Archive Result

Soundfile      20060606GRAABuddha

Speaker         Gehlek Rimpoche

Location        Ann Arbor

Topic             4 Noble Truths

Section          1

Transcriber  Colleen Retherford 06.12.06

 

 

Good evening, and welcome everybody.  Tonight, I believe the date is what, 666?  But the subject what we have is just opposite of that, and what we have is what Buddha discovered.  It is an interesting date, and on that date we have a very good anti-devil (ha ha ha), talking about Buddha.  Before we talk about Buddha, you know, I just wanted to remember something that we always quote from Pabongka’s Lam Rim teaching. I think it was the 10th day.

 

In lam rim teachings we always use this quotation from Pabongkha's Liberation in the Palms of your Hands. Let me paraphrase it:

It is the essence of the teachings of Buddha and his disciples. It is not merely manufactured by some clever person. And it is the accepted by the forerunners of Buddhist saints and scholars and masters.  It is not something a clever or stupid person cooked up with some kind of funny stories. It is also the experience of great sages and scholars and it is not just a mirage of some crazy people half asleep.  It is also the practice that leads to the ultimate development of spiritual path, not one that leads the individual to some wrong path, and horrible, miserable, suffering. 

So tonight the subject is what Buddha discovered.  Tonight I’m talking just like a Buddhist, because I come from that angle.  So when you talk about Buddha and Buddha’s discovery, it is slightly different than what we normally think within the Western culture when we talk about the spiritual path.  When we talk about spiritual path in the Western understanding it can be so many things.

 

But in the Buddhist culture, from the Buddhist point of view, when we’re talking about Buddha, it is very different than what we normally think about it.  The difference is this:  when we think about Buddha we don’t think about Buddha as someone who is superior and somebody who is already, you know, somebody from higher up came down to guide us, to help us, no, not in that way.  We think about Buddha as just normal human being.  I would love to say ordinary, but it might not be right because he happens to be a prince, so we can’t say that the Prince of Wales is an ordinary person.  That would make the prince very angry.

 

So he was born as a prince, but otherwise just like us, who are having tremendous suffering, pain, and mental, physical, emotional problems.  We are talking 2600 years ago. We’re talking ancient India.  And the culture and society at that time in India is totally different than what we see here in the West or even in India today.  It is totally different.  There were a lot of principalities and a lot of them were fighting among themselves.  And one of those kingdoms tried to be the superior power over as many kingdoms as possible.  That was the goal at that time.

 

So the word raja in India means king.  The raja is big issue at that time, actually even on the spiritual path.  They will address great spiritual masters also as maharaja. For example, Ram Dass’ teacher, he and everybody else, would address him as Guru Maharaji. Guru Maharaja is ‘big king’, so in the vocabulary in Indian language, king is considered extremely important, also looking in the spiritual path as well.  So Guru Maharaji is not a king, but is a maharaja, a big king of the spiritual realm.  So in that culture, in that way, maharajas are considered extremely important and powerful.

 

At that time in India the principalities were considered more important and people respected that. In earlier times before that, people respected the Brahmins and considered them more important and higher.  Sometimes people respect the untouchables as more important and all this.  The time changes in the culture.  So two thousand six hundred years ago it was a time when the principalities were very important.

 

So Buddha was born as prince.  So the whole kingdom was totally focused to get some kind of wonderful prince who would be able to overpower all other principalities and become what was called a chakravartin raja, which means ‘king that controls all kings’.  So when in the Indian culture they talk about the king of kings, the god of gods and so on that is where it comes from.  So they were all praying for a prince who would become a universal king.

 

In those days they had ‘soothsayers.’ They are like psychics and they would give you prophesies.  So the whole kingdom turned to all the soothsayers and asking them, "We’re going to have a child from our king, and A) it must be a son B) it must be a king of kings. So what is going to happen?  Every soothsayer seemed to say, "This is going to be an extraordinary king of kings, no doubt.  But there’s one problem.  The problem is you may or not be able to maintain the boy within the principality".

