do have to defend your integrity, otherwise you could even end up in jail and mess up your precious human life. You have to defend your rights, but don’t let that get to you. Don’t take it so serious. Let it go. Actually, taking false accusations and blame purifies strong negativities. If we can’t do it now, we should pray to be able to do it later. You need a very strong mind for that.

When one whom I have benefited with great hope

unreasonably hurts me very badly

I will learn to view that person

as an excellent spiritual guide.

For example, parents invest a lot of hope in the children and they get disappointed. They might have too high expectations. Likewise, the children may expect too much from the parents. In your relationships that can also happen. We hear that sometimes, “I helped when he was sick and now he has left me….” Actually, expectations are the problem. True generosity is free of charge. On the level of this mind training you reverse that. You don’t develop hatred towards those who disappoint you. Hurt brings hatred and hatred brings violence. Don’t insist. Be a hero and not a wimp. That is the opposite reaction to what we normally have. Patience helps. It removes you from acts of violence and gives you a strong will. As Shantideva has said, “There is no such hardship as patience”. So for this level of practice a steady, comfortable personality is needed.

So here, light and liquid comes from the heart of Lama Amithaba, purifies all hatred and develops patience.

7. In short, I will learn to offer to everyone without exception

All help and happiness directly and indirectly

And secretly take upon myself

All the harms and sufferings of my mothers.

This is the actual tong len practice. You give happiness and take suffering. You are supposed to do that for every sentient being, not only now but also in past and future. Pray to be able to do that.

Light and liquid come from the heart of Lama Amithaba, removing all the obstacles from being able to do that.

I will learn to keep all these practices

undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions,

and, by understanding all phenomena to be like illusions,

I will be released from the bondage of attachment.

I leave the explanation of the last verse for later. So this is the Mind training in 8 verses according to Langri Tangpa. There are other lojongs, like Geshe Chekawa’s Seven Point Mind Training or the Wheel of Sharp Weapons or the Peacock Digesting Poisons and so on.There are 108 lojongs and they are all there to develop bodhimind.

They can be practiced in conjunction with the 7 stage development of bodhimind, but mostly they are combined with the exchange stage system of developming bodhimind or the combination, which is Je Tsongkhapa’s 11 stage system.

Are there any questions at this point?

Audience: Is the economy not intrinsically existent?

Rimpoche: It is man-made to get most work out of people for the least cost. I am not talking from the wisdom level but from the relative level.

Audience: Can the practice of tong len be dangerous for our self esteem?

Rimpoche: Yes, we must not lower our self esteem. Some people submit gladly to lowering their self esteem. Take responsibility and make your best judgment. You have to work hard and get enlightened. Self esteem is important, yet you also can’t let ego run your life. Actually: the more ego, the less self esteem. The more ego is reduced, the more the self can pick up. Therefore, even the practice of tong len should help to build self esteem. If we are getting hurt that is pushing ego’s buttons. We should be glad to discover that. It is very important to differentiate between ego and self. Ego is fear-driven, but truth transcends fear. If ego is too strong truth goes to sleep. Fearful deities are there to cut down ego.

20050821GRCLMT4

To begin with we develop the bodhimind. That is a term that comes out of Buddhism. There are two ways how to develop it: either through the 7 stage development or the exchange stage development. You have to learn what these methods are. I can’t give that to you in two days. That’s why we have the courses running. Not only for the 7 stages and the exchange stage, but also the prerequisites. The way we present these classes is by opening with a course called “Creating Space”. Then we present a course on my book Good Life – Good Death [course title: Art of Living], the basis of life and death.

Recently somebody told me they went to a big book event, where she saw a huge sign Good Life Good Death – she thought that was something about my book and went in to look, but it had nothing to do with my book. People are picking up this title. Good Life – Good Death deals with the fundamental basis of the spiritual path: why one needs it, what one should do, what one hopes to do. I introduce the basic goals of the spiritual path and what makes something a spiritual path. That way, after Creating Space you see with Good Life – Good Death the basic foundation on which to practice. Then comes the Three Principle Aspects of the Path. That tells you what the three most important things are: help yourself, help others, get wisdom. That is a very brief introduction. Then in some more detail we have the Odyssey to Freedom course. These are the basic points how to come up with a structure. Along with that is the guru practice that is covered in the Ganden Lhagyema practice. Then there is White Tara for longevity, health and healing. When you are in the courses you will see how that works with you. It builds up your spiritual foundation and with that you can make yourself independent in the spiritual field. That’s the goal: to function independently and manage by yourself in the spiritual field. That’s how we try to serve people.

If you want to do better than that, you can try to help others and guide them through. You can do that as dharma facilitator and later as dharma instructor. That is the structure we are working through. Ultimately, of course there is the vajrayana practice which really delivers the goods. But vajrayana without a good foundation of the Mahayana is very good as well as very dangerous. The example is this: if a blind crippled person happens to be on a tree branch and that happens to fall off the tree and lands on a tiger and the tiger is running with you. So that is your once chance. You are sitting on the back of the tiger. So make best use of it and run with it. Try not to fall. That is the example of the vajrayana.

Within the foundational prerequisite courses I mentioned the Three Principles and the first principle is: how to help yourself. Why do you need to help yourself? If you don’t help yourself, who else is going to help you? Every external source, Buddha or any other enlightened beings, teachers, spiritual masters, great beings, all can only assist you. They cannot be you. There is no instant enlightenment, no instant development. There is instant coffee, but as I said yesterday, it’s not that great. I also learnt, if you have your own coffee beans and roast them yourself you get very good coffee. It’s organic and roasted to just the right level – so the coffee tastes great.

Like that, you have to do everything by yourself. Spiritual development is organic. There is no miracle grow for it. Actually, vajrayana is like miracle grow. It really pushes all the plants to bloom quickly and be there longer and so on. So the first principle: how to help yourself – shows you what to do. Remember, lots of people say “I am interested, I like it, I have joined, so now what do I do?” So the first principle tells you what to do. If you want bus stop business, that’s what it is: help yourself, help others, get wisdom. And you may like to get some miracle grow too.

Out of these three, the “helping others” is a great thing, no doubt about it. But just helping others is very different from helping them with the great precious bodhimind. That is the mind that confirms you to become a Buddha. Don’t think of Buddha just as the Buddhist Buddha alone. Every enlightened being to me – all the great beings – are Buddha. “Buddha” happens to be a technical name used by Buddhists to refer to the ultimate achievement. There may be some technical differences, but it is basically the same thing. It is the same difference as between Apple and Windows. They have different systems, but both work. The ultimate purpose is to get your work done with speed and capability. Ultimately it is the same thing. Whether you use Apple or Microsoft – it is the same thing in the end. So likewise on the spiritual path. You may come through the Judeo-Christian or the Hindu-Buddhist tradition. The ultimate goal and level will be the same thing. There is no way that any reasonable person could say that Jesus is not a Buddha. “Buddha” is just a technical name, referring to an enlightened being. So from the Buddhist point of view the mind that earmarks you to become a Buddha is called bodhimind.

