Archive Result

Soundfile 20060708GRPTFP1

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Petoskey

Topic Foundation of All Perfections

Transcriber Pam Parrish

Date 12/10/2021

Announcer: Good morning, everyone. We’re going to be starting in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately Rimpoche got pulled over by the Northern Michigan Police. That’s why we’re running so late, so I apologize for that. He’s just coming up Mitchell Street. So I guess the question will be ‘Will he be able to talk his way out of a ticket or not?’ [laughter] So we’ll be starting in about 5 minutes. But you know what, why don’t I just give a brief introduction so when Rimpoche gets here, we can just get going so we don’t have to wait for that. Thank you all for coming. You have to be pretty dedicated or have a great interest to give up a July 8 Saturday beautiful weather to come sit inside, so thank you very much for coming. We’re hosting this event, and it’s connected to Jewel Heart, Ann Arbor which is the main center for Jewel Heart. Jewel Heart is a Tibetan Buddhist organization promoting Tibetan Buddhism as well as Tibetan culture.

Ujyen was here and brought various Tibetan goods and books and things like that, so if you have time just take a look at that as well as Tibetan rugs. A portion of those proceeds go back to help out in both India and Tibet. Jewel Heart was established in the mid-80s when Gelek Rimpoche came over and started in Ann Arbor and then slowly went into other areas around the US. And right now I believe there are about 5 centers—New York, Chicago, Nebraska, Cleveland—I think that’s it in the US. And then in the Netherlands as well as Malaysia has a group. And then recently we started a group up here in northern Michigan. There’s just a handful of us and we get together like once every two weeks and go through a particular reading. Right now we’re doing a concentrated meditation course. So we do have-- for those sign-up sheets we’ll send out an email and see if anyone’s interested in doing that, and we’ll keep you up to date on that. So with our small group—myself and Nancy and a couple other people—used to be in Ann Arbor, connected. When we came up here, we thought ‘well let’s just you and I get together and if anyone else wants to join, that’s fine’. And since we’ve been doing that, we—probably on an annual basis—we ask Rimpoche if he wants to come up, and he always enjoys coming up and spending time.

0:02:53.7

Rimpoche—I’m sure you’ve read the posters and things like that—was born in Tibet, one of the last lamas to be fully educated in Tibet before the Chinese invasion in 1959. He then went to India and continued with his studies. At that point his teachers, who were the senior and junior tutors to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, urged Rimpoche to start learning English to be able to teach to a western audience. So he did that and then ultimately there were some western students in Indica that were teaching, learning with Rimpoche and kind of convinced him to come over to Ann Arbor. And so he made a couple trips and ultimately they started up Jewel Heart in Ann Arbor. So that’s about it for Rimpoche and Jewel Heart. I think he’s just driving up the street. They’re probably parking in the back. And I’m not sure if—the prayer books that you have—we have those for your usage today. Somebody’s actually making copies of the particular teaching that we’re going to go over today. And that’s page 28 in your book and it’s The Foundation of All Perfections. So you’re free to use these books. If you’d like to purchase them, they’re $20. We will have those copies for you to take with you, probably at the break time. And today’s schedule we’re going to—we’ll see what happens since we’re about 20 minutes late in starting. We might run a little bit late and then we’ll have about a 2-hour lunch break, and then we can come back and then go from there. And at the end of the session, we’ll have a mike available and we can do some questions and answers and—you know—make it pretty informal and hopefully a good learning opportunity for everyone. When Rimpoche comes—I’m not sure—in in the prayer books there are some opening prayers that are often done before teachings. This is more of an easy workshop atmosphere, so I’m not sure if Rimpoche will want to do those prayers or not. So we’ll just pay it by ear when he arrives. Anything I’m missing Hartmut?

Hartmut: [inaudible] 0:05:27.3

Announcer: Ok, we are recording this teaching. Rimpoche hasn’t given this teaching—I think—what did you say, Hartmut?

Hartmut: Not in that detail. He does it sometimes at the beginning—very, very short introduction to other teachings, but this has its own teaching, Not for a few years, I don’t think.

Announcer: Right, so we’re recording the teachings so we’ll have that, and if anyone is interested in purchasing that recorded teaching, you can get with Ujyen who is back with the other books and things and he would be happy to take your name and send you the teaching. I think we’ll have it in MP3 format and CD. And it’ll be $20. And then if you ever have any questions or need any information Jewel Heart.org is the website. Ok, that’s it. I’m going to go out, and I’m sure Rimpoche is probably here. Thank you

0:06:29.4

Thank you for the introduction which I didn’t hear, because we were dealing with the police. Tried to give us speeding ticket. So welcome everybody. And thank you for having me here. And thank you for coming. And thank you for organizing everything. I like to thank you everything before so that I don’t forget afterwards. Now, I’ve been requested here on the basis of a very short text called Foundation of All Perfections and let me talk to you a little bit about that. What does that mean and what is all about it? I think the title of this particular text is just first the two words on just the first verse. Just the first verse it says Foundation of All Perfections. So I think that is in Tibetan it’s called yunday shekurma mayunday meaning ‘equality’, she meaning ‘foundation’ and according to the wisdom of 2600-year old Buddha’s wisdom, how does one individual build his or her own good qualities? Do you have difficulty to understand me? Because I have very heavy accent in addition to I don’t know the English well—actually don’t know English at all—never learned.