 

Everybody started thinking about why wouldn't that prince stay in the principality?  They thought, "Well, if he sees some miserable things that may make him run away.  So let us not have that."  So they built a new palace for him. You know, when the Indians build a palace, they know how to build it. It is not a joke.  It’s not like the castles we see in Europe, or anywhere, it’s not.  Look at the Taj Mahal.  That will show you how Indians really build.  So they really built tremendous palaces.

 

I used to live in Delhi and there is the Red Fort and that is an Indian palace.  Today, it is an empty space and people can walk around But if you walk in some areas you will see that in some upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms there is running water.  Literally, running water, running water running through.  It’s not pumped up water, it is literally running water running through the rooms.  They have swimming pools too.

 

So they built a very special palace for the young prince, where there was music twenty-four hours a day, lights being lit twenty-four hours.  Only young, beautiful and handsome people were allowed.  Anyone who got sick had to get out of there except the royal family members.  Everybody else, and then the royal family, especially the little prince, was not to leave certain areas.  They declared out of bound areas.  Inside everything was beautiful, the best ever possible.  And outside he couldn't go.

 

So they built him this restricted, artificial life in there.  And also they told him, “You are the prince”, almost like we have saying, “You are the chosen one.”  Almost like that, they used to tell him. "You are going to be the king of king,” and blah, blah, blah and “You are the protector of all the subjects” and so on.  I’m sure they’re pumping up his head all the time. 

 

So eventually that little prince was no longer little. They kept it that way for two decades. So he was wondering, “What is beyond those walls that I cannot go?  Beyond those doors and beyond this wall, what is out there?”  It is interesting. It always reminds me of the late Allen Ginsberg.  Allen always talked about when he was a kid – he even wrote a poem about it – when he was a kid, he was always wondering what is beyond that tree in his house in New Jersey? He couldn't go out that far. Then, when he was ten he was finally able to walk out beyond that tree and he found a glue factory behind the tree, a glue factory.  Very similar to this, it’s very funny.  So that little prince was wondering always, “What is behind those palace walls?”

 

One day he sat himself on the chariot and told the driver of the chariot, “Drive, now, out of that door!”  And the driver turned back and said, “This is out of bounds for you.” He said, “Who is the king, you or me?”  So he said, “Yes sir!”  So they crossed that boundary and he was wondering what was out there.

 

So what he encountered first was not a glue factory, but very similar.  What he encountered was suffering.  Suffering.  I won't go in detail, you know, how they went east and west and north and all that. But anyway, first he encountered somebody who was sick with pain.  He had no idea what the hell that was.  He asked the chariot driver, “What is this, what’s happening here?”  He said, “The guy, the person’s having pain.”  “Why, what is pain, why?”  So then the driver explained, "this is pain, this is called illnesses" and this and that.  And the boy was very disappointed when they got back into the palace.

 

Another time he made the driver go in another direction and found a dead body, where they were cremating people.  He said, "What is this?" and the driver said, "We call it death", and this and that.  And then he found an old aged person and he had no idea what is this.  And he said, "Is this a human being or what is it?" and he learned about old age and this and that.

 

So every time when he encountered suffering he had three questions.  Question one:  “Will I be subject to this?”  Question two is, “What about my family?  The royal family, are they immune or will they be subject?”  The third question was, "All the subjects of mine which I’m supposed to protect and help, where are they and will they go through this?"  So the driver turned around and kneeled down.  "King of kings, god of gods, yes, you are.  You are going to be subject to this.  Your parents are not immune; even though they are the royal family.  And these are your subjects that you are supposed to be protecting."

 

So the finally, on their fourth trip, he saw a peaceful meditator, sitting there, meditating.  He said, “What is that?”  "That is called meditating."  "What is that then?" "That’s supposed to be overcoming all those problems". "Oh, you mean this is the solution for these problems?"  "Yes." "Then I must go and find it, because for me, for my family, for my subjects, I have to do something, so what can I do?"

 

I’m not going to talk to you  Buddha’s life story in detail but that is the essence.  He had this artificial life and when he cut through his out of bound areas he encountered reality and for him it was discovering the truth. This was not an artificial, fake life, but really what the truth was all about.