Why are you earmarked? Until you have generated this bodhimind every positive virtue will not necessarily confirm you to become a Buddha. It can give you the result of a good life, or good future life. Lots of virtuous karmas can give you the joys of samsaric picnic spots. Those virtues are not necessarily earmarked for you to become a Buddha. Many go out of samsara, but even then they only give you nirvana. That’s great. Buddha said: samsara is suffering – nirvana is peace. One of the four Buddhist logos or mission statement says: Nirvana is peace.

The four Buddhist logos are:

All created things are impermanent

All contaminated things are suffering

All phenomena are the nature of emptiness

Nirvana is Peace

Nirvana is Peace, no doubt about it. But from the Mahayana point of view, nirvana is considered a source of fear. There are two fears; samsaric and nirvanic fear. We want to be free of the fears of samsara and nirvana. In the Mahayana there is only one ultimate yana, from whatever level, wherever you come from, it doesn’t matter. Ultimately everybody should be totally enlightened.

0:15

That is the total achievement. Yana means vehicle. So whatever vehicle you take will ultimately get to the right place. When you desire to become a Buddha, then all the positive virtues you accumulate are ear marked for that purpose – that’s why I said they confirm you to become a Buddha. So you will be a bodhisattva, because you have the bodhimind. That is extremely precious and important.

Shantideva says in the bodhisattvacharyavatara (Tib: chö jung)

If you develop the bodhimind, then whatever you may be – a badly suffering person in samsara – you will be revered as a child of the Buddha. You will be the object of worship by all samsaric gods and human beings.

In other words, if you develop bodhimind you will be like a Prince of Wales, who is going to become King of England – if the Queen ever steps down! Nowadays the Prince of Wales is not necessarily becoming King of England. It depends on how long the queen stays.

But there are many thrones of enlightenment and they can all be occupied simultaneously – it is not in one person’s control at all. So you have been earmarked to become a fully enlightened one. This is 2600 old wisdom. They say that no matter how immature a prince you may be, you are more superior to the seasoned, most learned, capable ministers. It is true. In kingdoms, the members of the royal family are earmarked for the throne. No matter how learned the ministers may be they are going to be superseded by the royal family. We just saw in the last two weeks what happened in Saudi Arabia. That’s how it works in the system of the old kingdoms. Buddha came in that period and that’s why they gave that example.

If you look into the bodhisattvacharyavatara, the first chapter is all about the benefits of the bodhimind. For example, normally for purification we are told to say Vajrasattva purification or do prostrations, circumambulations or mandala offerings. They are great, no doubt about it, but according to the bodhisattvacharyavatara,

Such powerful negativities cannot be purified by anything else other than this great mind.

If you develop bodhimind, even if you don’t do anything but become a couch potato, the bodhimind itself is active for purification, and as accumulation of merit. It is like a great investment. When you are done, you can lie down and sleep or do whatever, but your money is working for you. It is exactly the same thing here. Once you have developed the bodhimind, it is a great investment. You may do nothing and be a couch potato, but your virtues are working for you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They don’t take a day off. These are the benefits of the bodhimind. So as I told you yesterday, there are two types of bodhimind: relative and absolute bodhimind. You are going to hear this terminology quite often. What is true bodhimind? The relative bodhimind. Absolute bodhimind means when that relative bodhimind joins with wisdom then it become absolute bodhimind. Let’s not have a misunderstanding here. You will say, “Truth is truth”, but it’s not. In this particular case, the relative bodhimind is the true bodhimind. Combined with wisdom, it becomes absolute bodhimind. Bodhimind, the great unlimited, unconditional, ultimate love and compassion combined with wisdom becomes absolute bodhimind.

23:00

There is another division of the bodhimind: prayer form and action form. We begin with the prayer form, wishing. Then we act according to those wishes. So there is wishing and action bodhimind. Whether prayer – or action form has to come through either the 7 stages or the exchange stages. The seven stages are to recognize all sentient beings as the closest and dearest mother like beings. Then remember their kindness and repay their kindness. Then develop love, then great compassion, then the special mind and then the bodhimind. First is seeing everyone as close and connected and not only close, but very close. Because of reincarnation no one can say that anybody has not been their mother in one life time or another. Then, every time they were the closest, they have saved our life and helped a tremendous amount. When you know you are indebted to their kindness, you like to repay them in whatever way you can. You can’t just take everything and give nothing back. That doesn’t work. Then develop great love for all beings and great compassion for all beings. It is ‘great’ because the object you focus on, with either love or compassion, is not just one or two people, but all beings. That’s great compassion. The special mind is thinking, “Whether I can do it or not, I don’t care, but I am going to do it and help them, serve them, because they need it badly. They are like a blind mother who is about to fall into the fire pit. I am over here, watching and I just can’t stand here and watch and do nothing. I have to run and grab her and pull her out of that danger. I am going to do it, whatever it may take.” That’s the good old American attitude, “I am going to do it.”

When you want to really do it and you don’t know what to do, then you realize there is so much suffering for so many people and you are just one single person and what can you do? Therefore you need the best tools possible and that is ultimate enlightenment. You have total knowledge. Then you don’t have to ask, “What can do for you?” You know exactly what to do. That’s what total knowledge is all about. The moment you wish to develop total enlightenment, that is the wishing bodhimind – wishing to become a fully enlightened Buddha. Very briefly, that is the 7 stage system. I will talk about the exchange state system later. But whether it is the 7 stages or the exchange stages, the basis on which you work is equanimity.

Equanimity is a funny word. But all the lojongs come out of Buddha’s short sutra called bad ö pa. In that sutra Buddha says:

You should have equal feelings to all living beings and take all of them are your nearest and dearest, like your own parents or children. Always have love for all. With the attitude of love and helping, develop your mind.

0:31

That equanimity is known in Tibetan as tang nyong. What does that mean? In the Four Immeasurables (tib: tse me zhi) we say for the immeasurable of equanimity (Tib: tse me tang nyom):

May all beings be free from attachment and hatred.

That equanimity and the equanimity before developing bodhimind has the same name, but they are two different things. They are both called equanimity, but they are different.

Within the Four Immeasurables you look at all living beings and see why they are suffering. They are suffering, because their minds have been influenced by hatred or obsession. Therefore, I would like them to be balanced and free of that hatred and obsession. I am simply wishing and praying that they will be free of obsession and hatred. You are looking at all sentient beings, seeing their suffering caused by hatred and obsession and wishing them to be balanced between these and free from these.

