Archive Result

22

Soundfile 20070502GRJHTBNL4M03

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location JH NL (Tilburg)

Topic Compassion as weapon against violence

Transcriber David Lewis

Date 11/25/2021

Number of pages – 11

[0:02:55.8] Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. Thank you, Bob. I thought America’s changing. So, you know, we had a November election. Made a difference, and I think it’s changing. Hopefully it’s changing. [translation] Maybe they will never change, who knows. [translation] Anyway, the idea is… the principle in Buddhism… not only in Buddhism, but in normal common sense. It is the non-violence. It is something extremely important in people’s life… non-violence. It’s a really… When you look in to the.. when you look into history anywhere, the violence never worked. The Europe is a perfect example, you know. The World War I, World War II… all of them are taking major place around here. The violence never achieved anything, unless you know something I never knew. [translation]

[0:05:16.6] The violence did not only… did not take place only in Europe, but it also took a tremendous place in Asia too. I mean, where I come from. Tremendous, you know. Though we talk more about World War I and II and all that. But if you look at back to the Sino-Indian or Indo-Chinese history, when you look at it, so much violence. I mean it is not a… I mean it’s so much, really, so much violence. [translation] So none has succeeded anything. [translation] On the other hand, you have so many great religions, also we have so many great religions, traditions… Judeo-Christian tradition, Hindu-Buddhist tradition. All these great traditions that taking place in the world, also together along with this violence. [translation]

[0:07:07.0] Anyway, the wise people, compassionate people, always been fighting against violence. This struggle is not just begin today. It is a human nature… it is ever since we came in, it’s there. [translation] And what I believe, I believe it is human nature. Human beings normally… the moment we are born as a human being, we do have the hatred as well as obsession as apart of our… I don’t know… I don’t want to say part of our life. It is really taking toll with the human beings… we almost born with that. [translation] We are sort of born with this, but [pause] this violence, hatred, obsession, has never given any good, or any satisfaction throughout our human history. It never give. [translation] Yet we could not give up. We carry generation after generation. Not we only we carry, but sort of automatically we carry. [translation] The why I say automatically… because… you know, we never learn, we never have to go to school, or monastery, or center, or the temples to learn how to develop hatred, to learn how to have obsession. It’s already there. I guess that’s called addiction. [translation]

[0:10:21.3] So in other words, we are addicted to hatred, we are addicted to obsession. We are not addicted to compassion. We are not addicted to love. [translation] I believe this is a human problem. It is a problem for mankind. It is a general problem. Not only mankind, even insects, and animals, and everybody. We call them animal instinct, but we all have the same thing. [translation] And we always use as a… these addictions always control, and influence our life. [translation] And that is our problem. [translation] And we need to take care of those. If we don’t, we keep on hurting mankinds all the time. [translation] The war. [translation] How many people get killed for the last cent… the last two centuries, actually. 19, 20, 18, all.. most of 19th and 20th century we kill so many people. [translation] Before we kill, but we killed less, actually. I mean, you know, the cowboy type of thing. And you can shoot one person, and not… there’s no weapons of mass destruction... .not there. Last 2000 years, 2 centuries we kill more and more and more. [translation]

[0:13:27.1] Somehow our understanding is such that, when we see some threat to our culture, way of life, race, whatever, we think we have to destroy them before they destroy us. That’s what George Bush does. And he said pre-emptive, remember, before we went to the Iraq war... pre-emptive. [translation] So where we… where we goes normally, we goes wring. We goes wrong. I mean not only Bush, but throughout the World War, where we goes wrong, is always we think we have to destroy the enemy. The idea of kill, kill, kill is our idea. Not… you know… this is really sad when we look back in our history, and… Our ancestors have done so many great things. But on the other hand, it is also the idea of anything you… kill, kill, kill. It is only the killing, you know. Perhaps we call them barbarians too, but that was the idea. Before we get hurt, we kill, kill. We do that all the time. [translation]

