Archive Result

Soundfile 20060321GRAAliving tradition

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Living Tradition

Section Transcriber Team - Combined Transcript

Date: Mon, April 3, 06

Lineage 1 Janet

Welcome today in the evening and the subject tonight is the living tradition. This sounds a little interesting for you people - if you’re not so much familiar with this. What does the living tradition mean? If you recall what we’ve been talking the last couple of Tuesdays, we began with recognizing that the spiritual path is necessary for us, and then secondly we said, if its necessary how does one get into it? And thirdly, we discussed that learning becomes very important and if that is so, from whom and how do we learn? We also talked about guru devotion And in the guru aspects we talked in quite some detail about the criteria that a guru should have. What is the guru all about it? What does the guru have to do with me? I am just minding my own business in downtown Ann Arbor looking for some kind of better way of life.

There is a spiritual way of life. What do I do? How does that concern me? And why do I listen to a particular person as a guru? And how do I know whether this person is fit to be my guru or not. It is almost like you have to perform an operation of the guru and see the quality and disadvantages and all of them. After performing such an "anatomy of guru", then you have to see what is he or she teaching. At that point the question of the living tradition comes in. There is not only the qualification of the person who is teaching. There is the difference between the material and the spiritual. Maintaining every day information is necessary. Information is power. We all agree on that. But you can get information in two different ways.

One, there is information in the sense of learning, as knowledge. Another one is information as spiritual development. That is information as quality, information as improvement of the individual, information as uplifting of the individual. Especially the living tradition has a lot to do with that. To those of you who are not so much familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, this might not seem to be so important. But where I come from, the living tradition is absolutely important. The living tradition makes the path or the practice, the prayers and mantra we say, the meditations we do to become improvements of the individual - all that we do through both analytical and concentrated meditation combined together.

The life force behind all of those is the living tradition. If you don’t have that, you have no life in your practice. Period. When you don’t have life in your practice, then it is just dry, academic information. And that is the difference which is not so much emphasized in Tibet and the Tibetan tradition itself, because it is taken for granted. Nobody doubts itand it is sort of obvious to every Tibetan, whether you’re educated or uneducated, or whether you’re devoted or not devoted, whatever. If you’re interested and a practitioner, that’s sort of commonly taking for granted.

Tibetans use a metaphor, saying if you want to drink pure, wonderful water that has eight qualities you have to make sure that water comes from a pure source. The best source of the water in Tibet is from the glaciers of the snow mountains. That has no pollution. You don’t have to refine it or do anything. You don’t have to put it through machines, shake it again and pump it out again. You don’t have to because it’s already pure. It is pure water. The pure snow that has been held up there for over a thousand years up there is coming out and that is pure.

There is no question of pollution. Some areas don't have pure water. It’s just coming out of a little pond here and there. It’s not considered drinkable. To be pure water, it has to come all the way through the snow mountains. It has to be traceable. Likewise on the spiritual path we also need the living unbroken lineage, up to Buddha. That is something we don’t talk about in America. People keep asking me, "What is this lineage talk all about?" And some people make a big deal talking about lineage holders. I don’t make a big deal about it, but I saw somewhere in our Tara transcript or somewhere that I am a lineage holder.

Everybody is a lineage holder if you have a lineage. The lineage comes to you through the unbroken lineage. And that is important. Unbroken lineage here means a living human being learned that from another living human being. You and that living human being both have been doing the same practice and have felt the benefit and have developments. And that’s called living. If there’s no continuation of that it becomes very difficult. It becomes mere know how. It becomes just knowledge. And then it is like an operating manual or something. An operation manual tells you to put this bolt here, put that bolt there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. These operating manuals used to work better. Now they don't even work anyway. An operating manual has no personal connection.