At the preliminary stage to the 7 stages of bodhimind you go one more step. In my, the practitioner’s mind I would like to block my hatred to my enemy and my obsession to my so-called friends. My mind should be free of obsession and hatred. I want to block these and be free of these. I want equanimity within me, so that I won’t be fooled by hatred and obsession. I don’t want that pull and push within me. You see the difference? The first is looking at them, the second is looking at my own mind.

When you look at the exchange stage then the equanimity goes even beyond that level. Here it is not only blocking my hatred and obsession in my mind. I take one more step: to serve and help and bring joy to the people and to remove their suffering. In other words, my love and compassion to all living beings has to be equally weighted. You see even within equanimity you see three different levels. Let’s call the first one superficial – though it’s not. The second one is deeper than that and the third one is much deeper than that. Before we talk about any steps leading to bodhimind we have to see that equanimity already has three different levels.

You be the judge of which one of them you would like to become. Normally, you get accustomed with the first level of the Four Immeasurables, then you go a little deeper and finally, on the third you go down as deep as possible. That’s normally recommended. But it’s entirely your choice. How do you do it? That is a meditation for training your mind.

In the usual meditation we look at someone who is labeled ‘enemy’. Maybe it is Saddam or Bush or whoever. Somebody called friend is there too. Now that could also be Bush or Saddam or Clinton or whoever it is for you. Those labels are impermanent anyway. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends. That can change between morning and evening. It can change between the beginning of your life and the end of your life. You can see big changes. It that didn’t happen, there would be no divorces and no court cases and company break ups. It does happen. That’s obvious. It happens all the time.

So take someone you like very much at the moment – your best partner, who you have good feelings towards. Then think of someone who at this moment you hate. Observe your own mental behavior towards these different people. What do you do? Then see why you do it. Then see, whether your reasons are valid or invalid. You don’t do such a thing without reason. If you follow Buddhism and especially Tibetan Buddhism, you don’t do things randomly. For every step you take you have to have solid, valid reasons. Then you take the step. You don’t do something just because “I felt good this morning and thought I might do this today.” You don’t just do that. Most importantly, don’t do your spiritual practice like that. The gurus and yidams that you take, you take with good reasons. If your reasoning is solid then it is fine. If you don’t have reasons and you do things just because you “feel like it”, then that is what Trungpa Rimpoche called “Love and Light”.

0:42

It is wonderful terminology. Trungpa Rimpoche said a lot of beautiful things. When I got in this country what he said didn’t make any sense to me, neither “love and light”, nor “spiritual materialism”. So when you begin to work with the fellow citizens of the United States and the Western Europeans then everything he talks about begins to make sense. So every step I took I discovered that he already did it and we came to the same conclusions in the end. Trungpa wrote a book called Cutting through Spiritual Materialism. It is fantastic – when you know what that really is. Now I have to write an article on spiritual materialism, because the Shambala people keep on asking me. If Trungpa Rinpoche were still alive I would talk to him, but anyway it is great. I found three different layers of spiritual materialism and wrote a short article on it in the Shambala magazine. That is Trungpa’s magazine.

So everything you do has to have a valid reason. What not to do is this: don’t do anything if you don’t know what you are doing. You are better off not doing it. Look for reasons. Find good reasons and follow them. What are good reasons? Valid reasons. A number of spiritual people would like to ask their guru what they should do. Some gurus like to entertain that and tell everybody to do this and that – just like the European ambulance – di too – di too – di too…

I don’t entertain that at all. You have a beautiful mind, so use it. If you want suggestions, maybe we can offer one or two here and there. Guidance we offer during the teaching. The teaching is well established and authentic. It comes from 2600 years old wisdom, followed by a continuing line of people who were successful with it.

That cannot be wrong, unless you are giving a teaching that you just cook up by picking up things from here and there. I am not criticizing New Age, but that is how it is done and that’s not right. I have been saying to my editor, “Sounds like picking up the head of a lion and the tail of a dog and trying to join them. It doesn’t work.” You have to have the body in between that matches. So use your own wonderful mind of intuition and reasoning and don’t rely too much on your intuition, because that can be wrong. Valid reasoning is solid. That will be right. Even today, a lot of scientists are now picking up Tibetan Buddhism and try to see how the mind works and what it is. They are finding it extremely helpful. You can read lots of articles that show the Dalai Lama participating here and there. That’s all because of using valid reasons for confirmation of the work you are doing. This is not Tibetan thought – this is Buddha’s teaching. Buddha himself said:

Just don’t buy it because I said so. Investigate just like when you are buying gold. You cut the gold, burn it, rub it, and make sure it is gold, before you pay a lot of money for it.

So Buddha says we should do the same thing with his teachings. So don’t ever underestimate your own intelligence and your own mind and use reasons. Don’t do something because “he said so” or “she said so.”

0:50

That is never right and can mislead your life. All these incidents we had with Jim Jones, Heaven’s Gate and so on have come because of “he said so”, “she said so.”

So here we are talking about something almost impossible: equally having love for all and not having hatred for anyone, including Saddam Hussein or whoever. The enemy changes from time to time. The first that we remember is Hitler, then all kinds of different dictators came, like Chairman Mao, Stalin and others. Here it says: hate no one, love all. It is impossible to do. You have to ask yourself and whoever tells you that: why? Then you will begin to see the reasons.

In my book Good Life Good Death I mentioned that if you have the panoramic view of life you will see differently than through the usual limited window. We look through the limited window between birth and death of this life. We think we begin here and end here. Then it opens up. It is a panoramic view of life that you see. When you see that then whatever tiny little reasons you had you will see that they are no longer valid. When you have a child of yours, let’s say a teenage boy of 16 or 17. When they say, “I don’t like that person, I love that person”, etc, they think they have very valid reasons. But as a parent you see more than that, right? You know the reason he likes some guy is “because we are buddies”. And the reason he hates that girl is “because she stood me up last night.” These are not really valid reasons to hate someone or be obsessed with someone. As a grown up person we see differently.

Likewise, when you have the panoramic view of life after life, the reasons you give that apply to only this life are not really valid. You hate a person so much today because he insulted you yesterday in public. Your hot temper is boiling today. But that is not reason enough to hate him. He can become a very useful good friend tomorrow. Don’t forget. Don’t be so obsessed with a person today, because he or she will know all your secrets and can turn against you tomorrow.

The most important point is impermanence – for every perspective on friend, enemy or stranger. Secondly, they are all arising interdependently. Therefore, terms and conditions make a difference. Our view of so much black and white, enemies and friends, hatred and obsession are truly not that valid. Similarly, red states, blue states are most impermanent and unreliable. People change – and so they should. Someone told me yesterday that if Ohio can become blue then Michigan can become red. Sure, why not? You might see it in the next election. You never know. It is possible, not impossible. No one can be taken for granted, not anyone and not anything.

