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20050821GRCLMT6

Transcriber: Hartmut

00:00

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