It is funny, but sometimes you may have better organized information in the operating manual than what you get in the living tradition. But the other one doesn’t have any force at all, and the lineage teaching has force. And especially it is working with our mind and mental development. And it just cannot be an external thing because external things may not make that much difference to internal things. This is very true, although both external and internal are conditioned and they are dependent on each other. They are dependent arising.

end of lineage 1 Janet

lineage 2 Janet

Are you wondering what that means? Dependent arising here means every phenomenon, whether it is living or not, moveable or immoveable, animate or inanimate, only exists because terms and conditions are right. Our existence depends on the terms and conditions that’s why we exist. We do not exist independently. We do not exist inherently. Dependant arising means causes and conditions, cause and result, terms and conditions, parts and parcels, including all the different subatomic particles. It includes everything, whatever we have within ourselves. So from that level, when you’re looking, external, internal, will contribute to terms and conditions.

However, it is important to have causes to get results. External things become causes for internal things too, not only the other way round.

So we are talking about the internal causal development, the spiritual development. Achievement may or may not be the right word. There are layers of achievement, and from that angle when you look at it, it’s right. But if you look from the angle of "I achieved this", then that looks like one single thing and in the spiritual path, that is not the case.

It is constant, continuous improvement and uplifting oneself, day after day, hour after hour, week after week, month after month, year after year, and if you want, life after life. That sounds far away. So that is some kind of constant improvement within the individual. The force of the lineage is there to make it work better.

Well, today is the first day of spring. Spring is coming. It’s here! Think of the flowers coming. In order to make the flower bloom better, the force you put behind is called "Miracle Grow". This is something that really goes through, it works in the soil and in the root of the plant and it pushes and energizes the plant. I don’t know whether it damages the plant in the long term or not. I have no idea. But it makes it bloom faster and more bright and more colorful and bigger and nicer. And just like that, the lineage acts to develop the individual person. The continuation of the lineage works like Miracle Grow within the individual. That’s why I said, when you don’t have that, there is no force behind. When there’s force behind, then it works.

Interestingly, last Friday I was asked to speak at the Om Yoga center in New York City. Om Yoga is founded and run by Cindy Lee, who happens to be in Jewel Heart for a long time. So she asked me to come and talk at Om Yoga. I have not been there for a couple of years. Now I go to very often, almost every week, to New York to teach in Jewel Heart on Thursday. So this time I went to talk at Om Yoga. It’s beautiful. Really wonderful. A lot of young people came, almost sixty percent were young people. And they usually do yoga. There must have been hundred and fifty-eight people that night in Om Yoga. It was fully packed. I talked about OM as a spiritual path. I did not talk the lineage part. I just talked about OM. I hope the talk was recorded. It’s not recorded? That’s rather unfortunate. It was a very nice talk. So anyway, the Cindy knows that Om Yoga needs spiritual force behind and that’s why she asked me to come.

A number of spiritual teachers come and give talks there. But that’s not the point. The point what she wanted was to ask me to give teachings on OM. The reason is because the practice is OM. It’s a yoga practice. I know nothing about it--Hindu tradition. But at least I know there are eight different yogas. All kinds of yogas are included. Hatha yoga and so forth. But the eighth yoga is jnana yoga. Jnana means wisdom. And that is the force behind all the yogas, especially the wisdom of knowing the reality. The Hindus and Buddhists may differ on that point. They have different philosophical viewpoints about whether the Atman exists or doesn’t exist. But that’s not the point. The point is that also for them, the eighth yoga is the jnana yoga and jnana is wisdom. It is the wisdom that overcomes the darkness of ignorance. And that is the wisdom which brings the spiritual resultto the people. And people over here today we will see a lot of things. Particularly we are seeing yoga as some kind of just a single exercise. Yoga, chi gong and all kinds of martial arts. All of them are part of Eastern religions. And it is part and parcel of it. Hatha yoga is one of those eight yogas. And all of them are coming out of the eighth yoga. That is the jnana of wisdom. And every day, everywhere, everything has a force behind. And the jnana force behind is the continuation of the living tradition even if you look into this martial art you can see it. Very often you see this Jackie Chan or earlier, Bruce Lee jumping and bumping. There you can even trace it. And most of them have very authentic sources. The martial arts can all be traced to the Shao-lin monastery. One of the Bruce Lee movies even shows the most important yoga. Yoga is a Sanskrit word and kung fu and chi gong are Chinese words.

end of lineage 2 janet

Colleen's section 3

But they are all the translation of yoga. The original Sanskrit word yoga was translated into those different Chinese words. The Tibetans call them nal jors and the yogis and yoginis are known as nal jor pas and nal jor mas.