0:09:10.4

But on top of that I’ve got a heavy accent which makes it quite difficult to understand. If you have a problem please raise your hand anytime, or say what you mean. But don’t ask me how to spell it. So the idea is, you know—why we look at these great spiritual leaders such as Buddha and Jesus and all of those—and what do they have that they have which we don’t have it? What is the difference? What they have extra which we don’t have it. It is the quality which they have. So quality. So we’re looking at that quality—perfect quality of a person. So how does one build that perfect quality? This is interesting. You people may or may not be familiar. But most of eastern religions, and particularly Buddhism and the wisdom that is coming from Buddha tells us that every good quality—whatever anything ever exist—can be obtainable by us. Let me put it the other way around. Anything great quality and great value—whoever can get it—we are eligible to be able to get it. I put it this way, that way, both ways. In other words, whatever you want to achieve, is there anything to be achieved, you can achieve, because our life is such that life is capable of delivering. So that’s why. Anything, whatever we want, we can do. Anything, whatever you would like to achieve, we can achieve. It is true in material world. It is true in the spiritual world.

0:12:03.4

There is no nothing that we cannot get it if it exists. Let us make that very clear. Otherwise we will be looking for something and we don’t know what we’re looking for. We are also looking—you know—so that’s why I would like to have that clear first. So the spiritual path—what they recommend you—they are no recommending you to become a multi-millionaire or multi-billionaire or millionaire. They don’t. Why? Because it’s impermanent. If you become a multi-billionaire, it doesn’t last with us. And a very interesting example is the Ken Lay, the Enron chairman who builds billions and billions and who did something wrong and everythings in the company’s lost everything. So many people lost their life’s savings suffer. And finally he died with a heart attack. Just the day before yesterday, right? So this is a clear example why spiritual paths, whether it’s eastern or western, do not recommend. That doesn’t mean don’t do it. But it means that’s not your goal. So don’t talk about becoming multi-millionaire or multi-billionaire. That is our job. We do it. We make our goal and the business world make 0:14:37.3 [it] our goal and that’s what it is. The spiritual path doesn’t because it’s impermanent. Because it doesn’t last forever.

0:14:57.6

Not Key Lay alone but all this. You know is it Hubert Howard, or Howard Hubert? Howard Hughes who had billions died as a billionaire but did not take any penny with him. They all left. So that shows it is impermanent. So that’s the reason why spiritual qualities do not insist to become to become wealthy in terms of money or property or whatever but do insist good quality of a person because a quality of the individual is such that always remains with us, and it is almost –you know what—in the Indian language sometimes they call it quasi-permanent which is semi-permanent, so semi-permanent with us is not really permanent but semi-permanent. And that’s why it is lasting. So the goal in the spiritual path is to have good quality within the individual. Now the second question is ‘what is the quality you’re talking about?’ The quality we are talking about here is—there are two points. Point one. Point one here is the nature of the individual—kind, compassionate, caring and the love.

0:18:02.4

That is the nature of the individual. You can improve in your nature even if you are little bit of a short-tempered person, you can improve yourself and become a little kinder, a little gentler, little compassionate, and that’s what I mean, one point. Second point is the achievement. The achievement, not only the nature of improving the individual, but symptoms and the result what you can achieve is within that category. I’m so sorry to bring you little bit of tougher subject. But within that symptom, I will make it three subdivisions. Subdivision A will be the total knowledge, knowing everything. They’re be nothing which the spiritually developed person does not know. For example, there is nothing that Buddha does not know. There is nothing that Jesus does not know. To make it short, there is nothing that God does not know, at all. It’s total knowledge. That’s why I’m talking about it. Subdivision A: knowledge. Subdivision B is power, capability, power. Whatever you want to do, you don’t have limitations. Power here. Example: whatever the Buddha wishes to achieve, he has the capability to be able to do. Whatever Jesus would like to have and achieve with us, he has the capability be able to do. Whatever the God wishes to have it and has the capability. That I am talking about. Power.

0:20:51.5

And then the other one is the compassion. Compassion. So ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned compassion. Ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned knowledge or information. Ultimate, unconditioned, unlimited capability or power. These are the qualities I am talking about it. Are we going to get that quality overnight? Certainly not. I just saw last night our president, George Bush, was talking in Chicago with the news people and they are asking him—the north Koreans are threatening—what are you doing? You know, he’s having a little tough time. And he says “Diplomatic things does not happen overnight. It takes time.” So it’s true here. The spiritual development doesn’t become overnight. It takes efforts and it takes—well, number one, it takes knowhow, information. Number two, it takes the individual efforts. When you have the know-how and you have the efforts, then it can achieve. It can make it. Is it clear to us? Knowledge and efforts combined together can achieve results. If you are lacking one—if you are lacking the know-how, no matter how much efforts you put, it’s not necessarily going to be right. I’ll give you an example. This morning when we were coming out of the place way were sitting. 131. We were supposed to go north. So we took south. So because of lack of know-how, no matter how much efforts you put going, you are going in the wrong way and going farther and farther more. By the time when you realize you are going the wrong way, you turn around and you push up

