Archive Result

20080512GRWIPBWIS Engaging Wisdom and Compassion Tour (Windsor, Canada)

0:00:04.5 John Madison Playing Viola

0:02:18.1 Welcome by Organizer: ……..logistics, etc.

Today’s talk on Engaging Wisdom and Compassion is part of a mid west multi city speaking tour. Gelek Rimpoche is offering this to continue offering the positive effect experienced from H.H. Dalai Lama’s recent visit and teachings in Ann Arbor, MI a couple of weeks ago. It’s wonderful to have Rimpoche here to continue this positive effect, particularly, as Rimpoche says “Here in Michigan and Canada we are uplifting the people’s hope during these difficult times.” For those who may not be familiar with Rimpoche, he was born and raised in Old Tibet, the Tibet not yet occupied by the Communist Chinese. The title “Rimpoche” is given to those who are recognized as reincarnations of previous teachers. Rimpoche began his monastic training at the age of four and was tutored by many of the greatest masters of that time. After leaving Tibet in 1959 he became a refugee in India and in the early 80s he met Aura Glaser and Sandy Finkel in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who requested him to come and teach, which eventually led Rimpoche to move there a few years later and he founded Jewel Heart.

0:05:43.5 Since that time Rimpoche has been teaching at Jewel Heart centers throughout American and internationally practically non-stop as well as many venues. He is the author of numerous teaching transcripts and two books, the national best seller “Good Life Good Death” and the “Tara Book – Protection and Healing from the Female Buddha”. Rimpoche brings the authentic Buddhist tradition with him to the West. Because he has actualized the essence of Buddhist practice, kindness, compassion, insight and generosity, this rich tradition becomes accessible to us by example. Please join me in welcoming Gelek Rimpoche.

We have a little presentation for Gelek Rimpoche and we first ask him to sit down.

0:07:25.9 Other announcements and wishes

0:08:42.3 Gelek Rimpoche: Thank you for everything. Thank you for the introduction. Thank you for the wonderful acknowledgment gift and honor, thank you. Thank you, all of you, for being here today, thank you for organizing this and the friends who drove from Michigan here to make arrangements. Thank you.

0:09:12.5 As you have heard, the reasons why I like to continue to give little talks here and there is that we have had this wonderful thing happen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, not very far from here. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has visited us and spent about six days, six long days in Ann Arbor. We were very fortunate to have him there. Also the community and parliamentary delegations also came and visited His Holiness to give support to the Tibetan issue which is going on, still continuing but at that time it was a little urgent. So the Canadian parliamentary delegation as well as the CBC television anchor came down and had interviews with His Holiness, one to one interview and all of those, which is very fortunate.

Most importantly out of all this was the two days giving teachings in front of about 15,000 people. He taught four sessions, including the Wege lecture, which is on environmental issues and sustainability, which was the University of Michigan’s request.

0:11:23.1 His Holiness gives teachings and he is the true embodiment of compassion and wisdom, no doubt about it. In other words, he himself is really compassion. Maybe in English it is not right. I should say “compassionate person”, but that will be an understatement. He is really compassion itself, so much so that when there is violence involved he is physically disturbed, honestly. In my case I had the opportunity to have an audiences with His Holiness since I was seven years old – a number of times. It is always wonderful, joyful and happy. His Holiness brings joy to the people. That’s for sure, no matter whatever he is going through, but he definitely brings the best out of every human being, he is the compassion aspect and caring aspect and love aspects of human beings.

0:13:05.8 But this time, very noticeable, he was a little disturbed, because of the violence. Not only the violence in one area, but violence everywhere, to begin with, Iraq. Then going through Darfur and everywhere else, plus especially in Tibet. You can really see it. You can’t ask him, “Are you bothered or disturbed?” but you could really see it. His movement is total non-violence. He very often says that non-violence is the perfect way to have a struggle done. Also there is a lot of misunderstanding too during that period.