In Chinese it has become chi gong as well as kung fu. All of them are actually yogas. And the ultimate yoga is jnana yoga, and that is the wisdom. So in one of those Bruce Lee movie, the most important teacher in Shao Ling monastery is a very, very old fellow, sitting over there and beating a little stick on the fish, going ‘conk, conk, conk, conk’. He is reciting the Heart Sutra and Bruce Lee walks in and says he wants to learn kung fu and suddenly this old guy just opens his eyes and Bruce Lee is thrown across the room. That’s just by opening his eyes, no other physical movements. Bruce Lee is thrown against the wall. So the ultimate joga is the jnana yoga or wisdom..

The force behind that is the continuation of the lineage. And that is a living tradition. And that’s the reason why masters of the lineage are considered much more important than the teachers and professors in school. That’s the simple reason. The force behind the guru devotional practice is also the lineage. Lineage here is the continuation of living tradition. It means that one teacher, one master, practices that and teaches others this practice on the basis of his or her own practice.

The practice has to have two qualities, quality of learning and quality of practice. If you don’t have the learning and the knowledge aspect of it, it will be like one eyed. If you simply have practice, practice, practice, but no knowledge, it is one eyed. If you only have learning, learning, learning, but no practice, it is also one eyed. This is what’s happening. To fit into the good human definition, you must have two eyes, unless you are like Arya Deva, like Professor Thurman, then it is different. That is an exception. Good, but only one eye. We used to call him the one eyed wizard from Woodstock. So anyway, so you have to have two eyes. You have to have good information and practice And the two must come together, otherwise you have a meditation practice that goes, "Oh, I’m meditating, meditating" and you become a holy-looking person, and you behave like you are holy, but when it comes to functioning like a holy person, there is virtually nothing. And that doesn’t do any good. And if you are just learned, learned, learned, learned, and talk, talk, talk, you are no better than a parrot. who has no practice. So both are disadvantages.

The continuation of the lineage balances that. What makes one qualified to be a good master is the practice plus the information. If you have limited information and good practice you become a mediocre master. With excellent information and excellent practice you become an excellent master. No practice and a lot of information is not even mediocre, it is the lowest possible quality of a master. Such a person can be a master because he or she can talk and teach about something, but that’s not going to affect the individual very much. Information comes across, yes, but not really affecting the individual person.

And that is the advantage of the continuation of the lineage, the living tradition. From Buddha onwards until my late masters, we can trace each and every one of those teachings. We know who had practiced this, who taught, who learned, what did they learn from, how did that person practice, what internal development did they gain.

We can’t say much about what they gained because they all used to hide their qualities. . One great quality of a great master is to hide all your qualities, like a light in a vase. You don’t exhibit your quality, you don’t say, "I’m this, I’m that". If you do say so it becomes questionable. That is where I come from. In this country, if you don’t say, " I’m this, I’m that", you are nobody. And that is the culture difference. I think, for me, where I come from it’s counter-culture. It is like wearing your hat the other way around.

That night at the OM Yoga place, at the end they gave me an OM hat, sort of a cap with an OM on it, and I did wear it, and then I turned it around, tried to make it counter-culture. Really true, because if you have good qualities you don’t announce them, you don’t make noise. If you have lesser quality you make a lot of noise. There is a traditional Tibetan example for that. The little sparrows, if they get seven grains of rice or barleyin their stomach they will make a lot of noise ‘cheep, cheep, cheep’ everywhere and jumping up and down. But the big eagles, no matter how much they swallow they still won’t make a noise. Another example is about the grains themselves. Which is the better grain? Some stalks don't carry a lot of wheat but they stand very tall and straight. The stalks with a lot of wheat will bend down. Another example: Where does the grass begin to get green first, on the high mountain peaks, or on the lower plateau? And which green lasts longer, the greens on the mountain peaks, or on the plateau? It’s always the plateau because it can take it, it can digest it.