0:24:03.7

[inaudible][in the

going to] and then you stop and you started running and you started getting the problems, right? And just like this, when there’s no know-how, there’s no knowledge; no matter how much efforts you put, how much efforts you put, it’s not going to help it. No matter how much we go south on 131, it’s never going to achieve, never going to get over here. So that’s like this know-how knowledge is necessary. Even you have know-how knowledge like people who are living in this area exactly know where to go, but if you don’t move—if you keep on sitting with nice, comfortable, soft chair like what I have here and keep on enjoying your cup of coffee and falling asleep, then you’re not going to get in 0:25:04.5 [inaudible][the cascades] at all, So you need both. Efforts and information. Right? OK. So now let us be clear. Effort is your job. Information is my job. So what I’m supposed to do here is pour out a very brief information on the basis of this particular text. These texts called The Foundation of 0:25:43.9 [the][All] Perfections written by a great spiritual scholar, teacher and founder of a subsect called Gelugpa or the Yellow Hat Sect. The person was Tsongkhapa, Je Tsongkhapa, born in 1357 and lived until 1419 and has founded so many—this is very strange—Tibetan Buddhism did not start in the 1300s. Tibetan Buddhism started in Tibet by the 7th, 8th and 9th century and has become very popular in the 10th and 11th century. Now what really happened—it developed so much and it becomes like, you know, huge in the 1300s because of this particular spiritual master.

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And he was just a very simple person and with a tremendous quality and hundreds of thousands—millions of people really somehow followed him during his lifetime. So what he does he gives his teachings and he give trainings and he sent these people back to wherever they come from, rather than keeping them together. So as result of that, that within that half century actually, within that 50 years, all over Tibet, you know the monasteries started growing. It’s like mushroom growing. And people started all over—each and every student of his, whenever they go all over Tibet—and when they go in that nature place when they started giving whatever they learned, sharing to the people. It started growing like a mushroom, and that’s why this latest or rather refined sect is become the largest Tibetan Buddhist subsect in Tibet. According to the communist Chinese survey—we never had—the old Tibet—we know how many people there. We have no population numbers. Forget about control. Not even have numbers. You don’t even know how many people there in old times. People guess. Guessing, you know. We go the first number of how many Tibetans. The said six to eight millions. And that is the Chinese. When the Chinese communists came into Tibet, they started whatever they did. Counting or whatever they do it, survey or whatever they did. So their numbers are coming out after that. We never know anything before that—how many Tibetans there. We just know it’s a Tibetan because they speak the language. They look like their noses are not so big—a little flat—and all that type of thing.

0:29:54.6

Oh yeah, that’s how we know [in] old times. So according to the Chinese it’s almost like 91 or 92 percent, between 91 and 92 percent of the total population follows this particular sect. And that’s because of this person who wrote this. This not only what he wrote. His collected works is 18 volumes. And they’re great. So that’s what we’re drawing from. His knowledge. It’s sort a shorter, completely abbreviated version. So the first

Audience: Can you say his name again?

Rimpoche: Je Tsongkhapa. J-e T-s-o-n-g-k-h-a-p-a. Tsongkhapa. Thank you. 1347-1419. That’s the date. OK? So. Now something which not so many people are enthusiastic, so I have to mention it. And that is the—because it’s the first verse. Does everybody have this particular thing with you? I think it’s page 28. And it says—I’ll just read in Tibetan, because some people would like to have a complete this teaching, so if I don’t read the words, it’s not right. That’s why I have to read in Tibetan.

0:32:13.2 [reads first verse in Tibetan] Following a kind master is the foundation of all perfections. It is the very root and basis of the path. Empower me to see this clearly and to make every effort to follow well. Now this is something which is not so many people are—some people have difficulties with this.

0:32:55.9

This what we call guru devotional practice. Guru devotional practice is very controversial, particularly in this country. What had happened in the sixties, with all the different Hindus, Buddhists and all these gurus, and had a lot of controversial difficulties and also advantages. You know I am a latecomer in this picture. I came in the United States in the mid-eighties. I am not here in the sixties. During the sixties, what had happened with the guru business, as a lot of good things show, but people don’t remember or don’t talk about it. But a lot interesting things, controversial things happened, so people talk about it. And I think it’s a very good thing to see the critical point of disadvantage as well as to see good things what had happened. For example, all of these big swamis, the so good swami, this swami that, and Chidananda and Muktananda and all of those. And also the Trungpa Rinpoche, the Tibetan teacher, all of them, and also even the Rashneesh,, Bagwan Rashneesh. Which later he changed his name to Osho, right? Osho and all of those and all these gurus and this and that Guru Maharaji, this and that and all of those. And did bring some qualities, contribute a lot to the society. For example, the opening of the open mind of the beatnik poets. And I’m not sure if you’re aware of Ram Dass. Most of you are aware of Ram Dass and once he was Dr Richard Alpert and become Baba Ram Dass and all of them brought—

0:35:59.5

the late Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, those beatnik poets. And all them brought great openness and open mind to the society in the sixties. So everything what had happened, in the sixties are not bad. As though we sort of look back today—no, the sixties, you know, they’re bad. No, I don’t think so. I’m sorry. There are a lot of good things also happened. And bad things also happened. True, it’s true. The biggest problem we talked about the sixties is the drugs, right? The drugs. And it caused a lot of problems. But it also brought a lot of awarenesses. And the drugs that what did discovered early sixties are the pure ones, not the so much, you know, whatever we have today. It’s not that one. I was not here. But many of you there at that time, and but I’m not here but I’m aware of it. And also, you know, many of them. Like Ram Dass is a good friend of mine, as well as the late Allen Ginsberg continues since I came to Michigan, since I met him, he probably came at least two or three times at least every year in Michigan, and he tried to do the poetry readings at and the University of Michigan to raise a fund for Jewel Heart. So he did it all the time. He put so much efforts to—and all this quality. Like Allen Ginsberg, for example, I don’t know many of you know. Everybody knows who’s Allen Ginsberg really was. But you know when you read at his poetry, when you listen—I can’t read it. When you listen his early poetry, the famous one--What’s it called? 0:38:31.3 [inaudible] Howl. And you see how sort of short-tempered and angry person he is. And later part of the year, you know, like look at his other poems like Father Death as well as all these others. No Smoke And all these. Hum Bom! Whom Bom? All those. If you read all these, he become such a mellow and a wonderful, kind, compassionate person with a tremendous change within the one individual’s life.