0:14:21.2 For example, His Holiness himself repeatedly said he is definitely pro having the Olympic games in China. He keeps on saying constantly, continuously that the people of China deserve to have the Olympics there. That is some issue that happened and because of that people bring the relationships. The Olympics bring relationships outside in the world and people who don’t have that relationship. The Olympic games do that. His Holiness is very much for the Olympics, very strongly supporting that, right from the beginning and never wavered, but at that time we have a lot of those things going on, people going there, disturbing the torch from going here and there. Everywhere violence is happening. So he is not very happy with that. He really likes non-violence. He for the Olympics happening in China, since a year ago. In the beginning he might not have been, but once they decided to have the Olympics in China, every since then he said that the people of China deserve to have the Olympics, people need it. It brings some kind of happiness and joy and relief to the people who have tremendous suffering and difficulties.

0:16:14.0 China is not a paradise. We all know that. They work hard, they do, but it’s not a paradise either. They may be working too much, everything is about the economy, economy and nothing else. Maybe, but that’s a different story. But he is very much for having the Olympics in China, as far as he is concerned. But then some people get involved in violence, people get hurt for nothing. Well I can’t say for nothing, because those people think it is very important what they are doing and in some cases it may be. But he is not so happy, because he is personally giving compassion and wisdom as his main message and his main purpose is caring, love and compassion. So he is not happy to see violence, in general in the world and particularly not in the Tibetan areas. He really wants non-violence. He spent 50 years raising the Tibetan issue with non-violence. A little violence here and there within a few short months draws the attention of the world and it looks like violence is working and non-violence doesn’t work. That is not true. Non-violence really ultimately works. His Holiness always says: look back in history, what Gandhi had done. He challenged the great British empire. The British empire, those of my age will know, was such that the sun never set on the crown of England.

0:18:31.3 That means it’s over the whole world. One sun goes down, another sun comes up, all over. Such a powerful nation was challenged by an old man from India, wearing sandals, his body wrapped in a little piece of cloth called sarong or dhoti or whatever. He came with a little goat and a stick. That’s all Gandhi had. But he used non-violence and finally it was not exactly what Gandhi wanted but India became India. Unfortunately Pakistan was divided from India, which is not what Gandhi wanted, as far as we know from history, but he achieved something.

0:19:32.5 Similarly, throughout our life, if you look, there is a lot of violence. Look at the last century. So much war, so much destruction, so much. Some of them unfortunately happened in the name of religion. Religion is supposed to be the method of bringing peace, joy, happiness and compassion to the people in their need. But so many wars were fought over religion, not so much in the 20th century, but in the 19th century, but even in the 20th century.

So it is time for us to look back from the old mistakes and try to see whatever we can do. This is the century which should be discussing, which should be talking among people, settling the different opinions by discussion rather than guns, weapons, bombs and all this. And still it is continuing. Like the war in Iraq was never needed. It was uncalled for. And it is still continuing. No matter what you say, it is continuing. How long it is going to continue? You never know. All this is continuing and have these difficulties. At this time, at this moment, the need of the world that His Holiness sees is compassion and love and caring and a little bit of wisdom.

0:21:36.2 When you don’t have the wisdom, everything becomes pre-emptive, remember? My President – I am American citizen, so I should say ‘my President’ – keeps on talking about pre-emptive strikes, saying “Before you can hurt us we will hurt you so that you don’t exist”. But we know very well it doesn’t work. During his presidency, all this time, we have been at war and nothing is settled and whoever is coming next time, whether Senator McCain or Senator Obama or Senator Clinton, they will have to settle it then. George Bush is just going to walk out of there and say, “Good bye, I am going to go to Texas”.

0:22:32.3 Maybe the sooner he goes the better, but that’s what’s going to happen. Preemptive violence doesn’t work. How much suffering, how many lives lost? Think about it. We lost over 4,000 American lives and how many wounded? A lot of them, 20-30,000. And then how many Iraqis have died? Nobody counts that. It’s way over 100,000 for sure, some even say half a million. That was dismissed immediately, but whether they dismiss it or not, it’s so many lives gone on this so-called preemptive war.

