Archive Result

Soundfile 20060708GRPTFP2

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Petoskey

Topic Foundation of All Perfections

Transcriber Pam Parrish

Date 1/3/22

0:00:03.8

Rimpoche: Thank you, Jonas. And thank you. And welcome back, everybody. Hopefully you have nice relaxing. It’s a beautiful day today. OK, let’s continue where we stopped this morning, because I got to finish this today. Otherwise I’ll be not doing my job. So the precious, no doubt, but very fragile. And one of the most important example of impermanent is death. Death is something that we cannot avoid, no matter whatever we are. Young, old, sick, healthy, rich, poor, man, woman. No matter whoever. One cannot avoid. It is something must. We can say today the medical science is so much that we can preserve our body ‘til find a cure. But that is one thing I personally disagree with medical science that is—yeah, you can cure the body, but does not mean you can cure the mind. Or the individual person. You can heal the body. That doesn’t mean the person. A body was put in the frozen for decades and found a cure, and whatever the illnesses may be, they recovered and then started walking and talking. 0:02:32.6 [My] probably not be the same old person. Who knows? You may have a monster kept in there and comes out, who knows? So, although a few people are interested and they are doing it today. However it remains to be seen. Even though the person seems to remember everything. Person seems to know everything.

0:03:05.5

Even then it is not necessarily to be the same person. I think it takes a step beyond our ordinary comprehension. And I do have to say that, because if I don’t say it now, then I’m quite sure it will work later. But then, you know, people may think it’s the same old person. It might not be. There’s a big question. I say this. It’s the same principle in which people see the spirit of different people. The psychic people talks to the spirit of a different person after death, They communicates. Although they know everything. However, that might not be the same person. So that is question I just wanted to raise it so that people have awareness there’s a possibility of different spirits posing—identify themself as a name and a function of that department person with total, full knowledge of functioning of the deceased individual. This is some strange, but in the teachings it is said each and every one of us have Three hundred-fifty spirit that comes along with us. Three-fifty, not just one, not just two. Three hundred-fifty. They will take our name. They take our identification. Talking about identity thieves. These are the spiritual identity thieves. So there’s a possibility of that, because this spirit have a longer life than we do. When we die, the spirit’s form attach with us.

0:05:50.0

Three hundred-fifty of them not going to die. They’ll be lingering around without any basis attachment to—basis that attach to a human beings. They become a spirit. They roam around for another a couple of thousand years or something. So that was—I mean we don’t have any proof, but that’s the teachings says that, and that’s a possibility. So I was just mentioning that rather than saying it is the person or it is not the person. So that’s what it is. So, the death, at the death. Death is the unavoidable. So people may think ‘Oh you still live after you die.’ Because the spirit comes and talks to and give signals and do this and do that. Yeah, they do, they really do. It’s true. Those psychic people are not lying. Really not lying. This is, you know, it’s not me I’m saying. I’m already started teaching in the west, I saw those things. And one of our late masters is still living at that time. One of those great late masters is still living, so I personally asked question saying, ‘What is this?’ And he explained me there’s three hundred fifty-six or something spirits. 0:07:32.9 [we are born so] along with that they don’t die. They take your name. They know exactly everything, whatever you do, everything. No secret to them because they remain with you like your body shadow. So they goes wherever you go, in certain areas where, you know, they can’t go. Like in holy, very holy place or something like that. They are not allowed to enter, so they be barred. So you asked the questions about what had happened during that period or something. They don’t know. They say ‘Well I’m not allowed in there.’ They will tell you straightaway. So these are the clear indication that that is not the real person but a spirit attached to. They carry the same name, same character, same thing. So sometimes I wonder when you are in bed, you think you are alone, but remember there is three hundred fifty-six spirit from your side and three hundred fifty-six from the other side. Like seven hundred in there. Busy in there.

0:08:56.1

Anyway, so that is definite. I mean we all know we die. So this is big question. What is death? What happens thereafter? So you know, this particular teaching what we try to do in one day. You know, I have attended this teaching for thirty days. A couple of times even. Just thirty days for whole thing. Starting every day 12 at noon and finish at 6 or 9 sometimes. So thirty days. So you have to remember we have to do quickly. But the question is ‘What is death?’ What does that mean? And does that mean end of our existence? Or just a chapter closed and reopening another chapter? Or is it beginning of the end or end of the beginning, or what is it? Beginning of the—I’m wrong. What did I say? The end of a chapter and a beginning of another chapter. It is the end of a life and there is a beginning of another life. What is it? So, it is a big question. Beside that, what does death mean? It means you are completely going to become a void. Every information that we see we know from the spiritual path, because we don’t have any scientific or material information on it at all. I’m saying that we don’t have any scientific information on that. In other words, there is no scientist who proved that is a transition of life, but there is no scientist who said it’s not. So that’s why I said there is no scientific information at all on death. I don’t know why. I really don’t know why. I’d like to think because there’s no money. It’s not true. There’s a lot of money. Because everybody will be interested, so they will put money in there for sure.

0:12:01.1

For sure. There’s money. But I don’t know why. But there are some people who like to do, but they will completely jump off the track and goes into some kind of psychic level. And which again doesn’t give us fully satisfaction. It will give us some kind of another point. I really wonder why there is no scientific information. Since there is no scientific information, what’s only available is the spiritual information. And so we have to follow that spiritual information. Because that’s the only information available so we cannot counter check. We cannot bring checks and balance and check in there—check and balance in that from other side. All other you can, except here you cannot. Because you don’t other information from the other side. But for me what does death mean? For me death means a change of life, a change of life. It’s a huge conclusion of one life. It is total conclusion of this life. And it is concluded, it is concluded activity of one individual person of one individual life. And to me it is end of one life—end of one life’s activity but not end of individual at all. Not end of individual at all. So the life continues. So death means separation. Separation from this life to—a transition from this life into another one. It is interesting to watch it. I have a funny vision. It is almost—life is almost like taking the example of a computer sort of 0:15:03.1 [docking] system.

0:15:03.1

Sort of a chat room everybody joins in. And when we come in our life, we bring all not only our life along with our information, our knowledge, our best, our worst, our everything; and we somehow joined in the 0:15:29.1[and locked in] and we function together. Everybody you can see me, I can see you, you can talk to me, I can talk to you, you can do all of those. And when one dies, one unplugged at one’s computer. Just unplug. So you are no longer in that particular circle and that particular whatever it is—a group functioning, talking together. 0:16:03.2 [We don’t. So you pull out of that plug]. And we still carry our electrical socket with us. We’re going to plug into another area, wherever. So might not even be over here at all. Forget about Michigan. Forget about the United States. Forget about the whole world. Maybe a completely different galaxy, different universe, different something totally. And think reincarnation is all about that. Making a complicated, sophisticated mystery into clear-cut example. I think is all about it. You may be completely replugging your computer in Japan as a Japanese with the language and skill and knowledge and culture and physical and everything. Or you may be plugging in China as a Chinese. Or Brazilian in Brazil. Who knows? Or maybe something completely different. Different, where we will be looking as sort of a, you know, like a close encounter with third kind—sort of a third kind person, you know?

0:18:01.8

Could anything be. And to me, that is the transition. That is the one we are pulling out and plugging in another one. Somehow our memory is wiped out. Not completely. As childhood we have some memories of previous life, and then after a little while, will disappear that. By age five, six, seven we begin to disappear that, and finally, completely settled in the new culture wherever you’re born. It’s just like immigrants when they come into the United States first few years they have whatever, where they come from, with their culture, with that background, their idea, everything continues and gradually they’ll be Americanized, and in about seven or eight or nine or ten years’ time, they become totally American, as we see. Exactly may be happening with us. For few years we get some memory here and there of a previous. And then gradually that memory will be fade away because of the time, because of everything—conditions, times, everything changes. We call them memory 0:19:39.0 [wipe off] So that is how we are supposed to be continuing. We are not continuing as 0:19:51.6 [John R.][Joan R.] or something. We don’t continue as [John R.][Joan R.] And hey, hey [John][Joan] I haven’t seen you for two decades. How are you? Not two decades. Fine, two centuries. Hey [John][Joan] I haven’t seen you in two centuries. How are you? You know? You can’t function that way. It doesn’t work that way. So, but there will be something else. So this is what I’m talking about transition. They’re transitioning from identification whatever we have. The physical identification, the name identification, the family identification, the citizenship identification, and even the human identification. All of them change.

0:20:54.6

Or you may be in—you have a new ID and you maybe in—what is it? FBI safe house. Witness protection or whatever that is. May be in there or may be in somebody else’s safe house and with witness protection. Who knows? So that’s life is uncertainty about that. And the transition is such it is not necessarily we transit from one level to another level—better way or even equally. I don’t think it is certain. Sometimes it turns into worse. And worse and worst of all. And sometimes transit to equal level, better level and better and best of all possible. So I think that is completely open. And how and why and who controls—here is big question now. Who make the decision? How it happens? How is beyond our control, beyond our limit, beyond our control. We don’t control exactly where we are going now. When that transition. But we do control our destination. We do control. Because it is our self who creates our destination. Nobody else does. Here is the difference between the Buddhism eastern religion and western religion. 0:23:12.7 [Mostly is the religion. Most of them.] In the west we believe and we understand it is the God who decided where to go, what to do. But in the eastern religion says no, God loves everyone and wants everyone to have a good one. No one deserves to have suffering and difficult ones, and God certainly does not want to have somebody bad life at all. But it is our own deeds that make it.