And that’s why I say it’s counter-culture in the United States Here you have to announce everything, say something. So every lama has to be a high lama and every teacher is very learned. And those who are not a lama, and who are not learned, they may make even more noise. And some of them even become living incarnate lamas, they transform, you know. [laughs]. That is the culture here. That’s why it’s extremely difficult to judge people who are really highly developed. And on top of that, traditionally some of the highly realized masters behave like crazy. Somehow we manage to call them crazy wisdom masters. I mean actually they themselves would like to call themselves crazy. Period. But we would like to call them "crazy wisdom" to make excuses for ourselves. We do that very often. And some of them are true crazy wisdom, sure, but these are very, very rare cases. So mostly, people who are proclaiming to be this and that are not necessarily correct.

nd of Colleen's section 3

Kathy's section 4

20060321GRAALineage4

If one does have the quality, the other people will proclaim - you don’t proclaim, the other people will proclaim. We have a saying in Tibetan, “If the gold is hidden under the ground, the light will be shining in the sky.” I don’t know how, but that is covered all over, but somehow there may be some kind of rays – something that goes through, otherwise how do the metal detectors know underneath the ground there is some metal? There must be some kind of forces. So this good old Tibetan Buddhist teaching seems to be saying that if you have the quality like gold hidden - hidden within you, the sign of the development of the individual will shine in the air and the people will acknowledge, not you proclaim. So that is true.

So that’s why it is very hard. Almost all this lineage teachers that I have ever read about, all of those - really thousands of them - none of them says, "I am a developed person", not a single one - with the exception of the Buddha. He says “I’m Buddha. I became Buddha”, and that’s that. That’s that. There after nobody said “I’m this”, “I’m that”. But on the other hand, we have a lot of a continuation of fraud - that’s nothing new in America. Even in old Tibet, you know for a thousand years in Tibet and two thousand years in India and Tibet, there were an equal number of frauds altogether. The frauds all say “I am this, I am that”

So anyway, the living tradition does not only mean that the teaching remains and continues, from one person to another, but also the practice that goes with that. So for the things what we learn, the things that we practice, we have a responsibility. That responsibility is to keep this living tradition alive. Not only do you have to keep the practice alive for your own sake, but also for the sake of future generations. If we don’t, then the lineage is discontinued. When it is discontinued, then it’s discontinued! Nothing can be done to make it come alive again. So the continuation is very important. All of us, but especially those of us who spent years in this practice have a special challenge, a special responsibility for the future generations.

Not only that. In the scientific-material world we discover something and that is something better that was not known before. Over here, it is slightly different. I don’t think we can be better than Buddha. I don’t think we can be better than Jesus. I don’t think we can be better than those great founders of great traditions. I don’t think so. If there is a possibility that we can be better than Buddha-- I feel comfortable talking with the Buddha because as far as I know, its where I come from. So if we are capable of becoming better than Buddha – we can develop and be capable, and become better than the Buddha, what would that mean? It would mean that Buddha did not have the complete development - because we can be better. And with that by definition, Buddha would not be Buddha. This is because to become buddha is the ultimate development what a human being can achieve. So if we can become better than that means that the one before didn’t really get the best. So thinking on those lines, I think they are two different things. Scientifically, we develop. We develop better and clearer and have more convenience in our life. Spiritually, if we can catch up to that level we are doing great. I don’t think we can be better. Convenient, possible. Clarity, possible. If it’s too clear, it doesn’t make sense anymore. It becomes useless sometimes. Sometimes, it becomes very childish. If that happens, we are doing a disservice.