 

So he called that Truth of Suffering.  Suffering is the truth.  It is funny and interesting.  That was twenty-six hundred years ago.  Suffering was the truth at that time and it is true today.  Today, to all of us, suffering is truth and the truth is suffering. Suffering is truth.  Truth is not only suffering, but suffering is the truth.  So no matter whatever we do today, how wonderful we try to make the best of our life, there is suffering. We always try to make the best of life, but at the end of the best, or as the deep bottom line of the best, there is suffering.  Mental, physical, emotional, all of those we have.  That is the truth.  Buddha’s teachings literally boil down to four important points.  These are called Four Noble Truths.  The first is Truth of Suffering. 

Once I was traveling from Europe to the United States, and the guy next to me in the plane saw me saying prayers and said, “What are you?”  And “What are you doing there?” and I said “Prayer.”  “What is that, what tradition?”  And I said, “It’s Buddhism.”  “Oh yeah, yeah, I know about that.  That is the religion of suffering, right?”  In a way, it looked like truth to that person, but it’s not the religion of suffering.

 

But the true reality of our life is suffering.  That is the truth, no matter, whoever you are, how young you might be, how beautiful you might be, how healthy you might be. The truth of that is going to be aging and sickness. You are going to be ugly, like me.  Honestly!  When I was young I was not ugly.  I was not fat. Honestly.  But then year by year it changes, and changes, and we all go that way.  It is interesting, you know, the wonderful thing is, it comes slowly.  That is great.  If it came overnight we would all go crazy, believe me!  Today, you look at those photos that you have taken ten years ago or twenty years ago, and you will be wondering, wow.  But if we would change from that twenty years ago to what we look like today, we will not be able to bear it.  The good thing is it comes slowly, so we don’t realize. 

end of section 1out of 3

Soundfile 20060606GRAA4Truths2

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Truths

Section 2

Transcriber Janet Bourgon

Date June 21, 2006

But that is the truth. So the Truth of suffering really means four things. Whatever we have accumulated, the end of accumulation will be exhaustion. Finished. Nothing left. We keep on collecting money, collecting money, collecting money, money, money, money. And at the end of that it goes Swoop! Out. Honestly. The end of life, the end of birth, is death. No matter how much we run around and try to look handsome, beautiful, young, whatever we do, lose weight, whatever we do, at the end is death. Nothing but death. Look at company. We enjoy company. We keep company. At the end of the company is separation. When you go higher, you become great and well known. But at the end of that you have to come down. If you climb a tree, keep on climbing, how much can you climb? In the end you have to come down. You can’t climb up there and sit up there all the time. You will fall down. One day. So that is the truth of reality. And that’s what Buddha discovered. So Buddha chose to call this truth of suffering. So we all are subject to that truth. But the question is, is there a way out? Is there something can you do? Is there a way out? All our sufferings—you know when one comes, they bring the others, they all come together—Sometimes, especially emotional sufferings, will sort of take you on a spiral, make you circle round, and push you deep down under the ground somehow, like seven layers below the earth or something. All our emotional sufferings do that. And I’m sure we all have experienced that. It can be tiny little things. Nothing has to be a really big thing. How you look, how you smile, what words you say, someday will trigger something and it will push you through that spiral down, all the way down.

Sevens layers below the earth—that is probably Buddhist terminology. Seven layers below the earth means way down there, you know, where no one can get. Looks like there’s no way out. But it never ends there. Again, you know the beauty of it is, the good news is, whenever you go down, the end of going down is coming up! It has to be. I mean this is the circle. That is how our life is. That’s how it functions. It goes down and whatever goes down comes up! Whatever comes up, it has to go down. That’s what it is. So how do I get up? You don't wait for millions of years down there to be able to get up.