[0:15:56.6] This is where we goes wrong. [translation] All the time, we really goes wrong all the time, because you can’t take risk, so you must kill them first. [translation] But it’s not that we don’t know other way round. We do know. As I said earlier, all these religions, great religions. And you know, because I’m Buddhist, I’m going to say, especially Buddha. And it is a… been talking about non-violence, and love, compassion. It’s 2600 years. [translation] It’s not only the Buddha, it’s every great religion’s teachers, every great religion teachers. They always promoted... talk about non-violence, love, and compassion. But our addiction to… actually our addiction to self and selfishness. And then, to protect that self and selfishness, a way we found is indulging in violence. And that is one of the biggest problem… human problem, not only a religious problem, but a human problem. [translation]

[0:18:28.7] As I said earlier, this is… that is something where we have to deal with it. And if you don’t deal now, our addiction will continues to grow. [translation] Actually, violence can never destroy anything never. [translation] If you look earlier in the history those kings and queens have… you know… killed everybody who re against them. And then the revolution came and [?] Russia and all that, killed them off. And that didn’t settle. Then you get Hitler, you get Communism, you get fascism, you get all of them constantly, continuously… no matter you keep on killing, it comes up… including Saddam Hussein and George Bush. [translation] But then on the the other hand, when you look at the religions traditions, Judeo-Christian or Buddhas… let me talk about Buddha. And Buddha been talking about the compassion, and love, and this message been constantly, continuously been effective and helpful throughout… we all know. [translation]

[0:21:08.7] You know, I was born in Tibet. However, I spent lot of time in India and other part of the world. And if you in there, and those Catholic nuns, you know… they goes out and try to educate kids, set up the hospitals, and throughout the world you see tremendous amount of their deeds. [translation] And that is compassion. [translation] Because those nuns don’t have any narrow, selfish interest at all, as we all know. Whatever we know, the Catholic religion as a general. But if you look at individual nuns, they been working, teaching, and doing. They have no narrow, selfish interest. [translation] They are not making multi-million dollars. [translation] And that is real compassion, and that’s been helpful, and been helping millions of people throughout the world. [translation] And then you know meditators, they meditate compassion. Not only meditate, but whatever they meditate, they change whatever you meditate, that change the personality. And the personality of the violence mind personality changes into loving and caring, and not only contributes help individual itself, but all persons who come in contact with each and every one. [translation]

[0:24:09.7] Mother Teresa was example, outstanding example. [translation] And then not only the Mother Teresa, but in all kinds of variety… Gandhi, Gandhi’s another example. Extremely well-educated, a lawyer who finally choose to wear, you know, little Indian, dhoti, and take little goat and stick and walks around and goes to London for roundtable conference with goat [laughs]. [translation] And Gandhi’s the one who started spreading message of non-violence, what they call is akimsa [ahimsa], its’s non-violence. [translation] And the way Gandhi challenged the Brits [laughs, aside] Where Gandhi challenged the Brits, the British. Can you believe it, just a sick in hand, and dhoti, and goat. And that the British Empire. And those of my age and others remember, the sun never set on the crown of England. They owned almost the world. And that’s what the British Empire. And guy with his little dhoti and stick in hand, and picking up a little salt. And that’s how Gandhi challenged their great empire. And finally got… sort of… you know… and the British colonial idea is completely withdraw throughout the world, not only India and Pakistan, throughout the world. And that is the non-violence achieve. [translation]

[0:27:07.7] And Gandhi’s meditator too. [translation] Very strong meditator. Whatever he meditates, he changes his person. Although, although he’s a meditator, he needs to get some kind of incident. You know, Gandhi got the incident. Because Gandhi was well-educated lawyer who is travelling in the train in South Africa. Then this racism was there, right? Racism. They throw him out of the train [laughs], kick him out of the train. And that was good wakeup for him [translation] And because of that he started this sadekera[?] the non-violence movement. And he did not start the non-violence movement just because he’s a lawyer, but it’s because of his study and meditation in those averda[ Vedas?] … you know the traditional Hindu teachings. He’s a meditator. He pick up from there. [translation]