0:23:57.5

So here the most of the eastern religion will say it is ourself who makes choice. We chose it a while ago. We made—we planned it a while ago. We planned it without knowledge. So this is funny here. It is becomes a lot of fundamental principle here. Because what happens is exactly here the same thing here. It goes on here. Do you know After death, one’s good and evil deeds trail after one after the shadow trails the body. Understanding that this most certainly is true, may I discard every level of wrong and generate an infinite mass of goodness. So what does that mean now? So what happens is every deed, every action, every deed that whatever we do, we act, we do is the one which is choosing our destination. We call that karma. Karma. We are not trying to replace God by karma. OK, don’t misunderstand that. God is living. Karma is not a being living at all. It is deed. Karma is nothing but the deed. And the deed that brings the result. So what happens is—not only what happens thereafter—what happens even tomorrow, what happens even next minutes or next hour or everything is somehow we have a basic karma that is sort of a fundamental basis which we created, we continue, we have that karma. We have different conditions comes in, knitted with that karma, and when it is knitted, and when it is good we have a nice, enjoy and beautiful. When it is not good, it is miserable, terrible, uncomfortable, all of them.

0:26:54.4

And this is exactly—and you are there, coming there, that’s with your karma, but the conditions 0:27:02.8 [inaudible] accordingly you get [inaudible] of our life. There’s a comfort and discomfort and all off of them [worked] in. Just like that. Same system which will follow life after life. Now here I’m talking about life after life. This is a big question for us. We don’t know yet. We don’t know anything about it. We don’t have correct information. We have nothing there. However, we deserve to have benefit of doubt. We don’t know anything about life after life. Nothing. We don’t know past life. We don’t know anything about the future life. We don’t even we have it, or we don’t even know we don’t have it. We don’t know we have it. We don’t know we don’t have it. So it is really question of doubts. That’s what really calls for. The late Allen Ginsberg told me number of times “I did not see future life. I did not see past life. I did not know, but if it’s true, I don’t want to be loser when it comes.” And that’s why I give the benefit of doubt. And this is very fair statement for all of us. We don’t know it’s not there. We don’t know it’s there. So it really giving benefit of doubt. Benefit of giving benefit of doubt is the win-win situation. No loss. Completely cutting it out, saying because I haven’t seen it, so it’s not there—it is simple, stubborn statement. There’s valid reason which we were talking about earlier. There’s no valid reason. Nor there is valid reason of not having either. So’s where we are. So when are giving the benefit of doubts, why it is a win-win situation?

0:29:55.6

Why is a win-win situation? Because they’re going to tell you what’s going to happen thereafter if 0:30:10.5 [when there’s when to assuming] there’s life after death. So presuming then what’s going to happened, how do we know what’s going happen then? Because what we do will make what will happen then. So from the Buddha’s point of view, this is a point where we empower ourself that our future is shaped by ourself. And that it is our responsibility for ourself, whatever we do. We don’t have to take responsibility of only when we did something wrong. We can take responsibility of what we did right. So benefit of the doubt of having a future life 0:30:10.5 [allow] and life after death makes us—I said a win-win situation—what do we win here? In case if there is, we can have right and good one, because our right action now will shape that. Oh thank you. Thank you. How did you see that? I’ve got something stuck on my 0:32:00.4 [inaudible] Thank you. Don’t watch me. Thank you. This condition. There’s something stuck. It pains you. So when you put this thing here and condition is right, and pain goes away. Thank you. Anyway. So what happened is, a few years ago my late wife—she passed away a few years ago. And she’s a Tibetan. But she’s not sort the religious person.

0:33:07.1

Quote unquote. Not a religious person. She’s very straightforward and very—and while she’s passing, just before, I was talking to her. I said, “Well, you have spent your life completely in a good way, always. So whatever the future will be should be good. Should be good. If there is a future life, it is the Buddha who said there is a future life and Buddha who said good future life depends on the good work you do now. This is your good work and your good future life is the karmic systems that gives you. And if that is true, then this is also true. And if there is no future life, then that’s end of it. That’s the end of it, and you have a good life. Rejoice that good life. Be happy about it. And if there’s a future life, it is the Buddha who said by doing good here will bring you the good life in the future. And so that has to be true. And if this one true, that one should be true. And if not, both are not true, both are not true. So it’s end of it, so why worry? And so it was very helpful, and she has a great death, actually. And a wonderful death. That’s what happened. So the idea is this. If you give the benefit of doubt, what the win-win situation will be—we are doing the right thing, good thing, for not necessarily for you alone, but for yourself and for everybody else. As a matter of fact, it’s for yourself. When you do something good for yourself, it’s good for the other. When you do something for others, it becomes good for you. And that’s really how compassion brings happiness to the life of people. That is all about it. So. What does that mean shadow trailing the body or something, whatever that is? Good and evil deeds trail after one like the shadow trails the body.

0:35:54.2

Good and evil. Good is good. Evil is evil. 0:35:58.8 [inaudible] like that. And actually it is interesting. What do you do? 0:36:06.8 [inaudible] Good and bad is very difficult to [inaudible]. It is good in your eyes. Sometimes might not be good in my eyes. And good for me is not necessarily good for you. And I always give the example of Communist Chinese and the Tibetans. And it’s good for the Communist Chinese is not necessarily good for the Tibetans. And good for the Tibetans can be very bad for the Communist Chinese. So it’s very hard to say what is good and what is bad. It’s very hard to draw the line. Honestly. If you think carefully, we always have difficulty. What I suggest we draw the line where you’re hurting somebody. When you hurt, including ourself, we consider that bad. And when you are helping, including ourself, can be considered good. I think, you know, we may have to draw the line from the action point of view, not necessarily from the effect point of view. Action. And that also hurt—getting hurt. Getting hurt. And that is creating suffering, creating a pain. No matter whoever you are creating. Doesn’t matter. Even you are creating a pain to Saddam Hussein. It is hurting, for sure. Though Saddam may deserve to be hurt. But it is hurting, for sure. So this is a little extreme statement. And especially up north in Michigan. I don’t know how this statement goes. Anyway, so, the idea really is, if you are hurting, no matter whoever that person may be, each and every hurt is pain—creating pain. And that is not good.

0:39:02.4

It is—it’s bad. Why it’s bad? If someone hurts me, it’s bad. Definitely. 0:39:13.4 [inaudible] ourself as me. If anyone hurts our physical body, our mind—anyone. Anything that hurts me, it’s bad. To my eyes. It’s bad. Same thing the other person. Same body. Same mind. 0:39:34.4 [Such a like it.] So the advice is given by the Tibetan earlier masters saying ‘take your physical pain as example, and don’t hurt others.’ If someone is hurting us physically, it is terrible. We want to get away with it. It’s terrible, pains us. Just like that. The other person is paining. Whether you deserve it or not deserve it is a different story. It’s a totally different story. It’s a different story. If you get someone—I mean you really—some of our deeds are so bad that we really can’t take it anymore. If you are thinking of revenge, you can’t. There are mass murderers. The mass murderers kill twelve, thirteen—remember there’s—what you call it, Boston Strangler? Remember? And how many woman they killed? Twelve or thirteen or something, right? So how many lives you can take out of that man? So you can’t really make equal in that way at all. I mean he only has one life. And when you take that away, that is just equal to one of them he killed. What about the other twelve? You can’t kill the person twelve, thirteen times. Honestly, there’s no thirteen lives to take. Isn’t there somebody that who says something has nine lives or something? [Audience answers} Cat. Even they have nine lives, you can’t kill a cat for nine times. No way. So it just doesn’t work in that way.

0:41:56.1

Hurting is hurting. No matter whatever. Hurting is hurting. For me personally the revenge—the word ‘revenge’ doesn’t work very well with me—very well with me at all. Personally for me—me—you know if I have to take my revenge from the Chinese, just doesn’t make sense to me. The sufferings and tortures that I have gone through when I was teenager. Late teenager—nineteen, twenty. We lost everything. We lost---I lost my parents, my mother is tortured and killed. And gone mad, literally. Gone mad. Finally torturing and she saw they are putting a nail on the body of a living human being thirteen nails—that much—hammered in. She gone crazy. They didn’t put nail in our body, but she saw they putting nails on somebody. During the Cultural Revolution and during that period. She gone crazy, completely crazy. And released three days before she died. So she died. My father was house arrest and passed away seventy-three. Not so much physical torture. I lost everything. My family, my life, my monastery, my teachers, everything. My wealth. I was not poor in Tibet. Certainly not. There’s only three families have jeeps and trucks in Tibet. I got two. Jeep and truck. So that itself tells you how much, you know, what it is. And I don’t think of taking revenge. There’s nothing to be taking revenge. Who? I mean if you are taking revenge, you have to take Chairman Mao. Is the only responsible person. Nobody else. Actually it’s Communist dictatorship. That guy. But then how times you can kill Chairman Mao? He has only one life. He is now dead even anyway.

