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20070625GRALS3

Transcriber Beth Locke

Good evening and I hope you had a good day today. I began in the morning. It is important to have a meditation sometimes even just to sit. To some people sitting is a little difficult but sometimes sitting is also very important. When you go to those Zen teachings and Zen retreats inside and all this is sitting. Just sit for weeks and months together, right? So sometimes sitting is also important, two or three hours or even a day, a half a day, is important. You had a last night I began with the motivation and I tried to avoid nice of talking and said everything is wrong except for making yourself a Buddha for benefitting all others. Every other motivation is wrong motivation. So again the traditions will tell you to the benefit of all beings one would like to obtain the ultimate state of Buddha for which I learn, think, analyze and internalize these points that are going to be raised. That will be your motivation for the retreat, for everyday in the morning and every session that you sit. The points will come to you point by point but the necessity of it I mentioned briefly yesterday. I did not mention in detail but briefly yesterday. If we cannot make a difference to our lives with the plural not singular, lives, plural, this time we will never be able to make a difference for many lives. You may think "You don't know that!" We do know this. We do know because of our mind. Our mind tells us what are we addicted to, how we will think, what we like, and so that will tell us very clearly if we don't make a difference this time for many lives we're not going to make difference at all. Because when you like it, when you look in your mind you'll ask your mind, what will you like to do? Your mind will give you all mischievious answers. And that clearly gives us a message that we all are slightly mischevious person in our charachter, in our original life. We have that mischieviousness and that mischieviousness that we have sometimes it's fun to have it and we can giggle a little bit but that is the clear sign if we don't it this time we're not going to make a difference for many lives. Why this time? As i told you- opportunity, capability, you had meditation this morning, opportunity and the capability. And within that opportunity if you look more, we have a little like, we have a liking for our mischieviousness. Within this opportunity we give opportunity to utilize that little mischief that we like to play can be turned into a method of developing. There comes the vajrayana into the picture. All this vajrayana we call it three famous yidams of Tsongkhapa, we call it; the Yamantaka, the Heruka, Guhyasamaja. We talked about it and if you look at this each one of them says , one of them says method of utilizing hatred as a path that brings total enlightenment for the individual. If you look in the Heruka it says the method of utilizing attachment which we all have a soft spot within us, always. Using hatred, no attachment, as a path to obtain enlightenment. And look at the Guhyasamaja. It will say the ego ignorance using that as a path. So that even more stronger reason if we don't make it now we will not make it for awhile, at all. For a while. I'm talking about a couple of eons, honestly speaking. I'm not talking about a couple of lifetimes. That is why this is the time whether you make it or break it. Because the vajrayana doesn't come very often even today there's vajrayana in this world. How many people have access to vajrayana? Not many. Extremely very little. Extremely little. So that shows you how rare it is, that's what their talking about, the rare opportunity. They're not talking about the shortage of human beings or a shortage of intelligent people. They're talking about the rare opportunity that people can click into it. It was amazing what had happened in the sixties if we look at it now. It was really unimaginable opportunity that came by and somehow it sparked and started picking up throughout this country and even in western Europe and many places. However, if the method of utilizing that very opportunity was behind, the time has come earlier, the method of utilizing this was left behind. So you get the opportunity, you get high and then you don't know what to do with that after and it has become a trip and get high and come back and get high and come back and then you could not utilize that opportunity at all. And then those pure opportunities don't last very long. It's very short lived. Everything has been contaminated again, you know? So this indicates to us this is a real opportunity, still! Still! Unfortunately the method of utilizing that came a little late. The methods went, you know, whatever the effects going came earlier and utilizing that opportunity came late. If Timoth Leary was in Tibet ten years before that things would have been different. There are a few people like Ram Dass and they all amde a difference as much as they could. I think Trungpa came much later. So that's why we still have effect and influence still left. When the time comes we still have the opportunity. But then you know, as