0:39:13.8

You know, I mean he’s quite a far out when he’s writing Howl and all that. And later he’s become such a—really a important inspiration in American public society, and almost people begin to [re-recover][rediscover] Allen Ginsberg by the time he died. So it’s all this changes taking place, and all of them are the efforts these people put in their path and to this society. And this is the change what they begin to brought in the sixties—good aspect of it. And the bad aspects of it we don’t have to talk about it. Sometimes it’s goes all wired and crazy and had difficulties with a number of people, ask you know. So all of them are—sorry, I lost my thought of—idea. What did I bring to that 0:40:22.8 [inaudible] (Audience answers-inaudible)

Rimpoche: Oh, guru devotion. How did you keep that straight? So this is the issue and then you know, some gurus—and whenever there’s good gurus, there’s also the funny gurus. And wherever there’s good is, there’s always funny ones. All the time anyway. And that goes together, side by side, even if you don’t want it to. So somehow we can’t separate much. So that’s why we have difficulties. And doubts and questions and all of those. Which is very true and very rare and very good that we have questions, and no one would like to have blind faith. Blind faith is never encouraged in the wisdom that comes through Buddha; 2600 years old wisdom that comes from Buddha never encouraged blind faith. Yes, they encouraged faith, but not blind faith. Intelligent faith. The difference between blind faith and intelligent faith is blind faith you are taking on face value. When someone says good, then it must be good.

0:42:04.5

Because so-and-so said so. Right. It must be good; my mentor said so. If you take on blind faith, we have a lot of difficulties. We do have a terrible experience in like—such as Jim Jones. Remember that? And since I came in the United States, a number of things happened. One very clearly I remember is Heaven’s Gate. In California. Something happened. Remember? Well, some group of people supposed to be going to heaven, and they have a space ship waiting somewhere. It couldn’t come down here or something. Did I hear that correctly? It’s hiding behind comet. Everybody committed suicide. And so that’s what called it Heaven’s Gate. These are all the consequences of a blind faith. Also I do remember reading. I was in India [in] those sixties. Some guru brought a plane full of India for retreat or pilgrimage or something. And then before the plane landing, they collected all their money and jewels and jewelries and money and everything. They call that safekeeping. And all these things, you know. But that’s not so bad as committing suicide. They cheated and rob, and it’s bad, but not so bad as committing suicide. So all these things happened, and all consequence of blind faith. And I normally do count those, you know, things but I used to also count, along with this, the thing that happened in Waco, Texas.

0:44:49.0

Do you remember? During the first year of the Clinton administration, this Janet Reno was the Attorney General of the United States and David Koresh, right? I’m not very sure what happened there. I really don’t—I’m sorry. It’s not my business. It’s the US government’s business and the peoples’ business. But I somehow very hard to buy they all committed suicide by themselves. I think this is the over enthusiastic of the law for people, and little--I don’t want to say, but—little impatience of Janet Reno’s first job—first on the job combined together that might have created that trouble. I’m not sure. It’s not my business. But I really don’t want to count that David Koresh’s activity as something committing suicide. Clearly it occurred. No doubt about it. But it’s not suicide. It’s not my business anyway. Since we are talking about this Jim Jones and all this, so this comes up [in] my head. It pops up in my head, but not easily you can count in that. There’s a lot of questions and things, you know. And of course, no doubt about the stubbornness of the individual, you know. Why doesn’t he give up and raise hand and raise white flag and let the authorities come and see themselves and do all that. And that is definitely a fault. But I don’t think he blowed himself and all these people up together. That’s my reservation, so anyway, so these are all the consequences of blind faith. So never encourage blind faith. Blind faith is—well, if you are not intelligent person, if you are uneducated, illiterate

0:48:01.4

[bums][bumps] like me, then you can encourage blind faith. Otherwise, what else can you do? 0:48:11.7 [It’s the last resource for] Other than that, faith is necessary. But faith must have very strong logical reasons to prove why your faith is right. That makes intelligence faith. Logical reasons. At least if you have scientific proof—straightforward—one can see with one’s eye, hear with one’s ear, smell with one’s nose, taste with one’s tongue and touch with one’s body, you have direct knowledge, and that is the best. Even if you have not direct knowledge like this, sort of secondary, or you know what in legal terms they say in court—they say it’s not direct evidence; it’s circumstantial evidence. Right? So the call it. Just like that. If you don’t a direct, at least have a circumstantial. The logical pulse that we can follow. There are logical reasons we as an intelligent person, such as yourself—educated, intelligent person like your self—you can always trace your thoughts and reasoning through your thoughts You can almost see it, you can almost hear it, you can almost smell it, you can almost taste, you can almost feel it. Not just thought feeling, almost like touch. And that’s what I’m talking about it. Logical reasoning. Without which becomes blind faith. See the difference between the intelligent faith and blind faith? If you don’t have it—the newspaper said so, the radio said so, the television said so—it is not logical reason.