0:23:37.3 So here we see the difference between violence and non-violence. Right now, in our own history, right in front of our own nose, this is what’s happening. Look back a little bit. Violence is not something new in this world. Hitler had it. Stalin had it, Chinese chairman Mao Tse Dong had it. Where did that get them? Each and everyone of them made a mess for the lives of the people, in the East as well as in the West. Not only that, but constantly, continuously, different dictators at different levels came during the 50s and 60s. How many we saw! Even next door, Noriega, remember, some time ago, true. All of those are bringing violence and see the result. On the other side see the results of non-violence of Gandhi and Dr. King. Look at Nelson Mandela. Look at those non-violent achievements. So in the long run non-violence will work.

0:25:19.4 Look in the history, at the Buddha. And it was not only his idea. It is also a Western idea. Gandhi incorporated both, Eastern and Western wisdom together. He started his struggle in South Africa. By putting the ideas of West and East together he started it. So non-violence is really the most important. It is difficult. Nobody will pay attention, because everything is more important and urgent and some people may say, “Who has the time to listen to that? Forget it!”. But in the long run it works and it doesn’t hurt people, otherwise every time all this trouble comes and a lot of people get hurt for nothing. Those who get hurt are the poor people, who have nothing. They get hurt. Everything that happens in the world today, whether it is man-made, natural disasters such as what is happening in Burma or Myanmar, it is always the poor that get hurt. [Cyclone Nargis, early May 2008]. The military dictators don’t get hurt. Believe it or not. They showed on television, they are singing and dancing, and the referendum is getting through and there you have hundreds and thousands of people dead. Dead bodies floating down the rivers and not a single world. People are dancing, the referendum is confirmed, some military personnel is carrying a little food here and there, giving to those who look well -fed and well dressed and they receive and sing and dance.

0:27:54.2 Can you believe it? This is how crazy the world is today, honestly. But everywhere you get poor people hurt. The same thing today, in Chengdu (Sichuan), in China, the earth quake. How many people died we don’t know yet and again, the poor are going to suffer the most. Not the wealthy, powerful party chiefs, no, unless they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Otherwise, mostly it hits the poor, the students, those don’t have anything, they are the ones suffering the most. That’s why compassion is really the need of the world today. That is not only His Holiness’ message, but it is the message of the Buddha too. This is 2,600 years old wisdom, absolutely relevant in each and every of our lives today. That is compassion.

0:29:24.0 Compassion is nothing but caring. If you don’t care, then whatever compassion you have might not become compassion. It becomes something else. Compassion, let me repeat again, yes, Tibetan Buddhism carries a tremendous amount of compassion, but compassion is not only for Tibetan Buddhists at all. Every great tradition does carry compassion. Always. In my personal case I came out of Tibet in 1959. I ran out of Tibet, because honestly speaking, because there were gun fights going on. They were shooting guns behind my butt. So I had to run. Honestly. It’s not that I had a big political agenda and left the country to do something great. I was running out because there were guns shooting behind my back. So I ran from there.

0:30:52.3 I ran from one mountain to another. I finally landed in India, because there was no place to hide. Wherever you went you would hear those gun shots and fighting, so much so that sometimes people who tried to open a piece of cloth, it made noise and in my ears I could hear the gun shots Tak tak tak tak…in reality someone is turning pages in a book or opening some boxes or something, but the sound in my ears is nothing but tak tak tak tak tak – gun shots. So I kept on running, that’s honestly how I came out of Tibet. I crossed one mountain, another mountain, another mountain and another mountain and finally I landed in India. That also was horrible territory, actually, not a smooth road, but very bad territory. There was no food, nothing for whatsoever, complete nomad land, which now is questionable whether it is Tibetan territory or Chinese or Indian territory. Whatever it may be, no hair will grow on that head. Everything is red, red, red and very dry, nothing else. And every day is like this and you go way up and then way down there you have water and all that and then you go up and there is nothing there, nothing. That is how I came to India.

0:32:50.5 What did I say that for? I don’t even know my last thought. Thinking of those mountains – I was 19, 20 at that time. It was really a terrible place. If you could get water below there you could, but once you went up there was nothing – totally dry rocks and rocks and rocks. Then you cross to the other side and go a little bit down you find vegetation. Then you go down more and then you find water. It’s a terrible place. Sometimes you are stuck there and when you are down there you can’t go anywhere. I slept one night in some kind of swamp up to my neck in water, standing there in the swamp. It happened, and whatever the reason is, that’s how I came across from Tibet.

