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Soundfile 20080807GRNYIWM

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location New York

Topic nyur lam

Section 6 root delusions

Transcriber Hartmut

Date transcript finished: 2008-01-10

Welcome here tonight. We are looking into the mind and mental faculties, particularly the six root delusions.

We have talked about obsession, anger, and we are about to talk about ignorance. After that pride, doubt and wrong view are left.

Ignorance, Third Root Negativity

Most of the translators use the term ignorance, except Guenther who uses "lack of intrinsic awareness". Out of all the six root delusions, this one is perhaps the most important. It affects us the most. I like to find the definition of this particular ignorance first in the Synopsis. This one actually does not give you much. The Tibetan word is ma rig pa. rig pa means understanding and when you add a ma in front of that, it becomes a negative term: not understanding. So in English we make that into "ignorance". The definition simply says: ma rig pa is not knowing. Asanga, a great early Indian master, one of the two outstanding forerunners, says: not knowing means here not knowing the reality of all existence, of all phenomena, either misunderstood, wrongly understood, or doubted or perceived with afflicted emotions, on an afflicted basis. All afflictive emotions are generated from this ignorance. Not knowing is darkness, not having the light of knowing the reality of every existence. This is also known as confusion, misunderstanding. Because of that, similarly, Asanga's nephew has a statement. Now we are looking at the four different schools of Buddhism. There are the higher Mahayana schools, out of which Asanga belongs to the Mind Only School. The lower schools include Vasubandhu, who will also accept the same points.

But Dharmakirti asserts something different. He says: ignorance is nothing but wrong knowing. We cannot say who is wrong or not, but I just want you to get the idea that the early Indian teachers are different in acknowledging this particular mental faculty. In short, there are two things: wrongly understood, and two: never understood. The moment we give the definition of this mental faculty of ignorance, there are two things that come up from the understanding of the earlier teachers.

We know there is something wrong, that's for sure, but is it totally wrong knowing or not knowing anything? Most teachers seem to accept both, but Dharmakirti says there are no excuses, it is totally wrong knowing.

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For us, for practical purposes, the later Tibetan and Sanskrit teachers give you two ideas. One is an ignorance with regard to karmic functions and our life in general. That has both, not knowing and wrong knowing. Secondly, the ignorance with regard to true reality. The moment we see the word ignorance, we have to realize that it is extremely important. Without this ignorance we would not have any negative emotions, like anger, hatred, obsession, pride, negative doubts, wrong views. Almost all the 20 secondary negative emotions are also coming out of that ignorance. Without that we wouldn't have those problems. That is why wisdom is considered so important. It is the complete opposite of this ignorance. It is the direct antidote. Once you have this wisdom, the ignorance disappears. Then the emotions coming out of ignorance disappear. When the "me" disappears, then things coming out of "me", such as "my" are all gone.

Just like that, the basis of all wrong doing is this ignorance, the fundamental root. All confusions, not knowing, lack of clarity, all come from that ignorance.

That is the reason why this ignorance is called "root of samsara". Samsara is suffering. So the root of samsara is the root of all suffering. Wisdom is the way to liberation. It is the light that clears the wrong knowing and not knowing. It clears both, not knowing about karma and not knowing about reality. The metaphor used by earlier teachers for ignorance is darkness and wisdom is light. When the light shines, the darkness goes away. Wisdom destroys darkness. That is the best way to cut all negative activities you could ever engage in, to cut any negative karma we have ever created. Wisdom is like one medicine to cure all illnesses and eliminate all darkness. 25:37

Knowing this is important. Most probably none of us will have the experience of really knowing this. So we have to rely on the words of those who know. This also gives you another message.