0:51:01.5

It’s almost illogical. Oh, do you say illogical? No. (Audience answers.) Illogical. Or is it illogical or unlogical? Illogical. OK. It’s almost illogical. Television said so. What do you mean? CBS will say one thing. Fox News will say another thing. So what happened to your reason? So. You know what it is? The conservative Russ Limbaugh will say one thing, and give me another. (Audience answers.) Al Franken. I never heard that name before. OK. Russ Limbaugh said something, and Al Franken said something else. So the radio said so, and it is proved to be wrong. Because they just said the opposite. So does the newspaper. So ‘just said so’ is not correct reason. Something that you, for yourself, for your own sake—you know the spiritual path is something unknown to us. There is not really a scientific proof until now. Now we begin to have scientific proof. The scientist begin to discovering the meditation on compassion—not just meditation—we knew meditation brings quiet, calm, happy quietness and that is sort of known.

0:52:58.7

We know yoga, especially the hatha yoga, brings a lot of comfort and physical fitness. It’s now known. And we know all this. And that’s why every 5-Star hotels, now you have yoga, you have meditation and all of those. Even the hospitals, everybody else. Now the latest last 2 or 3 years, what is picking up from the MIT—the scientists from MIT is picking up not just meditation, meditation on compassion to the individual. They’re coming up to the point of happiness. And they started proving that through a brain scanning and using the seasoned meditators as a guinea pig, putting them and into a MRI machine for 5 hours and doing all kinds of interventions for year after year, year after year. Now they are coming with the statement saying that meditation—not just meditation—meditation on compassion brings happiness. And they’re using Dalai Lama as a tool and having them—the Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism—and scientific thing It’s not psychologists, but physics people and neuroscience and physics lay people are doing that. Even it’s true—if it proves to be right—you know scientific experiment—and this is probably 5,6, 10 years reasoning. But when every scientist openly accepts, then it becomes proved to be true. Then this is for the first time that is Buddha’s message, saying meditation on compassion brings happiness to the individual. [The] way to bring happiness to yourself is compassion—is the way to bring happiness. It’s for the first time where you can have scientific proof. If it’s [proven]. But still when they’re talking about it, there are like hundreds and thousands of scientists are saying that. But still scientific proof is that every scientist

0:55:58.7

has to be commonly accepted like, you know, it is common law. It is not yet there. And if it happens that’s what’s going to 0:56:09.3 [happen]. For the first time, we are going to have a scientific proof saying compassion brings happiness to the individual. If it’s so, it’s a great thing for me. I’m not thinking about my business. I’m not. I’m really thinking about for the first time a really great scientific proof to the spiritual combination. I have a number of experiences going with the conferences with those different scientists. Very noticeably one. One time there was—funny. AOL. Is it AOL? Right? AOL sponsored a 0:57:11.5 [climate] conference between the scientific community and us. So there was a great guy. There were a lot of great guys. The head of the IBM, and the head of this, and there’s a guy who’s doing the artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence guy. And then us. And then among us is also there’s Jean Houston. Jean Houston there. You know there’s Buddhists, I was there, there was a number of Christians and rabbis and all kinds of things. And Jean Houston is sort of very nice and goes in-between. She did a great job. So we been talking about it. And the guy who’s the—I don’t know—the head, or whatever. The artificial intelligence guy. Some professor called Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil was commenting immediately after me. So what I said—and Kurzweil got up and said “What Gelek Rimpoche said right now is the pure 2600 years-old wisdom”. He said “We the scientists are following the fact.

0:59:09.0

And we rejected the idea centuries ago.” Something like that. “We rejected the idea. We followed the facts. Now the facts leading us to make U-turn and follow this idea. Now we are on the U-turn and following this idea.” And for example, he says “I know for a fact. I could not explain. I know for a fact there is something called ‘consciousness’ which is independently can function without physical beings. So I’ve been following this, making U-turn and following here.” And then he says, “What I’m going to do is I’m going to capture that consciousness and lock it in my computer, and I’m going to produce my artificial intelligence.” So I mean that’s exactly his idea. I mean he knows for fact. He says, “I can’t explain because I don’t have this proof, but it’s for a fact I know the consciousness which is independently functions from the body.” So it’s—there’s a connection—dependent arise—but also it can go independently. So he rejected this idea centuries ago. You know we follow the fact. Now the fact is leading us to this level, and we are making some degree—hundred and whatever degrees—making a total U-turn over here and following this. So now my goal is capture that consciousness, lock in my computer. So I was tempted to say “When you leave this world you are going to be reincarnated into a computer,” but I couldn’t, you know. I was dying to say that. Because so obsessed. The scientist so obsessed, going be captured that consciousness wherever it’s going and locked into the computer, you know. Somehow I need the locking mechanism to lock it down. And then question really is ‘Can there

Be artificial intelligence?’

1:01:58.2

And that is the question. And each and everybody gave their answer, and then it came to my point. And I said ‘yes’. I definitely said ‘yes’ and I gave reasons why. Lucky for me, really lucky for me. Immediately after that the AOL guy read the Dalai Lama’s letter, and he is also saying ‘yes’. And I did not know. If I had [read][said] ‘no’ and he reads the Dalai Lama’s letter immediately after that saying ‘yes’, and I am put on the hot spot, right? Between rock and a—but my reasoning—think thought—follow my thought. My thought is this. We are dependent arise. We are not independent arise. Dependent arise We depend ourself on the conditions. When the condition is right, then things happened. When the conditions are wrong, things can never happened. When the conditions are right, the things can happened. So I am person who believes that we can produce human beings out of a bottle. I 1:03:37.1 [am in believing] we can artificial intelligence, because very simple reason here. When the condition’s right, things happened. And we as a human being are capable of providing anything, producing anything. So we can make the conditions right. And now today, you look at this amazing new gadget where the blind can see and read. I’m not talking about the glasses; we all have it. I’m not talking about eyeglasses. We have that new—this gadget that blind can bring it and take a photo and translate and read it to their brain. So we have that new gadget. It costs $3500. So the Blind Association of the United States is having a loan for the blind people who can buy that. And you know, so that’s—you know, I heard on the news. So they have that little camera-type of thing.