[0:29:12.3] And as a result of this, there’s no longer British colonial anywhere now. Everybody gone back to England. [translation] But then everything, everything settled, sort of not killing.. but you know sort of negotiating and settled nicely everything. Although, British always like to paly double all the time, like dividing Hindus and Muslims, in Pakistan and India. And today’s Iraq problem is also the leftover British Empire’s job. Because they divided all those… Kuwait, and this and that, and Iraq and all of them. It is one Middle East, right? So they divided them so many… made them into that way. But still, non-violence really succeeded everywhere. [translation]

[0:30:50.6] In a way… I mean it’s a funny… I learned that… you know why they made divisions? They knew they not going to get along well, and then when the British withdraw, and they have put a column there. If they don’t get along well, then the British will come back to rule. [laughs]. That’s why these divided [laughing] everywhere. And that was their policy at that time. [translation] It was not only the Pakistan and India, but even in Middle East, everywhere, those divisions are made for that reason, because if they don’t get along well, British will come back and rule. But they never materialized that. But that’s why they made those divisions. [translation] Like Iraq and Kuwait divided, serious divided, on those grounds, all of them [laughs].

[0:32:21.4] Anyway, so these are… when you look in general big nations, that’s what has happened. So this is what we see. Now let us look in the small family and individual matters. Again, violence never worked, in any family. With children. With parents. With each other. With the in-laws. Never worked, violence. [translation] And whenever there’s violence against… and it has terrible consequences, with the kids, with the parents, with everybody… we know. We know, it’s not secret to us. It’s totally clear to us. [translation] Although, it’s funny, you know… I was brought up in Tibet. And supposed to be the love and compassion place. But as a kid I was always beat up, beat up, beat up, so much beat up. And the old fashioned way of giving education is you do it and you learn it, and if you don’t, you beat up. [laughs] I brought up under that. Although it’s supposed to be love and compassion, but I get beat up all the time. [translation]

[0:34:43.3] And the Tibetans try to justify that, saying good for you, by… you know… by good motivation. They try to justify that by use saying good motivation. I’m not sure whether they can really justify that or not. I have my own doubts. [laughs] It is true, those teachers, those spiritual teachers, when they beat you, they really don’t have any agenda or anything. They just wanted to make you to become better. And that’s true, honest. I’m not sure whether there anger involved or not. To some, yes. But most of hem no. But they really beat you, beat you badly, not just beat you, beat you badly so that you can learn lesson. I mean it’s not only the Tibetans. Even in good old society everywhere they did that, anyway. [translation] But somehow today we learned the beating is not good. I don’t know whether is law, or the society, or whatever. But everybody knows, the beating doesn’t help. I mean, beating in the sense… violence doesn’t help. And violence produces terrible consequences. We knew, within the family, and most of the family don’t indulge in that, except some crazy [?] did, or crazy whatever it is, some people. Crazy [?] old mans maybe, but most of them don’t. [translation]

[0:37:20.8] Somehow we learned that. [translation] But then why can’t we learn about weapons of mass destruction, the bigger nations? Why can’t we learn that? [translation] Produces tremendous consequences, and good for nothing. [translation] So… this is sort of clear to us now. The violence is not good. We do talk about the big nations. We talk about the family. We talk about that. Now, how best way we can develop this compassion/ What is compassion? What is love. What is effect tour life? And how we can develop? These are the points that, if you could talk and help a little better. [translation] When you talk about he word compassion, it is sometimes becomes a little funny. Once Allen Ginsberg told me, compassion is buzzword. [translation] It is overly used, almost becomes… everybody seems be understanding. Overly used. Not so much effective to the individual. And that is what he told me. What buzzword is meant. What is meaning of the buzzword. Though he tells me the stories of… you know.. where it started in Brooklyn, this and that. Allen does that all the time. But the essence what I learn is, words overly used, everybody know something about it, but doesn’t affect anything, to anybody. [translation]

