Archive Result

23

Soundfile 20071116GRJHNLBPD01

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location JHNL

Topic Buddhism, Discrimination and Politics

Transcriber CM

Date November 2021

Good evening everybody, and wonderful to see you all. And I have an interesting subject tonight, as I am looking here — this is Dutch, right? — ‘Buddhism, Discrimination and Politics.’ Let us talk Buddhism first, okay? Discrimination and Politics we’ll talk later. And every politician will talk about it, so, let us talk a little bit more about Buddhism.

As you know, when I’m looking in Buddhism, and looking back in my life, the Buddhist influence and the Buddhist strength within my life — I’m looking back and I’m extremely grateful and wonderful, honestly, every time I look back, it’s extremely wonderful that I had 68 years of life with Buddha’s influence, or with Buddha’s advice, and with Buddha’s teaching. And I’m always grateful to my parents that they (have) given me such a life, a life —I’m not talking about who my parents is, my father was a great important lama and all that, but I’m not looking from that angle. But I’m looking at them and saying it’s wonderful, wonderful that they have given me such a wonderful life, that not only meet with the Buddha’s teaching but that is almost like it is a Buddhist pure land.

I’m looking back 68 years ago, right? — Tibet is not a pure land, many of you who have been there, you’ll know. However it is such a pure land of Buddhism at that time and that of Je Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching, for me it is extremely — I’m talking only about myself — for me it is extremely fortunate. Not only had a life that [was] mainly influenced by Buddha’s teaching, and that of Je Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching, and when you look back, this is fantastic, even you pay muti-billion dollars (with a b), you’re not going to have it. But for me it’s very fortunate that this happened. When I think, I always think that very strongly almost like emotional. The more I become older, the more it becomes emotional. And that’s the Buddhism, and that’s the Buddhism in general and particularly that of Je Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition.

Buddhism give me an such understanding of life, it is natural, and incidents in life, good things bad things, society’s life, all of those, and it’s given me tremendous depth of understanding of Buddhism.

Buddhism also give me a tremendous in fluency of compassion and love, not only for myself, but on the basis of building love/compassion for myself, then understanding the situation of other people going through and feeling the love and the compassion in heart-felt in touch with reality, not separated. You know not separated, you know, the heart felt feeling of love and compassion with the people has also given me from Buddhism and Buddhist teaching.

And thereby when we talk about love and compassion it’s become absolutely happening, and it’s become real and it’s not just a story. That’s really happening [indistinct].

And of top of that Tsongkhapa’s teaching brought me wisdom, given me a tremendous amount of wisdom, of truly understanding — I don’t mean to say I’ve understood everything, but what little I know is a tremendous understanding of what happened, of where what happened of why it’s happened and of what is the reality, and what is happening, and all of those specially interdependent-ness of functioning in life and the relationship between the reality and the people, between the people, between the environment and the inhabitants. And everything else interdependent system of functioning existence, which is tremendous wisdom. And, this are, when you look back, I’m so grateful in that way.

Jampel Lama Tsongkhapa’s understanding of reality — actually, the Buddha’s, it’s not Jampel Lama’s new creation, but Buddha’s understanding, which somehow Jampel Lama Tsongkhapa not only experienced but also expressed on the basis of his experience, which really made a tremendous difference in our lives today. It is something fantastic.

Only four days ago, maybe three days ago, I was traveling from New York to Detroit, and there’s a bunch of people, the plane is full, anyway, and there’s a bunch of people, and I didn’t know. And when the plane stopped in Detroit, the person in front of me looked round and said, ‘O, Gelek Rinpoche.’ And I looked at that person, and it looked like I know that person, but I couldn’t tell who he is. So I just gave a nice little smile and I tried to go.

So he moved and he goes away. After a little while Amy have to come up and we get on the train together. Then we was waiting at the door and I said, sorry, I couldn’t really place you. And he said, I’m Richard Davidson.

And Richard Davidson is very famous Wisconsin professor (physicist?) who’s studying with mind, and who I think I just mentioned last time that I was here I’m a little surprised, he got a $25M grant for one year to study mind.

Those are normally very snobbish professors who thinks everything they know. But still that person respect me, or us, and that’s because of Je Lama Tsongkhapa. And all these physicists and medical doctors who are discovering everything, even there’s a Dutch professor who says when your brain dies you’re not dead or something, there’s a book coming out or already out or something. I heard it last week. Isn’t that right? So, all of those, are because of Tsongkhapa.

Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, I did not get into kindergarten, I did not get into high school, I did not get into undergraduate school, and I’m not a graduate from the university. So we are actually, in the normal western system, uneducated, illiterate, stupid, ugly guy. Honestly.

And today the world-renowned physicists and medical doctors asking us questions and try to think about it and respect you. And that’s uneducated, illiterate, from Tibet.

