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66

20050821GRCLMT5

Hartmut

00:00

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: 57.55