[0:40:33.7] So this is one of the best way of our mind’s functioning in good way is the compassion and love… if that becomes ineffective, it is not so helpful in the world today. [translation] And how we can make it effective? [translation] And let us se, way not effective. [translation] Because it’s not personalized. [translation] The moment we talk about the compassion, we started out looking. [translation] It’s… somebody who is wicked and ask, who is poorer than us, who is more hurt than us. And then we look down on them, start saying, oh poor thing, you know, we need to help you, no doubt. And [?] and that is compassion. [translation] I don’t know whether that is compassion or not. [translation] That is sort of looking down on people. [translation] Compassion doesn’t look down on people. [translation] Compassion really cares. [translation] Not because I am the better position than you are, so I’ll take care of you. And that’s not compassion to me. [translation]

[0:42:58.2] That is looking down. Condescending [translator: yeah]. [translation] The compassion doesn’t. [translation] And as I said earlier, we must begin the compassion with ourself. [translation] It’s maybe sound a little strange to you, having compassion to yourself is. But if you don’t have compassion to yourself, who else going to have compassion for you? [translation] If you don’t take care of yourself, who else going to take care of. [translation] So let us not have misunderstanding. Let us have a clear understanding here. Compassion is caring. And you have… we have to take care ourself too. If not, who else?[translation] No compassion puts caregivers up higher level, and the care receivers are lower level either. [translation] Today we think, especially caregivers, we think are the caregiver, and subject, the people wo receive the care become subject. And I still glad it doesn’t become object, like in the hospital experimental basis or something, you know. But I’m so glad it not become object, but still it’s a subject. It becomes… the caregivers are the superior and the care receivers re the poor little things. I take care of you. And it is condescending. It’s not love. It’s not compassion. [translation]

[0:45:55.5] You that mind does? That mind does… meeee, better! Iiiii take of care of you. I am the better. Me, me, me, again, me is coming up. Compassion doesn’t carry me. [translation] Actually if you look… look at the mothers, they take care of kids. They take care of kinds, and they really do take care of kids. They don’t think… unless few bad mothers… most of them think, oh yeah, the kids is as wonderful as a precious thing, and I really have to take care. And that is called mother’s love. And the mother doesn’t think, I am superior, better than that kid, and I have to somehow teach him lesson, teach him or her lesson. Oh, they don’t think that. They always think it is wonderful, it is a jewel, it is something that I have wonderful thing. And so glad to have it, lucky to have it. I must take care of. And this is true love. [translation]

[0:47:56.1] And Buddha tells us to have motherly love to all living beings. [translation] And Buddha does have that. [translation] But for us it’s become impossible [laughs]. [translation] But one thing I wanted to say. When you talk about motherly love, we are talking about it… Buddha is talking about it. The mother who gives love to the baby… so looking from the mother’s window, mother’s eye to the baby, not the other way around. You know we look…the moment we say motherly love, we think about our mother. Oh mama… unhhh… nuhh. We say that all the time. [translation] Isn’t there a huge difference, as if you mother, from your window looking to your kids… and when kids looking at my mom. you know when we grown up, we looking at my mom, it’s a huge difference, right? [translation] It is the perception. [translation] A perception of a human beings. And when human beings get together all the time, as we rub cold shoulder to each other, and that cold shoulder what we rub each other, and makes the people feel that way, it’s the perception that develops. [translation]

[0:50:22.4] And you know, when you have a child, and the mother have so much compassion, that’s because so much compassion and caring because the love. Love brings the compassion. Not the compassion brings love. Oh, the other way around. Love brings compassion. [translation] Mother give unconditional love to the kids… unconditional. Never say what’s in there for me. Right? It’s unconditional love. [translation] That unconditional love brings the compassion. [translation] And when there’s no love, all the rest of the compassion without love, all the rest of the compassion without love not really good compassion at all. It always have something attached there. Some… you know what traditionally older, the age with the strings is always attached somethings there. [translation] You know what I’m talking about? AID That is the rich nations give aid to the poor nations, and then they… strings attached that, all the time, and pull the string, like a… look at this World Bank loan to the poor nations. And huge amount of money they give you, fight? But then you really look at it, they give... they give… I mean.. I’m not apologies or something… I’m not supposed to say that. But however, they supposed to be most compassionate action of the world, the World Bank giving loan to the third world poor nations, But if you really calculate in there, when they give you millions of dollars, right. When you calculate there, what you really have is the interest and the mechanical system, electronic system, whatever, the rich companies sell it to them just enough to pay that money.