So therefore, the mind of obsession and hatred, the reasons we have for them are not really valid. You may say, “It’s because I like him or her”. That’s wonderful, but sometimes pigs fall in love with the person who looks after the pigs. That’s really true!

That’s how you establish the equanimity between the so-called enemy and friend and the one you couldn’t care less about. The reasons coming from our mind are really not that valid. I can’t tell you so much, because we have a time limit. We do have a transcript on lojong. I did that quite well. Still, there is going to be more additions and clarifications, and it will come out some day, but still even now it gives you quite good reasons. Do read it and you will know more. There are nine different reasons: because of you, because of them, etc. With all these reasons, finally you have to have conclusions.

End of file 59:40

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You will find the conclusions you draw with all these 9 reasons in the lojong transcript. I have given you just one here. Yesterday we have generated Lama Ö pa me in front and then we pray: I would like to be perfect like this. I may be blessed to be able to do this. Light and liquid come from the body of the Lama Ö pa me, purify negativities in general, and particularly self cherishing. That means all “my’s” are great and all “yours” are horrible. That should not be there. Then there are five resolutions, I think. Let’s go back to the verses from the Lama Chopa on the exchange method of developing the bodhimind.

55. DUK NGEL TRA MO TSAM YANG MI DHÖ CHING

DHE LA NAM YANG CHOH SHEY MEY PAR NI

DAG DANG ZHAN LA KYE PAR YÖ MIN ZHEN

ZHAN DHE GA WA KYE PAR JIN GYI LOP

No one wants even the slightest suffering,

Or is ever content with the happiness they have;

In this we are all alike.

Inspire me to find joy in making others happy.

I don’t have to explain the words. I and others – look at ourselves first, we don’t want even the slightest sufferings. We don’t welcome any suffering. I will think the same thing and so will you and everyone. If there is joy, we are never satisfied – neither me, you or anybody. Any little joy, whatever we think is joy, we will never be satisfied with it. There is no difference between me and others in what we want and what we don’t want. We fight and quarrel and do all kinds of things, just because we want to get our value over the others. That’s what all the wars are about. You want oil, I want oil, we all want oil. So we all go there and fight for oil. That’s human nature. However, according to Buddha that is wrong. We all want the same thing, so why don’t we share? Why should my demands be pushed through against others? Why should others’ demands go over mine? You have to bring your mind in that way. I will pray that I will honor their demands more than mine. I pray that I may be able to do this. That is the first resolution.

The second resolution will tell you why. It is because self cherishing causes a lot of trouble. “I can’t give it up, I don’t want to be the loser, I love myself. If I don’t do it, who else is going to do it?” All these are valid reasons, but what we don’t realize is that this self cherishing causes tremendous amounts of pain. Wars between nations, small quarrels in families, divorce, fighting, breaking up families, breaking up companies, are due to self cherishing. It is because of “I have been overpowered, I have been ignored, I have been bullied, I have been dismissed”. These are the reasons we use. That’s all because of self cherishing.

56. RANG NYI CHË PAR DZIN PEI CHONG NED DI

MI DHÖ DUK NGEL KYE PEI GYUR THONG NAY

LE LEN DEY LA KHÖN DU ZUNG JE TE

DAG DZIN DHÖN CHEN JOM PAR JIN GYI LOP

Seeing that the chronic disease of self-cherishing

Is the cause of my unwanted suffering,

Inspire me to put the blame where blame is due

And vanquish the great demon of clinging to self.

Here we see self cherishing as your own chronic disease. That’s because it makes us miserable, causes trouble. If you are diabetic, there are all kinds of complications and if you get any other disease on top, it makes it difficult. That’s a chronic disease. Likewise, self cherishing causes all these problems, from not having peace in the home to not having peace in the world. And more than that: self cherishing brings hatred for others. It brings obsession for those we are attached to. If there is such a thing called hell, what makes us go there is not God, but self cherishing. Self cherishing creates the negative emotions, which then create negative actions. They then create negative karma. That negative karma delivers the goods – it sends us to the hell realms.

0:10

So the self cherishing is our chronic disease and that’s the point where we are. Even if you have unavoidable suffering, if you keep on thinking “why me?” you are going to get more problem. Your mental or physical suffering is bound to continue. Let’s say you did something wrong and you get arrested. You accept that you are being arrested and try to put your energy into getting out, rather than putting the energy into complaining about “why me?” That doesn’t make sense. You are not going to find the reason “why me?” Perhaps you already know. You made a mistake and that’s why you got caught. We don’t want to accept that and deny it and still try to find the reason why. If I want to find out what mistakes I made I have to look what happened 10 years ago. You are never going to find what you are looking for. The real reason you don’t want to accept and instead look for another reason, because you are actually looking for someone to be blamed. That’s not going to help though. Traditional Tibetan teachers say,” There is no one with horns on their head, wearing a black knitted yak hair dress”.

But what you really find is that inside yourself there is that “me” that is not satisfied. It is “me” that has been the problem all along. There was a great Tibetan master called Drukpa Kunlep. He is the founder of the Drukpa Kargyu tradition. He was known as a great yogi during his life time. There was a ruler in a little Tibetan province who wanted to have an exorcism done on behalf of his sick son, who was going to become the next ruler. Or maybe the father himself was sick. So he tried to get Drukpa Kunlep to do an exorcism, and because he was that crazy yogi running around everywhere he was hard to find. Finally they were able to invite him, maybe even with force, and he came. Drukpa Kunlep did all the ritual and created a big torma that was to be thrown out in the exorcism. Normally the torma is getting carried away far from the house and burnt in a fire made of some kind of hay. That symbolizes all the evil getting roasted in there. And if the torma in that fire falls towards the direction of the house even slightly, it is considered to be a bad omen and they have to do so many things to avert them. So Drukpa Kunlep went out of the house with that torma, but he didn’t throw it in the fire. He said, “I didn’t find the object of the exorcism yet.” So he kept on carrying the torma around and finally brought it back into the home. Everybody said that was a terrible thing to do. Drukpa Kunlep went up in the sick king’s or prince’s bedroom with the torma and shouted, “Here is the object of the exorcism” and he threw the torma on top of that guy! Socially, that was completely the wrong thing to do, however, what he found was the self cherishing within that person. So that’s why he shouted, “here is the object that I have to exorcise.”

0:16

Knowing the enemy or devil within us is necessary. So if you really want to have hatred for someone, develop hatred for this one. Destroy the evil force of self cherishing within yourself.

Inspire me to put the blame where blame is due

And vanquish the great demon of clinging to self.