So how do I get up? How do I end this suffering? Is it endable, this suffering? Or is it something that you have to bear and learn how to live with it? That is the first question that Buddha puts, before he discovered the spiritual path. His actually first spiritual step that Buddha takes is—is there an end to this? And is there something you can do, or you just have to wait? Wait for your chances, or turn, or whatever it is. The answer that Buddha discovered is—no, you don’t have to wait. No, you can do it by yourself. There is a way how you can handle this suffering. So naturally the question goes—how, how, how? Quickly, tell me how! So the answer, what Buddha discovered is, it is not the symptoms, but it is the causal level you have to deal with it, not the result level, not the symptoms, but the causes. If you are sick, you have symptoms. From the symptoms, we know what is wrong with us. But we don’t treat the symptoms, we treat what causes the symptom. Are you with me? Right?

So the Buddha shifts from first noble truth to the second noble truth. The second noble truth, the truth of the cause of suffering, is actually divided into two categories. One is karma and its result. The most important point is the negativities. What is karma? Karma is nothing but our deeds. When we have some good deed it becomes good karma. When we have bad deeds it becomes bad karma. Sometime we think karma is some kind of supernatural power sitting on the other side and judging us. That is not true. What Buddha discovered is that every deed of ours makes our karma. Our karma produces its result. So causes and effects are called karma. It’s very simple in a way. With that reason, we are becoming responsible ourselves. Because of karma, it is not any other person’s responsibility. It is our own responsibility. Whatever happens to us, good, bad, nobody else has made it. It is our own creation, and our own experience. No one is responsible for me getting old, except myself. No one else is responsible for me getting sick. No one else is responsible for me getting fat. No one else is responsible for how I die. Likewise, every good experience that I enjoy in my life is due to my deeds. And I deserve it. Every bad suffering I have in my life, I’m responsible and I deserve it. So that basically is karmic rule, how karma functions. Nobody made a rule, but that’s what happens. Right? Nobody made a rule saying that has to be the sky, this has to be the ground. And you know, nobody made a rule that the grass has to grow this way up. You know, the ground is there and the sky is up there, that happens. And just like that karma functions that way. Buddha discovered that. What Buddha discovered is that the key to our happiness and our suffering is in our own heads. Nobody else has the key. I’m talking from the Buddhist point of view, and that is how Buddha discovered, and that is how Buddhists believe it. And that’s how Buddhists functions. And I shouldn’t have said Buddhists believe it. For Buddhists it is some kind of science. Prof. Thurman called this “inner science.” Ha-ha, I don’t know why, but it’s called “inner science.” So anyway, so, why do we do good things? Why do we do bad things? No one would like to do bad things. Everybody would like to do good things. You ask yourself. The answer always is “I wanted to be good.” No one says “I wanted to be bad.” Unless you’re mad or angry and then you may say “I want to be bad.” And that’s not you, it’s your anger. It’s not you, it's your ego. But truly, with the right mind, when your mind is not influenced by any emotions, when you’re straight thinking, everyone would like to be good. No one would like to be bad. Everyone would like to be happy. No one would like to suffer. But, we do the bad things. And we suffer too. Sorry. We suffer too. That’s what we do. Why? We want to be good. But we do bad things. We want to be happy, but we suffer. Why? Very simple. It is our ego that made this. Ego is the problem. With "Ego" I refer to the combination of fear, confusion. Traditionally in Tibetan they call this ma rig pa, which means ignorance. But that doesn’t make much sense here. The senior guru of Dalai Lama in his teaching in Delhi used the word ego, not in the sense that the psychologists used, but in the normal usage when we say, "That is your ego talking". Ego has complete control over our self, and makes us do exactly the opposite of what we wanted to do. We wanted to be good. The definition of good for me is not hurting anyone, being kind, compassionate, but ego makes us angry, hateful, obsessed and jealous. All these emotions are the ego results. Ego produces this. And truly if you sit down and meditate, look inside yourself, when you are thinking within yourself you will really see it, how ego makes you do everything, in the name of protecting you. Then you begin to see the real enemy, the real challenge, your opponent. Ego gives us the idea that we must be better than that other one. It is natural, we have it. If you pull back, sit down, meditate, and figure out how our mind works within yourself, you will clearly see it. Oh, that’s the enemy. Avoid it. Or cut it out. Or kill it. Go beyond. Overpower it. If not, at least protect yourself. Right? So hold it, don’t loose it, hold it, hang on there! Think. You will get it. You do. We do not need Buddha to discover this. Just you and me, we sit down together. All by ourselves.