Clarity is important. Communicating clearly and clearly understanding is important because that’s what we need. However, we need to know better than what we’ve been communicated. We need the internal experience and better understanding - the ultimate understanding is internal understanding and that is internal development. I don’t think we can make improvement on that at all.

In order to keep the lineage alive we need not only unbroken continuation of the lineage but purity. Because in the lineage, sometimes, something else can come in. . For example, the Tibetan earlier masters have spent tremendous amounts of time to avoid some different teachings coming in. Buddhism is not the first religion in Tibet – there is a pre-Buddhist religion called Bon. That is close to shamanism and there is a lot of mystical, mystery shamanism here and there. When Buddhism first came in they all got mixed up completely. Plus, from India we also got a number of different teachers who were sharing black magic and other not so positive spiritual paths too. So the earlier teachers really had to spend tremendous amount of energy in order to make it pure. Purity is extremely important, because purity is quality.

And that purity is essential. It is not like food. You can survive by eating foods of lesser quality. You may get sick after a long time, but temporarily you can survive. It’s okay or not okay but it’s okay. But, on the spiritual path, if you have impurity mixed in, then it becomes very difficult. It takes time. Then it takes more time for purification than for development. That’s why, earlier Tibetan teachers have put tremendous effort - many of them their total life in order to make pure whatever was impure.

Some practices outside of Buddhism on the other hands have also be found to be extremely helpful. So then these were included. When they were included they made it into a Buddhistic type of practice. So they changed the motivations, they changed things slightly. They kept the ritual as it was but the motivation was changed and slightly modified. And so today, even our Tibetan Bon tradition which is supposed to be pre-Buddhist, now calls themselves Bon Tibetan Buddhism. It is Bon Buddhism. That sounded a little funny to me at the beginning. But when you think of it, it is true. Tremendous change took place and it has become sort of quite good.. And that’s why the living tradition can't just be a living tradition but has to be a pure living tradition.

end of Kathy's section 4

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Soundfile 20060321GRAAlineage5

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Lineage

Section 5

Transcriber Janet Bourgon

Date April 18, 2006

Pure is necessary. Impure thing is like, you know, fifty percent of these, and twenty percent of that, and eighty percent of these and you can wear it, you can wear polyester clothes, but it’s not a pure one-hundred percent cotton. That’s not one-hundred percent silk. That’s not one-hundred percent wool. It is polyester. So the living tradition also has to make sure it’s not polyester. And I don’t want to go more than that. But all of you are intelligent, educated, intelligent, so if I mention half, you read the other half.

Why pure? Because pure works better. Pure functions better. Pure purifies better. Pure develops better. And if there is a mixture of that much effort, individual will have to take it. You can have a nice Zingerman bread, or you can have cheap bread. So they both are bread, but one is Wonder bread and one is Zingerman bread, so that is the pure and impure makes a difference. One is margarine and the other is butter. O.K? But some people may like margarine better than butter because it is less saturated fat. I think that much I have to say about the living tradition and next Tuesday is what? 28th, so I’ll be here.

So any other questions? Anybody? Oh, I did not give you anything to take home. You not only need a spiritual path, you need a spiritual path that is perfect and works for you. That also must be a good living tradition. At least where I come from, that’s very important. Some teachers may not have a living tradition at all. So I don’t mean don’t follow those, but you make your own choice. You want a living tradition that is also a pure. And this is important because we are traveling through uncharted territory. And if you’re not careful, if you make mistakes on the first then you’re bound to make mistake continuously on the second and third and fourth and fifth and even one-hundredth time and thousandth times. So right from the beginning, this is the funny old Buddhist tear. If you made mistake on the first, then you will continuously make mistake till the moon started waxing. So first through fifteen. I don’t know why. It’s Indian culture, or I don’t know why. But that’s that. So because I just slipped out of my mouth because it doesn’t really make sense in the western culture. Or maybe it does. Maybe I don’t know. My knowledge of western culture is very limited. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, maybe it does make sense. Whatever. Anyway, so it is, has to be very careful with this. And the way and how one has to be make careful, really, I went through with you. Performing anatomy with the guru and practice and living tradition. And these are the materials that you use to exam. To make your choice. This is how we build our spiritual path. So that’s what you’re going to take home.