This translation is really good – excellent. Put the blame where blame is due. We always want to blame somebody other than ourselves. That is our ego talking. The real blame goes to the ego within ourselves.

So here we are thinking, meditating and recognizing the faults of self cherishing. Self cherishing creates hatred and obsession and that will make us suffer in the animal realms, the hungry ghost realms, the hell realms.

0:19 – repeats whole section of the audio from 0:10 onwards up to 0:19 ??? repetition finished at 0:28.00

…..human realm and demi god realms or samsaric god realms. Not only that. Self cherishing makes even arhats, those who have gained nirvana remain there. There is the extreme of samsara and there is the extreme of nirvana. In Theravada Buddhism and even at the Level 1 of Mahayana Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism the arhat stage is the ultimate goal. But within that you have the problem of being in an extreme state of peace.

Some states of meditation even within samsara bring people so deeply into the meditative level that they keep on meditating and do nothing but meditate – for eons. Some yogis develop such a power and meditative state of development that they go up all the 17 levels of meditation. We have a chart that shows that. I call that the GM Production chart. That’s not General Motors, but [Great] Meditation production chart. If you go in more detail, there are 52 levels. There you sit for eons, meditating. However, you have not cut the root of samsara. You have not dealt with the ego. You have reduced all negative emotions, but not eradicated them. Sooner or later some incident will take place and you will have a fall back.

The example given by Buddha is of some meditator who meditated for eons in a cave and his hair grew longer and longer. Then mice came and made their home in the hair and went to his head and bit it. That woke him up and the thought came, “There are mice on my head” and he immediately developed hatred. With that he fell out of the high level of meditation. That incident took place in the Buddha’s life time. He himself asked why that happened to him and Buddha gave that answer. He became a great arhat later. That is an example of extreme peace. Then arhats themselves have extreme peace, though they don’t have that fall back into samsara. They are free of samsara, but they are not active. It is an extreme of peace. Then, even some bodhisattvas, while on the path, go off the track by self cherishing.

In short, self cherishing is the cause of suffering in this life, in future lives. It has done tremendous amounts of damage before and if I don’t deal with it now it will continuously do so. This is the root of poison within me. So from now on I will not entertain this horrible demon within me for even a single minute. I may be blessed to be able to do this.

The third resolution is recognizing the qualities of cherishing others:

57. MA NAM CHE ZUNG DHE LA GÖ PEI LO

THA YEI YÖN TEN JUNG WEI GOR THONG NAY

DRO WA DHI DHA DHA GI DRAR LANG KYANG

SOH LAY CHEI PAR DZIN PAR JIN GYI LOP

Cherishing beings and securing their happiness

Is the gateway that leads to infinite excellence.

Inspire me to hold others more dear than my life,

Even when I see them as enemies.

If you begin to realize that self cherishing is the source of all problems then the exact opposite of that is cherishing others. So what does that do to me? If you cherish others and worry about them, no one can really hate you, because you always want everybody to have happiness. In short, from the mundane, ordinary level of happiness in our life up to ultimate enlightenment, whatever the qualities within samsara and beyond, all are coming from cherishing others. All great things are based on cherishing others. The great path and practice you do is cherishing others. The result you hope to gain is total enlightenment. No matter if a few individuals to something against me in order to hurt me, but from my point of view, anybody who tries to hurt me, may I see them as teachers who are giving me lessons. May I see them as buddhas who are giving me messages. May I see them as opportunities for me to be able to practice cherishing others. I will not miss such a great opportunity that was given to me. May I be blessed to be able to do this. The last line of this verse says “even if I see them as enemies”, but in our thinking it should be “especially if I see them as enemies”.

Next is the fourth resolution. We have seen now the faults of self cherishing and the qualities of cherishing others. What we have is self cherishing. What we don’t have is cherishing others. Now we have to exchange that. Throw away what you have and pick up what you don’t have. We have habitual patterns of addiction to our self cherishing, cherishing our own ego. Any threat to that becomes such a big deal. It makes me, the individual person, almost into a porcupine, ready to shoot at anything. I have to now forcefully exchange my usual feelings of self cherishing for cherishing others, “securing their happiness”. I normally try to secure just my own happiness. Now I need to change that.

0:41

Exchanging does not mean that I get up and sit over there and you get up and sit over here. Nor are we talking about Buddha coming down and sitting here and we going up and sitting there. These thoughts, habits and addictions, that’s what I need to change. I am giving up cherishing myself and securing my happiness. For what? For cherishing others and securing their happiness.

Then you think, “Oh my, I am not ready to do that…not yet. Forgive me.” So then the suggestion comes: just look between Buddha and yourself and see the difference. Buddha, before he became a Buddha, was just an ordinary, normal human being, just like us, except he happened to be an Indian prince. Other than that, he was just a normal human being. Remember, there was a poem by Allen Ginsberg, saying “Everybody has to go to the toilet. The King of Japan goes to the toilet and takes off whatever layers of robes he is wearing. The emperor of China goes to toilet, taking off all the layers of brocade and takes his pants down.” Whether you are covered up by Chinese brocades, Japanese brocades or by blue jeans, when you have to go to the toilet you have to take all of them off. So that’s the idea. Buddha happened to be an Indian prince, other than that he was a normal human being. He also realized and recognized that being a prince doesn’t give you a spiritual advantage at all. So he gave up his princely life and ran into the forest, cut his long hair off and took his gold-brocade, jewel-ornamented dress, put on a dhoti or sarong and sent the horse back to the palace. Thus he found peace and happiness. That’s because he was able to kick the devil out of his mind.

We on the other hand have become a slave of that devil. Everything we do is working for that devil. The door opened for Buddha when he kicked the devil out. As verse 57 said:

Cherishing beings and securing their happiness

Is the gateway that leads to infinite excellence

Buddha is the vivid example. So is Mahatma Gandhi. He was a good lawyer, and he could have easily copied a snobbish British lawyer and wear a three piece suit, remaining at the end of the White Caucasian lane. Thank God some guard beat him up on a train and threw him off the white – only carriage. That put sense in his head. At that time, cherishing himself and trying to be somebody was trying to be like a Caucasian male. That ideal changes from time to time, place to place and shows how unreliable the world is. That happened to be in South Africa at that time. Gandhi was an Oxford, London graduate. Then he practiced law in South Africa, trying to be a fake white. The conductor in the train saw him in the white only carriage. He beat him, picked him up and threw him off the train. That’s how he realized what was going on. Until then he thought trying to be white was the great thing to do. But after that incident he gave up cherishing himself in that manner. Instead he chose the well being of millions of others everywhere, but particularly in India and Pakistan. That was the beginning of the revolution against the British empire. That is the result of giving up self cherishing and instead cherishing the well being of others.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s mission was also giving up his personal self cherishing and well being for that of millions of African Americans. Mother Theresa could have remained a nice, kind nun in some beautiful European chapel and have a comfortable life. But she chose to remain in the slums of Calcutta. The Dalai Lama could have become a Chinese puppet and kept his nice old life, but he chose to give all that up and become a refugee. I am not talking about things that happened 2600 ago, but things that have happened in our life time. There are millions of others who have done similarly, on small scale, bigger scale. That lady from Africa received the Nobel Peace Prize for growing trees and looking after the environment. She could have instead been instrumental for the dictator in her country, but she chose to give up that comfort for the well being of all people and particularly women in that area.

