Archive Result

13

Great Debate January 2007

Philip Glass: Thank you, you heard an invocation performed by Dhondup Kur ko and Tubten Dhargye. I have been asked to make a few brief introductory remarks before the actual debate.

Tonight is the second installment of what we call the “Great Debate”. It is modeled on the traditional Buddhist debates. These began a long time ago in India in the great monasteries of Nalanda and Vikramalashila. They were continued on in Tibet and are carried out today in the Tibetan monasteries in India. Now that we are doing it for the second time in America we can also say that they are carried out here as well. I will leave it to the debaters to explain to us what they are going to do.

We know both of them quite well. One is Gehlek Rimpoche, who arrived in America in the ‘80s and began teaching …….[missing on CD, inserted HS, transcriber: all across the country and in 89 founded Jewel Heart dharma centers with chapters in Ann Arbor, MI, Manhattan, NYC as well as Chicago, Cleveland and Nebraska. There are also chapters in the Netherlands and Malaysia.

Professor Robert Thurman is professor at Columbia University where he holds the chair for the Je Tsongkhapa Chair of Buddhist Studies.

With this I would like to turn it over to the debaters themselves]

Gehlek Rimpoche: Thanks Philip, for the wonderful introduction. And thank you, Professor Thurman, for being here tonight. We have a technical name for him: The American Ganden Tri Rimpoche. He is very kind to come and support this event tonight, but throughout, all the way, he is supporting Tibet in general, and in particular me. When I first came to the United States it was Professor Thurman and his wife Neena took my around like a little baby.

Tonight we are supposed to be following a great tradition that developed in India, way before it came to Tibet. In the great Indian learning centers, such as Nalanda and Vikramalashila, this debate system was the way of learning. Many people in the west have great interest in Buddhist studies. There are many ways of studying Buddhism. Commonly known in the west is meditation. Everybody knows something about it.

When I first came to the US in the mid 80s, I actually tried to avoid talking about meditation because I thought, “I don’t know how people are going to react and what will they think?” I did not know that Americans had been meditating at that point already for decades. One day I did mention something about meditation and the moment I said the word, people started to move their body into position, and readjusted their physical postures and gestures. They closed their eyes and put their hands in different postures. Now, two decades later, the question is still out there: what is really meditation? What does that really do? How do you do it? I don’t mean how you sit. That is no problem. My good friend Allen Ginsberg even put that into a poem, saying, “sit on the ground, if the ground is not there, sit on a chair. First thing to do is keep your backbone straight…”

So the gestures and postures are not the problem. You can look to your left and right and copy the people next to you. But that itself is not meditation. Meditation is a mind activity. What do you meditate? That is something that has to be learnt. You need a subject you are meditating on.

The great spiritual traditions say that there are three steps. The first is learning, the second is analyzing and the third step is focusing and concentrating. Learning in the early Indian tradition, later followed by the Tibetans, was mainly done through the system of debating. Pick any subject you want to and then relentlessly argue and make your point. The other person sitting down will be trying to hold their own personal ideas on this particular subject, no matter whatever the challenger may try.

There are of course certain rules. You can’t just insist on anything. That won’t work. I must share a story here. When I was a kid, studying in the monastery and learning how to debate, I had great pride, thinking that I was great at it. I thought not only was I okay, but I had great pride. My father, Demo Rimpoche, was a very great incarnate lama and there was another great incarnate at that time called Kyabje Lhatsun Rimpoche. Both of them together debated me and I came to the point that I had to agree that the abbot of Drepung Loseling, my monastery, had no clothes to wear under his robes! I cried and cried, but that happens sometimes. You know you are wrong and lost the point, so you can’t go on arguing.

I raised the example of my father, because right now I have my father’s reincarnation with me, Demo Chogtrul Rimpoche, and he happens to be my nephew. He has been doing the debating at that very monastery of Drepung Loseling and has reached up to the point of the final exams. I am happy to have him here.

So the debating is an extremely important learning tool. It also develops your intelligence tremendously, so much so that these days in India, some of the lawyers learn this system of debate, so that they will be good at litigation in court. We would like to share a little bit of that experience with you today.

Professor Thurman and I had not talked about what subject to debate until this evening. Professor Thurman asked me, “What would you like to debate about?” I said, “Whatever you like to.” Then he said, “Whatever you say.” Everything is important, but I am hoping we can get some idea tonight about compassion. Compassion is important in our life. Without this, we know what happens: look at Iraq. Hopefully, then we will find – not conservative compassion – but very liberal compassion.

Professor Thurman, would you like to open the debate?

Thurman: Okay, Rimpoche, sit down and put your mike on, so that you can disagree with everything I say and we can have a debate. But let me make a couple of introductory remarks first. I was recently in the classroom with students at the Columbia University and we were dealing with “topics of Tibetan philosophy”. And this may be an omen. We are just at the point there of introducing the debating system.