0:34:12.4 So again, it was mostly the poor people who have those difficulties. The suffering in the world unfortunately hits the poor first. That doesn’t mean all the others escape. No, they don’t. Everybody gets another type of suffering. If you look in the Judeo-Christian tradition they have love, kindness, caring and compassion, because when I first came as refugee to Indian territory, the first food I could get was refugee support from the West. The vitamins, food and clothes I got was great. I got pajamas, huge ones, for six foot tall people. I had to wear that and it went all over the place, however, it was better than walking naked and wet. That’s how it is. That kindness and compassion I received when coming out of that suffering and pain and it was so great. That is my personal experience and I am grateful ever since for all this kindness of the Western people who really give a little extra, an extra shirt or pajama or whatever it is, sharing and giving to the people who need it. When you are receiving that, when you have nothing it is really, really great.

0:36:17.4 That’s why I am saying: compassion is a great tradition in the West as well. But Tibetan Buddhism gives you a slightly different compassion in addition to this. This is very definitely the case. When you see someone suffering you feel it and you want to help. You want to do whatever you can. In the West, people are open and generous. It is fantastic. It is wonderful. However, when they want to help they would like to reach in their pocket and get their check book out. That is great help, no doubt, but we need something more than that and that’s what I want to talk about.

0:37:10.3 This is what I mean by slightly different in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. They talk about this compassion as personalized. They might not say it that way, but it is self-compassion. It is necessary, maybe it is even contradicting when you use the word ‘compassion’ and then say self. But the thing is, each and everyone of us, whether we are financially well to do or not, goes through with difficulties. We are not free from suffering, we are not free from the pains we go through, mentally, physically, emotionally. When I say mental don’t think I am saying we are all cuckoo. I am not. But we all have tremendous mental, physical and emotional pains. We all do, whether you are young or old, sick or well, whatever you may be, we all have tremendous emotional pains we go through. For no reason. We get frustrated, we get stressed, we get angry, we develop hatred. There is plenty of opportunity and help to develop hatred, obsession, jealousy and all of them. Our television that we watch 24 hours a day, seven days a week doesn’t help. They will play with our emotions more and more and more and make us more angry for nothing.

0:39:48.0 I am not against television. I watch it all the time, because I learned by English by watching television. I have never been to a school. I wish I would have watched sesame street, but I did not.

0:40:03.4 I watched the soap opera “Days of our Lives”. By watching that I learned English. In a way it is true: the sand goes through the hour glass and exactly like that our time goes through but we will still enjoy looking at that all the time. When I first came to the United States in the mid 80s, like 87, 88, I was not busy, I had not much to do at all, so I kept on watching “Day of our Lives”. The characters playing at that time, I watched again once 2 years ago, are still the same old characters continuously arguing about the same matter. A guy named Victor Kiriakis and all of them are still there doing the same old thing.

0:41:17.5 What I gained out of that is a little bit of English that I have been able to communicate what I think. That’s all I gained out of that. As far as our emotions are concerned they develop farther. Anger will develop more, hatred will develop more, there is nothing that will help me or for that matter even you. It helps with nothing except there is the sand that is going through. Days of our Lives – the moment I hear that it reminds me, “Oh, this is how my time is going. Soon that will be empty, which means I have to go.” That’s all, not because of the television, but because I was born and brought up in the monastery and had an opportunity of learning from Tibet’s great tradition and that’s all I could take out of that. That’s about it. It reminds me of impermanence, it reminds me that time is going.