0:44:58.2

So that’s the—this is very strange—revenge. It doesn’t work. And certainly I don’t want revenge 0:45:11.0 [inaudible] Chinese. Very poor Chinese people. They suffered equally as we did. Absolutely equally. This mad man was running the country, and everyone near by him doesn’t listen, or he doesn’t like it—just shoot them straightaway. So no one can open their mouth, do anything. That was 0:45:42.2 [time]. Remember there’s a little Chinese 0:45:47.4[theater] called Deng Xiaoping who came to power and who liberated everybody after Mao’s death. Everybody be able to breathe and change, and because during his time he does control. This Mao controls everybody, and no one—whoever challenged him, they shoot them. Even this Deng Xiaoping, that little guy, was in prison though he is number two or three guy, but he was put in jail, and he was only released when he died—Mao died. He came and eulogized him and become the new Chinese leader. So that itself shows how mad that person was. So that’s the whole—you know, half the world put under torture by one man. Same as Hitler. You know that, same as Hitler. Same as Hitler what they did. Sometimes that happens, you know. That happens. So these are one or two persons responsible. Take Hitler. How many Jews they have or other people? Not only Jews. A lot of other people. How many people they put in gas chamber? How much what they did it? And how many times we can kill Hitler? So this revenge business doesn’t work for me, somehow. Although we are looking for. We wanted have it. We want satisfaction. We call it ‘closure.’ And all of those. But then you know, different circumstances, different time—even one person in the different circumstances, different conditions. You know it’s all like that. So it’s really doesn’t work.

0:47:57.1

Even justice is a big question for me. Big question for me. I will not spend time talking, bothering you about justice, because this is something we always look for as part of, you know, our life. But sometimes when we are watching TV and the people talking about the justice. And there’s a big difficulty for me, really difficult for me. Anyway. In order to bring justice if we hurt a person, we creating a cause to have more pain for ourself. Honestly, this is very funny here. Somehow what we really have to do—if we have suffered under something, we should be able actually forgive. That is very gracious, very generous and it’s wonderful to do. Forgive. Dalai Lama doesn’t go after Communist Chinese saying ‘I want revenge. I want revenge.’ If he’s going to go and shout around the world saying ‘I want revenge’ no one’s going to believe or listen to Dalai Lama. And Dalai Lama goes and says ‘I want to forgive. I want to forgive.’ So everybody think twice. Everybody think twice. And the same thing with us. Taking revenge. How much we can take it? Our losses are so great. And I’m not talking about the Tibet. But whoever. Our lost. We have a constant, continual lost. Lost. Constant, continual lost because lost what we have is our life, our health and our youth and all this. And we lose it day by day, and it is not taken by Saddam Hussein or George Bush. It is taken by our own karma, our own life, our own deeds. We age day by day. We become older day by day. I don’t wear glasses when I born. It was 0:51:13.3 [came] up later.

0:51:13.3

And afterwards we’re going to have a hearing aid. We don’t wear now, but we will be wearing. If we live long enough to be able to wear hearing aid, we will be wearing it. And we will be holding a walking chair if we live long enough. If we live long enough, we will be walking with the walkers. So we are losing health. We are losing everything. We lose. This is life. The loss is not taken by somebody else. This is our biggest loss. Individual loss is losing our life, losing our health, is much bigger than losing our wealth. Losing our family, loved ones, is more bigger than losing our wealth. So these are the great losses. We can’t take revenge on that. We can’t take revenge on that. No one talking about taking revenge on that. If you want take revenge on losses, that’s where we should be taking the revenge on the loss. And that is our negative karmic consequences. And that’s where we really should take revenge if we are capable. And we are not. When it comes about our ego—I’m talking to our ego—when it comes to talking about our ego, and then we behave like a little cat. When we are talking about somebody else, we become like a tiger. And what is this? It doesn’t work. Honestly. Anyway, I don’t want to talk very long here. I can’t read that Tibetan.

0:53:40.9

NGE PA TEN PO NYE NE NÄ PAY TSOK TRA ZHING TRA WA NAM KYANG PONG WA DANG GE TSOK THA DAK DRUP PAR JÄ PA LA TAG TU BAK DANG DEN PAR JIN GYI LOB

Understanding that this most certainly is true, may I discard every level of wrong, and generate an infinite mass of goodness. Empower me to be thus continually aware.

So that’s it. Karma is nothing more than good brings good result; bad deeds bring bad result. That is karma. Karma is all about it.

CHE PE MI NGOM DUH NGEL KÜN GYI GO YI TEN MI RUNG SI PAY PHUN TSOK KYI NYE MIK RIK NE THAR WAY DE WA LA DÖN NYER CHEN POR KYE WAR JIN GYI LOB

Sensual gluttony is a gateway to suffering and is not worthy of a lucid mind.

That’s it. Where do we—where do I stuck? Where we are stuck today? We are really stuck at the sensual gluttony. That’s what it is. That is all about it. We are stuck with our hang ups there. You know really, our hang up is the sensual gluttonies. We think this is something fantastic and that ‘s what we want it. We always want it. We don’t never get it. We may have one or two experiences in our life. We thought it’s a glimpse, but we thought that’s great. We are always looking for it, never get it. That is gateway to suffering. And it’s not worthy or a lucid mind. Because our lucid mind remembers that and then 0:55:50.4 [we force us] to get it to this and never get it. We suffer ourself all the time about this. So we have to recognize this is a false joy, not a true joy. Why lucid minds? Lucid mind is intelligence mind, clear mind. Clear mind should know this is a false joy because it’s suffering. We thought it is joy, but it changes, becomes another pain. Creates another pain. Makes you additionally whole life run after it, never get it. So it is suffering. So if you are intelligent, you should know this.

0:56:54.2

And do not chase the—what you call it—the goose chasing or geese chasing or whatever it is, you know. They advertise for this Yellow Pages. What is it? [Audience answers] Wild goose chase. Thank you. So that is exactly what are doing. For we chase the sensual gluttonies. Like a wild goose chase. All the time. Never going to find it. It is suffering. Ok. Then what shall we do? 0:57:32.3 [And empower me with mindfulness and alertness. Alertness born from the thoughts ultimately pure. May I live in accordance with the holy dharma, the says leading to personal liberation.]

And empower me that with mindfulness and alertness, born from thoughts ultimately pure, I may live in accord with the holy dharma, the ways leading to personal liberation.

NAM DAH SAM PA DE YI DRANG PA YI DREN DANG SHE ZHIN BAG YÖ CHEN PO YI TEN PAY TSA WA SO SOR THAR PA LA DRUP PA NYING POR CHE PAR JIN GYI LOB

Which means morality. In other words, in short, in all the sentences, what does that mean? Have a pure, perfect morality. That morality will bring you the—give you the joy that you are looking for. The other things will not give joy that what looking for. It becomes wild goose chase. That’s what it is talking about it. When you come back, we’ll talk about it little more, and here we take ten minutes break, because three hour will be too long sitting. So we should have ten, fifteen—and I’ll see number of you try to keep yourself awake up, but you know, the powerful emotion called sleep is trying to take over here, there, you know. So we take a ten, fifteen minutes to get some fresh air. And we have to try to see and how we can go here.

0:59:12.1

The next verse is

NAM DAH SAM PA DE YI DRANG PA YI DREN DANG SHE ZHIN BAG YÖ CHEN PO YI TEN PAY TSA WA SO SOR THAR PA LA DRUP PA NYING POR CHE PAR JIN GYI LOB

And empower me that with mindfulness and alertness, born from thoughts ultimately pure, I may live in accord with the holy dharma, the ways leading to personal liberation.

Since we have established ourself the positive deeds bring joy and happiness, negative deeds brings the suffering and the misery. 1:00:07.3 [So ‘how do we help ourself?’ is the truly, bottom line.] I don’t want to go into the sort of technicality, but the bottom line is the morality. The issue of the morality is extremely important. Morality counts, and that is very important. 1:00:37.1

TEN PAY TSA WA SO SOR THAR PA LA

The ways leading to personal liberation. Ways leading to personal liberation is the creation of positive deeds. Positive deeds brings joy, happiness, liberate individual. Negative deeds bring suffering, pain, misery and did not liberate individual. So the true way of liberating, bringing joy, happiness is to have positive morality. Morality here is actually discarding the wrongdoing and creation of masses of goodness, and that is the morality we are talking about. Not simply—you know I have that again issue with morality.