People often think that debate is some kind of game where you try to conquer your opponent, trying to win. That may indeed be an aspect of a worldly debate. But debate in the Indian and later the Tibetan Buddhist monastic universities is part of the quest for enlightenment, not just an ego game, where you prove that you win over an opponent by playing some trick. Both partners in the debate are seeking the truth, to understand reality. The strange thing about Buddhism from our normal worldly perspective is that the more we know about our reality is the happier we will be. The western saying may be that ignorance is bliss. But from the Buddhist point of view ignorance is suffering. It is the cause of all the suffering in this world.

It may be a digression, but recently I learnt something from Zorba, the Greek. He was asked by someone whether he had a family. He answered, “Do I have a family? Am I human? I have a wife, children and a house. I live the whole catastrophe.” That is a very Buddhist statement. But thinking a little further, the more we understand about ourselves, family, our life, but also about homelessness, monastic life and the Buddha, the happier we will be. The process of attaining enlightenment is not a process of entering a fantasy world and escaping from life, but it is a process of stripping away the veils of delusion, coming to understand the nature of life, understanding that samsara and nirvana are non-dual in the highest view. In that process Rimpoche mentioned the three steps of learning, thinking and meditating. It is wisdom that is causing us to understand the nature of reality. First learning, then critical reflection and finally, meditation - that is what works. Meditation is deeply realizing what you had already understood in debate. Debate is necessary to make sure you know well enough. You wouldn’t be critical enough of yourself. You would be in denial, thinking that your ideas are so great and know all kinds of things. You would not challenge yourself enough and then the meditation that follows would be kind of boring, more like confirming with yourself what you already think.

You will be thinking, I am great and then you meditate, yes, I am really great. You wouldn’t challenge the idea that you are great, which is ignorance, actually. Being ignorant, I think that I am Bob Thurman and the real thing and everyone else had better look out. If I don’t challenge that point analytically and then meditate, I will shut down my mind and not really think and if I do that for twenty years I will jump up from my meditation and say, “Eureka, I am Bob Thurman and I am even greater than I first thought.” That would be a waste of time, meditating on un-realism.

So in between I need someone like Rimpoche or another debate partner like Rimpoche’s father’s incarnation, to tell me, “You are not Bob Thurman, you are a moron. And I will prove that you are moron, which you are because you think you really are Bob Thurman.” Then, if I am challenged in public by others, I will challenge myself too and begin to develop the ability to debate myself. That will give me the chance to see through my delusion and denial. Then I will become a philosopher-yogi and practice the yoga of the mind, the yoga of philosophy. Through that I will be able to adopt different postures and see whether I have kinks or prejudices, like sexism, racism, egotism, religious chauvinism. I will be able to challenge what I think is my inherent, original identity and eventually, through that I will improve slightly as a person and be less irritating.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that when I was young, about forty years ago, I was beginning to study Buddhism. I loved it, I loved the philosophy and the reasoning. I was insufferably annoying to anybody in any language. I tried to debate everybody, including the learned geshes. But my teacher, Geshe Wangyal, told me, “I don’t want you to do that. Get out of there. We don’t want to teach you the tricks of debating. “ I asked, “Why not? Isn’t that the point to make progress with wisdom?” But he said, “You already debate enough naturally, by yourself. You are intolerable as it is. If I now teach you the tricks, you will make too many people too unhappy in the future.” He refused to teach me the precise tricks of how to do the debate. I think it would have reinforced my ego, had I learnt the system of debating at that time. So now I do it all wrong. But I hope my ego has broken down a little bit, due to living for over 40 years the catastrophe known as the American life.

One more remark. We do have to respect also the western tradition of debate. Western universities have imitated the ways of debate. At Columbia people come and listen to the lectures. Then they go back to their dorms and it turns out that a lot of their learning happens when they argue with their room mates in the dorm. The only thing is that they don’t have a judge there. If it were Sera or Drepung monastery, then by 4 pm all the students would go out in a long row. If it were Columbia it would go from Broadway to Amsterdam. Then they would pair up two by two and begin to debate. One might say to the other, “You don’t have a self.” or, “you are permanent”, or “you are impermanent”.

The first time I visited Drepung I was at Nyare Khangtsen in Loseling, with Rimpoche at his home monastery. We were having tea and by 4 pm I thought there was suddenly some kind of riot going on outside. I thought it was some kind of political unrest. But it was just the students debating. These young monks get so excited about the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. It is fabulous and that is how you learn. You don’t learn much by passively sitting somewhere and you definitely get nowhere in meditating unless your egocentric world view has been challenged in some profound way. You will analyze yourself and begin to uproot the damaging ego. It takes time. I have been doing that for 40 years and still have a big, damaging ego. I don’t know where it is. I think it is in my stomach, ruining my appetite.

Okay, let’s debate. Rimpoche, do you want to challenge?

Rimpoche: No, you go ahead.

Thurman: Compassion is a foolish thing, because….

Rimpoche: I don’t think so.

Thurman: Let me give the reason first.

Rimpoche: No, you are challenging me and therefore I have to give the reasons. So I will say it is not foolish, because it helps me and it helps others.

Thurman: Okay, but that doesn’t follow.

Rimpoche: That is not true. It does.

Thurman: You can’t just say that. What is your reason?