Every great being throughout has done that. By giving up self cherishing and exchanging that for cherishing others they have become heroes. They have become warriors and their whole nation respects that. All is because of that. When we look deep within us we see that we have capacity too. So that is not wrong, though it looks as if it is wrong. That’s what we call delusion.

Some people may turn out to be our strongest enemies, but even then we should cherish them and protect their happiness even more than our own lives. It is hard to do that; it is a tough nut to crack. It is hard because our feelings will not let us go easily. You have to train your mind and you can change. You see the spiritual historic facts and even recent incidents of these great leaders. Where does Saddam fit in there? He is cherishing himself in the name of the people of Iraq. Finally he landed in a little pit. Similarly, Hitler. Whether he committed suicide or was killed, his self cherishing lead to that. Though Gandhi and Dr. King both lost their lives, people today almost worship them because of their deeds. Nelson Mandela is another one. And there are many.

These are the reasons. You can think about what the Buddha said and read the historical accounts and see what is going on in today’s life. History unfolding in front of our own eyes, what does that do? The fear that I cannot exchange is superficial and invalid. I can do it, I should do it, I will do it. That’s how you make this third decision.

The fourth will be this: (end of file: 57.55)

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58. DHOR NA JI PA RANG DHÖN KHO NA DHANG

THUP WANG ZHAN DHÖN BA ZHIH ZEY PA YI

KYÖN DHANG YÖN TEN YER WA TOG PEI LÖ

DHAG ZHAN NYAM JE NÜ PAR JIN GYI LOP

In short, the naive work for their aims alone;

While Buddhas work solely to benefit others.

Comparing the faults against the benefits,

Inspire me to be able to exchange myself for others.

It doesn’t mean exchanging myself for the others, but cherishing myself for cherishing others. We are talking about the benefit of cherishing others’ values and protecting the interest of others more than our own and that our natural habits are going in the opposite direction. When we want to exchange, how will we do that?

Now comes almost the final decision. Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara also tells us:

There is not so much to talk. The naïve work for themselves.

Buddhas work for the benefit of others. Who has got the better deal?

By thinking about that you can make a decision. We don’t know exactly what is happening. But if you keep thinking and studying you begin to know. Now you have to make a choice and make a wise choice. I may be blessed to able to choose wisely. That means to be able to exchange. There is one more verse that tells us advantages and disadvantages both together.

59. RANG NYI CHEI DZIN GÜ PA KUN GYI GO

MA NAM CHEI DZIN YÖN TEN KÜN GYI ZHI

DHE CHIR DAG ZHAN JE WEI NEL JOR LA

NYAM LEN NYING POR JEY PAR JIN GYI LOP

Since cherishing myself is the doorway to all downfalls,

And cherishing others is the foundation of everything good,

Inspire me to practice from my heart

The yoga of exchanging self and others.

I don’t think we have to add up much here. You see the problems of self cherishing. We have been doing this until now and where did that get us? Cherishing others is what the buddhas have done and we can see what they got. Both, benefits and disadvantages are shown here together. Therefore the yoga of exchange is the perfect yoga and I may be able to do this. It is true that self cherishing causes all the trouble. For example, in order to protect ourselves we kill others. We do. We are little better than animals. We have that instinct within us. In order to have more happiness for ourselves we kill others. Because of killing others, we take rebirth in the lower realms and particularly in the hell realms. Even in the human land one result is to have a short life and a life that has lots of illnesses. By cherishing others, by giving up killing others, because of that reason we will take a better rebirth in the samsaric gods’ realms and have great longevity. In short, all the 10 virtues and 10 non-virtues, if you look at each one of them, all the positive ones follow from cherishing others and all the negative ones come from cherishing oneself.

We kill others, because we want to protect ourselves. We steal other’s goods, because we like to have them. We hurt people sexually, just because we want to, because it satisfies whatever neuroses we have. That’s what rape is. These are the 3 negativities of body. If you cherish others you don’t kill, you don’t steal and you don’t commit sexual misconduct. So you don’t hurt other people. Thus you get the positive karma of not doing it and you don’t get the negative karma for doing it. That includes hurting yourself. You are a human being yourself, a good human being.

You may say, “It is my body. I know what I want to do. I have the right to do with it what I want to do.” Sometimes you may just feel something and thus hurt yourself. People do all kinds of things. These are all coming from self cherishing. All positive ones are coming from cherishing others. Likewise, the same goes for the 4 negativities of speech: lying, harsh speech, etc.

You use harsh speech because you want to hurt the other person. You want to hurt them as hard as possible. You want to cut the heart of the other person in two pieces. Your sharpest weapon is your tongue. But if you are cherishing others you won’t do that. Because you are cherishing yourself you want to see that they get hurt and that they regret and that they agree with you. That’s what you want. That’s what self cherishing does.

Me, personally – and that is not Buddhism, just me – have a problem with the notion of justice being done. That’s a big question I have. I don’t really think anyone is seeking justice, but they are seeking punishment. You want to prove your point that you are right and give the other person punishment, so that this person will know. That could mean taking their life, or lock them up or beat them up or whatever. That’s just my personal question, not necessarily a spiritual point here.

Divisive speech - we don’t have to talk much about that. The British taught us. Divide and rule. Every one of our own administrations does that too. Everybody who comes into power does it, Republicans and Democrats. That’s because of self cherishing. One party would like to remain in power, the other wants them to lose power. So they do what they can, redirecting districts, anything, whatever easy tricks they can play.

Idle gossip is wasting time. And mostly it is talking about whatever other people do wrong and what we do right. That’s what people enjoy talking about. A lot of our usual entertainment is like that. Someone is acting and becoming like a hero and somebody is beating them up and losing them. That is exactly what it is: cashing in on the self cherishing as much as possible.

Then there are three non-virtues by mind. Hatred is obvious. That’s malice. You want to hurt others and make sure they constantly suffer. We do it between individuals, between nations, between political parties. We want to make sure the other party doesn’t come to power for another 50 years. Between individuals we do it too. Because of self cherishing we believe in the wrong things. As I told you: the taxi driver in New York told me.