We used to be subjects for those people to study — language, or to do different [tasks?] and we used to be subjects. And today it’s not. They’ll ask you a question and try to talk to you. And that is Buddhism. And that’s Tsongkhapa’s teaching. That’s why I’m so grateful.

So we also try to share, not only rejoice my life and my opportunity, and whatever benefit I received out of those, we try to share with you people. I’m not a Buddhist missionary, we’re not. We’re not here to convert you or do anything of that sort, just share a little bit of what we know that will benefit.

Actually, I forgot one thing. You know, it that plane there were a lot of people that day, I was in First Class, and there were a lot of people that day. They were all very snobbish, everybody — they didn’t talk to you But then after Richard Davidson said Gelek Rinpoche, I looked around and everybody’s smiling at me, like this. People in the front are looking back and smiling, people at the back are putting their necks out and smiling. It’s funny.

So it looked like might be a bunch of professors who went somewhere, but I didn’t bother. But the thing is this, so whatever little benefit, whatever it is, the benefits we have are easing our pains. You know the sufferings and pains, mental, emotional — especially mental and emotional pains it will effect much less, and that’s what they’re seeing, and that’s what they’re looking at, or why is the effect less. So this is what we try to share with you people.

Simply, what Buddha told us, it is basic, basic, fundamental Four Noble Truth. So Buddha realized suffering, and he told us suffering, and it’s true. So the purpose of the Buddha telling us truth is, to understand. When I say to understand, when [they] say yeah suffering is there, it’s part of life, so you just have to bear it. Buddha doesn’t say that. Understand.

What do we understand? We understand is that suffering is not given by some third person or some group, it is not, it is not unnatural even. It is dependent arising. It depends on the cause and conditions, and so that’s Second Noble Truth linked with the First Noble Truth. And to understand cause and conditions so that you can avoid it, you can change it. And we can terminate, and we can be free. And so this is the thing— okay Buddha doesn’t say, Yes, it is suffering, yes you understand, you can’t help it, bear it. Nobody ever said that. It always is, understand. It’s dependent. It comes from causes and conditions. Causes and conditions, not made by third person, fourth person, not the law, nothing, it is the individual, in our own hands.

So after this first and second Noble Truth, Buddha tells us we are responsible to ourself, and we do whatever we have to do so that we have we can be free, it is in our hands, not in the hands of some third person, or its the law or not, or something and we can do nothing. That’s not it. We can do it, we can make a difference, that’s what Buddha told us at the end of the first two noble truths.

So the first two truths are called the negative truth, because the negative aspects of making, creating the case of suffering, and the result is the suffering. The first two are the negative aspects, how suffering is developed, how it comes in. The second two truths is the positive truth, how to overcome those by understanding here and then what you can do — the positive truth.

To give a straightforward example for the first, how does one get suffering? We get suffering because we hurt other people. Why do we hurt other people? Because we get negative emotions such as hatred, anger, or obsession. So because of that — we have hatred in our hearts, we have obsession in our hearts, we know it, we know it is not good, we know it, but still we can’t stop. Knowingly or unknowingly we try to hurt the other person, you know, what really it means it, we try to get, try to put your two cents in there and try to get stuck to the other person. That’s what we do. All the time. Knowingly or unknowingly, mostly unknowingly, because as a good human nature, you don’t want to hurt anybody, and even if a dog’s getting suffering you cry tears in your eyes. This is the good human nature we have. However you want to put your two cents in there and make it painful. That is unconsciously [what] we do. Honestly. That is how our negative emotions, a very simple way how our negative emotions are pushing us and creating suffering for others. And we do that all the time, in the name of good. In the name of this, in the name of that.

At a small level we do this unconsciously, to give a little pinch of uneasy to your ex-husband, to get a little uneasy to you ex-wife, or you know to get a little uneasy to your grandmother — no, not grandmother, mother-in-law. And we do that without knowing, unknowingly we do it.

And if there is a little difficulty, you think tsk-tsk-tsk…

But in a small level we do that, right? But in a bigger level, how many wars have we fought in the last century, in the nineteenth century, in the name of religion? Even in today this is happening. It is not past history.

When I came to Holland the first time, late Helen, Piet and Marianne Soeters, and they took me around and they showed me so many places where they weighed women, and because you weighed less, you’re supposed to be burned (as a witch), remember, in the middle of Europe!

And those are ignorance stupid ignorance, burning the women alive because they didn’t weigh so much. You have the weighing thing — that is stupid ignorance, right?

And just like that our negative emotions control us, that’s what happens. And that was acceptable to the society at that time. It is the society who decides to burn, maybe the king, I don’t know, whoever, but, somehow it becomes acceptable to society. And that is that time.