Think how our mind works. Make yourself the observer. Move away from your mind, like a little fellow that goes outside, and look at yourself, see how your mind is working. And hey, you have such a show there. You don’t have to watch, go to movie theatre. You don’t have to watch television. There’s a tremendous show here. And this show is completely relevant to ourselves. Honestly. You see it. That is how we build the "me". Protect me, me, me, me. "I" want to be happy. I’m the one. I want, I, me, I, me, me, me. Anyone who comes against my happiness, what I will do is: Kill them. Right? It’s there, in our mind. Believe me, honestly. You don’t have to tell anybody else, tell yourself. Watch, you have it. We all do. And that makes us to react like a porcupine, ready to shoot anybody who comes in our way. Boom. Where is that beautiful person we wanted to be? It's gone. It has become a porcupine. So that is caused by ego. Or what is traditionally called ignorance. The combination of confusion, fear, and also a little bit of self-cherishing. All together, that’s what it is. That is the sources of all our negative emotions. Our negative emotions make us do the negative things, although we don’t want to. But we do it. With or without knowing. With or without knowing, sometimes even knowingly we do it with a little smile, hey-hey-hey, but we do it. We can’t help it. That is the ego influence. We are addicted to our negative emotions. And that makes us do the negative things. Because the original source is confused, so you think if you push that person out, then you are going to be completely happy and everything will be wonderful. We don't realize that if you get out one layer, you going to get another layer pop up. We all do this. As a society we do it, as individuals we do it. Look at our history for the last two hundred years or so. We think there’s an enemy out there, we fight with them, and when we get done with them, then we think we will be happy.

Section 3 out of 3 - Steve Kelly

But enemies never end. Yes we got challenged head on. And we got over it and we had World War II. And then it didn't last very long and within a couple of years communism popped up. And then we got over that and then all these dictators popped up. And then we got over it or not, but very soon Al Quaida and all these extremists popped up. It is never ending and that is because of the ego within us and that is true for the society and true for the individual. It is true for the nations and true for the individuals, family, individuals everything.

Buddha found the key. We have to handle these emotions over here. The change of what you can do is over here. Because this is causal level, not the result level, it is not a gross, but a subtle level. These are our own deeds and if we deal with them directly, it is much easier to handle the change over here.

So that is the truth that he calls "The Truth of the Cause of Suffering", which is the Second Noble Truth. These two truths, the truth of suffering and the cause of suffering are actually how our lives are functioning today. Everything is a reality according to the Buddha. That is how our lives are really functioning. One after another, one layer after another continues. We ourselves are confused because of our egos. In other words we also call this the mystery of life. Why are our lives so intrigued? Why is it that whatever we want is very difficult to get and whatever we don't want it is happening automatically, one thing after another?

Straightaway everything is happening to us. Why? Because of this cause. This is the truth I would like to talk to you about today. And next Tuesday I will be talking about the positive truth - side which is telling us how to handle that and what result do we expect to get to that so-called truth of the path and the truth of cessation.

I want you to take home how the Buddha discovered the suffering. We do have the suffering, but many times we do not know that we have the suffering. When we are young we don't know about it and don't think about it. We think there is nothing we can't handle. We think we can run as much as those galloping horses run. We think we can catch anything - even the birds flying in the air, just catch them with our hands.

We think all this but year after year day after day week after week we learn we can't do this and we can't do that. We are slowly discovering the truth of suffering. It is nothing new we are discovering. It is already there but we just didn't directly encounter with it yet. Gradually it's going to be encountered. We know this for a fact. It is going to happen. Even the police can make computer drawings from a 20 year old photo, expecting a suspect after 20 years to be looking like this now. They can give you the drawings. That means nothing but that the natural process has taken place. That natural process in reality is true suffering of aging plus illness plus death. All of those are there waiting right in front of us. We cannot escape that reality, however we can learn how to handle it.

Forget about the spiritual path, even our usual education will tell us how much less suffering there can be, how we can think about it what else we can do. We can put make-up on and do all kinds of things to look different. We can change our hairstyle and all this is our way to ease our pain.