Any questions? Yes.

(Audience) Rimpoche, on Sunday you said that

(Rimpoche) On Sunday? Today’s Tuesday.

(Audience) Well you mentioned though that the four qualities of the guru, that they would have wisdom and compassion, and one of the ones you mentioned was concentration, or developed meditation,

(Rimpoche) Three basket teachings Buddha’s three basket teachings. That’s three. Plus wisdom. Plus compassion. Five.

(Audience) But how do you tell if someone else has concentration? How can you judge that?

(Rimpoche) Concentration is not the only.

(Audience) No, I know that.

(Rimpoche) Well, you can look it, and you know. Honestly, you know. Well, on the other hand, you can’t say absent minded professor doesn’t have concentration. You can’t say that. Perhaps have too much concentration. But unable to balance. That’s possible. Lacking wisdom, then. I don’t think there’s any problem for that. Honestly, those qualities, what I said before, there’s no problem for whatsoever.

(Audience) Being able to tell if someone else has those qualities, you say, it’s easy

(Rimpoche) Why you can never tell or not it is depends on the judgment of the individuals as well as what people say, what people talk about it, and all of those will contribute and they are the constant terms and conditions that you count in there. That will come in. But just by looking at alone, can or cannot, I don’t know. Some people will jump all the time, jump all the time, that doesn’t mean the person doesn’t have good concentration. Maybe has better concentration than those who are not jumping. But thank you for the question. I thought you going to take me into task by asking last Sunday. She is next. Thank you.

(Audience) If you don’t have these qualities yourself, how are you supposed to be able to recognize them in a possible teacher?

(Rimpoche) If you don’t have these

(Audience) If you don’t have these qualities yourself already, how can you be expected to recognize them in somebody who may become your teacher?

(Rimpoche) Oh, that’s true. That’s true. Even the qualities, in order to recognize quality with somebody else, I don’t think you, one has to have all the qualities.

Soundfile 20060321GRAALiving tradition6

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Lineage

Section 6

Transcriber Beth Locke

Date 4-10-06

Pure is necessary. Impure is like 50 % of this and 20 % of that and 80% of this. You can wear it, you can wear polyester clothes but that’s not pure 100% cotton. That’s not 100% silk. That’s not 100% wool. It’s polyester. So the living tradition also has to make sure that it’s not polyester. I don’t want to go into it more than that but all of you are intelligent and educated so if I mention half you read the other half into it. So why pure? Because pure works better. Pure functions better. Pure purifies better. Pure develops better. If there is a mixture, then there’s that much effort that the individual will have to take. You can have nice Zingerman’s bread or you can have Wonder bread. That is the pure and the impure that makes a difference. One is margarine and the other is butter. O.K? Some people may like margarine better because it has less saturated fat.

So that’s what I have to say about the living tradition.

So what do you want to take out of this? You not only need a spiritual path, but you need a spiritual path that is perfect and will work for you. That spiritual path that is perfect and will work for you must be a good living tradition. I mean at least where I come from. Some teachings may not have a living tradition at all so I don’t mean you shouldn't follow those teachings. You make your own choice. A living tradition should also be pure. This is important! Because we are traveling through uncharted territory and if you’re not careful and you make a mistake on the first point then you are bound to make mistakes continuously, on the second, third, fourth and fifth and even 100th time and 1000th time.