I said, the method is behind, the time had come earlier however this utilizing that method needs very strong ground within the individual. When the individual doesn't have a strong ground then every experience becomes strange experience, you can't even figure out, it is a true good experience or a hallucination or whatever it is, which we couldn't figure out because there's no proper foundation laid within us. Yes the vajrayana will tell you to utilize joy as a method, utilize the subtleness of the mind, the sharpness and the subtleness of the mind but then when we don't know where and what then it becomes the same thing. And I must tell you a funny thing, funny little incident in my life. I was in Texas in 1976 or 77 only about six or seven months. I always wanted to be in the states earlier but I never had the opportunity. Then the opportunity came in the seventies and this crazy very crazy healer named Norbu Chen, there's two Norbu Chens but the one Norbu Chen I know but the other I don't. He is a healer, a very good healer, no doubt about it. I mean I have no doubt about that. He is very good healer. So he came to Dharamsala to meet Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche. He met Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and he asked Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche for an initiation of Hayagriva and Garuda and Vajrapani combined. So Kyabje Rinpoche was very happy to give it normally they don't. Kyabje Rinpoche was very happy to give him the initiation so he came in the morning and so he said O.K. so in the afternoon he gave the initiation. Then he asked Kyabje Rinpoche for Yamantaka initiation, detailed initiation so Kyabje Rinpoche said why don't you take this guy, pointing to me, to Texas and get your initiation there? So that's how I got to Texas. Honestly. In Texas when I got there, this guy is absolutely crazy, no doubt about it. A great healer, no doubt about it, but absolutely crazy, no doubt about that either. So I stayed there about three months maybe, before he died. I went back to India and when I was in India he died and I came back and I stayed about three or four months. So I did some teachings during that time. There was a woman in that teaching that paid a lot of attention. Pays a lot of attention. Then I went back, nothing happened. When I came back in the 80's, late 80's early 90's, and I was in the Open Center in New York in the bookshop. I was doing workshops , I was doing bookshop and somebody passed by. Somebody looked like I thought I saw that person and know that person. So she sort of looked back and went and after a little while she came back. It was winter and she was wearing a mink coat and she came back and she said "Gelek Rinpoche?" I said yes." Do you remember me? I'm Virginia Sunderlane. Oh. Then I looked at her and remembered she was in Texas. She said I was looking for you throughout the world. I said oh, O.K. And I said, what. She said I studied with you in Texas, I said yes. So she said now I've developed this mechanical system that you can bring your mind in the certain level, not using drugs but using ang goggles and something and developed this system. So she said I can bring the mind level, she has some type of measurement called, I got some yoga people or something called alpha and beta and this and that she has somekind measurement where certain music and certain light effect and goggles and then you can bring the people to the level of this. She said, then , I don't know what to do. Now what is next? I said, I don't know either! So that's what I meant, that's what I meant, you know. The effect can come early, what to do with that is left behind. You can't do anything, so the level of your mind changed , effected by either through chemical or electronically or musically or whatever you do but if you don't what to do then you can bring calmness and quietness to a certain level but then you don't know what to do with it. Then it becomes a trip. Go there and sit there and run around a little bit, you know. Mind has no limit, right? If you let the mind run it will take you anywhere! Right? If you try to bring the mind level down, quiet, then you let the mind take you and it'll go anywhere you want to go, all kinds of thoughts all kinds of imagination. Everything can go but then it's going. It's just going and going going going. It's not even a visit. If it's going to visit at least you go to the place, you see the place, you recognize, you do something and this is just imaginatively going. Because mind has no limit. So if you let the thought go they will take something and not only they can take something but somebody else can lead the tour of that and take a hundreds of thousands of people for that tour , too. But what will that do to the individual? Nothing. I mean you may have some fun! Some may not even have fun. So you call it a trip. And that's what happens. Nothing happens. So what to do? Whatever the level of the quietness and calmness you can bring within your mind you know, simple meditation and sitting is one of the ways of bringing mind to a calm and quiet level without depending on the chemicals or the