Rimpoche: Compassion helps me because it helps me to realize my own situation and my reality and shows me what is my ego and makes me understand that I can’t let my ego control me. That is what my compassion does for me. My compassion then also can bring help and service to others. Therefore, it is not foolish.

Thurman: Are you suffering or not?

Rimpoche: yes, I am.

Thurman: When meditating on compassion, do you realize more intensely that you are suffering?

Rimpoche: Yes, I do.

Thurman: In that case, by realizing that more intensely, you suffer more, correct?

Rimpoche: Yes, correct.

Thurman: So meditating compassion makes you more miserable

Rimpoche: Right.

Thurman: It follows that when you are more miserable due to meditating on compassion you are less effective at helping others, because you are miserable. Correct?

Rimpoche: No, not correct.

Thurman: You are saying that you can help others better when you are more miserable?

Rimpoche: Right. Now you have to ask me to prove it, to give me the opportunity to explain that.

Thurman: Yes, how can you help others better if you are more miserable? What is your reason?

Rimpoche: Suffering brings you in touch with reality. The more suffering you have the more desire you have to become free from suffering. That desire will bring up more good qualities within the individual and therefore, even though you have a little extra suffering, it is worth it.

Thurman: But then, If you look at other’s suffering, all you see is their suffering. So, instead of getting free from suffering, you adding more suffering to the one you already have. You are adding their suffering to your suffering. You will be completely miserable and your compassion will have been ruinous to you.

Rimpoche: No, that is the way you help yourself.

Thurman: By more suffering you are trying to have less suffering?

Rimpoche: Yes.

Thurman: No, because that is a contradiction.

Rimpoche: It is not a contradiction. It only looks like you have more suffering, but in reality you are getting out of all suffering.

Thurman: How do you know that? Because you are only feeling more suffering…

Rimpoche: You begin to know the root of the suffering, the ego and by working on that you know that you will overcome all suffering.

Thurman: Does a stone have suffering?

Rimpoche: No.

Thurman: So you want no suffering, like a stone? Therefore you want to become like a stone.

Rimpoche: No, I don’t. It doesn’t mean that. Because a stone has no suffering it does not mean that you want to be like a stone, if you don’t want suffering. It is different. A stone has no mind and no life. I like to be alive.

Thurman: If you are alive you are suffering. Buddha said that life is suffering.

Rimpoche: True, life is suffering. But life has also the capacity to get of suffering. And that is what I want completely. Buddha said that too. It is the great quality of human life that one can get rid of suffering once and for all.

Thurman: But at that point you would be like a stone.

Rimpoche: The stone does not have life, but I do.

Thurman: If it is in the nature of life, as Buddha said, to have suffering, then by wanting to have life, you will have suffering. Therefore you cannot escape from suffering.

Rimpoche: That is not true.

Thurman: Yes, for example, right now I am making you suffer, because I am not a stone – at least I think I am not.

Rimpoche: You are not a stone and neither am I, and I don’t want to be a stone. To be free of suffering is not the only objective. The objective is that the person, the human being, should be free of suffering.

Thurman: Is a Buddha free of suffering?

Rimpoche: Yes.

Thurman: Then Buddha is like a stone, because a stone has no suffering.

Rimpoche: We have a technical name for this: zhi ja gon tso. For example if you grind chilli and chilli is existent, that doesn’t mean that everything in existence is being ground.

Thurman: You did not answer my question though.

Rimpoche: Yes, I did [with this comparison].

Thurman: Okay, still, Buddha is not suffering, correct?

Rimpoche: Yes.

Thurman: So when Buddha looks at sentient beings’ suffering, he doesn’t care.

Rimpoche: No, he does care.

Thurman: He does not care, because if he did it would make him suffer. However, since he is not suffering, it follows that he doesn’t care.

Rimpoche: No. He does care.

Thurman: If he does care he must be more miserable than me. I know only about my own suffering, but if Buddha is Buddha he knows about everybody’s suffering.

Rimpoche: You only know your own suffering? You don’t know about George Bush’s suffering?

Thurman: I do know about his suffering. He is my mother.

Rimpoche: Maybe at one time he was, but not this time.

Thurman: Yes, and at that time I drove him crazy and that’s what happened to him. I am not satisfied with your reason. I still hold that Buddha has suffering because he knows everybody’s suffering. For example: a mother has one beloved child. If that child suffers does not the mother suffer?

Rimpoche: She does.

Thurman: Is it not said that Buddha looks at all sentient beings like a mother does at her only child?

Rimpoche: Correct.

Thurman: Therefore, he is suffering every living being’s suffering.

Rimpoche: No, that is just an example. Buddha is like a mother, but that doesn’t mean that he has a mother’s suffering for her child. You cannot make that equal.

Thurman: I have to accept that.

Rimpoche: Okay.

Thurman: So I have to agree with you. That is terrible. [laughs]

Rimpoche: But there is nothing to fight. [laughs] One of the great qualities of being a human being is that we can understand pain and suffering. Understanding suffering does not necessarily mean that that individual has to suffer. Understanding the suffering brings you in touch with it and makes it alive. That is the important point.