1:05:01.3

And you can the picture of documents. They can’t very big ones. They can’t read handwritings right now. But they can read almost everything. They can see face, and they can do all that. And read documents, especially for business people. First thing they work on the documents, you know. They can read the documents, you know. And so, I mean human beings can do all this. That’s why I mean. Human beings can achieve anything, whatever they want, whatever they want to achieve it. There’s no limit for us. So when the conditions are right, anything can happened, spiritually, materially, scientifically, monetarily, everything. Anything we want—you want it, you can have it now. It is our privilege. It is our—you know, really, our advantage. It is our privilege at this moment, really. That’s what it is. On that reason I said artificial intelligence is impossible, and I was lucky to be able to say that. So I don’t have to immediately contradicted my statement when the Dalai Lama’s the next one, you know? So that’s the point. So as much as you can do materially today—I mean, keep the house cool, warm. Heat, cold. Think about 100 years ago how much difficulty we have. Right. And think about the road 100 years ago, how much—I’m sure in this area there must be some Indian trails here and there, right? And that’s about it. You can’t drive. You can’t do anything. I don’t think you can even drive horse cart, can you? I’m not sure. That is what human beings achieve. We can achieve anything we want to. So when you can do materially, you can do spiritually. When you can do spiritually, you can do materially. Because it’s the human capacity, human capability is developed. OK, now I better get to my point. The guru business. Guru business is—we went away from there, so that’s why controverials. That’s where my thought went out of the road.

1:07:58.3

Controversial. Controversials are because of 1:08:04.1 [can] anything can happened. A lack of intelligence faith, disadvantage of the blind faith, taking advantage of the people by all these people who are in the position. All combined together we had those difficulties. But the difficulties can be corrected. Corrected by the intelligence faith, corrected by careful analyzing, thinking and making your careful judgment. And that’s how we can correct. And the question is, is it necessary in the spiritual path? The answer given by Buddha saying yes, it is necessary, because even in ordinary field, even if you are carpenter or painter or whatever you are, you need someone to show you how to do it. You learn it. You need learning. And even in our normal education, you need a teacher. Without a teacher you cannot become—you can’t read and write like me because I don’t want to spend time with a teacher. 1:09:42.3 [Correct.] I’m a terrible person. Lazy. The most lazy person you’ll ever know is me. Truly. Hardly I can sit down, read one page English. It’s very difficult for me. I read Tibetan, yes, no doubt. I’m used to it. I turn pages over and they have to pull me—keep on pull me and pull me. Even then I don’t get up. I become a couch potato. Not by eating popcorns, but I become a couch potato by reading books. Tibetan only. Just like this blind machine. It says it can only read English just now. When you read English, you can read other languages, too. It’s a matter of learning by the machine, right? It’s also amazing and that at least you get that machine first you read in English rather than German or Japanese or something. Normally it’s Germans and Japanese comes first.

1:11:01.3

All these technologies. But this time it happens to be English. So anyway. So it’s necessary. And also it is sort of a bridge between the enlightened society, the divine beings and individual person. It’s sort of a bridge in-between. I think that should be enough for this particular verse. I mean it is not foreign for you, because even in the church you have priest who refer themselves as servant of God. So it is meaning serving the God, meaning building connection between us and the God. So very similar in this. So that’s what referring to guru. It’s not that way they traditionally thought about. It is interesting. I met one Sikh gentleman. You know, Sikh is a religion in India. Sikh gentleman in Ann Arbor, a nice old gentleman. And I met him—I speak Hindi, so I spoke with him in Hindi, and for a while. He enjoyed. I enjoyed talking to him. We had cup of coffee, and he knew my name. I don’t know his. So by the time we are leaving, I said, “So what do I call you? How do I know your name? What is your name? He said “They call me God’s man.” God’s man. So he gave me his visiting card. It’s call God man. Normally Sikhs have some Singh and some this and that, you know. That sort of 1:13:37.9 [Chadhan] or Singh or [Chadhan Singh or Dashane or something Guru Dashane Guru Cha Guru inaudible or some, some names they have.] But this guy’s known as God man. And his visiting card says God man. Anyway, I been—he tried to define guru as God man. So that’s the reason why I mentioned.

1:14:05.3

So now the second verse I must cover before lunch. Otherwise we’ll be behind. 1:14:13.9

[LEN CHIK NYE PAY DEL WAY TEN ZANG DI….]

[Precious human gained but once]

I have a question on this translation. ‘Taking its essence’ sounds like Chinese produces chicken essence and ginseng essence. ‘And taking its advantages’ or something, you know, should have been or something should have been. Because it’s a direct translation of Tibetan. [NYING PO] is essence. But in English ‘taking its essence’ looks like the precious human life’s juice. Florida orange juice. I’m sorry, but I don’t know English, but I’m making fun of the translation. But that’s not fair, right? Anyway, so. Anyway, so what it’s talking about it? What it’s talking about it? It’s very interesting here. Precious human life. They’re not talking about something else. They’re talking about our life. The life that you and me and everybody else having here. And 2600 years wisdom that comes from Buddha that says “Hey, you’re not—it says precious human life.” It’s called precious. Did not say you’re a fool. Did not say you are horrible. Did not say you’re going to hell. Did not say that. Did not say that. Did not say that you are helpless. But did say precious. That referring to us.