music or the electronics or the goggles or vision or hearing or anything. You know we are talking about the mind and mental faculties. We are talking about the sixth mind, the most important mind is the sixth sense. So all these five senses can communicate to the sixth one. So the eye can communicate, eye consciousness, ear consciousness can communicate, nose consciousness can communicate. So when they're communicating , even the mind the mental consciousness can communicate and that becomes the , so that's why it can make a difference to the principle mind. Through any direction, through any direction. That's why the drugs work. That's why the electronic things work. That's why the music works. that's why the smell works. That's why the touch works. All of them work because they are a door way to communicating to the mind. When the mind was brought to the softer and gentler and important navel level then the question that she raises, what next? What is next is the most important now. What's next is nothing but you have to have good suggestion to the mind. The suggestion that you have to give the mind is what we call dharma. The Buddha's message of the dharma is the suggestion that you give to the mind. Yes it is right. The purpose is total enlightenment. Nothing more nothing less. It is. But the how is the problem. This is the only way to utilize the mind. Nothing else. I mean people recommend you to do prostrations. Prostrations are great. It is great purification. Mandala offerrings are great. Circumambulation is great. They're all great , no doubt about it. If you are doing only prostrations you're never going to become enlightened. If you're doing only mandala offerrings you're not going to get enlightened. Generosity is great if you do only generosity you're not going to be enlightened. Moral ethical points are very important, no doubt about it but if you're very strong with thing and nothing else you're not going to be enlightened. Patience is the same. Enthusiasm, it is needed but enthusiasm alone can do nothing. You say what's next? All of them have to come in together and the most important suggestion to the mind. At the right time. Right point. Actually you try to, you're not trying to brainwash yourself but you try to sell the information to yourself, see if your mind likes it and picks it up. In order to make your mind to like this first put the recommending to us, pointing to us, how important we are. The life. How valuable this life is. How precious this life is. We knew but we pay no attention. How do we know? How do I know that I knew this? Because I knew when I was sick, when there's complication comes in, you're diabetic, chronic diabetes, you have high blood pressure, enlarged heart, whatever. All of them comes up. Then you begin to say, oh, then new problems come up, or you have kidney problem, something. Oh, am I going to go? Maybe it's time to go, you know? So then the fear comes up and then you know. Flipside of that, you know you appreciate your life, you knew. But you pay no attention and you only get threatened when the threat comes in. When there's a threat then you get frightened which indicates we knew, we are aware of it. But we pay no attention. So Buddha's telling us, don't leave it there. Pick this up, pick this up and bring awareness on this. Bring mindfulness on this. A. to enjoy your life B. to make yourself happy. Because you have something very important and valuable so normally our normal idea happiness comes out of that. Because we know I know something's there, I really have something very important. Not only just happiness, also builds your self-esteem. Self-esteem. That sort of uplifts the individual. That makes the mind bring a happy mood and within that happy mood then you internalize, that's who you are. You're not just , when you have continuation of disliking yourself and when you have constant time that you whatever you wanted you 're not getting it, whatever you don't want you're meeting it all the time, so it's almost like beating up. And so thinking oh I'm nothing, I'm terrible, you know, all that mind of I'm ugly and I'm horrible , all of them is again it is circumstances in ones life, one happens to see this when you internalize them and that becomes your problem. Sometimes it becomes such a huge problem people can't even solve that problem.You have to go to all kinds of therapie and psychologists, or every kind things and you have to do that, and that's because of circumstances, conditions made in such a way in ones' life and you can't get out of it. So the Buddha wanted to make sure we don't get into those circumstances, those conditions, se he gives you the method of appreciating our life, how valuable it is, how important it is. Truly speaking it's like a naive statement but truly speaking the life that we have each one of those lives that we have if we have to make a choice between this life and multi-billion dollars with a B! who's going to choose what? Unless you are stupid crazy. So that itself it is like a naive statement, like maybe a kids way of thinking but no one can choose a billion dollars over your life! What would you do with it then?