This is funny old Buddhist tale. If you make a mistake on the first then you will continuously make mistakes until the moon starts waxing. So that means the first through fifteenth day of the lunar calendar. I don’t know why. Is it the Indian culture? I don’t know why but that’s that. It just slipped out of my mouth because that probably doesn’t make sense in the western culture or maybe it does? My knowledge of western culture is very limited. Maybe it doesn’t make sense maybe it does make sense, whatever. So we have to be very careful with this. The way and how one has to be careful I already went through with you. We talked about performing anatomy on the Guru and the practice and living tradition. These are the materials that you use to examine, to make your choice. This how we build our spiritual path. So that’s what you’re going to take with you.

Any questions?

Audience: Rinpoche on Sunday you mentioned the 4 qualities of the Guru, that they would have wisdom and compassion, and one of the ones you mentioned was concentration or developed meditation.

Rinpoche: Three basket teachings! Buddha’s three basket teachings. That’s three. Plus wisdom plus compassion. That’s five.

Audience: Yes. But how do you tell if someone else has concentration or not? How can you judge that?

Rinpoche: Concentration is not the only thing-

Audience: No I know that, yea.

Rinpoche: Well, you can look at them and you’ll know, honestly you know. On the other hand you can’t say the absent-minded professors don’t have concentration. You can’t say that. Perhaps they have too much concentration, but are unable to balance. That’s possible. Then, lacking wisdom, I don’t think there’s any problem for that, honestly. Of those four qualities that I spoke of, there’s no problem whatsoever.

Audience: Being able to tell if someone else has those qualities you’re saying?

Rinpoche: Whether you’ll be able to tell or not depends on the judgment of the individuals as well as what people say, what people talk about and all of that will contribute. Those are the terms and conditions you count in there. But just by looking alone can you tell? I don’t know. Some people will jump all the time but that doesn’t mean the person doesn’t have concentration. Maybe they have better concentration then those who are not jumping.

Audience: If you don’t have these qualities yourself how are you supposed to be able to recognize them?

Rinpoche: That’s true. In order to recognize qualities in somebody else I don’t think you have to have these qualities yourself.

Soundfile 20060324GRAAlineage5

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor I think

Topic General

Section not sure

Transcriber Steve Kelly

Date 4/23/2006

There is also an interesting story which I may have shared a couple of times but that I may like to share here. Some people, you know have a mind that is so powerful, even if you are physically completely ready to go, ah, physically there is almost nothing there to live but if you have a mind to keep living, you hang on you, don’t die, you know, you hang on.

In the 17th century, maybe not maybe 18th century in the under area, there was a great master called Kudongonbear(?) at the time of the Kudongonbear(?) there was an old monk who was really all ready to go, anyway he was not going at all, not only not going, no matter how sick he may be but he comes to the gatherings, prayer meetings, not to say prayers but to collect the butter tea.

You know what he does is he likes the butter tea by becoming more senior, he gets mores butter and tea than anyone else because he was very senior because you know they don’t shake very well the butter so the first one gets a lot of butter.

And so what does he do, he brings it back and collects them back home and makes little butter balls. He loves that he enjoys that. He is so sick he has to get two or three people to carry him, there is no wheelchair right, so literally everyday people carry him and he goes there and he wears a little pot on his neck and collects the tea.(Rimpoche laughs)

And then somebody told Kudongonbear(?), the famous teacher, you have to help him, you have to do something, So Kudongonbear(?) though I will go see him. So Kudongonbear(?) was a very famous teacher and the monk was told that Kudongonbear(?) wants to see you. The old monk says Oh how can I go to see him and they said no he is coming to see you.

To see me and he was a little surprised and excited and Kudongonbear(?) came to see him and said how are you doing Blah blah blah. And the old monk said not very well but I can still go and collect this butter tea from the meeting.

Kudongonbear(?) said you know what I heard? Tushita Pure Land has a tremendous amount of butter tea and their butter is much better than ours. He said are you really sure? And Kudongonbear(?) said yes yes yes definitely that is what I heard. So he would not have bought it if anybody said it but it was said by Kudongonbear(?), such a famous person, spiritually famous, and known as Manjushri, the wisdom of the Buddhas, Kudongonbear(?) means “Wisdom of the Buddhas”.