1:16:55.6

You and me and everyone—each and every one of us—referring precious human. Why precious? Why precious? This is so important. The value of our life. Is very precious. You cannot buy it, although we can insure our life. We can buy life insurance. But then they make judgment how much you are worth for. Someone else makes judgment, right? Or I never have life insurance. You insure yourself, or how? Do they make judgment, make assessment and say you are worth for this much, worth for that much?

Audience: 1:18:05.1 [inaudible]

Rimpoche: How much you pay. Ok that’s how much you can pay, according to that whatever your worth is. Anyway. But here it says precious. They don’t judge you by anything. They don’t judge you by how much money you have. They don’t judge you how much money you make it. They don’t judge you how much money you have potential to make it. As a matter of fact, nothing to do with money, wealth, property. Nothing. It is just you. Just be yourself. It is precious, because you are worth more than multi-billion dollars. Honestly. You—each and every one of us—worth more than today’s U.S. trade deficit or budget deficit. We are worth—we are much more worth than that whatever. It is no longer three—you know, it used to be three trillion dollars. Remember when the senior Bush and Ross Perot and who’s the other guy? Clinton. And when they were debating. And when they were talking about three trillion dollars deficit. Remember? And Ross Perot—see, I remember this very clearly. When the three debate and Mr. Bush, the senior Bush, President Bush said “None of my two opponents here have experience of running country or anything.

1:19:59.9

And Mr. Clinton has a little experience of running tiny little state or something. And the Ross Perot replied, “I don’t have experience of running three trillion-dollar deficit. So at that time it’s three trillion-dollar. And now—I don’t know—whatever it is. You have no idea. We’re spending so many billions every day in Iraq. Just billions. I just heard the number the other day once. But it’s really hundreds of billions we spend a day. I mean just—try to win the war by throwing guns and dollars. It’s not going to happen. No matter how much you can throw in there, you know. Guns and dollars and bullets. That’s what we throw. And we spend our life in there, this precious life. We lost 2500 people already. So it’s not worth, for me at least. It’s whatever you want; that’s your choice. But for me it’s not worth. Not even worth for one life. For what? It’s a precious life. It’s precious. So what we are talking about precious here is really—no matter whatever the money is—see if you have to make a choice between the life and the money, unless you are crazy, who’s going to choose money over your life? So that itself shows you how valuable your life is. It virtually has nothing to do with money. Virtually it is just what you are. It is precious. The mind, the body, even it’s big fat like me. Or chopstick like a few of you. One chopstick standing there. Two chopsticks standing together. So you make it. Anyway. So whatever it is, it is precious. Why precious?

1:23:00.9s

Now this is important. Pay attention. Why precious? Because you can achieve anything you want to achieve. Do anything what you want to do. Be anyone what you wanted to be. And most important, be yourself. And get it, whatever you want to get it. And that’s why it’s precious. In other words multi-million dollars is nothing a human being need it. Bill Gates made his money, right? And many of them made their family money, and many of them made individual money. So the money is made by human beings. Human beings are not made by money. Money made property. Property did not make human beings. So everything human being can do—not the money, not the property, not wealth, and that’s why it's precious. Spiritually or materially. That’s what’s precious. It is very important. Buddha constantly, continuously keep on saying that. 1:25:02.4 Their disciples continuously, continuously for 2600 years we been bombarded with this message, saying ‘Hey, you are precious.’ No matter how dirty, how filthy you may be, but you are precious. You are important. You are somebody. It’s not ‘you are nobody.’ Not only you count, but you are important. Not only you make a difference, but you are important. You make important difference.

1:25:59.8

Not only you make important difference to your own life, you make an important contribution to the society. You make important contribution to the mankind. And that’s what you can do. That’s what you are. That’s what it is. And if you turn around, and you want to make a bad contribution to the mankind, you can do also. Hitler is an example. Stalin is an example. It is endless. Chairman Mao of China is an example. And there’s all kinds of people you can count in that category. Also turn around. Dr. Martin Luther King. Mother Theresa. Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi. These are examples. But they are the big names. But what about me, the individual who’s in downtown Petoskey? And each and every one of us make a contribution to our family, to our children. We are the role models to our children. We make a difference to ourself. We make a difference to our family. We make a difference to our children, thereby we a difference to the city, town, state, country and mankind. And that’s why you’re important. That’s why you’re valuable. And that’ why you need all spiritual informations. So that you can make a right and wrong choice by yourself. And that’s why learning, picking—you know, getting information is getting power. Information is power. What kind of power is it? That’s why you make the right decision. Right? But then it goes 1:28:50.6 [said] Maybe I have to touch this. I don’t want to leave it there.

1:29:00.3

Gained but once, has great potential but is easily lost. We talked about it. But is easily lost. True.

1:29:15.5

Everyone when we leave we leave. There’s no one. There’s nothing that makes announcements. And saying such and such and here1 such and such there such and such 1:29:28.1 [inaudible] so and so is going to go. There is no loud speaker announcement comes from the head saying it is [for for] so and so to go next year. You know, no. There’s no such thing. It certainly goes. Certainly goes. How? Let us go to the next verse.