Thurman: I disagree with that. Understanding makes no difference. For example, global warming is a reality. The polar bears and Al Gore are sinking along with the polar ice caps and all of us. We will have to have a canoe if we want to come to New York’s Cultural Society. We say we understand the reasons and consequences of global warming, but we continue to drive our cars, turn on light switches and keep on burning oil. So that understanding does not change anything. Therefore the understanding of compassion does not make a difference.

Rimpoche: You are giving global warming as example how understanding of it has not made us change the behavior that is responsible for it. That is because we are addicted to oil, as George Bush himself admitted.

Thurman: Likewise, compassion will change our addiction to egotism.

Rimpoche: No. Understanding does not change the behavior of the individual, if we are strongly addicted to that behavior. Therefore, working against the addiction will change that and that is the true way of working spiritually.

Thurman: Is Buddha addicted to compassion?

Rimpoche: You can say that.

Thurman: Therefore Buddha should work to give up his addiction to compassion.

Rimpoche: Every addiction is not necessarily bad. Addiction to compassion is a good addiction, but addiction to hatred is a bad addiction.

Thurman: I agree with that.

Rimpoche: Thank you.

Intermission:

Philip Glass: We will take a 20 minutes break and then come back to the second part of the debate.

Philip Glass:

In the introduction to Gehlek Rimpoche’s book Good Life Good Death Professor Thurman writes, “I have had probably more fun with Gehlek Rimpoche than with almost any lama I have known. Extremely bright and perceptive, he has a great sense of humor, is very good natured and does not mind jokes on him.” I would think the same can be said of Bob Thurman. As evidence of Rimpoche’s sense of humor he has encouraged a number of his senior students to create a performance group that performs comic sketches and improvisations at Jewel Heart’s summer and winter retreats. This group is known as “The Not Yet Ready for Enlightenment Players.” Two of their star players, Tony King and Jim Winter, are here tonight, and are going to entertain us as an introduction to the second part of the debate, with a short sketch on the speculation on how a Tibetan style debate would look like on a more mundane subject….We take you now to a private debate between Gehlek Rimpoche and Professor Thurman. Please welcome our guests.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Sketch: Tony King is Gehlek Rimpoche, Jim Winter is Professor Thurman

Thurman (T): When practicing the highest perfection of the messianic herald angel, a mentor worship with high offering mass, does the true yogi wear boxers or briefs?

Rimpoche (R): No, no.

T: Does he wear boxers and briefs?

R: No, no.

T: Does he wear neither boxers nor briefs?

R: No, no.

T: Then what is it?

R: Professor Thurman, I am trying to tell you that you can’t ask me that. In the Tibetan system you are supposed to ask me questions with a yes or no answer.

T: I never went to debate school. Geshe Wangyal wouldn’t teach me. He said I would make too many people angry. I can see he was right.

R: Actually, in the Tibetan tradition……. [laughs infectiously] you know what I am thinking?

T: Tell me

R: I can’t tell you

T: why?

R: You got me there. Actually, debate or no debate, it’s okay. Why don’t we just discuss? Now you are talking underwears. These are very important for spiritual development. Really true. Actually, Jewel Heart is founded based on underwear.

T: I heard the story. Apparently the early Jewel Heart students had a garage sale in Ann Arbor, and to get some funding for the original sangha they sold everything, including underwear. You know I have heard of underwear that has a foundation, but never of underwear that was the foundation. Very clever financial move. But back to the subject. It is said that in the lineage of profound view that comes to us from Manjushri, Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti, that there is a preference for briefs. However, in the lineage of the extensive deeds that comes to us through Maitreya, Asangha, Vasubandhu, etc, there is a predeliction for boxers. Can it be said then that the profound view is brief whereas the extensive deeds are too long for briefs?

R: Professor Thurman, yes, it can be said. But it might not be true.

T: What?

R: Well, you can say it. I hear you talking about boxers and briefs. But you don’t mention the panties.

T: Gee, I have never read much about the panties.

R: Ah, that is the male chauvinistic society once again. Anyway, still boxers are very important. More room to accommodate things and the sentient beings, more room for compassion, more room to get the job done. This is how we manage, really true. Additionally, in the boxers there is space, empty space, lots of empty space…..

T: Speak for yourself Rimpoche….

R: You got me there!

T: They are going to kick me out of Columbia after this, but tell me Rimpoche….

R: You will be in company, don’t worry!

T: Do you get your boxers from the lineage of Calvin Klein, Periellis, D K & Y or are they transmitted from Buegle Boy, Food of the Loom or Sears?

R: Actually, I get them from Ujjen at the Jewel Heart Store, yes downstairs, he has many good ones.

T: Now, there is a theme in your sangha. Are you wearing them now?

R: You know, the longer I think the more that reminds me how brief this precious human life is. We must protect it like a precious wishfulfilling jewel.

T: Good analogy. But when I wear my boxers and think of their expensiveness I am reminded of the eight freedoms we have in this life.

R: Wearing my briefs reminds me of the ten endowments.

T: Ten?? Now that is an endowment…..

R: Thank you.

T: I had nothing to do with it...