The direct path to liberation is wisdom. Wisdom cuts ignorance. You are cutting the root of the tree. So you don't have to work, trying to cut branches, leaves and flowers. You just have to get rid of the root. So the true path is wisdom. It is more important and effective than compassion. But one cannot do it without compassion. One cannot do it without wisdom. These two important paths are always there from the Buddha's experience. They are the two things we have to carry and develop. That becomes true practice. So many examples are given for that. I can think straight away of Chandrakirti's example: if a bird wants to cross the lake, it needs two wings. If it flew only with one wing, it would just be circling like a boomerang. There is a variety of reasons. Body and mind will at the fruit level become rupakaya and dharmakaya. At buddhahood the body becomes rupakaya and the mind becomes dharmakaya, the perfect body and mind. The transit of these two comes about through compassion and wisdom. 30:03

That's why on the everyday level where we are functioning we have these two: body and mind. The method to use is compassion and wisdom. The result we hope to get is the perfection of body and the perfection of mind. So at every level you see two things. Out of these two right now we are not talking about compassion, but wisdom. We are also talking about the opposite of wisdom to establish what is the target of wisdom. What is it that wisdom is supposed to destroy? What is the negation point of wisdom? And that is ma rig pa. This is the creator of our suffering. But don't think of it as God or something. It creates mental and physical suffering. It creates all our negative actions and negative karmic results. It is the most important enemy within us.

Now I am going to say something that may confuse you. Is this ignorance something that really exists within us? Is it really a true enemy within us? If we have something, how can our intelligent mind destroy that? It would be something that exists and how could our mind destroy that? The question was raised by great teachers and the answer was given by great teachers. I am just narrating the story. The answer is: No, if there were something truly existing, wisdom couldn't destroy it. Wisdom does not destroy it. But in fact, it is falsely existing. It is within us, functioning and doing all the damage, but is it really there? No, it is not. But we created it by our mind and we allow it to function and it is capable enough to do damage to us. It is all a collection of all confusions, not really something solid within us. When you are going into detail, then what is it?

If you just say: it is everything that is wrong, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't become clear. So we simply say: not knowing the karmic system we are confused about the karmic functioning. So we create wrong karma, we create negative karma all the time and thus get negative result. Not knowing the reality our biggest confusion is created. The moment we are talking about this particular ignorance this is all included. It is not just being misinformed and not getting the message, couldn't get to your e mail or that type of thing. It is a very specific type of ignorance. It is capable of blocking our wisdom. Until we can clear this confusion we cannot see the truth. Truth is blocked by ourselves through this confusion.

It is very important. The karmic ignorance is simple. It is simply not knowing that negative karmic activities bring negative consequences. You have to understand here a little bit more than not knowing. Even if you have information and know about it, you don't buy it. You don't believe it. Still, it falls under the category of not knowing. It includes not getting it, not buying it. If you are not buying that negative actions bring negative consequences you would go on creating more negative actions and wait and see whether that gives you more trouble or not. That falls under the category of ignorance. Unfortunately, karmic results don't arise immediately. It always takes time. We have a saying that in modern times that the karma circles around the finger tips. In the olden days the karmic energy would circle around the whole world or whole galaxies. That means that karma works faster today than in earlier times. 40: 03

That may be true. Every development, educational, scientific and other contributes and that is why it is running faster. So not knowing the karmic system really gives us the suffering of rebirths in the lower realms, according to Buddha. Not knowing the true reality, but knowing karma, prevents you from falling into lower realms, because you don't do the wrong things. However, you can only do right things with limited purpose. This will give you a future good rebirth within samsara, not beyond samsara. Samsara is suffering, nirvana is peace. So the positive work we do should get us beyond samsara, into nirvana, and even beyond nirvana, to total enlightenment. Not knowing the true reality won't let you get out of samsara. All your positive actions, being kind, being generous and of service can only become the cause of having a good future rebirth within samsara, nothing beyond. That is big trouble for us. With our spiritual practice we are hoping to get out of samsara, at least to nirvana, or if possible become a Buddha. All these are obstructed by not knowing the truth.

So I have talked about ignorance, the effect that it brings us and I also said that ignorance is not truly there, but is the combination of all confusion. These are the three major points we discussed tonight.