So it shows you how much value we have but we don't think about it. We think, I'm useless, I'm o.k., I'm worth $100,000 or something. Or something we think and then our culture , society reinforces that by the societies' acknowledgement. How much money you have, how much you can make, then that reinforces that. But the true reality, life itself there is no measurement. This is something beyond any terms that we can measure. In terms of dollar or wealth or anything! You can not measure, that's what we really have, honestly. Each and every one of us has that but we simply don't acknowledge it. I'm useless, my life is gone, I'm old, I'm ugly, I'm sad, I'm thin, whatevfer, I have grey hair, I have white hair, silver hair, golden hair, whatever, black hair. So we underestimate so much and that is the number one obstacle to helping ourself. So Buddha did not bring this subject over here for nothing. Buddha brought this subject here to convince each and every one of us how important we are. So good old american way of saying, I should say, hey, Buddha wants you to remember you are a very important person. That is the message from Buddha. Just like a message from God, right? I wish I could tell you that Buddha came to me this morning and told me but I can't do that, I'd be lying. Didn't some of those tell us remember, God woke George Bush up in the middle of the night in the oval office and told him to go to war with Iraq, remember that? Similar to that if I can say it, it would be nice but I can't. So that is our point number one to be remembered.

So now this background of my tradition or the buddhist tradition or the Tibetan buddhist tradition, we always take that message in internally. We try to internalize that and the way and how we do that is, you know, we don't say, hey Buddha says this. Buddha did say that but we don't take it that way. How do we take it? We visualize Buddha inseparable from that of our own spiritual master. We visualize that on our crown, on the crown of our head or in the palms of our hand or in front of you. Which ever is easier. And so the mind has been focused on Buddha inseparable from your Guru either on your crown or on your palms or in front and we take the opportunity of utilizing the seven limbs. That's what the Jewel Heart prayer is all about, the seven limbs. Making offerings, no sorry, respect, making offerings, purifying our negativities, negative karma, rejoicing in the great activities of the Buddha, guru and all great beings, making requests to remain, making requests to give teachings and the dedication. That becomes the seven limbs. And then instead of saying, hey, Buddha said that to you, our own mind will now follow and pick up the subject that Buddha taught us. Importantness of the life.

If you can you make supplications too, but if you don't , you don't have to. If you do the supplications you do the kyem nye kun du la ma lhag pey lha tub wang dorje chang wa sol wa deb . The word that you do is kyem nye kun du, a collection of all refuge, all, A-L-L, all refuges together, a collection of all refuge becomes one. Kyem nye kun do lama lhag pey lha is the lam refering to the vajra master or spiritual master, lhag pey lha, god of gods, the direct translation would be god of gods. So refering to Buddha, la ma lhag pey lha, Buddha in reality, yidams or whatever it is, kyem nye kun do la ma lhag pey lha, tub wang dorje chang wa sol wa deb. In the form a Buddha in the form of Budhha Vajradhara, in the form of the master, whatever. Then pray, sol wa deb, sort of a supplication. Praising and seeking help, help for what? Not the help of I won't have illnesses, I have good money, and I have good life, no. Seeking help to develop me, to become a Buddha for the service of all beings, help me to make it, to do this. With this in mind then you look back once in our previous lives and the life up to yesterday or up to the minute before now when you look at it we have a lot of pains, a lot of sufferings, a lot of difficulties. We’ve had good times, too, but if you compare it we have a lot more hard times. Constantly. And if we continue that will continue in the future for sure because it continued in previous lives up to now and there's no reason why it won't continue in the future. So it is time for me to change.