R: I know!

T: I won’t go there….

R: Since we are just discussing, I really wanted to ask you, what is the essence of the meditation practice, the essence of spiritual practice?

T: So timely of you to ask. I just released my newest book The Essential Tibetan Nectar of Understanding the Inner Revolutionary Deeds of the Salubrious Manifestations of “Hark the Holy Herald”. In this short volume I have devoted an entire chapter of analysis to that just question. If I may quote myself…from memory: When the yogi embarks on the highest holy prayer to the inestimable lama….

R: did you say “intestinable lama”?

T: No, Rimpoche: inestimable lama – unable to be estimated. Either way, it’s okay. I am from Columbia, I can get away with it…

R: Anyway, I am quite certain that anything you write in there is true, really true. Absolutely true. But you know what I think? When you sit and meditate you need these two ….ropes….anyway what do you call that when you tie two ropes together?

T: That is called a knot, Rimpoche///

R: Why do you say not Rimpoche?

T: I don’t mean not as in the object of negation….

R: Are you going to argue that a rope has Buddha nature, like a stone?

T: No, I don’t think so. You would win that debate.

R: Definitely.

T: No, I am talking about the English word k-n-o-t.

R: knot?

T: the first letter K is silent

R: (k)not?

T: Yes.

R: You mean that English has silent letters?

T: Of course!

R: just like good gold Tibetan.

T: Glad to hear it, Rimpoche.

R: But you know, the essence of the spiritual practice is when you sit, you relax and don’t get your panties in a knot.

T: Very good, excellent. What do you say, we get a cup of tea?

R: Sure, but before you go, would you tell me: are you wearing boxers or briefs?

T: At my age, Rimpoche, it depends.

End of Sketch

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Philip Glass: Thank you Jim and Tony. Now, Rimpoche and Professor Thurman, would you care to take the stage again and replace yourselves so to speak!

So this is now the reverse part of the first half of the great debate.

Rimpoche: Let me start according to the traditional system with Manjushri’s seed syllable: DHIIIIIIIIIIIIH

Thurman: Okay, that was good.

Rimpoche: We are talking about compassion. Would you be kind enough to give the definition or explanation of compassion?

Thurman: Compassion is the wish that beings may be free from suffering and the cause of suffering. Based on the wisdom of selflessness, when you realize that you and other beings are totally interrelated, you understand that their suffering becomes your suffering, just like the suffering of your hand becomes the suffering or your mind. They are like the limbs of your own body and therefore their suffering becomes intolerable to you. Friend and enemy are equal and therefore you say the prayer in Tibetan:

SEM CHEN TAM CHE DE WA TANG DE WEI GYU TANG

DEN PAR GYUR CHIK

SEM CHEN TAM CHE DUK NGEL TANG DUK NGEL GYI GYU

TANG DREL WAR GYUR CHIK

SEM CHEN TAM CHE DUK NGEL ME PEI DE WA TANG MI

DREL WAR GYUR CHIK

SEM CHEN TAM CHE NYE RING CHAK DANG NYI TANG

DREL WEI TANG NYOM LA NE PAR GYUR CHIK

In there it says: May all beings be free from suffering and the cause of suffering.

Rimpoche: Would you say that compassion is only wishing to be free from suffering?

Thurman: I would say that if people only wish…….

Rimpoche: I want a yes or no answer.

Thurman: Oh, then it is a yes, but it is a false yes, because it is a weak type of debate…

Rimpoche: [laughs] okay, so wishing people to be free of suffering, according to you is a weak type of compassion. Is that correct?

Thurman: Yes, it is true, if it is not connected with wisdom.

Rimpoche: So that means that the real compassion is not wishing. Is that right?

Thurman: No, it is wishing plus…

Rimpoche: What is the plus?

Thurman: The three levels of wisdom.

Rimpoche: So compassion is only true compassion if it is connected with wisdom? Do you say that?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: Would you say then that without wisdom there is no compassion?

Thurman: I would say….

Rimpoche: yes or no!

Thurman: Yes and no.

Rimpoche: No, you can’t say that, you can’t reason into two contradictory directions at once. So if you say yes, then without wisdom there is no true compassion, right?

Thurman: Okay, I say yes.

Rimpoche: Then the Bodhisattvas who have not developed the wisdom, do they have compassion at all? According to you they don’t because they haven’t developed wisdom.

Thurman: Okay, a dumb Bodhisattva has no true compassion.

Rimpoche: Ha ha, is a dumb bodhisattva not a bodhisattva?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: Since it is a Bodhisattva, does he or she have bodhimind? What is the definition of a bodhisattva?

Thurman: A bodhisattva is someone who has taken the bodhisattva vows.

Rimpoche: Is taking the bodhisattva vows good enough to be a bodhisattva?

Thurman: No, it is an imitation bodhisattva.

Rimpoche: That’s right. So again, is a dumb bodhisattva a true bodhisattva? Yes or no?

Thurman: No, a bodhisattva has to have some wisdom, there is no bodhisattva without wisdom.

Rimpoche: Oh my god. Where are you coming from now? So now you are saying that every bodhisattva must have wisdom?