1:02:09.9 In our country sometimes—in this country we have sometimes the issue with morality sometimes—very often—it’s very lopsided. And everybody, you know, morality becomes some kind of a—something sexual and way of life and people reason that way. And I don’t think it’s very specific about it. What it’s very specific about is discarding the wrong, discarding the negativities. Negativities here is hurting anybody. Even it is sexual, if you hurt people through sexual activities, that is wrongdoing. If you are hurting. And that’s why all the rape—all wrongdoing because it hurts people. It damages life of every individual, really, concerned with this. It makes a terrible thing. That’s why it’s wrongdoing. Wrongdoing because you hurt. I’m not talking about that only. So it’s really all wrongdoing. Killing is wrongdoing. If you kill people, that is immoral. If you kill human beings, that’s not moral. It’s not right. Legally not right, physically not right, morally it’s not right—killing people. Stealing is wrong morally too. Legally too. Sexual misconduct is morally wrong, legally wrong, and you know, molesting child and having, you know, rape people. All these are the wrong things. So basically the morality is whatever your commitment, whatever you are doing right and keeping your vows intact, keeping your commitments pure, keeping your mind pure. Keeping that is morally right, morally sound. And that’s the way how bring the happiness to ourself and to others.

1:05:03.2

The bottom line—and when they tells us here—ultimately pure. The ultimate pure is that. That’s what we’re referring to. So. Then now the question is 1:05:31.1 [not only there is the morality alone will do it and no you don’t] Morality may give you a help, may give you basis. But you need something more than that. What is that? Compassion. Compassion is the one you need. You know, keeping a good morality for ourself is compassionate action for self. Actually, if you care for yourself, you help yourself. Where and how you help yourself is keeping yourself pure. Not so much right. I don’t want to be righteous. But I don’t want to be wrong either. So the pureness is important. So much righteous is not great. Pure yes, not so much righteousness. So much righteousness gives you a lot of things, you know. For example, right now what I’m thinking is a lot of people do justify means for the end. I mean we are doing it right now—ourself, we are doing. You’re going to bring democracy in the middle eastern, so no matter whatever we have to do things wrong, but you got to be 1:07:31.2 [bad at four minute, so they’re going to bring it democracy.] You know, I mean this for me, it is the end justifying the means. 1:07:45.1 [We are right,] we build, we die, we are losing people, we are losing money, we are losing everything there, and we 1:07:54.4[are][have] created the trouble between these Shiites and Sunnis and all these.

1:08:01.7

But we are going to bring democracy. So all that thing, you know, whatever it is right now is fine, because at the end, there will be democracy. I’m sorry, I’m not criticizing President Bush, I’m not criticizing Republican Party or nothing, but I’m just criticizing that way of thinking. The means justifying the—no, end justifying the means is morally wrong when we are talking about moral; that’s what we are talking about. We are talking about compassion nature. That’s what compassion’s important. Because we don’t have compassion. I mean, because you know, we justify all the sufferings we created for the people over there. Over there, for just saying Saddam Hussein was a dictator. Sure he is dictator. No doubt about it. No one would like to defend him, for sure. No one. No one is saying he was right. Of course he was wrong. But we created more mess than he did. I’m sorry to say. It is, really. We created more mess than he did. That’s why are losing our kids’ life; twenty-five hundred is not a joke. We’re losing every day money. It’s not a joke. We don’t have—in Michigan we don’t have jobs. Those factories are closing. The car companies closing. People are losing jobs. And they have no ways of paying the mortgage. And where I live is in Ypsilanti, where the Ford—sort of middle-level Ford executives lost their job, so we see the foreclosure houses popping up everywhere right and left. And that is immoral. So don’t think immoral is only at the lower part of the body. I’m sorry. But really, truly, it’s not. It is all kinds of things are here involved. Look, losing the—you know, the honest, usual, straightforward, normal Americans losing their livelihood. Are losing their jobs. You know, the generations—I heard when they first came, you have a job in General Motors means you are your kids’ lives are set for future. And it’s no longer true now.

1:11:01.9

So whoever’s wrong, whether it’s the Republicans or the Democrats or the whoever-it-is, it is wrong. It is not right. And that is also a moral issue. And I don’t—I want people to have a very open mind when you talk about moral. It’s not simply just the below the waist. You know, honestly. That’s not the moral issue. It’s all so much. Likewise

RANG NYI SI TSOR LHUNG WA JI ZHIN DU MAR GYUR DRO WA KÜN KYANG DE DRA WAR THONG NÄ DRO WA DRÖL WAY KHUR CHER WAY JANG CHUB SEM CHOG JONG PAR JIN GYI LOB

Just as I myself have fallen into samsara's waters, so have all other sentient beings. Empower me to see this and really to practice bodhimind, that carries the weight of freeing them.

When you have the morality and suffering and need to be liberating self, then you begin to see the question is same with others. Everybody else. When no matter whoever we look for. It is strange. I mean this is such a country where our individualness is so important and so great, and we preserve, we enjoy. It is great. But at the same time, we are all in the same boat. Wherever we look, everywhere we in same boat, no matter whoever—higher, lower, good, rich, poor, man, woman. Whoever we look we are in the same boat. We are all looking for joy, happiness. We all have pain, suffering, misery. Constantly, continually. One after another. If not this one, something else. If not that one, something else constantly, continually comes in. It is interesting. Here they say [Empower me to see this and to rely to practice bodhimind. Relay? [Audience answers] Really. Oh, thank you. Really to practice. Really, truly, right? See I can’t read. I told you. Really to practice the weight of freeing them.]

Empower me to see this and really to practice bodhimind

that carries the weight of freeing them.

Bodhimind is technical language for us. That is ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned. Ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion. Ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion.

1:14:45.4

So I have to talk to you here. Spend a little time talking to you. What is compassion? What is love? Before we talk about ultimate, unconditioned, unlimited love and compassion? What is love? What is conditioned—oh, what is compassion? My understanding of this. Love and compassion is one mind, but one mind with two different aspects or aspiration of mind. Actually, mind itself is the caring mind. Compassion wishes separation from the pain. In other words, compassion can no longer see and bear suffering. Wanted to be separation from suffering and pains. Whether it is yourself or the others. Whoever you are focusing. Compassion wishes freedom from pain. Separation from pain. Are you with me? Did you hear me? Compassion wishes whoever the person may be separated from the pains what they experiencing. In other words, when we see our children, our grandchildren going through—suffering through pain, we wish them separate. The pain and the individual. In other words, heal the pain of the individual. Wishing no longer suffering. That’s what we are wishing. Are you with me? Maybe I went too far. I mean when I say ‘no longer wishing’ I don’t mean wishing them died. So don’t go to that extreme. Because when I said that word that thought came, because language is such. Sometimes they will say ‘separate’ means ‘OK, don’t have any more pain’ even they die. That’s what not talking about it. Healing from the pain. Wishing them not having any more pain. In other words, individual person may be separated from the experience of the pain. Doesn’t have to die. No, not at all. Dying is pain, suffering. So. Not. Love wishes them joy and happiness. So that’s why one mind, two different aspects. One wishes them free from the suffering; the other wishes joy and happiness. So we pray

1:18:01.1

May all beings have the joy that has never know suffering. Joy never known suffering. Means they have the joy, no suffering at all. Which means joy never known sufferings. We don’t have that. We only have some sort of sensual gluttony joy, which is not necessarily true joy. True joy is joy that never known sufferings. Which we don’t have it. And love really wishes that. Absolute joy, absolute happiness, joy that never known suffering. And that it is really true love. We really wondered. This is true in the spiritual level. This is true in our everyday life level. When we say ‘I love you’ which really means ‘I wish you be very happy and joyful as you are. Good old American saying is ‘I love you as you are.’ Don’t we say that? It’s good old American saying. And if you don’t love me as what I am, then the love is questionable. Because here you comes ‘Well, I love you. You are wonderful, but I wish you change your hairstyle little this way, little that way. Oh, I wish you change your dress. Oh, I wish you don’t wear that. Or I wish you cut your hair.’ Or you know, whatever. And whenever it comes something like that, it may be coming with good motivation and even true thinking of love, however it is showing its limits. The true love doesn’t have limit. Whatever you may be. If you love me, now whatever may be, maybe whatever strange creature may be having nine horns or something. Even then, you know. Or if you really truly love, you should love even your pink elephant. Right? Even your pink elephant if you love. That is true love. Love that doesn’t have any limitations. The moment they putting limits, we’re not necessarily clear indication, but it gives you some spark and signal of some limitations somewhere, you know.

1:21:13.1

True love doesn’t do that. True love is appreciation. True love is a joy, a joy of the person, a joy and appreciation of the person. And the wishing the person be happy and joy, whatever it is. That is true love. No limit. No conditions attached. No strings attached. You know what I mean? So that is true love. And can develop true love to a people? Or to someone. Without developing true love oneself. That’s not possible, honestly. You don’t even know what true love is. We been fooled many times and continue to be fooled. We think our attractions are love. No. The attractions are not love. Attractions are conditioned, limited. Limited conditions. It’s like a beautiful dress we see. We have a very wonderful sort of attraction. We think it is a fantastic. We have to work hard, try to get it. When you get it, it’s exactly not what I wanted. Because something here, something there. Maybe I can change here. Maybe I can change there. That is attraction. I give the example on dresses. But that can be go on person, too. That can go anywhere else. That’s how we put the limits on our love. So the limited love is nothing so great. I don’t think anyone will welcome limited love. Do we? Conditioned love, limited love. Even we sing, don’t we. Love must be true, right? Don’t we sing that? Some old, old sing. Love must be true, mean what you said. Right? We say that. It’s true. Love must be true.