Today we look at that and say, what stupidity! Right? In those days it was reality, and everybody wanted to burn that woman because she wasn’t fat enough. So she must be a witch, right, so that’s why they burned her. So just like that we do today, too, if you look carefully. This is what’s happening. It’s not true [……], so we catch them and burn them, but we do different way.

So lack of understanding, lack of compassion, lacking of caring — Buddha goes and tells us compassion, love, compassion, love, all the time. So if you have compassion, you won’t burn the woman. If you car you won’t burn a woman. Or if you have compassion, you won’t want to take a plane and hit a building, like One Trade Center. If you have compassion, you won’t hate yourself, you won’t hurt yourself, you won’t hurt others. The suicide people. They’re hurting themselves in addition to hurting others. Or you sit in the White House and make a decision [that] the planes will fly, bombard and kill people, and that is hurting, it is violence, it is hurting.

It is lack of compassion, it is lack of caring, it is [a] lack, you know? It is amazing when we look into today’s world, this is what’s happening. Last night I didn’t see, I was up all night. And then I saw the Democratic Party — I didn’t see it, I heard it — the Democratic Party nominees were having a debate last night. Each and everybody except Richardson said that security is more important than human rights. So it is very very similar to what George Bush said, not exactly, but almost. So this is how the world is today, a lack of compassion, a lack of caring.

This is amazing. When you look at the Buddha’s thought, Buddha’s ideas, love and compassion. Each and every one of us, each and every human being, each and every living being, even the insects and bats and everybody else counts. In todays world they don’t, we don’t count. Only the American lives count, and the European lives I’m sure count too, but them other than that, Iraquis and other lives don’t count. Nobody knows how many Iraqis died. Does anybody know? Nobody.

So this the reality. This is the politics. It’s not good. And truly speaking, you know politics really is supposed to be democracy, by the people, for the people, right? But it’s not the reality today. It’s slightly different. It is almost like ‘by the society, for the society, upper society’…

So you know, anyway. I’m talking about Buddhism. This is Buddhism— really equally care, and love, and wanted to remove suffering — that’s how I’ve been benefited. And that’s what I’d like to contribute to the people in Jewel Heart, or those who are friends of Jewel Heart, that’s what we’d hope to [do].

The key here is change. The change is not the society, not the world. The change is the individual, the individual’s mind, the individual’s heart. The change has to take inside each and every one of us.

The change that we want to take is influence us ourselves, from our negative emotions like hatred and obsession to change that into love and compassion. So how do you change it? It doesn’t matter you can change it through meditation, you can change it through practice, you can change it through reading, you can change it through study, but whether you come through meditation, study, reading, thinking, whatever comes the result counts. The result is, you have to improve the personality of the individual person, [to be] not so much influenced — let it go by — hatred, or anger or obsession or jealousy, but keep a little caring, love, compassion, faith.

Some people like to meditate, some people like to read, some people like to talk, some people like to paint, some people like to sing, some people like to do whatever — whatever you do, do it to change your mind from the negative influence into the positive influence. And that’s going to count. Some people would like to do retreat, not only just meditate and all the time do retreat. Whatever you do the bottom line is we have to change the individual from the negative emotion side to the positive. Yes, you hurt, I said faith. True faith.

Faith, what we say faith, and what the normal Western understanding of faith, we use the same word same language, the definition differs.

Buddha himself said [52:00, quotes text in Tibetan] ‘Faith is like a mother to give birth of spiritual development. ‘ So that faith wen you’re looking at that faith, we’re looking at three different types of faith. [52:45 quotes text in Tibetan] ‘Faith that admires, faith that desires to obtain by you, faith that convinces you to be right.’ Which is really very reasoning, particularly very important reasoning that follows, so we call that intelligence faith. Convince yourself that it’s right. You’re not stupid, so convince yourself that it’s right. You’re not stupid. If you’re stupid you’re just told, ‘Yes.’ But them you become ‘Yes,’ that is the sign of stupidity. If you’re told that this is the way and you think, Why?, and then if you can analyze and think about it and then you can get the result and draw the conclusion o the critical analysis gives you convincing reasoning and that’s called intelligence faith. And that’s what the Buddha recommends very strongly for everybody, not that blind faith.

If someone tells you, ‘Meditate.’ You should be able to tell why. And that person who tells you to meditate should be able to convince you to meditate by saying it will help you. Just by saying that it will help you, it won’t do — anybody can say that. But it will help you to come, and it will help you not to raise your anxiety. It will help you to understand better. It will go deeper inside within yourself; you understand your mind better so that you can handle yourself. You don’t have to worship hoping that someone else will help you, you don’t have to do all this. And if that person convinces you to meditate, and then you accept meditate, then you meditate. And then see [for] yourself how it’s helping you.