We can have poetry, we can have music, we can have Dharma. All those are there to contribute to easing our pain. Allen Ginsberg asked me once, "What is the purpose of poetry?" and I said, "The purpose of poetry is to ease the pain of the people." So if you read poetry you will enjoy that at least for a minute or whatever it is and you forget about pain and suffering and it's a little easier. Entertainment is all about that anyway.

But the spiritual part has to respond differently from the entertainment. It is supposed to end our pain forever. That is why each and every one of you put energy into the spiritual path. Each and every one of us tries to be open-minded, and each and every one of us tries to be good, each and every one of us tries not to hurt anyone else. That is what it is all about. The solution how you're supposed to handle this will come in the Fourth Noble Truth. And the result is the third Noble Truth and we will talk about that next week.

Today what I would like you to take home is a funny thing. I'm a funny person, actually. You know the first time we had a meeting with his Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Jersey, in the Learning Center, Allen Ginsberg was there with the Jewel Heart group. So Allen told His Holiness pointing out to me, "He is a funny person." In American culture that is not a bad thing, right?" But His Holiness looked at me and said in Tibetan "What funny things do you do? What funny things do you know?" (Rimpoche laughs). So I explained to him that "funny" doesn't mean that, you know.

So what I meant is I'm a funny person in that I want you to discover suffering! I want you to discover the truth of suffering as Buddha did. We already discovered we don't have to suffer more than we already do. But it is a matter of acknowledging it, a matter of recognizing that this is true reality, no matter whatever we do. It is true reality. At the same time I would also like you to remember that whatever we discover about the truth of suffering is not permanent. It is impermanent. Even if you are flying in the air and you are so happy, don't be overly happy because it is impermanent and you will fall down. Even if you are very deep down seven layers beneath the earth and suffering badly, still don't be so sad because it's impermanent. It is going to change. You are going to go up so I do want you to remember now that not only do you discover the suffering but realize that it is impermanent. Recognize and acknowledge the suffering, and remember that it is impermanent and that the solution is in your own hand and nobody else's. God will not make you suffer, that is not in God's job description, it is our job description (crowd and Rimpoche laugh) So you have got to change that job description. OK?

I would like to close here and whether you want to meditate or not is your choice. In the actual Tibetan style of teaching we give you this information as material to meditate on for the whole week. Think: how does my mind work and how does this energy called anger come all of a sudden out of nowhere like a toast popping out of a toaster? It does suddenly pop up, but if you don't put the bread inside in the first place or if you don't switch on the toaster, nothing will pop up, right? We get a lot of problems with computers some time but if you don't put in anything the computer doesn't make something come out the wrong way. Computers crash because we do something wrong all the time. We punch wrong keys. So then we have got a problem. Right? The toast pops up because we put the toast in there and we switch it on. It cooks and then pops up. That is automatic. Just like that, sufferings pop up and anger pops up but we did provide the conditions for that and we switched it on. Think: what did I put in my toaster? Look and recognize what you are doing and once you recognized then you also know what to do: just not do it again. John Madison used to say: Get over it. Recognize what went wrong and then don't do it again.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I am going home

(Announcements)

I'm sorry I didn't give you an opportunity to ask questions tonight. The time is gone, so next week I will give you an opportunity. I purposely didn't do a guided meditation today. Normally we do meditation and people feel good. But you know, I really would like to encourage you to do the meditation by yourself in your home. Give yourself a little quiet time, make sure no one's yapping at you or the television or radio or anything else is making noise. Just give yourself 20 minutes if you can or even five minutes and you'll see the difference. It is best to do that in the morning and evening, but if you can't do both at least just one time so see how you feel and then you can extend it. And then meditate on how the mind works, how anger pops up and if you don't know how to meditate, just remember how you got angry before and try to remember how it happened. You may feel, "I was very happy but this person looked at me in a horrifying way, so I got angry." Recognize that you are blaming the other person but the reality is within yourself some mood has been changed. Why did the mood get changed? Because it's impermanent. Okay, the mood is impermanent and it changes.

Thank you and good night. (Closing Prayers)