Because of opportunity, because of the capability. That's how we build up. Actually spend time here we don't have time we have only one week but for you you have a whole life! What you get here is the message and method and when you take that home and that goes with you as long as you're around. Even in your future lives you have that message available within you. Immediately you may not remember but you connect, so convince yourself make yourself important. It is true, it's not a lie, it's true! How important an individual is. You know better than people from the east. And then utilizing this opportunity, if you don't utilize it, if you miss the opportuniy, the opportunity goes away. It will change. Times change, people change, everything changes. We call it impermanence. Yael use to tell me, what was it? Ever changing sangha or something. What did she use to say? I forgot. I was talking to Yael yetserday. Where are you? What did you say? ..........bla bla bla.....So the impermanence is the second point we have to remember, recognize. Anyway, before to the second point I'm going to conclude this here. Although you have meditated today in the morning and all that, but then every time since your doing this, then light and liquid comes from the body of the Buddha inseparable from that of you're, you know, the word really is kyem nye kun du la ma lhag pey lha, god of gods, that's exactly the word they use. Light and liquid coming from the Buddha's body, guru, Buddha, yidam, inseparable from that body. It reaches to our body and purifies. It really sort of washes. What kind of liquid are you receiving? It is the mind blessing and acheivment of the Buddha, the historical Buddha, the master, the yidams, all their good deeds, their acheivments, their activities. We visualize in order to satisfy our rational mind we visualize so it is easier to our mind to satisfy to see it as light and liquid because that suits us. In reality you don't need physical things, it is a non-physical thing happening. But in order to satisfy our mind in the physical from of light and nectar. The idea of light is against darkness, the idea of nectar is washing against dirt. The dirt is washed by water, it's our common knowledge, our understandiing. We're comfortable with that and that's why nectar in the liquid form and light, comes and reaches to our body. Although our body is not ourself, but we identify with the body and that's why there is washing the body from the crown inside outside in between the skin and the flesh. Washes by this nectar and light and it comes from the top and washes it away like if you see the salad dressing in the bottle if you shake it and leave it for awhile then you have this lighter part on top and the spices will start going down, in that manner our negativities,our negative emotions most importantly and negativities and particularly you focus this time on the importantness, the difficult to find and embracing human llife, that stage. We call it development however what it really is is the internalizing, to be able to internalize it. And all obstacles, internal, mental obstacles, external obstacles including non-believer, what do you think your'e doing? You're crazy! You think you're washing your negativities by visualizing that? There's no scientific proof! Nothing there. What are you doing? Your'e just wasting your time. And if you think that, it may be true, in one way it is intelligent mind on the other hand it is also an obstacle here. We don't see everything. Everything doesn't have a physical form that appears. Even the science knows today, right? They talk about it. So there's something beyond the physical, beyond our eye consciousness or beyond whatever the equipment we have, there's still more there. If there's nothing more then the scientist have nothing to discover! So there's more. So washing them away and cleaning completely out of not only from the crown but the throat, chest and and belly and even all lower parts of our body even away from our toes, beyond that. And we become pure ones. And think I have internalized the point that Buddha is making. My life is important. It is valuable. It has value, very valuable. It is difficult to find. I have internalized that. Think about it for a little while. Internalize means now you know, you're convinced and not only have you understood but you gained the realization of one tiny little point, that point is I am important. My life is important. I am important. It has tremendous value. You know it. Once you know this then what you don't do, don't misuse it. If you have a twenty four carat gold glass, purely twenty four carat gold glass, right? We're not going to misuse this, are we? No, we're not. It is too precious to misuse. You may drink wine once in a while in that glass