[0:53:14.4] And especially just paid this loans of the… you know... the interest of the earlier loan, nothing more there. So, I mean, that’s what’s call aid with the... not aid but AID, aid with the strings attached. When you do that, and that is clearly shows it’s not true compassion. Why you do that? Because we don’t care. We do care our own money. And the big companies care their own money. They have to make sure they get their own... the loan interest… otherwise that country will bankrupt, and then they don’t get money back. So you give that huge loan from that… the World Bank. It’s called World Bank Project. But supposed to be, you know, non-governmental, non-profit-making, wonderful thing. But the reality comes sometimes that way. It shows there is no care. When there is no care, there’s no love. When there’s no love there is no compassion. Sometimes it’s even violence. Sometimes even a violence. Violence in the… such it is passive-aggressive violence. [translation]

[0:55:29.7] I don’t know who… one or two… one country refuse to take the World Bank loan, remember? And they refuse to take the loan form the World Bank, and then they… everybody put pressure and make them… [laughs]. [translation] So anyway. So now the question comes, how do we deal with ourself [laughs]… so anyway. Yeah, ok, up to here what we did is we see how violence work, how compassion work in the bigger size. When we come back we see how to develop compassion within the individual. How do we deal with the one person, with one-to-one? And how we’ll do? [translation] But before e take the coffee break, I want to remind you once, and that is, you have to take something home today. So far what you can take home is you… you looked… we saw it, violence has never worked. Non-violence get succeeded. Buddha become Buddha because of compassion. Gandhi successful because of non-violence. Hitler and so and forth never could achieve anything because they engaged in violence. So I want you take home, undoubtedly, clearly, without any doubt, violence doesn’t help. Violence doesn’t serve anything. Violence created trouble. I want you to have that resolution, clear cut. [translation]

[0:58:43.0] I have a lot of examples to tell you, but let’s have coffee. [translation] [audience inaudible] [coffee]

[0:59:21.8] Thank you for coming back. [laughs]. And sorry we to rush your coffee. But I think you came hear to hear something. So now give… sort of covered almost he very general idea, but not general idea, but as varied[?] example. But now the question comes, how do I develop compassion? Now the sort of a personal thing to [?]. [translation] As I said earlier, this is rather un… you probably think strange. What I learned, the most… the first things you have to develop compassion to yourself. If you don’t develop compassion to yourself, we can never develop compassion others. Honestly speaking. We can have feelings when people are suffering. When you see the dog run over by a car. Or someone’s wounded. Or some weaker person beaten up by somebody. And very kind lady over here told me, I feel so bad what’s happening in Tibet, in Chechnya, and so this. Very true, very true. They are very kind and wonderful, no doubt about it. And… but, you know, like looking at the dog run over by car, feeling sort of very sad. They are good feelings, no doubt. But how strong compassion they are, that is another question. There’s a pity feeling, and compassion. So you always have to compare. And if you… no one wants pity feeling. No one.. well, I don’t know. Some people may welcome sympathy. But… I don’t know what sympathy can really do.

[1:02:12.7] And I’m quite sure no one wants pity feeling. But everybody wants compassion. So when we needed compassion for ourself,… Before we develop compassion to anybody to anybody else, we must develop compassion to self. And I’m not here to promote selfish interest. But the the true fact is, if you don’t have compassion for yourself, the compassion for other will be bit questionable. [translation] I’m not saying your compassion is not compassion. Don’t misunderstand me. [translation] So, now the question comes, when I say develop compassion to yourself, the question really comes, what is compassion? What am I supposed to think abut it? What am I supposed to meditate? What do I expect to gain out of it? And that is the question. [translation] To me, the definition of compassion is, seeing the person suffering and the desire to be free… freeing from it, or separating from the suffering as pains. [translation]