LU SOG YO WA CHU YO CHU BUR ZHIN

I must remember that death is quick to strike

And we don’t need to go to the second part. I just want to come up to here. Like a bubble in the water. Like a bubble in water. How fragile we are. Precious, no doubt it. Valuable information. We try to be macho person. We think we are, you know, really we do. And when you were young, you tried to macho is fine. You don’t fall easily as we fall now, and you can do all that. But you become a little older, you can’t do all that, you know? You can’t be macho. And if you try to do macho, you get into trouble yourself. But so, remember we are very fragile. Even you are macho, young, healthy doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. When health is in the picture—football players—you know right in the middle of the play.

1:31:56.4

All kinds of things. You know they break something or you know, they get hurt, and some of them have heart attacks and all of them—they you know, where you going to look more healthy and fit person than the football players. They’re supposed to be. They—I don’t know—example or something. But they’re fragile. 1:32:23.9 [They’re ghosts.] So what about us? You know, we’re definitely fragile. Extremely fragile. We are here now. The next minute we are gone. It’s everybody. Everybody is same boat exactly as we don’t think we’re there just like that. Is absolutely fragile. So looks to me this little one’s making us yoyo. In one way, you say you are great and wonderful, and 1:33:21.0 [popped-up completely you can’t. On the other hand ‘Hey you fragile, remember you can go any minute’ and this and that. And makes looks like making us yoyo, you know, throwing it up and taking it down is not.] What’s happening is true reality where we are. True reality. Those of us we think ‘Oh it’s old; it’s going to go any minute’. We’ll be year after year continuously. And those of—they think, you know it is ‘Well, it's healthy; its’s going to be long time’—it’s gone. Gone any minute. It is not a secret. It may not be very common, but quite common that 1:33:21.0 [great-great-grandparents attained funeral of great-great-grandchildren]. That is reality we’re in. Wonderful, no doubt about it. Precious, no doubt about it. Important, no doubt about it. But not permanent, not permanent. It is fragile. Easily lost. It is easily lost.

1:35:03.9

Somewhere I saw we are easily lost. Like a bubble in water. Bubble doesn’t very long. Anything touches, it’s burst. 1:35:27.4 [We quote.] So why they are making this—telling us great important and then fragile? Because those divine connections to us wants us to defeat our laziness. Our laziness. Our laziness make us delay. Laziness to get up in the morning to take a shower. That makes us delay to dress. That makes us delay to have our coffee. That makes us delay to have our breakfast. That makes us delay to move. That makes us delay to reach wherever you have to reach. That makes us delay to do whatever we have to do. Right? That is our laziness. The laziness is taking shelter under word called tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. So we think ‘Oh, ah, we can do that tomorrow’. Tomorrow. Or another one. Next to do on my list. Next to do on my list. So they that take shelter on those. OK? Let us not take laziness on our lunch. Ok, so, before we go, so I like to have a little conclusions what we talked this morning. And I’d like to have that conclusion in the meditative form. So if you don’t mind, relax yourself, engage in a little meditation.

1:37:57.7

In my background of the spiritual practice, what I do is, you know, what I been brought up is meditation’s always done in the presence of divine representative. That is whether it is Buddha or Jesus or whatever it is. So meditation is also imagination. So I’m sure many of you have idea of meditation. The most important meditation here is first, to relax. Because our busy work make us intense. Our responsibility in the family house, job, etc., make us intense. So it is important for us to relax. Mentally, sort of let your brain loose a little bit. Sort of lose it a little bit. Let it be free to think. Or do nothing. Thereby also give us a little relaxation to our physical body. Relax. Lose the intense that you are holding. You know, our nerves and veins are holding tight. Let us loose. Let us loose at our spines at the back. Let us loose. It is for our backs and the front, necks, head, hands, legs, everywhere let it loose, just loose. Don’t hold it. Let it loose. Let it loose, relax. Now shift your focus on your mind. Let it be open, completely. Sort of go over your limitations—your skulls, your head, skins, hair and all that. Go beyond, beyond. Let it merge in our mind into the picture of space, completely open space.

1:41:12.2

That pictures we see from the space ship. Space picture. Completely open, the beautiful, wonderful things. Let it sort of merge our mind extended to it. Completely merge in that open spacious, no limit completely open. Like space. Merge into it and relax. Take a breath and relax. When you are taking breath in, bring the joy, happiness and the blessings of the divine beings within ourselves. When you are breathing out, let out intense, tension, pains, worries. Let it go. Throw it out in the open space. In--the divine blessings. Out—the difficulties, tensions, pains—physical, mental, emotional pains. Let it out in the open space. Third time. Take in the blessings. Let out tensions out completely, and relax. Physically from the spine, 1:43:28.0 [kidney] and up to the head, everywhere, down to the toes. Relax completely. Mentally merge into spacelike, completely open.

1:43:58.5

Within that openness, bring a divine representative in the physical form created by you, whether it is Buddha or Jesus or flower or star or sun or moon or whatever you like. Male or female. And enlightened nature. Acknowledge the divine representative. Show our respect to the divine world, divine beings. We make our offerings to the divine beings. We also purify our wrongdoings. We appreciate divine activities. We request to remain with us forever. We request your guidance. For me to function, to live, to help, to guide. I also dedicate my good deeds for the benefit of all beings. Okay, thank you. And with this, we’ll go for lunch. I’m sorry. I’m five minutes beyond. But. And we are meeting back—if you are not too bored, if you like it, if you have time, we are meeting back here at 2:00, I believe. Right Chris? 2:00. Thank-you.