Thurman: Some wisdom.

Rimpoche: What do you mean by “some” wisdom? Is this some kind of American banking system?

Thurman: Yes. It is just that their wisdom capital is slight.

Rimpoche: According to you then, every bodhisattva has to have wisdom. That means that every bodhimind has to be absolute bodhimind. Is that correct?

Thurman: It has to have some quality of absolute bodhimind.

Rimpoche: No, no. you can’t say that. Okay, do you divide bodhimind into two categories, absolute and relative bodhimind or not?

Thurman: In some context…

Rimpoche: Yes or no!

Thurman: In some context…

Rimpoche: All right, in some context you do. So in the context where you do, when you do that…

Thurman: I don’t want to go into that…

Rimpoche: But I am going there, I am the challenger, ha ha ha, you are the one who is defending, right?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: So when you do that, does that relative bodhimind of that occasion have wisdom?

Thurman: No.

Rimpoche: there you go! There you go! Since this bodhisattva does not have wisdom, but has relative bodhimind, does that bodhimind have compassion as its root? yes or no?

Thurman: It does.

Rimpoche: So, therefore isn’t there compassion without wisdom?

Thurman: But I ask you: can you have relative without absolute?

Rimpoche: I am not answering you. I am debating you. So I want a yes or no answer. So in reality, we have seen that this relative bodhisattva who has bodhimind, whose root is compassion……

Thurman: But there is never relative without absolute…..

Rimpoche: Okay, let me ask you: which is the true bodhimind, absolute or relative?

Thurman: Both together are true.

Rimpoche: Okay, then: what is the definition of absolute bodhimind?

Thurman: That is the wisdom of selflessness.

Rimpoche: There you go. So, in addition to compassion, when you have wisdom, that bodhimind becomes absolute bodhimind. Correct?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: Thank you. So, before it becomes absolute bodhimind, it was relative bodhimind, am I right?

Thurman: If you want to say that I can let you say that.

Rimpoche: I will like to say that because that has been said from Buddha onwards. Now: that relative bodhimind, what is its root? Where is it coming from?

Thurman: It is compassion.

Rimpoche: Thank you, there you go. Therefore, there is compassion without wisdom. Right?

Thurman: Yes, okay, why not? I want to be compassionate to you and let you have it.

Rimpoche: Okay, thank you. I am glad you let me have it. [laughs]

Thurman: I want to make you happy……[laughs]

Rimpoche: Now the conclusion: there is bodhimind rooted in compassion with and without wisdom. Both are correct bodhimind. Is that right?

Thurman: Well…

Rimpoche: If you say no, then which is the right one and which is the wrong one?

Thurman: That is a long complicated question that needs a more nuanced answer.

Rimpoche: Okay, I will give you room.

Thurman: Even though it is only in the form of a wish, for somebody to have true bodhimind they need at least the wisdom to discern. They have to have understood that it is possible to become enlightened. Otherwise they would never make a vow to become enlightened. To know that there is such a thing as enlightenment, that is some degree of wisdom. Without that they cannot have true compassion. They can only have “sentimental” compassion. Vimalakirti says in the Vimalakirti Sutra that compassion without wisdom is exhausted easily and futile. Wisdom without compassion is sterile. Only if they are combined they become the genuine article.

Rimopche: That is true. Not only Vimalakirti, but Chandrakirti also states the same thing. At the ultimate enlightened Buddha level when you and I become Buddha, then we must have the physical aspects of a Buddha as well as the mental aspects of a Buddha. Therefore, the relative part of it provides the physical aspects and the wisdom provides the mental aspects.

Thurman: The body is made of compassion, and the mind is made of wisdom.

Rimpoche: Right. So it is great, we both agree.

Thurman: Yes, and may we attain buddhahood together.

Rimpoche: And not only the two of us, but all of us, everybody.

Thurman: George Bush, too will become a Buddha, definitely.

RImpoche: [laughs] Do you think you?

Thurman: Yes, and Doris Cheney too. One of these days…

Rimpoche: All right. That is true, because all living beings are eligible to become Buddha. George Bush is a living being. So he is eligible. So good, I have nothing more to argue. Actually, let’s do one more.

When we are talking about wisdom we get two types of understanding. Every knowledge or understanding can be called wisdom. So when Buddha talks about wisdom and compassion is he referring to a very specific wisdom or simply knowledge?

Thurman: To a specific wisdom.

Rimpoche: What kind of wisdom?

Thurman: Transcendent wisdom

Rimpoche: Transcending what?

Thurman: It is the wisdom transcending samsara and egotism.

Rimpoche: So this specific wisdom is capable of bringing the individual over the ocean of samsara. Do you agree?

Thurman: yes, I accept that.

Rimpoche: In normal buddhist terminology, therefore, when we talk about wisdom, it is not just knowledge, but the wisdom that understands the nature of reality. Correct?

Thurman: Correct?

Rimpoche: Then what is the nature of reality?

Thurman: Freedom.

Rimpoche: From?

Thurman: Egotism or ignorance.

Rimpoche: Identify what you mean by egotism.