[1:05:37.6] So what said, develop compassion for myself, what do I expect? And I do expect I should have string strong recognition that I have a pain. Acknowledge my sufferings. Don’t’ deny. What we do is we deny the pain and try to sweep it under the carpet, so that we don’t have to deal with it. Or we try to hid, and get some kind of hiding spot in some kind of cocoon that hide, or run away. And these are the wrong way of handling. [translation] The right way of handling is, don’t deny the pains, sufferings and miseries. It’s not that you have to take it so much that you can’t even deal with it and develop [disturbance in audience, colloquy] Don’t deny the pain and sufferings. And yet don’t have to take overly and get depression and all this,. So we have to know… you know… our tendence is, either we deny completely and pretend nothing is happening. Yet, you know… we had a lot of pains, physical, mental, emotional. Person become twisted person, yet still you keep on denying. Or worry so much, and so much so that you can’t even raise your hands[?] up. Both are wrong. Balance in between. Balance in between and recognize the problem as a problem, and look for how to get rid of it, how to solve it, what the solution is. And that is beginning of developing compassion to self.[translation]

[1:09:41.4] Try to help your own body. Try your own consciousness. Try to help your own mind, because they are all suffering. [translation] Taking care of your body is your compassion act to you, for yourself. [translation] Taking care of mind is also compassionate act of helping yourself. [translation] Taking care of environment is helping yourself. [translation] One gentleman told me during the break, the person is very worried about world situation. According to Al Gore we only have ten more years before we hit with the major catastrophe in the world. [translation] Hopefully it’s not true, we have a major catastrophe in ten years. It’s too short of time. However, it doesn’t mean we can just sit there and don’t bother. It’s going to hit for sure. Got to do something. And that doing itself is compassionate act. Not only to yourself, but to the whole society. That air what we breathe, the water who we drink, and… you know… the ground on which we live, and the sun which we enjoy, maybe overly enjoying here. I was told the farmers are crying. [translation]

[1:12:36.8] Unusual heat that, what we going through. Unusual heat of unusual beautiful weather, or whatever. It is effect of global worming, no doubt about it, right? I mean, do you ever remember… I mean I’m sure you do remember, but… such a long dry spell, you know, spell in April-May. [translation] What I know is April showers supposed to bring May flowers. [laughs] What happened to the April showers? [translation] These are the signs of environmental problem. One has to recognize, just don’t deny. [translation] So again, mental, physical, emotional, environmental difficulties: one, acknowledge, two, try to do something. [translation] Physically, take care of yourself. Eat the right thing. If you wrong thig, become big fat like me, diabetic. Because keep on eating the wrong food. [translation] [ laughs, audience laughs]

[1:14:45.4] And physically taking care of too. And the mind is the most important. [translation] Our happiness is brought by mind, not so much by body. [translation] I don’t mean body doesn’t have sensation, but lasts only five minutes. [laughs]. Sorry, dirty joke. [translation] [laughs]. Another joke, oh yeah. Okay. So, anyway. [laughs] The mind, the mental happiness is the lasting happiness. Mental misery tortures us, all the time, all the time. [translation] To me, the spiritual path is all about bringing mental… not only development, the joy, happiness within the individual. This is all about it. [translation] So, the mind… when you deal with the mind, and when you dealing with the compassion and mind, the first thing, again… the mind is the one who has to recognize our own sufferings. Mental, physical, emotional, environmental sufferings. [translation]

[1:17:14.5] The second to see where it is coming from… why need to see where it is coming from, because we have to stop. [translation] And where it’s coming from, is it just somehow popped up, or is it because we are born, we have to suffer? Or is it something temporary, and that’s what we need to find it? [translation] Again, it is absolutely clear. It doesn’t pop up. It doesn’t comes automatic. If it comes as automatic, then your suffering, my suffering, all has to be equal, same thing, because it supposed pop up by itself, no matter whatever. So it doesn’t. Your suffering’s different than my. And each and every human being we have different. That shows it doesn’t… it’s not automatic thing. It is conditional thing. [translation]

[1:19:06.0] Not only a conditional thing, but it’s also temporary one. [translation] Not a permanent. Not our human nature. It is something new that pops up, comes in. [translation] So by knowing that we know two things. Two things that we know, that suffering and pain is not a nature of ourself. It is temporary thing. Since it is temporary, it is removable. [translation] And the question then… helping ourself means, try to remove our own pains. And that is helping ourself. [translation] So there’s a number of misunderstandings here too. Because some people think, I been born, so I have to suffer, because it’s part of life. Or some people will think, oh it is God’s gifted, God puts on there. And some people will think, oh it’s not God, but is human nature. In my opinion, they are all wrong. [translation]