And so the old monk thought about it and then three days later he was dead. And so he went to Tushita Land to collect more butter.(crowd laughs)

So the mind is so powerful, so the mind will help your or your mind will harm you. Don’t let your mind control by our negative emotions, let our minds be influenced by our positive emotions and enjoy life, enjoy life.

With the spiritual benefits and material benefits we have both at our disposal at this moment, especially those of you who are here who are in this room, you have both. So do not waste opportunity, enjoy life, both material as well as spiritual both - together. Don’t try to be overly anything saying materialism is no good, I just want to be spiritual which means I have to take a vow of poverty. No you don’t. You don’t. Enjoy your material life, enjoy your spiritual life.

And um have a good Spring, enjoy your Spring and Jewel Heart will continue.

(Rimpoche then discusses travel commitments etc.)

Take advantage of the spiritual information that you have, build your life. You are very fortunate. You have great Karma to be an American believe me. To be American is a great thing, if you take advantage. If you take disadvantage out of it then you become like George Bush - big lie. And that is how you combine your material and spiritual life together. Do not go to the extreme of anything. Enjoy together. Okay? And thank you.

(Rimpoche discusses more Jewel Heart business, trips, etc.)

I would like to introduce a discussion in Jewel Heart. It is an individual discussion, not a big group discussion. It is based on the idea on the old monastery where you have a debate of the Buddhist spiritual paths subjects.

And your personal doubts questions, anything, you can bring it in. There will be no supervisors, no format. And everybody thinks I am crazy to put this in. No format not supervisor only a time limit. And you may just walk in and find some corner and talk and raise questions and answer and all that.

Just about any questions but I do not want you to talk about whether who is going to run for office. Not for that. Just, any spiritual path, your practice, any questions that you have. Somebody may be better able to answer better than any other. You know the group should not be more than five and um.... less than two. (Rimpoche and audience laughs).

Should not more than five and then you know if it becomes too big a group, nobody would like to say anything. So that is why, you know maybe two, three, four, or five at the maximum. So just have a discussion and a question and when the time is over - go home.

Yeah, Yeah that is how I was taught. When I would go into the debate for learning and they would let me through the door and then you would have classes. Here this is beginning.

In Tibet you would have 15 different classes. So you go in your class. The class means a group of people would sit on one side and a group on the other, its an open air sitting. And you would start asking questions and debating and arguing and all that you do. The idea is to clear your doubts. To clear your doubts, so you get answers. So, one debate is not going to clear your doubts. Two debates two discussions is not going to clear your doubts. But it is going to build you up and build up so you have a perfect spiritual path. That is really perfect, so you can manage by yourself. So this is what I am looking for. So everyone thought I am crazy, no format, no supervisor. What will they do?. Just come in and talk. So that is alright. When you go to the restaurant, those big restaurant, they will seat you down, you will sit, some of you can come in and sit down and say how are you. You start that way right?.

So similarly here you do the same way. The first day is going to be very funny, (audience laughs) it doesn’t matter. The second day will be better and the third day will be much better. And hopefully that way we can build up so you can have that weekly activity, you may not have all the people here, I don’t know how many people are here 50? 60? 70? Whatever. Everybody may or may not come in fine, you know. If you have enough people there and that is how you will build you up for your own spiritual path. Any doubt that you have, that is not clear to you, you ask somebody else to clarify. They may say, I don’t know either, I was going to ask you the same question, okay then get another person. Just don’t stick to it, try to move around.

Okay so thank you and by the time when I come back I hope that this have some good service for you and I hope that you can do it better. Somehow you know when I suggested that no supervisor, no format and then they thought “wow what is this going to be”? (Rimpoche laughs)

It is not teenager kids playing in dirt, you really don’t have to supervise anything. So what, you know. (Rimpoche laughs) It is grown-up people. So, okay.

© 2006, Ngawang Gehlek 20060321GRAA Page 10 of 13