0:42:34.7 But did I stop? No, I didn’t. That shows you how the human character is. We will really lean towards our negative emotions so much. They deprive you of every opportunity, give us a lot of trouble and pain and misery. But we can’t cut it, because of the attractions. That’s what I mean: negative emotions are giving us a lot of pain. Hatred gives us pain. Anger gives us pain. Obsession gives us pain. All these are there. When I see that I suffer because of my hatred, I suffer because of my obsession, I suffer because of my jealousy, these are the negative emotions I am talking about. When I am able to see that, when I am able to correct that, I will correct one time, two times, three times, a hundred times, three hundred times, even then it goes the other way round, because I have the habitual pattern or addiction to the negative emotions. That guarantees that the suffering continues. If I don’t have compassion and caring and feeling for me, who else can?

0:44:45.4 I have been the slave of my negative emotions. They drag me again and again and again, non-stop. Even if I remember impermanence one time and try to change once it goes back the other way. In that level, if I don’t have compassion for myself, who else can help me? No one. I don’t think God will come down and slap me and turn me the other way round. If he did, great, but he might not. So therefore, compassion for myself is absolutely necessary. That is the inspiration, that is the source that I need. I am sure many of you might have witnessed that some of our kids don’t want to help themselves. They want to do it the other way around, no matter how much you tell them. They do know how to help but they won’t. They won’t study, they won’t do this and won’t do that, they always want to do something else. No matter how much you try to help you can’t, because they don’t have enough compassion and caring for themselves. Once they have that they will turn around.

0:46:32.0 This is our problem, the human beings’ problem. That is what we call addiction. We are addicted to the wrongdoing. We don’t have to learn how to get angry. Do we have to go to school to learn how to get angry or how to develop hatred? George Bush will tell you how to develop hatred. You don’t have to go to school. Remember, after 9/11 we were bombarded by every media, radio, television, newspaper, all bombarded us totally with nothing but hatred. At that time, one year later, January 2002 I went to India. I arrived early in the morning and the phone rang. A friend of mine, a Rinpoche, who was managing His Holiness’ exile government, told me, “Today we have a conference, why don’t you come?” I said, “Oh yeah, I will just put some water on my face and I will join you.” I went there and there was this conference called “Compassion as Antidote to Terrorism”.

0:48:19.0 Believe me, I was struck and thought “What? Compassion as Antidote to Terrorism?” Here, for a whole year I heard that terrorism has to be shot down by bombs and this and that and here they are talking about compassion as antidote. So I was a little struck by that, but I went in and there were the beautiful Indian leaders who had worked with Gandhi, Gandhi’s secretary and his associates and all of them, one after another, even a former president of India or former ministers, each one of them gave a beautiful presentation, honestly, showing how compassion works, how guns don’t work. Fantastic! A friend of mine who works in Washington, DC was there. I said, “Did you notice something different here?” She said, “Of course I do.” She works for Campaign for Tibet.

0:49:43.9 That is really true. So what Tibetan Buddhism really gives you is that compassion, a compassion with your own feelings – heartfelt compassion. The Dalai Lama calls it a genuine, heartfelt compassion, from a warm heart. He uses all these different words, but it is heartfelt compassion. When you don’t have that you have a lot of intellectual ideas of compassion. You are good at giving lectures. But you are not good at giving feelings. We go through with this a lot of times. Our children tell us, “You don’t get it, do you?” Don’t they say that? You don’t get it. Dad doesn’t get it, Mom doesn’t get it, because we don’t have the heartfelt feeling. You know what compassion is, you know what it should look like and that’s what we used. We play with words.

0:51:11.7 I was in Michigan, this was 1994, when His Holiness came to Michigan. He came again this April (2008), round about the 15th or 20th, almost the same dates. In his preparation, the late Allen Ginsberg, the American poet, was reading his poetry on February 20th, two months before His Holiness came. Allen used to – in the middle of nowhere when he was reading – suddenly sit down and call me and ask questions, trying to change them into some kind of dialog. I don’t remember exactly the question he asked. I think we do have the tape. I must go back and look at it. I don’t remember the question but I do know the answer. I do remember. I said, “Compassion.” And that was the right answer, for sure. But Allen looked at me and gave me a big laugh, “Rimpoche, you said ‘compassion’, and then he used a word that I did not understand at the time. I didn’t speak much English then. There were over 4,000 people watching and there were huge spotlights. So when I didn’t understand what he had said I gave a little smile and tried to hide and tried to go away. Then, the moment the event finished he asked me, “Did you understand what I told you?” I said, “No, I didn’t.” Then he said, “I said ‘buzzword’. Allen did that very often. So he said, “Compassion is a buzzword.” Then he gave me the history of “buzzword” and what it means, where it was first used – Brooklyn. And this and that and all kinds of things and it was a half hour lecture on what a buzzword is. In other words, it means you say something that has no meaning.