So these are the 10 negativities. And the opposite of these, the 10 virtues, follow from cherishing others. In short, self cherishing brings all negativities. Cherishing others brings all positivities. Therefore, I may have the yoga of exchanging as essence of my practice. I may be blessed to be able to do this.

The first is the need for exchange. Secondly, self cherishing is the source of all trouble. Thirdly, cherishing others is the source of all benefits. The fourth is to compare them against each other. The fifth point summarizes that self cherishing brings these results and cherishing others brings those results. Therefore one should have the yoga of exchange.

Then comes the actual practice of tong len.

60. DEY NA JE TSÜN LA MA THUH JE CHEN

MA GYUR DRO WEI DIK DRIP DUK NGAL KUN

MA LÜ DHA TA DAG LA MEEN PA DANG

DHAG GI DHE GE ZHAN LA TANG WA YI

DRO KUN DHE DANG DHAN PAR JIN GYI LOP (3x)

Therefore, supremely compassionate Lama,

Inspire me to take the bad deeds, imprints, and sufferings

Of all beings to ripen upon me right now,

And to give to them my happiness and virtue

So that all beings may be happy.(3x)

Whether you are going to say this or just think about it, whether you chanting it or whatever, it has to be done three times from the bottom of your heart. First, see all mother sentient beings right in front of you. You imagine you are taking all their mental, physical and emotional sufferings through the medium of black light. It is almost like stormy weather huge cloud black light. This is coming to us, entering us through the left nostril. All undesirable misery, pain and blood and pus are coming in, including your own suffering, that of this evening, that of next morning, next night, next day. All these enter through your left nostril, go right into the middle of your heart, where you have your own inner demon of self cherishing. It is a collection of strong, powerful self cherishing. You throw all the things you are taking in at them.

There are a few examples. If you have a dusty place, you collect all the dirt. The Tibetans have a habit of sweeping and keeping the dust behind the door. That’s a bad habit. If you have accumulated dust in some area and bring a bucket full of water and pour it over that, all the dust will be wiped away and you can’t see where it has gone. The water has wiped it away. Likewise, you collect all the undesirable, miserable things and throw them at the demon of self cherishing that lives at your heart level and destroy it completely.

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You do it on the breath. You breathe in – take, breathe out – give. That is tong len – giving and taking. First you take and then you give. Through that your body itself transforms into something like a wish-fulfilling jewel. In appearance wonderful, soothing white light comes out of your right nostril, entering the left nostrils of all mother sentient beings. They dissolve completely into their system. Every fault they have, physical problems and so on, completely disappear. Their body becomes perfect, wonderful and healthy and especially fit to have a great practice.

When you say that verse the second time, what you take in this time is the cause of their suffering, the cause of samsara, which is karma and delusion.

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In other words, the Second Noble Truth causes the First Noble Truth and you take all of those and see them as undesirable laundry water type of dirty light. It comes out of their right nostrils, enters through your own left nostril and the moment it reaches within you, it is like lightning and thunder or other strong weather events, like storms, tornadoes, etc,. That lightning is going to hit our own demon within ourselves. It comes in like a Rocky Mountain type of storm, hitting the source of suffering of all sentient beings. It completely destroys it, shatters it into atoms. That happens when you are taking in the suffering. What do you send out? All the virtues, like those accumulated through generosity. They transform into beautiful soothing light and into whatever sentient beings need, their spiritual needs and medicine, food, shelter, information and whatever they need, particularly spiritual information. They all become very wealthy, enjoying the sky treasure of benefits. They have a tremendous amount of wealth, which you provided through your positive karma in general and particularly actions of generosity, etc.

Thirdly, you are now taking the imprints of delusions. Earlier you took the delusions themselves. Again you say DEY NA JE TSÜN LA MA THUH JE CHEN……so this time you only have to take the imprints of the delusions. They also come out of their right nostrils in the form of undesirable light and enter through your left nostril and they become some kind of powerful, undesirable insects, and other animals like spiders, scorpions, alligators, etc. They enter into your mind stream and there they see this demon in your mind and immediately eat it up and nothing is left. That’s how you take it in.

When you give, you give your own virtues of learning, thinking and meditating, your moral qualities like the vows you have protected. All the virtues that we have accumulated so many times and those we will accumulate in the future, you can give, even though the future has not yet materialized. They go out of your right nostril in the form of soothing beautiful light, enter in the mother sentient beings’ left nostril and they completely actualize the spiritual development, everything from guru devotional practice up to total enlightenment. That means you have delivered them to the total level of enlightenment.

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In short, whatever you are taking is the results and sufferings of samsara and causes of samsara and their imprints. Whatever you giving is your body, wealth and virtues. That way there are three rounds of giving and taking. When you take you breathe in and when you give you breathe out. So this is probably very easy, short way. It is not the normal way of doing it. For specially developed persons there are different levels of practice, bodhisattvas and arhats have different ways of what they give and take. It is not even necessary right now to mention it. I guess what I have said so far for us that is the major practice of tong len.

I just like to read something that Za Petrul Rinpoche has said:

nyong mong me yi rang gyu sig zhin du….

While burning with the fire of delusions, yet trying to tell others how to be better is a disgrace. However, there may be some help for some people at some time in future. So I pray it may work that way.

That is how Za Petrul Rinpoche concluded his teaching. So that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. From the root text of the 8 verses of Mind Training I still left the last verse:

I will learn to keep all these practices

undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions,

and, by understanding all phenomena to be like illusions,

I will be released from the bondage of attachment.

Maybe I have a little time to talk about this. So Langri Tangpa concludes this way. Remember, this practice was secret, as he had said in verse 7:

In short, I will learn to offer to everyone without exception

All help and happiness directly and indirectly

And secretly take upon myself

All the harms and sufferings of my mothers.

Why secret? There is nothing to hide, but if you suddenly tell people to take the suffering of all others, people may get afraid. That’s why you keep it a little secret. You only tell them when they are ready, not at the beginning. If you say in the beginning that you take all their sufferings, like pain and illness, in the form of this horrible thing and that horrible thing, they might think, “What the hell am I doing here? Why should I want to do this?” They may even be afraid of it. That’s why there is the advice to keep it a little secret and don’t talk very openly. It might not suit some people. In the Tibetan tradition however, when you give teachings you give them openly, otherwise how can it benefit? There may be some disadvantages, but there will be more advantages. So we ignore the disadvantages and try to keep in mind the advantages.