Thurman: it is the false view of the self as absolute.

Rimpoche: What do you mean? I need an explanation in common language.

Thurman: Egotism is the cherishing of a falsely absolutized self by thinking that it is something more important than anything else in the world.

Rimpoche: Are you sure? Let me ask you this question: in that case is there a difference between self cherishing and self grasping or as you call it “egotism”?

Thurman: I do make a difference.

Rimpoche: Then please clarify: what is self cherishing?

Thurman: Self cherishing is secondary to self grasping.

Rimpoche: I have no argument with that, but give me a definition of self cherishing.

Thurman: Self grasping is the false perception of the self as absolute and separate from other things relationally. Self cherishing or self addiction or self preoccupation is based on that distortion and thinks, “I am the most important person in the universe”. That means you have become preoccupied with that condition.

Rimpoche: I have no argument, but when you divide the ego thing into self cherishing and egotism, there are two different objectives. So what is the root of trouble, the trouble maker? Where do all our sufferings come from? Is it from self cherishing or self grasping?

Thurman: Technically, it is from self grasping.

Rimpoche: Thank you.

Thurman: But Panchen Rimpoche sometimes says that the self preoccupation is the master and the self grasping the servant. I admit I am confused about that.

Rimpoche: Every different lama will say something or another on different occasions, including this one [points at himself]. However, the real true understanding is that we have to differentiate self cherishing and self grasping. The actual cause of suffering is more the egotism or self grasping. It is a more fundamental problem than self cherishing. That understanding will help a lot of people. Since we made that differentiation, leave the self cherishing aside a little and tell me more about the self grasping or egotism.

Thurman: We can also say ego habit or ego addiction.

Rimpoche: How can I recognize that within me and how does it function?

Thurman: They say that you can recognize that within yourself. When Buddha taught the teaching on selflessness or egolessness he knew that the people listening to him were not agreeing with him. Therefore he did not expect them to believe in selflessness. That would have made them nihilistic, thinking “I don’t exist”. He knew that would be a challenge to them. So the great incarnation of Manjushri in Tibet, Tsongkhapa…..

Rimpoche: Je Tsongkhapa!

Thurman: Je Tsonkhapa, he particularly taught something called the Four Keys. The first one is brilliant. It is the identification of that which selflessness negates. That identification is most important to recognize. The time that you can best do that is when you are falsely accused, when someone tells you “You ate my cheese!” There is a wonderful book called “Who ate my cheese?” So when you are being accused of eating someone’s cheese, but you didn’t – maybe a mouse took it – then you will say, “I didn’t eat your cheese, I wouldn’t do a thing like that”, and a strong sense of “I” arises with tremendous power, as if it were rooted in some place within yourself, completely independent from anything else – an absolute thing in itself. Sometimes you can feel so injured in your innocence that you can’t even speak. You think, “How could they accuse me of taking their cheese? I am such a good person. I would never do that.”

At such a time, if you can step back from being self righteous, you will notice that you feel so full of yourself that you are almost choking. Your face flushes red and your diaphragm feels constricted. It is a split second before you explode in anger and want to scream, “How dare you say I took your cheese?” It is not easy to be aware of yourself when you are really angry, it is better when you are just feeling righteous, on the brink of getting angry. So at that time the “I” happens to come out fully.

Rimpoche: So you mean when someone calls you a thief, right?

Thurman: At that time the “I”appears to be rooted in you somewhere, disconnected from anything else. Then you can become mad, reckless and crazy, because you no longer are accepting the consequence of your relationship with the world. Then you even hurt someone that you like, hurt yourself or might even kill yourself. That is when you can recognize in your own self the root of the so-called unconscious or innate ego-habit, in Tibetan dag dzin lhen kye.

Rimpoche: Are you done with your explanation?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: I have no argument with your explanation. But I would like to ask you this question: you said that this sense of “I” feels independent. When you say “feels” independent, in between the lines I read that actually it is not independent. Is that right?

Thurman: Yes, I accept that.

Rimpoche: When it is not independent but “feels” independent, then what is it really?

Thurman: it is a delusion to feel that it is independent.

Rimpoche: Of course, but if it is not independent, then what is it?

Thurman: Dependent.

Rimpoche: Knowing that the “I” is a dependently arising phenomenon and is not independently existing, is that wisdom or not?

Thurman: That is wisdom. It contradicts the delusion.

Rimpoche: Right. So the real wisdom recognizes that we don’t exist independently but as a dependent arising. The four keys you mentioned point at the understanding of dependent arising. Is that correct?

Thurman: Correct.

Rimpoche: Would you say then that the essence of wisdom is dependent arising?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: Sure?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: Oh good. Dependently existing is then the essence of emptiness?

Thurman: Yes.

Rimpoche: So when Buddha talks about emptiness as the essence of wisdom, he actually is talking about dependent existence. Correct?

Thurman: That is correct. Nagarjuna said….