0:54:03.7 The meaning is beyond, there is no meaning, you just saying it making a buzz: zzzzzzz. It is really true. When you don’t think about compassion carefully with a personal touch then you don’t have the real meaning and value of the compassion. You don’t get it and it becomes a buzzword. Then it neither helps you nor anybody else. Our purpose is to help ourselves and help others, our companions and whoever we are talking to. That is our purpose. When it becomes buzzword it wastes an important thing. Instead of helping it becomes funny.

Why does it become a buzzword? Because it doesn’t touch with you personally. The person who has using it has no personal feelings, simply it is a word. You have to have personal feelings. When you don’t have that you are out of touch. Then it really doesn’t become compassion. It becomes “Poor thing, what can I do for you?” It almost becomes condescending to people.

0:55:40.5 It is not really compassion. It is looking down. Many people then will tell you, “Thank you so much, but I don’t want your sympathy.” That is because we are not in touch. Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes that so much. It is hard felt, personally touched. When you have the heartfelt touch it becomes worthwhile compassion. Otherwise it becomes lip service.

That is Buddha’s message he shared with us. That is the reason why if you when you look in Buddha’s life story he himself went for six years almost eating nothing, just meditating. But that was not good enough. He had to feel the personal feelings. That’s how Buddha said he became a Buddha, because that compassion touched his heart and that of others thereby.

0:57:17.1 That is the source of joy that Buddha not only received but was able to give to everyone. And that is compassion, heartfelt compassion. So we must see compassion at least as much as you can touch with your personal feeling, make it personalized rather than language-wise, literature-wise. Make sure it comes from your heart, make sure it doesn’t just play with your head. It must come from the heart. Then it works - when it touches with the person, yourself. Without that you can’t make any impact on others. Once you felt it yourself, when you have the personal feeling, then you can touch with your family, your spouse and then you can expand it. Buddhism talks about “all living beings”. But that is a very long shot. All living beings you go through one by one.

0:58:46.7 The companions, the family who are with you. Affect them. Thereby you can go more and more. Remember the good American saying “Charity begins at home”. So compassion begins at the heart, within the home and thereby you can extend it. When you do that, that compassion becomes worthwhile. It will be different than simply feeling “poor thing” or think they are helpless and you can’t do nothing. Or you think you can simply give a couple of dollars and that’s all. Even then it’s great, but as a human being we can do more than that. And that’s what Buddha’s message is. That’s what the Dalai Lama shared with us in Ann Arbor. I don’t have the capacity of His Holiness to bring the joy and happiness to you but I try to bring the message and try to make a difference in each and every one of our lives. Compassion tries to make it meaningful. So try not to make it be a buzzword. That itself will make a tremendous difference in our lives.

1:00:28.9 You have that opportunity. You are capable of doing that. And it is right in front of you. Maybe I should shut up. I said so much, okay. That’s the reason why I don’t want the energy that His Holiness brought disappear in the air. That’s why I try to go to places, talk a little bit and I am going to end this tour in June. In conclusion of this we are going to have a little seminar in Ann Arbor, seven days, on wisdom and compassion. Whatever His Holiness shared about Engaging in Wisdom and Compassion we are going to do that in Ann Arbor from June 27th to July 6th. All of you are welcome, if anyone of you would like to come. We will have limited space so it will be on a first comes first basis.

1:02:02.1 I guess that’s it. Thank you John, you played beautifully. Wherever I go he comes up and is very kind to play. He pays for his own gas and doesn’t accept a single thing, he does not even get dinner or not even a cup of coffee sometimes. So thank you so much and also Jonas for the sound and I guess that’s it. Thank you

1:02:53.0 end of file