Now, let me go a step beyond. Because of ignorance we have aversion and attachment. We have "me" and "you", "me" and "my" and "you" and "yours". I am not saying that this is wrong, but we are getting that in a way that affects our mind very strongly, because of that ignorance. It makes us protect "me" and "my" and "you" and "yours" should be destroyed. You may challenge me. I better destroy you first, while you are not functioning well. That is how human beings and even animals think. That is how our mind functions. Because of that our mind becomes totally influenced by these afflictive emotions. Then we create different karmas. Because of these karmas we take continuously rebirth in samsara, repeating suffering and cause of suffering, the two negative ones of the Four Noble Truths.

Jamgon Lama Tsong Khapa said in "Praise of Interdependence":

All wrong, weak negative things, are rooted in ignorance.

For those who see and want to reverse that

Buddha gave the teaching of interdependent existence.

Also remember the 12 links of dependent origination. The first link is ignorance. There are drawings of these from various monasteries. It depicts the 6 realms that come out of the 3 poisons and outside of these the 12 links are holding it together. It is like a wheel. The 12 links are the rim, the 6 life forms are like the spokes. The 3 poisons are the hub. Most drawings have the link of ignorance on the bottom, but sometimes it can be at the top. 0:50:3

It shows an old man putting an arrow into his own eye, showing the meaning of not seeing, not knowing. So it is the root negative mental faculty. It is the true root. That is why even the drawing of the "Wheel of Life" shows it at the bottom: everything is growing out of it. It is all because of confusion, misunderstanding, wrongly knowing. This creates all our problems and difficulties. That is why it is called "darkness", and wisdom as "light", which is getting through and cutting through the darkness.

You don't have to go and search for that ignorance. It is definitely functioning within us. Almost all our wrong decisions are coming from there, no doubt. I am not talking just about spiritual decisions, but just about every wrong decision in life.

Doubt, the Fifth Root Negativity

Now lets talk about doubt, the fifth root negativity. In one way doubt is a good thing. It has good qualities. To a certain extent doubt will protect you. You are not going to be influenced easily by anything or anybody. For instance, if you were in the Jim Jones group you would not drink these drinks and get out of it - because of doubt. If you were in the Heaven's Gate group, you probably wouldn't put on that suit and lie down there. However, if you keep on doubting everything, there is no end to it. We have a very limited short life and can't keep on doubting all our life. You can keep on doubting till the cows come home. It is like waiting and doing nothing. The doubt will throw you off from any good thing you want to do. Doubt can put you off aything that might get you profit. You can see it clearly in the material world. Similarly, doubt can do the same damage in the spiritual world too - exactly the same way.

Buddha mentioned specific doubts: Is it really true that positive actions bring positive results and negative actions bring negative results? Doubt makes you think, "Let me not bother following this, because first I want to make sure it is really true. Until I am sure about this I am going to do whatever I want to do." Then you keep on doubting it forever. What does that do? It keeps you from doing something right. It takes you away from the positive things you could be doing. Especially if you keep doubting the Four Noble Truths it is detrimental. You may think, "They call them "Noble Truths". How do I know it is true at all? Forget about noble." "How do I know that by hurting other people I will get hurt? How do I know that helping others will get me help? I don't have proof and until then I am going to wait and keep on hurting others and not helping anybody."

This is taking you to extreme points, extremely righteous or extremely wrong. It locks you into doubt. Doubt will especially block you from gaining wisdom. You are going to be doubting everything all the time. Wisdom is going to say that everything is empty in nature and you are going to doubt that very much. You will say, "I clearly see that pillar. Don't tell me there is no pillar here and that it is emptiness? I can bang my head against it and get a bump on my head."

That is extreme doubt. By nature, I don't think that doubting is a negative action. However, the effect on the individual is very negative, that's why Buddha counted it among the six root negativities.