1:24:10.3

If it’s true love, should not be any conditions. And we not only have condition to the other people, but we have condition to ourself to. We put a condition to ourself, too. We put a condition to ourself, so much. And people don’t like it when they look themself in the mirror. A lot of people. I had horrible time to listen to myself. If I hear me talking, I get embarrassed, and I get you know, it sounds horrible. The English is terrible, and all this. I get so embarrassed myself. Now I am getting little better. Maybe I’m getting used to it. Really. So that’s my limitation of appreciating myself. And what makes me not appreciate is my desire to be perfect. My desire to be perfect cuts my appreciation for myself. And when you have that on yourself, you have it on others too. Without appreciation, how can you even admire to the person? Without admiration, how can even develop love to the person. It is just a word, a meaningless word. So the bodhimind here doesn’t do—does not entertain the meaningless word. It means true love. True compassion. True love brings true compassion actually. Without love, you cannot have compassion. If you don’t care for the person, why should you worry about the person suffering? If you don’t care. As all of us—as all our 1:26:41.2 [inaudible] good Americans who don’t have enemies, truly. 1:26:48.0 [don’t have very little. So many enemies.] Most closest we can bring now is the Saddam Hussein. Most closest we can think is Saddam Hussein.

1:26:48.0

Honestly. But all will agree he was wrong. He’s a dictator. Terrible. But no one strongly hates him either, unless you have personal experience and personal suffering, personal losses. We don’t. Nor we care for him at all. Whether he has been suffering or whatever. We don’t care for him. Check your own mind. Check the mind of your friends, right and left people. 1:27:47.7 We don’t really hate him. Or no, we have compassion for him. No we really care for him. And that is the closest enemy we can have it. Don’t care what happens. So it’s not really. That’s what it is. So when you don’t care, so you don’t have love. When you don’t have love, even he suffers or tortures or even get killed 1:28:18.4 [so say well ‘Oh yeah, well. Yeah, well that’s about it.’] That’s what’s going to be the reaction of the people. I mean, as it is, sure he’ll be killed one day, for sure. But whenever he be executed or whatever happens, we will hear the news for twenty-four hours or forty-eight hours repeated as much as they can, by every channel—you know, nothing else to say. We probably going to see—oh, whatever it is. Execution, or whatever it is, they’re just going to say ‘Well….’ You know, that’s what it’s going to be. ‘Well…’ No one—not very few people will say ‘That’s what he deserves.’ Very few—very few will support him and it’s going to be ‘Well….’ That’s it. And most probably, most people will say nothing more than ‘Well….that’s what going to be.’ So that indicates ‘don’t care.’ Don’t care. Don’t care. So when you don’t care, you can’t have love. When you don’t have love, you can’t have compassion. You know what I mean? So these are follows. One follows another. Appreciation also, caring also. You know, looks like compassion bringing caring. As well as caring bringing compassion. The kindness and goodness of our human nature. The good quality of the human being within us.

1:30:06.0

Give some kind of superficial compassion for people who are suffering. I say it superficial because it is superficial because it is not deep enough. Anything 1:30:23.3 [changed can be changed.] We see someone tortured. All of a sudden we somebody is torturing. Person. And we feel for the person. We try to help. And you know, my feeling is—my estimate is American people are so good and so kind. Honestly, eighty-percent of the people when they see somebody is torturing without knowing who that person is—they go out of their way to protect that person. No matter whatever it may be, don’t torture. We will say that. I don’t think American public as a people will support torture to anyone, even maybe Al Qaeda. I don’t think public will support. Because they are kind person. Kindness. When we don’t see it—when we only heard, this is the way we can get to the Al Qaeda and we can get information. People give more support. Because we don’t see actually torturing, pain. We don’t hear. We simply said the word and hide actual action behind. They say that’s how we can get information out of those people. People are more inclined to support the torture. But if you really see what torture means, if you really think what torture means, if you can imagine what torture means, if you can visualize what torture means, if you can think a minute what this individual—what we been doing to that individual and physically—when we change our mind. When you saw those pictures out of that prison—what is called that? (Audience answers) Abu Ghraib. When you saw those pictures and eighty-percent of people change their mind.

1:32:53.9

Because we see it. Pictures. See. When you are seeing it, we draw the goodness of the people. They draw that compassion. It is superficial compassion. I said that. Because when you say ‘That’s our enemy’ we withdraw this compassion for a minute. A few people will say ‘Enemy or no enemy, we don’t want to torture.’ These are the good, kind people. Their compassion is more stronger than mine. Many of us will say ‘Oh, it’s the enemy. OK.’ We will be willing to give another fifteen more minutes for them torture, you know? And that’s showing—you know because there’s no care, the care as living being has been reduced by the picture of enemy 1:34:03.9 [inaudible] enemy, it’s reduced. And that is how caring brings the compassion. That is how care brings love. That is how love brings compassion. It’s easy to say compassion. It’s a beautiful word. According to Allen Ginsberg, it is buzz word. Honestly, it’s a buzz word. Buzz word. Overly use it, less meaning of what really it meant. And then, sometimes now, this is a joke. But joke—if you are very conservative on compassion, it becomes conservative compassion. So you be very conservative on compassion so that you can torture more. To the enemies. So. I’m just joking. Anyway. Sometime we have to joke, because people won’t laugh otherwise. So here Je Tsongkhapa tells us Just as I myself have fallen into samsara's waters, so have all other sentient beings.—it is technicality. It is also poetry. So just as myself having tremendous pain, so have all other sentient beings.’ Can we think about that? So this is the beginning of compassion, true compassion. Compassion. We can talk about compassion a lot. The words we use all the time. The meanings we don’t get very much.

1:36:13.3

We have our own understanding of compassion. Which really doesn’t work very well. We have selected compassion. We really do have—we have selected love, we have selected compassion. What we like to have compassion, we have compassion. What we don’t like to have compassion, we don’t have compassion. We justify whatever it is. It is selected compassion. Selected compassion is one eye. You know, we have—Tibetans—we say ‘one-eye yak’. The yak animal—Tibetan animal on the high mountains. If there is a one-eye yak, he can only eat one side of the grass, not both side. You know, one side they will eat. One side they see nothing. It left out. And selected compassion is like one-eye yak. It can only eat one side. Not the other. So that’s—it’s really interesting. If you look very carefully what’s happening with us today. It’s really one-eye yak’s business. Our activities in everywhere is one-eye yak. Whatever is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan is one thing. Whatever is happening in Syria is another thing. You know, I mean how is one-eye yak is there. Anyway. So what they are telling us here, is if you really have true love, unconditioned, unlimited, you must have love and compassion to all sentient beings. Unconditioned. Unlimited. That’s called bodhimind. Ultimate, unconditioned, unlimited. Next one:

1:38:50.4

SEM TSAM KYE KYANG TSÜL TRIM NAM SUM LA GOM PA ME NA JANG CHUB MI DRUB PAR LEG PAR THONG NE GYEL SE DOM PA LA TSÖN PA DRAK PÖ LOP PAR JIN GYI LOB

Yet without habituation in the three moralities, thought-training accomplishes no enlightenment. Empower me to know this deeply and intensely to train in the various ways of the great bodhisattvas

Bodhisattvas—a technical name for who having bodhimind. In other words ultimate, unconditioned, unlimited love, compassion persons are called bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas. So even you have compassion alone—unconditioned, unlimited compassion—if you don’t have—here they call it moralities. Morality here really meaning the actions that you take. You wish everybody wonderful. You know, like the New Age says send your good thoughts. We send our good thoughts, do nothing. Send our good thoughts, do nothing. It’s not going to happen much. So engage in the activities of serving. Serving and helping people. It is the morality here. Three is—three moralities. That is, morality of controlling ourself from wrongdoing. Morality of collecting goodness. And morality of serving and helping all other beings. So these are the three moralities they are talking about. If you develop compassion, you have to act according to compassion. Just sending good thoughts alone is great but won’t help much. So have action. The action is again to avoid negative actions, to build as much goodness as you can build and serve and help as much as you can. You know, we used to have this foundation called Seva Foundation here. Seva means service. Serve as much as you can. So these are the three moralities.

1:42:14.6

All this moralities you have to have thought training 1:42:21.1 [inaudible] And if you don’t have thought training on three moralities, it will not complete enlightenment at all. Enlightenment becomes spiritual goal for the Buddhist, that of Mahayana Buddhist. That of Tibetan Buddhist is goal or the target that we hope to achieve is total enlightenment. It is saying if you don’t have thought training—thought training here really means meditation. And how does one do the meditation? The next verse:

LOG PAY YUL LA YENG WA ZHI CHE CHING YANG DAK DÖN LA TSÜL ZHIN CHÖ PA YI ZHI NÄ LAK THONG ZUNG DU DEL WAY LAM NYUR DU GYÜ LA KYE WAR JIN GYI LOB

And empower me to pacify distorted mental wanderings and to decipher the ultimate meaning of life, that I may give birth within my mindstream to the path combining concentration and wisdom.