but it must be some kind of champaigne or something, some great wine! Occasionally you may use it. It is too much to abuse. So likewise our life, your body, your life. What do we say? Take care of yourself, we say that. What does that mean take care of yourself? It is looking after your physical body. Right? And mental body , both, that's what it is. So don't abuse that by misusing or over using. Whatever it is. Alcohol or anyhtring else, whatever, forget about cutting yourself and all that. But even gentleness of hurting yourself, (?) anything, and then mind. Oh oh, that's is the most important and precious. And time, because of the impermanence, time, so abusing yourself through treating yourself wrongly with your intake, physical abuses and wasting time, all of them. Because you have something important, something you cannot measure in terms of money. In terms of money you cannot measure, honestly, that's what you have. Yes we know, looking after ourselves is important. We do know that but we do that only for living long and living a healthy life and that's not good enough. You must have more than that. Healthy is important. Living long and healthy is important no doubt about it. Nobody's questioning that. But you have more purpose than that. You have much more value than that so that's why you must go beyond looking for healthy and long life only. That's not to be ignored, but beyond that we must go. What will that be? Freeing ourselves from these negativities and negative emotions. That becomes our first goal. In order to lead to total enlightenment you have three two small goals there in between. And that is freeing ourselves. What makes us not to be free? It's nothing, it's within us. It's no mystery. What makes us not to be free is our attachment. Our attachment, our obsessions make us not to be free. That's it! Honestly, nothing else. That's why Buddha kept on telling, attachment is the glue to samsara. Glue makes you stick, right? Especially if you have superglue to join things nowadays, and the superglue that will stick us to samsara is attachment. Obsession. Attachment to enlightenment is what it should be but we don't because we don't know enlightenment. Yea we heard there's something called enlightenment, whatever that may be. It supposed to be great, whatever it may be, that's we have. But we see attractions here and there and our projections think, ahhh, that is nice! And we set that up as a goal. What is the goal of our life, we normally do have it, many people especially a person like me, happy-go-lucky, don't have any goal at all. Right Jess? We fall in the same category, Jess and me and maybe Mike D. No we don't. But then the many serious people what we call serious people and they have a goal. The goal is whatever in terms of dollar they come up with. They probably say yea I probably need nine million or something and that becomes our goal. So if I have nine million then I'll give five to the kids and then two for my spouse and then two is a little too short for me anyway, so that's how we make a goal. And that's because we know no other goal than that of the dollar, in terms of dollars, that's what we know. To some people the goal may be just a Lamborghini or something. You want to drive the Lamborghini the italian sports car. Mazerati. Or whatever you want to. Or what is it knowadays, Ferrari, it is Ferrari. That may be the goal, you know? Because you don't have anything else. We've never known what enlightenment is. We never know what freedom is. We've never known what free of samsara is. We have no idea what nirvan is all about. So we have no other goal except in terms of measuring the money and comfort. So called material comfort. Because we know nothing else. So that shows how naive we are. How immature we are. How childish we are in the spiritual field, point of view. Not only that, overall, the picture of life after life, how little we know. Really. We don't see anything beyond birth, we see nothing beyond death, just simply squished in between these two blocks. Just in there. When the people training the horse, the horse trainers, they put something here so the horse doesn't see beyond that so you can make the horse do exactly what you want them to do. And we are very much like that, too. That's why we have no goal. We have no role model. We have no goal at all. So you don't want to b a goalless person so you measure with the dollar. You have nothing else. ALthough we know very well, dollar doesn't buy happiness, although we know very well the dollar doesn't buy peace of mind. Because we don't know peace of mind we don't know happiness. We do know unhappiness. We do know misery. I do not know whether the lack of misery and lack of unhappiness is happiness or not. It's a different question. Anyway.