Rimpoche: as well as Je Tsongkhapa…

Thurman: tong nyi nying gye nying bo che

Rimpoche: That means that the essence of emptiness is compassion and the essence of compassion is

wisdom. But I am looking for a very specific statement of Je Tsongkhapa from the Three Principles of the Path:

NE LUK TOK PEY SHE RAB MI DEN NA

NGE JUNG JANG CHUB SEM LA GOM JE KYANG

SI PEY TSA WA CHE PAR MI NÜ PE

DE CHIR TEN DREL TOK PEY THAB LA BE

Without opening the wisdom eye

seeking freedom and generating bodhimind

cannot cut the root of samsara.

Strive to see interdependence

Here Je Tsongkhapa directly says: strive to see interdependence. He does not say: strive to see emptiness. Is that correct or not?

Thurman: Correct.

Rimpoche: Therefore, dependently existing is the essence of emptiness, right?

Thurman: Of course.

Rimpoche: In that case, all phenomena, people and objects, are dependently existent. So when you dig down into that, then who is the real Gehlek? What are you going to find?

Thurman: That will be the empty Gehlek, and therefore the dependent Gehlek.

Rimpoche: Okay. So the dependently existent Gehlek in reality doesn’t exist. Is that right?

Thurman: You have to specify which reality, ultimate or relative?

Rimpoche: I don’t want to specify. I am saying: in reality.

Thurman: There are always two realities.

Rimpoche: I am asking, in daily life reality, does Gehlek exist or not?

Thurman: He does exist dependently in everyday life.

Rimpoche: Even in absolute reality, he dependently exists, is that right?

Thurman: In relative reality, he absolutely exists dependently.

Rimpoche: [laughs].

Thurman: Fortunately for us he does exist relatively. Absolutely he does not exist. Relatively he happily does and therefore is a jolly fellow.

Rimpoche: We have a problem here. In absolute reality does Gehlek exist as a dependent arising?

Thurman: That is a false question. Absolute reality exists dependently. I will agree to that.

Rimpoche: Okay, I let you go here. Actually I was trying to trick you into answering something.

Thurman: Okay, then I will say yes: Gehlek exists dependently in absolute reality.

Rimpoche: Is that good enough to be existing relatively? Maybe we are becoming to technical now…

Thurman: No, absolute and relative are absolutely non-dual. And they are the same in the ultimate.

Rimpoche: We are not talking about the ultimate right now. At this moment, at this level, if you exist relatively, is that good enough to exist?

Thurman: Yes, that is good enough.

Rimpoche: So, then Gehlek does exist in absolute reality, because you agreed that he relatively exists in absolute reality.

Thurman: Okay, I will say that and then we have an absolute Gehlek here.

Rimpoche: Now, the conclusion I would to draw from this discussion is: whatever we see, contact and feel to be real, all of them are dependently existing. And that existence is good enough to exist.

Thurman: Not only that, it is the only way they can exist.

Rimpoche: There you go.

Thurman: Because absolutely you cannot exist.

Rimpoche: That’s right. Very good. When you begin to look at interdependence, do you begin to see two different kinds of person?

Thurman: I would like to quote Arya Maitreya: He says we can never say that there is only one Buddha. We can also never say that there are many buddhas. That is because in the dharmakaya, the absolute level, all budhas are same. Absolute Gehlek, absolute Bob, absolute Buddha are same. But we just say that they are not two. On the other hand you cannot say that there is only one Buddha, because when Gehlek Rimpoche becomes Buddha, his rupakaya or bliss body is his own to enjoy. When I become a Buddha – a long time in the future – then I will enjoy mine. Everyone will get to be a Buddha on their own and therefore will get to enjoy their own bliss body. So you cannot say there is only one and you cannot say that there are many. From one aspect they are all one, from the other there are many. Maitreya says that in do de gyen.

Rimpoche: True, also Khedrup je clarifies that further, saying that all enlightened consciousnesses are like a pool of sky, yet individuality exists within that pool. So the individual continues. It came from this level to enlightenment and continues. The question is: is that not an intrinsically existent “I”?

Thurman: If Buddha existed intrinsically he would be lonely and bored. He likes to exist as connected to all beings.

Rimpoche: This is a little bit of a hypocritical answer, if you don’t mind me saying so. It is not the point what Buddha does or doesn’t like. If he is bored, let him be bored. If he is lonely, let him be lonely. I would like to say that your statement is just playing with words, semantics. What really happens is this: there is a continuation of the individual. This time, next time, this life, next life, life after life up to the Buddha level. So, my point is: if that is not an intrinsically existing individual, then what is?

Thurman: What continues is a relative, dependently existing individual. It is only allegorically spoken of as “individual.” It is not technically the same individual.

Rimpoche: So technically, it is a different person?

Thurman: If it were technically the same person it would be an intrinsically existent person.

Rimpoche: Whether something is intrinsically existent or not is not a law. What we need to know is: what is really intrinsic?

Thurman: Intrinsic is a concept of that which cannot exist.

Rimpoche: Ha ha, okay, I have no more argument. Thank you.

Thurman: Thank you.

Rimpoche: Are we done?

Thurman: Okay, then thank you very much.

Philip Glass: Thank you for an evening of two virtuosos of Buddhist philosophy. It was fantastic, thank you.

3/19/2007

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