Together. Combining—now this is meditation is all about it. Thought training. What is it? Meditation. What do you meditate? You know in this country it was a big surprise for me in mid-eighties when I first came in the country. For a while, I tried to avoid talking about meditation. Because I don’t know anything about it—whether the people are familiar or not familiar. Then I was told ‘yes, you can talk about the meditation.’ So one day, I said about meditation. The moment I said meditation, everybody moved.

1:44:59.1

Just like you did this morning. Everybody moved, readjusted themself and started sitting down. And taking you know, all kind of gestures. You know, all kinds of things, whatever they did. They did everything. You know? It was a big surprise to me. Oh it was nice. And then I begin to realize the word ‘meditation’ is becoming fashion. Particularly fashion in a group of people like us. What we claims to be liberal, open-minded persons. It is fashion for us. I don’t know open-mindeds are always liberal or not. And it changes in northern Michigan anyway. It changes from Ann Arbor to northern Michigan. Anyway so. So then I learned, and the meditation is not only just a fashion, but people like to do it and is sort of happy with it. But it is simply a matter of copying people. Physically how to 1:46:28.9 [inaudible] with chest and all that. A little bit of one copies the other. Copying how you sit, how you do it. That’s why they do hand gesture and all this. The question really truly meditation is ‘what do you think about it?’ That is very important. The true meditation is no the physical gesture. The mental attitude. And the mental situation. What are you going to do with your mind when you meditate? Mostly in this country, when you meditate, they doesn’t let the mind be alone, Relax. And it is becoming one of those relaxation techniques. Which is helpful, no doubt about it. Nothing wrong with it. However, meditation is a little more than relaxation technique. Meditation is the way how we achieve our ultimate goal. It is the best tool we have to overcome our negativities.

1:48:03.4

It is the best method we have to achieve our wisdom. It is the best method to be able to focus. With focusing you achieve nothing. So the focusing, concentrating and bringing wisdom together. It is the job of meditation. Meditation really focus on something. If you cannot focus, there is no meditation. Just simply relaxing—it’s not just meditation. You may call it meditation. It’s fine. You can call the cat the dog, dog the cat. Cow the donkey, donkey the cow. It is entirely up to you. That doesn’t make a donkey the cow or the cat a dog. It doesn’t. So likewise you may call anything to your meditation, anything of you are doing, but to be true meditation has its own complete system. It has its own complete purpose. It has its own complete way of doing, and it has its goal, it has its measures, how much you reach, where you reach, how much you gone, how many more you have to go. All of them there. Just simply sitting is wonderful but not good enough. It is about time that we wake up rather than just sleep over meditation. So you can—you know this country—you call it meditation. People just simply sit and wait ‘til the cows come home. Waiting for what I don’t know. That’s what we are doing. Many of us doing day after day actually. Day after day feel good; that’s great. That’s fine. It served a purpose. Good. But not good enough. It is more than that. Meditation must learn.

1:50:52.6

One. Focusing. On whatever you want to put your mind on that. Meditation must be able to focus. Meditation doesn’t jump. It’s not a bug we see, what’s that—now summertime in the open field. (Audience answers) Grasshopper. Thank you. The meditation is not grasshopper. OK? We have grasshopper meditation. Grasshopper jump from this to that. Jump bump bump bump. You know why? Mind has no limit, no control, so it can jump anywhere. You can be here now and certainly can think downtown Tokyo. Bump over there. Oh, no, jump to New York City. No, no, no California. Los Angeles. Hollywood. You know, whatever it is. Bump bump bump bump. It’s a grasshopper. Meditation is no grasshopper. Or grasshopper is not meditation. The grasshopper is grasshopper. You must focus. You must leave it there. So we can’t leave it, because there are obstacles. Our mind is so busy, and we are so much engaged by two actions, i.e., one is mental wandering. Immediately we must wander. We just can’t sit straight for two seconds. Mind jumps. Grasshopper must hop. And if you sit two seconds, you will fall asleep. That is the other extreme. Sinking mind.

1:52:59.7

Wandering and sinking is our problem. Especially the gross sinking which drops our head all the time. And sometimes we are meditating, and the other side of the room person will come in hearing the snoring. So comes in and wake you up. Right? So that should not be . These are the problems of the meditation. If you are hoping, remember you are not grasshopper. If you are sinking, you are not there to sleep. You are there to meditate. So these are the two gross difficulties. So focusing. Focusing alone is not good enough. It should be strong, very strong. Example is giving—you know like give you a full glass of water. A bowl of water. Big bowl of water, leading you to carry from here to there in the room, so you have to be totally focused. Otherwise you’re going to drop the water. Right? What do we do 1:54:21.4 [while][well] meditation is almost like we are dropping the water. By the time when you get there, half is empty, and even then we think we are meditating. And that’s not correct. The correct meditation should be totally focused. Making sure not a single drop of water is dropped. Dripped. Not a single of water is dripped. So that is called focusing.

1:54:56.9

So the grasshopper can’t do that. Grasshopper will be upside down. He won’t even know. So. So these are the meditation points. And recommended point. You can meditate on anything. In anything. The earlier Tibetan teachers tells us you can meditate from the cow dung to yak horn. That means anything. If it’s only learning how to focus, you can keep on meditating on cow dung. I don’t know if anybody wants to do that or not. If you meditate on cow dung, you have to meditate ‘til it smells. I’m joking. But you can do anything you want to, but recommended 1:56:01.8 [YANG DAK DÖN LA TSÜL ZHIN CHÖ PA YI] The ultimate meaning of life. Destroy the mental wanderings. Means don’t be grasshopper. To figure out the ultimate meaning of life is the wisdom that you’re building. Wisdom that you build in is the ultimate meaning of life. 1:56:47.8 [What was we wrong?] We have the mystery of life, and that confuses us all the time. All our sufferings are coming from this confusion. Confusion—we are confused in our life. We do have this complete misknowledge, misinformation, and we have this fear. Fear combined with misinformation and confusion what we call it ego. Not in sense of psychologists calling ego, but ego in the sense of public usage. This a ego, ego self-grasping ego. Self-grasping is the total creator of the mystery in our life. It is the creator of confusion in our life. We have to demystify our confusion. That is wisdom. So 1:58:20.5 [YANG DAK DÖN LA TSÜL ZHIN CHÖ PA YI] The ultimate meaning of the life. 1:58:22.5 [Despair][Decipher] the ultimate meaning of life. So if you meditate, if you know how to focus, if you can analyze it, do it on that Mr. Ego. Find it out who is that Mr. Ego. What does he creating problem for us, and how does he create problem for us. So that we can reverse his influences.

1:59:00.4

Then we can reverse—we can return his spell back to him. So that we can be clear, we can be free of confusion, we can be clear for ourself. That is called wisdom. Knowing what it is, knowing to do is wisdom’s all about it. Other than that, there’s no package called wisdom package. Oh, yeah yeah, I saw the other day, there’s a wisdom package. Comes from Wisdom Publications. And that’s not going to get the wisdom to us. There is a package with couple of books packed together with couple of photographs calling wisdom package. When that happened to us—when we been able to demystify it—our confusion--then then we call this one who trains in this common mahayana practice, then training ourself in this path is completed. Becomes a vessel worthy of the supreme vehicle, vajrayana. Empower me that I may quickly and easily arrive at that portal of fortunate beings. So then we become fortunate beings. Wonderful human being also become now fortunate being. Because very fortunate to be able to have greatest method of completion goal of our life, completing mission of our life. Demystifying our mystery of life. THÜN MONG LAM JANG NÖ DU GYUR PA NA THEG PA KÜN GYI CHOK GYUR DOR JE THEG KEL ZANG KYE WÖ JUK NGOG DAM PA DER DE LAG NYI DU JUG PAR JIN GYI LOB. Next:

DE TSE NGÖ DRUB NAM NYI DRUP PAY ZHI NAM DAG DAM TSIG DOM PAR SUNG PA LA CHÖ MA MIN PAY NGE PA NYE GYUR NE SOK DANG DÖ TE SUNG BAR JIN GYI LOB The foundation of what then produces the two powers is the guarding of the pledges and commitments. Guarding of the pledges and commitments. That is the morality we are talking about it. See the morality is important at the beginning. The morality is important in the middle. And the morality is important at the end, too.

2:02:08.1

Guarding of the pledges and the commitments. What is the pledge? You pledge yourself to help yourself and help others. You pledge yourself to bring joy and happiness to yourself and not bring misery and the problem for yourself. Thereby you also pledge to help bring joy and happiness to others. And don’t bring misery and problems to others. That is your pledge. That is our commitment. No one wants to hurt anyone. Self or other. That is our pledge. That’s our commitment. That’s where we draw the line we are good person or bad person. The bad person will bring the misery and suffering not only to themself but to the others too. By bring bad habit. It is very difficult to have good habit, very easy to pick up bad habit. I give you one example that’s normally give you during the—I forgot actually. During the teachings, they give you this example. I forgot completely. Can you imagine? I forgot the detail. What happens I can give you the gist. I forgot detail completely. I think 2:04:15.2 there are two travelers. Two travelers. This is an old Tibetan story. Two travelers. They traveled from one village to the city that’s Lhasa in Tibet—not big city. So they went from very far away from 2:04:36.3 [one month] area. These two travelers belongs to one family. Two brothers actually, I think. I think two brothers. One brother always drinks—drink alcohol, you know, almost like alcoholic.