The goal here now the temporary short term goal is freeing ourselves. Why do we need to free ourself? Because if we are not free we suffer again constantly in life. Even in a day how many times do we have ups and downs? Even the ups that we think are happiness are not happiness. We know very well if you look at the people who, what do you call those people who have some sickness , the ups and downs, bipolar, thank you. If you look at the bipolar people right? We call ourselves a normal person and we look at the bipolar people and then they have this upswing and then downswing right? And downswing nobody questions whether that's suffering or not. But when the upswing comes the bipolar people think they're on top of the world. Living above the clouds. But we all know, you and I we all know that is illness that's not happiness, right? I think when the buddhas and bodhisattvas look at us that's probably what they're thinking. I don't think they think we're bipolar but they think we're stupid. That's why they develop compassion on us. Not a pity feeling but compassion and that's because we don't have a role model. That is an unfortunate case. So we have no alternative just now, we sort of have to think yes, there's something called freedom. If you analyze and think about it you knew it was there. Because when you don't have hatred, when you don't have obsession and that period of your mind how good it is. When the hatred or obsession comes in that goodness is gone. How unhappy it becomes. So if you think along those lines, you know you have knowledge but then we won't think that way. We like to look at examples, try to run around, say what is the example here. How do I know there's really something really called happiness here? How do I know there's something called happiness? So you keep on asking questions and doing all this and nobody can really answer. There is no example but if you begin to think about it within your own mind when your mind is not occupied by hatred or sadness or the obsession or something the feeling that you physically, mentally what you enjoy and when your mind is occupied by one of those strong emotions, negative emotions or even positive emotions obsession like, I mean, that might not be positive, but obsession. And you don't have the peace and happiness you have, and that itself indicates there is something beyond this. And that becomes our temporary goal. Again, meditate. Meditation is the one we tell you but that's not enough. All our efforts mental, physical, emotional efforts all have to be directed towards that. Otherwise if you only think when I sit down and meditate then I'm going to think about it and all my actions are that I'm going to do the other way around. That's never going to work. All actions; mind, mental, physical, emotional, all we must put in that direction. Then it becomes the principle of the individual person. Simply sitting and meditating a little bit will not do that good, I mean it does something but not that good. As we all know you go on Sunday to church and pray and the rest of the six days do nothing , achieves nothing, we know that right? We almost know that. It is almost like buying a ticket for heaven. And if you think that way you may not have a ticket at all. You know what happens, you think yes I have a ticket for heaven and when you die the lord of death comes in and says "hey, your going to go down." You say "no, no, no, I have a ticket to heaven. Oh, yea, show me!" Oh, I went to church ! I bought it there." He says, "I have no record". That's it. It becomes a problem. Or he says "yea, yea, yea, my record shows that you went to church but you only went once a week, that's it. And that's not good enough. But on the other hand if you have mental physical emotional efforts put together then you have virtue and that is solid. That is solid. You can show it. You really show it there. It is the real thing. Even if htey want to give you that they can't because you don't have the cause. How is the result going to come? Which means getting freedom is really it's nothing more than creating positive karma. The karmic principle is the guiding principle of our lives. Nothing beyond that works, honestly. There's no corruption in that. There is no shortcut in that. There is nothing. So understanding that internalizing that. You know in a way in the west people like you are really good when you see some animal or something suffering on the road you feel it. Not only do you feel it you literally work, try to help. It's great. Sometimes we, I, have a problem. I definitely meditate compassion but couch potatoe compassion. It doesn't do any good. And you people literally work, that's great. But that literally doing physically doing does not come out from nowhere it comes out from the compassion and caring within you. That is your postive virtue at work. And that's got to be building it up. I guess that's it for tonight. So what are we going to take home tonight. You're going to take home that every meditation you do, not only just sitting and meditating alone, but thinking this lama lhag pey lha. Lama inseparable from that of the Buddha who is the god of gods, like I said. Kyem ney kun du la ma lhag pey lha tub wang dorje chang wa sol wa deb. It is the object of refuge. All in one. The body is sangha, the mind is buddha, the speech is dharma. It is a collection of all the buddhas all the dharma all the yidams inseparable from that of your own master and the historical Buddha and the seed of your future Buddha. The representation of your own future Buddha altogether. In the form of a Buddha, the form of the guru, the form of yidam, it doesn't matter. Whatever is convenient to the individual. That is your root master. That is your object of refuge. That is your Buddha. That is your god. So the seven limbs, light and liquid purifying, developing, the point is the importance of life. The life importance means I'm talking about life meaning you yourself are important. It is valuable. Opportunity. You know in the Buddha's teaching in the lam rim you have the ten endowments, right? And the eight leisures but they all boil down to the opportunity that we have. Focus on that and internalize that. Internalize means not only you know it but you recognize, you have awareness and you remember it. Mindfulness is nothing but remembering. Mindful is nothing but awareness. If you are aware how important you are you will not abuse yourself. Mental, physical, emotional abuses. You don't abuse yourself because of the sake of abusing, you abuse yourself because of the lack of feeling. Lack of understanding, lack of feeling. You can't feel it, you're out of touch. You can't touch. So in order to feel it, you abuse yourself. Either mentally, alertly you want to connect or physically if you feel it even the pain is welcome because you feel. That is how abuse comes in. So that awareness, that internalizing will offer not only I mean it shows how important you are. And also you're so important you say so and so people in our society is important. Why are they important? Because so and so can make so much money. That's how we measure. But then you can become a Buddha, you're capable. So if you're not important then who else? So you want to measure the importance in terms of achievement. So recognize that, bring awareness, internalize. Internalization brings awareness. You need some kind of reminder, other than that. And then that's not only here for tonight, that's not only for here for this week, that's always. Try to remember with you, this is your Buddhism 101. Honestly! Remember that all the time, especially when you're sad, or too happy. But always, O.K? Do we have any questions today?