[1:21:06.5] First, it’s wrong because if the first is right, everybody would have the same suffering all the time. We don’t! Different people different. And some people don’t have suffering, some do. That’s clearly indicates that’s different. It’s not natural, by itself. [translation] Two, it’s not given by God. If God’s supposed to be helping us, nots supposed to be torturing us. [translation] I mean, isn’t that correct? [translation] And everybody, whenever there is any catastrophe or any problem, you know… In America, you know, all this, you know… very recently a Korean-American… no, Korean guy, and shot… how many people? Twelve or thirteen, right [translator:] 32. [Rimpoche:] 32? Are you sure? [translator:] yeah. [Rimpoche:] I though it’s 13. Oh my God. 32?! Including himself, become 33? Is that right. Oh my… So anyway, one guy… you know, I saw the picture in the television, and it looks like… it’s funny, right? And so all this type of things happens, everybody get busy on the television, and… you know… Hindu, Buddhist, Judeo-Christian, everybody else else… what did God do this? Where did God go? Whatever happened God? And all the... they talk all the time. But I saw, I saw one good answer… Deepak Chopra gave one good answer, said let God be God. Don’t blame him. Leave him alone. [translation]

[1:24:03.0] Yeah, it is… I mean the God doesn’t make him kill 32 people. [translation] Definitely. It is he killed. [translation] And he’s crazy. Actually, this is absolutely called craziness, sickness, right? If that’s not sick, then what is sick? [translation] So all of them, you sick with what? Sick with the emotions, hatred, anger, dissatisfaction. He’s not sick with the jaundice, diabetics, but sick with hatred, anger, dissatisfaction. [translation] So he’s sick. He tried to kill himself. Tried to take care of. And in the wrong way. And that’s not healing. That’s not doing something, that’s doing wrong thing. [translation] It is a lack of understanding. [translation] It is misunderstanding. It is craziness. [translation] So we… when we do something to solve our problem, we have to get the right understanding, right thinking, right way. The right is non-violence. [translation]

[1:26:11.0] Although some people think non-violence doesn’t work all the time. It is true, doesn’t work all the time. It’s very true. Nelson Mandela was put in jail. And, true. If Gandhi would have used that method against the French, French would have killed Gandhi. They are all true. If Gandhi used the same method against Communist Chinese, they would have killed him too. If Dalai Lama remains in China or Tibet, he could have been… something gone wrong with him for sure. But, that’s all true, that doesn’t mean non-violence doesn’t work. [translation] So anyway, to make it long story short, because you know compassion is something extremely important, and such a huge subject. To make it all short, where is the real enemy? [translation]

[1:27:45.6] The real enemy is within us. [translation] There’s a name, [translation] called ego [translation] I’m not talking about the ego the psychologists produced as a name to be… to build self-esteem. But, I’m talking the ego that creating problem all the time. [translation] And what is this ego using? This ego is using the violence as a method. [translation] And what is this ego achieving? Continuation of suffering. [translation] So the recognize enemy within us and defeat… don’t defeat yourself, but defeat your ego. [translation] So this is the most important work that you… most important way help yourself by you. [translation] This is the major practice of spiritual path. For me it is much more important than saying mantras, or praying, or, or, I don’t know, burning incense, or singing chanting, or whatever. This is the most important thing. [translation]

[1:29:55.7] You can burn all the incense in the world, but your ego will be not affected. [translation] You can sing all the melodies in the world, your ego may not affect. [translation] You may meditate 48 hours… no sorry, 26 hours a day, and even then your ego may not affect. [translation] That is the problem. I want you to remember tonight, the enemy of creating my own pain is within me, and that’s called my ego. And my job, my mission of life is to defeat this enemy within me and gain some wisdom, bring the compassion home. [translation]