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The other doesn’t even touch it. Doesn’t even touch it. So they went to one month—or I think it’s three months. Three months. And the good one has bad company. Bad company. They were drinking all the time and doing all that. And the bad one has a very restricted group of people who are really going to 2:05:32.8 [pilgrimage. Both are going to pilgrimage. One with the big company who had all this—this thing—and one is the other one.] So buy the time—the result is this. When they come back three months later, the drinking person is no longer drinking, and the other person become alcoholic. So that is the how—the effect of the individual. Why did I bring that? I don’t why did I bring that example for what. I forgot. Anyway 2:06:33.7 [THÜN MONG LAM JANG NÖ DU GYUR PA NA THEG PA KÜN GYI CHOK GYUR DOR JE THEG KEL ZANG KYE WÖ JUK NGOG DAM PA DER DE LAG NYI DU JUG]—Oh yeah, yeah, that’s it. The foundation of what then produces the two powers is the guarding of the pledges and commitments. That’s where it went. Pledges and commitments. Pledges and commitment is also not only you can help yourself, but your companion also makes hell of a difference to ourselves. That’s a true fact. True fact. And that’s why we do try to create—or not try create—but a lot of people do try to create a sangha community. The sangha community can support each other for your pledges and commitments of---here it says of tantric initiation. But whatever it may be. Pledges and commitment is the morality. Morality is not only one can maintain oneself, but also the company and the companions make hell of a difference to ourself.

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Even there’s a very good person. With the number of people around addicted—substance addicted person around—there’s more danger of that good person becoming substance addicted. There’s more danger. And just like that—company, companion—makes hell of a difference. So, the reason why I brought this here is if you love someone, if you love yourself and love other’s one and give support of maintaining the pledges and commitments to the positive deeds, and that will be great help. Bless me so that I may have uncontrived knowledge of this and guard my discipline as I do my very life. Then it’s almost DE NÄ GYÜ DEY NYING PO RIM NYI KYI NÄ NAM JI ZHIN TOG NÄ TSÖN PA YI THÜN ZHI NEL JOR CHO LÄ MI YEL WAR DAM PAY SUNG ZHING DRUP PAR JIN GYI LOB This I can just read it. And bless me so that I may gain realization of the main practices of the two stages of vajrayana, essence of the tantric path; and by sitting relentlessly in four daily sessions of yoga, actualize just what the sages have taught. Tantric stages is two stages. Two important. Developing and completing. Developing here is completely pure environment, pure inhabitants. And the completion stage is whatever you developed, you complete. First, mental imagination. We call it visualization. Imagery. Imagination. It is called visualization. And second, whatever you visualize, it become actualized. Become actual. And that’s the completion stage. It’s all about it. DE TAR LAM ZANG TÖN BAY SHE NYEN DANG TSÜL ZHIN DRUP PAY DROG NAM ZHAB TEN CHING CHI DANG NANG GI BAR DU CHÖ PAY TSOG NYE WAR ZHI WAR JIN GYI LAB TU SOL Empower me that the masters who have unfolded the sublime path within me and the spiritual friends who have inspired me may live long; and that the myriad inner and outer interferences be completely and utterly calmed forever.

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Do I have to explain that? We do have obstacles. 2:11:33.7 [Any][Inner] obstacles. Mostly inner obstacles. Outer obstacles are sort of illnesses and so on. But inner obstacles are the very wandering mind and the grasshopper and the sleeping person are the inner obstacles. And that can be 2:11:56.7 [inaudible] We are praying here. Maybe pacify it. KYE WA KÜN TU YANG DAG LA MA DANG DREL ME CHÖ KYI PEL LA LONG CHÖ CHING SA DANG LAM GYI YÖN TEN RAB DZOG NE DOR JE CHANG GI GO PHANG NYUR THOB SHOK In all future lives, may I never be parted from the perfect lamas or the pure ways of dharma. May I gain every experience of the paths and stages and quickly attain the stage of Vajradhara. Vajradhara is the Vajrayana Buddha. So I think that completed The Foundation of All Perfections. The next word O glorious that does not belong to The Foundation of All Perfections. Because it came in some kind of practice in-between. So these are not belong to The Foundation of All Perfections. Up to here I have completed The Foundation of All Perfections. Some people want it. People over here actually wanted me to do this and I sort of read it to you. And with a tiny little explanation here and there. So I hope it will be a little bit of help and a little building a foundation with you. But I’m must give you a little time for you to ask questions and if you have any.

Audience: Rimpoche, did you miss one of the Tibetan verses 2:13:33.7 [inaudible}

Rimpoche: Which one?

Audience: 2:13:37.1 [inaudible]

Rimpoche: I thought I read it whole thing. Which one you think I didn’t read it? Well, you know the problem why he is raising that question if it did miss it, somebody who want the oral transmission. I think they missed that. That’s why he is making it THÜN MONG LAM—I read this. 2:14:10.4 [inaudible] I read that.

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[inaudible Tibetan] I read that.

Audience: The second to last 2:14:17.8 [inaudible]

Rimpoche: Second to last. Which one is it?

Audience: 2:14:20.6 [inaudible]

Audience: It’s the top of page 32.

Rimpoche: I think I did it, but anyway let me read it. 2:14:31.9 DE TAR LAM ZANG TÖN BAY SHE NYEN DANG TSÜL ZHIN DRUP PAY DROG NAM ZHAB TEN CHING CHI DANG NANG GI BAR DU CHÖ PAY TSOG NYE WAR ZHI WAR JIN GYI LAB TU SOL I did read that. Honestly. So because my thought at that moment—because I can’t read this and I have this by heart, and when I said this word, the thoughts come in my head. So that’s why TSÜL ZHIN DRUP PAY DROG NAM ZHAB TEN CHING CHI DANG NANG So I have thought there outer, inner and then I said outer is sickness and so forth. Maybe I read that English. I don’t know, but. So any questions, anybody? Yes?

Audience: Is there a difference in different areas of the world how they practice Buddhism? For example Japan. Is there a difference there?

Rimpoche: I think so. You know, Buddhism is such a thing. It is a great—very pure. Really, really extremely pure thing. So it does not have—very much of it is culture. It is more sort of—more sort of thought and ideas and philosophy that really became a part of life. And when it became a part of life, every place wherever it goes, culture of the place—I don’t know who adopt whom, whether the Buddhism adopted the culture of the land where it is or the culture of the adopted Buddhism wherever it is. So then it becomes a combination of that. When that becomes the combination, then Japanese Buddhism have tremendous amount of the Japanese culture. Traditional Shinto culture. Or all kinds of different cultures.

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And that brought in. As well as in China, the Chinese culture. In India, the Indian culture. In Tibet, tremendous amount of Tibetan culture. And it is the mixture culture of Chinese, Mongolian and original Tibetan all combined together made such a 2:17:24.9 [elaborate] culture. And also not only the Tibetan culture but also the pre-Tibetan, pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion called Bon. It’s a tremendous Bon culture is also in the Tibetan Buddhism, such as making elaborate torma offerings, making big doughs and decorated. Such an artistic decorations, most of them from pre-Buddhist Bon culture which is adopted into Buddhism. And all kinds of things. Like burning incense may be a true Buddhist culture. But burning incense then have different style of burning has been adopted by the local culture. So Buddhism just make offerings of flower, water, incense, food and so forth. So incense offering is true Buddhist culture, however it is such elaborated in the Chinese culture becomes incense offering becomes such a ritual and that you know, so many people sort of you know—in the old Chinese monasteries and nunneries, they go 2:19:06.9 [hole][hall][all] around with the burning incense and a lot of instrumental and singing and all this. It’s called incense offering. It becomes a complete culture by itself. Very interesting. And also the old Tibetan Bon culture also have all kinds of things. The similarity between the Mayan cultures—you know the Mexican—the old Mayan culture. And there’s a lot of similarities, all of them. They all somehow cooperated inside Buddhist culture. Which you do not find in the Japanese culture. But then the Japanese culture you have lot of Japanese traditions which you don’t find all other cultures.

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I think the cultural aspects make a huge difference. But in essence, I don’t think it make that much difference. Thank you. Yes sir?

Audience: With regards to love and compassion, when you were talking about to really have compassion, love—you have to have love kind of precedes that idea of compassion. And then even within that in order to love others, you have to love yourself. Can you comment or talk a little about, you know, why we have so many challenges loving ourself. Because it seems like that’s really the key in order to love others, then in order to have compassion, then in order to have compassion for others. And I think that loving ourself in our society—I know personally, you know, it’s a challenge. 2:21:05.3 [inaudible]

Rimpoche: True. What happens is—the confusion that I talk about it—ego. Ego makes us confused. The confusion is this. Ego thinks we are protecting ourself. Which means we are not protecting ourself. We are protecting ego. When we are protecting ego, ego thinks where and how we protect ourself is cut the anything that comes on our way. Destroy anything that’s coming on our way. The confusion is this. Using hatred and obsession is a way to protect our ego, ourself. Which makes us like a porcupine. Ready to shoot anyone. Just like this. Ready to shoot anything. And that is the ego which makes us—how we protect ourself is cutting the others, which is coming out of hatred. Or control it, which is coming out of obsession.