The sixth root negative emotion is wrong view, but I am not going to talk about that today. There are 5 subsections and I didn't even know what they are called in English. But one possibility is:

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1. The view of the transitory composite

2. extreme view

3. view of superiority

4. view that regards unsatisfactory, moral and spiritual discipline as supreme

5. Mistaken view

These five we will be dealing with next week. You can read about them different books, like Guenther's Mind in Buddhist Psychology on p. 74. He is German and uses strange English, but many times he is right, really on the point. It is amazing. If I look back, the early Tibetologists, like Sarat Chandra Das, more than 100 years ago, their translations are much more correct than those of today. Today's translations are almost based on the words of the texts alone. Word by word translations are very good, but the Tibetan words give you tremendous room for interpretation, so the word by word by word translations sometimes don't make much sense. You have to write 3 commentaries on it to explain. It is very vast. It depends on how the translator thinks or on which dictionary the translators looks in. The early translators didn't have dictionaries to rely on; so they went out of their way to talk to five, six or more people and tried to get the translation right. So Guenther has that quality too, though sometimes he uses very strange language.

Jewel Heart Courses

I would like to talk about something else. Today we are going to announce some study courses. These are important. I would like to emphasize that. We have selected these courses with a great deal of difficulty. A number of people have put their heads together and finally I got that information too and I agree on what courses and who is going to teach them. These are important, because I come here once a week, if everything works all right. That is very rare and the subjects we are talking about are very deep and they have to affect our lives. There is very little time we can put in. That may or may have not much effect. We simply pray for the blessings of the Buddha and the lineage and the dakas and dakinis. That is praying. The actual efforts we can put in is the study of the material and for that we are offering the courses. We have selected people who run these courses. I will not select anybody if I have doubts that this person may not be able to do the course, especially if I am afraid that this person may mislead you. Certainly I will never agree to them guiding the courses. So the criteria are: that person must have studied and practiced that subject for a number of years. My limited understanding of the person's knowledge, quality and experience are the main criteria for me to agree to them or suggest them. Then, secondly, they should have a little bit of the art of presentation and be able to talk a little nicely.

What does that person do in the course? We tried to make it a little tight by insisting that they use my transcripts as basis. It depends a little on who runs which course. I select individual people for particular courses. If you don't have those courses, then the effect of the teachings on the individual is much less. Then only whenever I can home here we talk a little bit and maybe some blessings come in from somewhere, from the lineage and so on. You cannot deny that this is happening. But how much can the blessings carry our actual efforts? So studying is extremely important. We have seen this repeatedly in Ann Arbor. If we were a wealthy organization we could have courses running all the time and get in all kinds of different teachers who can really teach. But we are not wealthy. But within our own organization we have a good number of very good people, including New York itself, who can do all this. We can draw on them.

People who are running the courses, also benefit themselves. It is a great opportunity. Firstly, you learn much more yourself, secondly, you clear your own doubts, thirdly you are doing a dharma service to your own colleagues. You cannot get a better virtue than that. You cannot get a better purification than that. For the people taking the courses it is an opportunity to ask simple, straight forward questions. You can agree or disagree, it is completely open. In the long run you gain a lot of information. This information will become knowledge. That knowledge should transform into quality. That quality should become one's spiritual development. 1:10

Other than that, spiritual development is not just going to happen overnight. After midnight, when you are half asleep, half awake, do you think someone is going to come and hit you over the head and you see all kinds of stars? It is not going to happen like that. People talk about it that way sometimes, but then they take you around, all the way round to the beginning. That is those who are good. The ones that are not so good tell you, "Sit over there, wait till something happens". And then you can really wait till the cows come home! Honestly. Look in the Buddha's biography. Look into any great master's biography after Buddha. Look into Tsong Khapa's biography. Always, the first thing is: learning, then understanding, analyzing and then meditating. Within us the information becomes knowledge. Knowledge becomes quality and that becomes spiritual development. Changing yourself within because of your understanding, knowledge, you can affect not only yourself but other people too. That is how spiritual development takes place. That is why these courses are important. You may think that the people running the courses are those who we see coming here all the time and what will they know better than what I know? But that is not the point. The point is that these facilitators have been purposely selected. A number of the people that are proposed to me I do reject, not because there is something wrong with that person but that particular person might not be suitable for that particular course. Maybe that person is suitable for another course. That is a decision I make, for as long as I am around, capable of making decisions. That is why the courses are important and that is how you can uplift yourself. I thought that I would like to say that.

Thank you

©2008 Ngawang Gelek All Rights Reserved