A few, o.k. Who's doing them? O.K. go ahead.

Aud: So the first couple of questions are combined together here. How do we really know enlightened beings are there? Do we just take someones word for it? And a related question, Assuming enlightened beings are there, how can we make buddhahood our goal if we've never personally met or been in the presence of a buddha?

GR: I think I talked about that all today. Honestly. Yes we know, those pictures and thangkas and images are not somebody elses imagination. It is reality. The Buddha, Tsongkhapa, Avalokiteshvara, Tara, His Holiness and the two great master of his Holiness, the pictures that we have. There's one problem with this. I didn't realize for many times these two great teachers of His Holiness, masters of His Holiness, we called them tutors. Tutors. You know, I was wondering why they were called tutors of His Holiness, tutors. You know why? In old Tibet up to middle of the sixties we have very much problem with the english speaking Tibetans, there's very little english speaking Tibetans, very, very few tibetans are translators. Only a few that we had they had been to the english school in India. They also had done up to class five, six, or eight of high school. There was no one, not a single person who had graduated or who had a high school degree. So it is only to that level that Tibet had functioned. So the word in Tibetan is Yongzin. Yongzin means "one who holds, on who leads, one who guides". Exactly like master, you know. So probably they said what do you call that in english? So a few of them, they hire the indian teacher who comes and teaches us in our home, homework is done, what they call tutors, that's how they picked it up, that title tutor. Because I'll give you just one little example, funny thing. Ghandhi wrote a letter to His Holiness, addressed to His Holiness actually in 1948, 47 or 48, and said I'm developing this "akimsa" it's non-violence, how important it is and you should support it as the Dalai Lama you should support me. And those translators read the letter and they wrote back to Ghandhi, "what does this word mean? We looked in all the dictionaries but there's no word akimsas there, which means non-violence." They wrote back. So Ghandhi did not reply to that letter. So that's show how weak in english they were in those days. So anyway. I always feel uncomfortable, but they are really living Buddhas! Honestly. If they are not living Buddhas then there are no living Buddhas at all. Thank you.

Aud: This morning Amy was telling a story how Avaloketishvara flicked a tear and Tara was born.

GR: Who told the story?

Aud: Amy did.

GR: Amy who?

Aud: Amy Hertz. So the one question is rising from that. Does an enlightened mind suffer by seeing otheres? And a related question, does an enlightened mind think in terms of right and wrong?

GR: Interesting question. I think the enlightened mind sees suffering, touches suffering but does enlightened mind suffer? No, they don't. Are they disconnected, no, they're very connected. Almost feel it. But they don't suffer. But they have enough worries and problems and feelings for it. And the second part of the question is?

Aud: Does an enlightenend mind think in terms of right and wrong?

GR: I don't think the enlightened mind knows wrong. Honestly. Enlightened mind does not know wrong. So I don't know whether they think right or wrong but they look at the people doing the wrong things and that's why they give you advice and try to say don't do it. But enlightened mind does not know wrong. This is sort of a hypercritical philisophical answer anyway.

Aud: Then the last one Rinpoche is what is Buddha nature?

GR: Buddha nature is nothing but the possibility and capability within ourselves to become a Buddha. The seed of the capability. I don't know whether it is capacity or not but it is some kind of seed that is possible to become not only possible probable to become , the question is how long it's going to take and that's why it is Buddha nature. I mean if you go philisophical way there's two types of Buddha nature, natural Buddha nature and gross Buddha nature. Let's not go into those. Just simply say the seed that probably becomes Buddha, that is the probability of becoming Buddha that is called Buddha nature. If you leave it in there you have an answer, you have something to hold but if you go beyond that started taking a little more then you lose everything, so. That's it. So anymore questions? No more, that's great.