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Whatever practice you may do, you have to make sure they are not influenced by the eight worldly dharmas. A number of you have heard about them and a number of you might not have heard. Our usual things are mostly eight worldly dharmas. If we are praised by somebody we like it. If we are insulted or if somebody talks bad about you behind your back you dislike it. If somebody gives you respect you like it, if somebody puts you down you don’t like it. That’s the first four, then comes gain and loss. If you gain you are happy, if you lose you get upset. Here they tell you that if you gain that doesn’t necessarily have to be happy, if you lose don’t be so sad about it. Lastly, there is pleasure and pain and again it is the same thing.

In short, what do the eight worldly dharmas do? They are horrible and destroy all the good efforts we put in. Some little stain comes into our motivation, actions and thoughts and that spoils the whole thing. I tell you one interesting example. There was a great Kadampa lama called Geshe Ben. He was a thief and robber. He then had a piece of land and tried to become a farmer. He was a combination of farmer, thief and robber. He himself said, “I tried to feed one mouth by two hands, through carrying all kinds of weapons. During the day I grew food, during the night I went into the towns to steal people’s things. During other days I went to the mountain passages to rob travelers. Even then I couldn’t feed my one mouth with my two hands. Finally I gave up everything and went into retreat, practicing and doing nothing. Now the food cannot find my mouth. There is so much of it coming.” So people realized how great he had become and they all came and gave him food and offerings. He got tea, butter and the good old gur, very nice hard, pure brown sugar. He got different biscuits, breads, tsampa and barley, wheat, vegetables and fruit, too many to find their way into his mouth.

That means that when he was cherishing himself the yourself he picked up weapons and used every methods to get rich the easy way – by stealing and robbing and growing food and so on, still two hands cannot feed one mouth, but when you give up everything, food couldn’t find his mouth.

So by this time Geshe Ben had so many benefactors. Everybody in the villages in the Pembo area north of Lhasa across the mountains, became his benefactors. Some of them were paying whatever they could. One day one of his strongest benefactors announced that he was coming to visit him. So he thought, “I should make everything nice and make an offering to my altar too and it should be the best offering possible.” So he made big decorations and offered water with saffron and used the best incense, with beautiful smell and cleaned the whole place and then he sat down and waited for the benefactor to show up. He didn’t come right away, so Geshe Ben had some time to think and he thought, “what did I do?” And suddenly he realized, “Oh my God, I submitted myself to the eight worldly dharmas. I wanted to impress my benefactor and make it look so good and holy here. That is a big mistake.” Immediately he got up and went behind the door where he kept the dust he swept up and he picked up all that dust and started to throw it everywhere around the room, including the offerings on the altar and the place where he himself was sitting and on his mandala offering and everything.

Another geshe was at that moment in the south-western part of Tibet, near the Indian border in a place called Yardong – we call it Tromo. Suddenly, in the middle of the teaching he started laughing very hard. The things we was talking about didn’t call for this laughing. So one of his students later asked him, “Why did you laugh so much?” He answered, “Geshe Ben made such a beautiful, wonderful offering and I couldn’t help laughing.” “Why? Was it very elaborate?” “No, not that elaborate, but he got a handful of dust and threw it in the mouth of the eight worldly dharmas. That is the best offering.”

That is what is meant by not having any influence or thought or motivation of any one of the eight worldly dharmas. The moment you have the influence of the eight worldly dharmas, what you do may look wonderful and healthy and happy and well organized, however, it is nothing but feeding the eight worldly dharmas.

All phenomena are like illusions. Whatever we see we see as solid, permanent. In reality it is totally illusion – everything. Even in “The Matrix” they know it. But we don’t.

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It is all illusion. It is true, because it is interdependent. Nothing is solid or permanent. Whatever we see is necessary to know that it is illusion. We very strongly have that solidness of doing things right. “It has to be right”, “My way is the right way” and all those things are shattered into pieces the moment you know it is all illusion. That doesn’t mean you ignore everything. You do the best you can. But remember, it is illusion. Since it is in illusion nature you cannot accept it as it appears. It may appear to you. That is no problem. But the problem is accepting the appearing things as they appear. The great mahasiddha Naropa was advised by Tilopa

Nang wai mi ching zhen bai ching

Zhen pa tong shig Naropa

Appearance will not tie you,

But accepting appearance as it is will hold you.

So let that go, Naropa.

So let it appear, but don’t accept that appearance. And verse 8 of this root text again says:

and, by understanding all phenomena to be like illusions,

I will be released from the bondage of attachment.

The translation as “attachment” may or may not be right. It actually should say “acceptance”. This is the very strong importance essence of the teaching. It might be a little too hard for some people, but it is very important. I am happy that Anne as dharma coordinator, along with the sangha council executive have asked me to do this teaching. They gave me a couple of other options as well, but I accepted this one. I hope it has been helpful to you all. For some people it may be a little hard to chew, as I said in the beginning. But if there is a will there is a way. You can do it. I wish you all the best and thank you all, the members of Cleveland Jewel Heart, who have been working hard, constantly and continuously. This is for your own benefit and for that of the members of Jewel Heart here in Cleveland and everywhere else. We have a board member of Jewel Heart in Cleveland too. So I want to thank all of you. Anne has been working so hard for years, sharing her own knowledge. She has had great teachers, not only me – like Nechung Rinpoche. She has been in dharma since the 70s. We are very fortunate to have her here as the head of the dharma coordinator team and I hope everything will work all right.

The most important thing is to have your practice, to be who you are and what you are and cut down the evil within you, the self cherishing and try to build up cherishing of others. It is not going to happen overnight, I tell you. Nor is it going to happen within a day or two. It is process of month after month, year after year, decade after decade. The constant effort will give you results later. I am happy that we could contribute whatever we could. The mission is that you reach enlightenment by you, for you. We seek your cooperation to assist others.

Audience: Where did the translation “self cherishing” come from?

Rimpoche: Self cherishing, as far as I know, means self clinging. Language-wise, I don’t know. We did this translation with a group of people together.

Audience: How can I cherish those whose very life is devoted to self cherishing, who do the very opposite of what I am trying to do to make the world a better place to live?

Rimpoche: Very valid question. My thinking is: if that is what’s happening, the leaders of this opposition camp are especially subjects or objects of compassion. They especially need your help. Working with them and cherishing what is good for them is what you can do. You don’t have to support what they say is good for them. That is even more important. Whatever is good for them is even more needed than helping others. They become superior objects or subjects for your compassion. That is a true fact. Can we accept that? That is a big question. That’s where you need the training of mind.

Audience: The giving and taking according to verse 60 of the lama chöpa, does that have to be done three times?

Rimpoche: As we explained there are three different levels of doing the giving and taking and you can do that in three different readings of this verse, but you can do it actually as often as you like. It doesn’t have to be said three times exactly.

So now I would like to say: Thank you so much, everybody and good luck.

1:00 mandala offering, dedication verses

1:04 End of Teaching