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So these two make us not to have a pure love to ourself, because we are completely sort of under the spell of ego that we protecting ourself is either hatred or obsession. And we are not willing to entertain anything else other than hatred or obsession that is only known to us. We don’t know be kind, compassionate really protect us. We don’t. We don’t know meditation on love is the best protection to ourself. We don’t know that. Until we saw the picture called Little Buddha. And when you look in that picture in Little Buddha and you saw there is a point where Buddha is almost becoming Buddha sit down and meditating under a tree. Then the evil forces comes and attack whatever the way they could. First dancing girls around with drink and second then they’re coming with the fearful evils with all kinds of weapons. Whatever the weapons they throw, no matter within certain limits, it all becomes a flower. Become flower shower. Remember, those of you seen it? That flower shower what makes that fearful weapons into a flower is the meditation on compassion and meditation on love made this. So the true protection lies on love and compassion. Our confusion does not know this. We are confused. True protection means we have to kill the other enemy first. Preemptive actions. That is the confusion. That made us not to love ourself, not to care ourself. We engage our energy, we engage our 2:22:58.9 [source], everything to either hatred or obsession. We spend all our power, energy, time everything to the service of hatred and obsession, so nothing left.

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Very similar to what’s happening to Iran war. We spend our life, blood, money, everything over there. They were losing jobs, nothing left in the country. I mean ‘nothing left’ is a little to far, because it is so well, great country, it doesn’t become nothing left. But lives of the people are getting destroyed here 2:26:27.8 [inaudible] because, you know, it is more confusion over there. So all energy is going over there, all money is channeled there, all energy is channeled there, so we neglect completely here. So just like that we engage our own energy to hatred and obsession to the ego service, therefore we have no opportunity to develop love to ourself. We don’t even understand. That is the ego confusion is all about it. I hope it’s clear. Little better. Not clear, but little better. Yes? 2:27:18.7

Audience: [inaudible] There’s a lot of ritual involved 2:27:26.7 [Just take] water offering and just specific ways that in Tibetan Buddhism—it looks like to me the way things should be done, you know. For instance, like water offerings or what else?

Rimpoche: What else?

Audience: 2:27:38.1 [Consecration], you know, things like that. Now wouldn’t intention 2:27:43.6 [inaudible] pure intention override any of that 2:27:52.1 [inaudible]

Rimpoche: Sure does. I give you one example. It’s earlier. It’s 1300s. There was a great meditator, and he was meditating. He is not yet a great meditator. He was meditating in a cape at the north of Lhasa city, a place called 2:28:18.5 [Poindo] up in the mountains. Normally he make little offerings, a little bit of water offering and everything and he is little messy, too. The guy is messy guy. So one day, one of his best benefactors, one of his best sponsors come in to visit him. So he spend all the time to cleaning up the cave and cleaning up, looks nice, and make elaborate offering according to his wealth, whatever he could, nice little 2:29:03.1 [created] and wonderful things and then he sweeped—you know, good old Tibetan way of sweeping is so funny. They sweep the floor

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and collect the dust, leave behind the door. There’s no dust bin. They don’t take it out every time. They collect there for a little while, and then one day, you know, they may take it out and throw it away, but it’s sort of—it’s almost like, you know, sweeping under the carpet. They do that. So he did all that, and he sit down for a minute, pretend to be great practitioner because make impression on his benefactor. So he thought for a minute ‘Oh my God. Everything, whatever I did is to impress on the benefactor, so it is absolutely wrong. It’s absolutely wrong for me. So he got up and collected a handful of dust, started throwing all over the altar, and all the offerings and everywhere else. And you know, before the benefactor came, he made everything dusty and messy, and he is sitting there. And by that time in another part of Tibet, a great master was giving a teaching, and suddenly he bursted into a laugh. Ha ha ha! He can’t stop laughing. So people started asking, “What happened? What happened?” Nobody knew what happened. So they asked him. He said, “Well, greatest offering was offered by so-and-so and such-and-such a place today. So this is greatest offering.” So what happened? Broke all the norms, the ritual norms and pick up the dust and throw all over the place. So he actually throw the dust on the mouth of self-cherishing. So the good intention can overcome all the rituals. No doubt about it. But pretending to be good intention and ignoring all norms may have disadvantages. Thank you. Yes, lady?

Audience: I have a question 2:31:57.1 [if part of the formula] is about getting the concept of unconditional love. And I can understand that very clearly with children. And I’m not sure my husband gets—is unconditional love—can’t that send the message of unconditional approval? I think that there are conditions that I’ve had, maybe regards commitment for relationships. So talk to me a little bit about unconditional love and the difference between that and committing to actions that you disapprove of.

Rimpoche: Committing relationship and unconditional love. I think we are talking about two different things. Committing relationship is a commitment, pledge and a vow of marriage or whatever it is.

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Unconditional love—conditional love is ‘I love you, if you do it way and how I want you to do it. And if you don’t do it, way I direct you, and if you don’t do it, then I will have a question in my life. Love for you 2:33:41.4 [will becomes condition’.] Commitment—keeping commitment of the relationship is a two-way street. Two-way street we expect both persons to honor and keep it, almost that is pledge, according to—I mean, really. Choose over our life and that sort strong commitment. One expects that. That is commitment and pledge of whatever it is. That’s my understanding. Unconditional does not mean that at all. Unconditional means you are making condition, and no one wants conditioned love. No one would like to have conditioned—you know—I mean, control. No one wants control anyone. And if you have controlled situation and controlled one, then even it lasts short term, it doesn’t last very long. It has its limitations. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I’m wrong. But I think it is. Because the moment you put a condition—that doesn’t mean you each and every one of them like 2:35:16.2 [a wife with husband]. I don’t mean that. That is different thing. I am talking about pure love. Pure compassion. Pure love, pure compassion should not depend on any conditions. When we have love conditioned, people play against people by using all kinds of things. Right? So we don’t need that. That’s what I’m thinking about. I’m not sure whether I answered your question or not. If I did not, I apologize. But that’s what I’m straightforwardly thinking. Sir?

Audience: I like your definition of compassion. Wishing that those who are suffering be separated from the evil.

RIMPOCHE: Separate from pain.

Audience: In order to do that, is it necessary for one to feel the pain of those who are suffering? Is there an emotional part of that, or can one simply wish for the good without that taking the pain upon oneself?

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Rimpoche: Deeply understanding how the pain affects the individual makes it much stronger. Literally do you have to experience pain? I doubt it. If you do so, 2:36:51.4 [all the Buddhas--englightened beings—whether they’re going to feel the pains of everybody else—if so, what you mean by ‘free of pains?] It doesn’t work that way. So I think deeply understanding of one feels. And that is good enough. If you disconnect it, then it’s not right. But deeply understanding means you connect it. Whether you truly has to feel the pain, I’m not sure. I don’t say—I can’t say ‘yes’. Thank you. I’d like to conclude now, because people has to leave and I’m sure there are a lot of questions. I’m sorry to 2:37:41.6 [cut short]. So, you know, I’d like to have a little meditation before we close completely. And this time meditation will be compassion now. Not on self, but for others. So just like before, you relax. And space in front of me—you—when I say ‘me’, think of each one of you as ‘me’ rather than me here. Space in front of me the divine representing englightened figure, whether it’s Buddha, Jesus or whatever. And we are looking at that image. Try to not only look physical image but their mind a little more. I mean draw your focus on that, sort of pinpointed go a little deeper than physical appearance. So we begin to see their affection, compassion and caring and commitment for all living beings to serve, to help, to guide. We also make a strong request and pledge to this, saying ‘help me to help all living beings’.

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By that, light and liquid come in from the body of that enlightened beings, reaching to ourself, to me and all other—my family, relations, friends, fellow citizens and fellow human beings and all living beings. Just by the touch of light and nectar from their body purified our wrong deeds completely. We become pure completely pure. Clean, crystal-like pure. And finally my object of refuge—what I have generated in front of me—merged into light and dissolved to me and reinforced my purity, my goodness and I become divine instrument and then I generate a light from my body, reach to all my friends, colleagues, families and fellow countrymens. Again just by the touch of light from my body, they become pure, happy, joyful. The light extended beyond this city, beyond this state, beyond the country, beyond the continent—reach completely whole world, even goes beyond multi-galaxy, almost unimaginable level of the galaxy. Just by the touch of the light from my body. Purify them, made into the happy person, happy beings. The light gradually dissolves, collects back. They remain happy, pure. Pure environment, pure inhabitants which made by my light. I gradually withdraw, because it’s completed its activities

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from the multi-galaxy into this world, into this country, into this state, into this city, into this building and within me. I happy that I could do something to the benefit of all beings. I dedicate my good deeds for them to remain. ‘Them’ means all of them to remain in joy and happiness. Thank you and thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for everybody who’s working here. Thank you, Chris, Michelle, Nancy and everybody else. Thank you for you coming up all the way. Thank you everybody. Hartmut. See if I started naming them, then I have to name everybody. Thank you.