[1:31:21.2 ] I guess that’s it. And should… supposed to give you some questions if you have. Supposed to [laughs] [translation] Yes, sir. You, you, yeah lady, I’m sorry. I couldn’t see you so I thought [laughs]. [audience inaudible] Somebody what? [translator:] Somebody uses violence against you. [Rimpoche:] Oh, spying against you? [translator:] Violence. [Rimpoche:] OK, violence, OK, then? [audience:} what can you do to not lose your compassion at that moment? [Rimpoche:]The Buddhist answer for this is, use compassion against violence. But use wisely. Don’t get killed. [laughs] Don’t get hurt. OK? And if it’s a reasonable person. If person is sick with the hatred or love or whatever, obsession, or, not love but hatred or obsession, then you have to be use wisely. You can get hurt. If it’s a reasonable person, and when you are using compassion, after a little while, after little while that person begin to think twice. Honestly. Person begin to think twice.

[1:33:01.4 ] I tell you a little story. There was a meditator in old… my stories are old Tibetan stories. Sometimes doesn’t make sense, sometimes does. There’s an old meditator in Tibet, one village. They just coming in north of plaza. And he’s sitting up there and meditating. The… those ghosts…. You know the ghost. The ghost have a meeting. They say, hey, there is a meditator coming up. We better destroy him while we can, otherwise… this hard-working person, he may develop and after a little while we may not be able to do anything, so we should have pre-emptive, and take care of him before. [translation]

[1:35:17.9] So, so one of the ghosts volunteered to do the job, because that happens to be his area. [translation] And he went there to destroy him. So he found this meditator, he’s meditating and crying, crying. So the ghost thought, what is he crying about? So he’s worrying about it, worrying about the sufferings of the people in general, and particularly ghosts of that area. [translation] So the ghost thought, oh, this person is worrying about us. How I can I kill him. So he went home. [laughs, audience laughs] [translation] He repeated three four or times. [translation] Same thing. [translation] And then month is gone. And then the ghost meeting came. And one of the ghosts said, that guy supposed to be gone for months ago, what happened? [translation]

[1:37:14.9] So the guy who… the ghost who volunteered, he said, I went there couple of times, but he’s always crying and worrying about us, so I could never kill him. [translation] So the leader said, [?] I’ll take care of tomorrow. [translation] Tomorrow the leader gone there. So when leader’s going there, and he’s still crying. So leader thought about it, and he realized he’s crying about the suffering of people. So even the leader couldn’t kill him. [translation] So the chief of the ghosts has to go [?] [translation] So even the ghost realize, recognize when you are worrying about them, and they just can’t hurt you. That is, that is the living being’s nature. When you been always good to you, good to you, good to you, how can you be bad? How can you be shameless[?]. So the compassion works against someone who’s being violence, provided, if the person is not crazy, with the hatred or obsession. [translation]

[1:39:23.1] OK, so the gentleman has another question, but… you ok? [audience:] [inaudible] … when to use compassion wisely? [Rimpoche:] Well, if you use compassion wisely, it’s fine. But if you use the compassion conservatively, that’s not good, conservative compassion, we had from Bush all the time. It’s not that great [laughs]. [translation] Wisdom and compassion works together. Essence of compassion should be wisdom. Essence of the wisdom should be compassion. [translation] Wisdom is not just wise. [translation] The wisdom is true wisdom, caring, love. [translation]

[1:41:06.9] OK, well, this is big question. To answer that you need lot of time, but I want you to remember, the essence of wisdom is compassion, essence of compassion is wisdom. Wisdom is not just wise, but wisdom is very serious and a wonderful thing. [translation]

[1:41:54.2] And I suppose I have to close my shop by thanking the Tilburg study group to organize that. And also by thanking you for wonderful translation. Very good old friend, and great that you brought you son here, as well as Naomi brought her daughter here, and that’s great. As well as we need thanks to Frank, who provided this wonderful sound, and flower, and every arrangement and decoration. Thank you. [translation] [applause].

[1:42:54.7] And above all, thank you to all of you. Without you being here, I will not be here. Thank you. [translation]

[1:43:07.4]