Archive Result

Soundfile 20080523GRGRMRMMF04

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location New York

Topic Mind and mental faculties

Transcriber Caroline Vossen

Date 13-2-2021

It seems to me that when people create karma, then it does not necessarily, or well it doesn’t materialize immediately, so it will stay for a while, some of them. And when it stays for a while, what stays is a capability. I don’t think it is any physical form, but a capability. Not only a capability but some kind of it is almost like an ‘I owe you note’. When you borrow something, you give an ‘I owe you note’. And then the ‘I owe you note’ will remain, until the time comes. Likewise the karma we create and whatever we create that karma, it has some kind of form, not a physical form, but it is a capability or capacity or something which remains and I believe that is called karmic. Sometimes when you have some disease, the traditional example is some kind of poison that you get from a mouse. If you get mouse poison, it doesn’t immediately become something. I am not sure how true this metaphor is. They say: if some kind of mouse got you during winter then the whole winter nothing happens to the individual, but during the summer when thunder starts thundering, somehow that poison begins to affect the individual. So that poison within the body of the individual, inactive remaining for a long period, that is the example of an imprint, traditionally ‘ten gyur…’(citation 00:03:28) So that is traditionally what they use as an example. I am not even sure whether that example is correct or not, because sometimes every examples are not necessarily correct. The peacock story: the peacock eats the poison and it makes the peacock grow much better, and this and that. It is a well-known Buddhist story, used by everyone. But everybody tells me that might not be true. So similarly maybe this one is the same thing. But anyway, the creation of karma completed which didn’t materialize at the result in that period, the remaining karma is called imprint. The word in Tibetan is bagcha, people translate it as imprint. Inactive, remaining within you, that is what it is. Is it okay?

00:04:55

Audience: This relates to it. How does karma get transported from life to life?

Rimpoche: Oh, you have to pack them and carry them and then if you forget the bag, that is the best way.

Audience: They charge you fifteen dollars

Rimpoche: Fifteen.

Audience: Fifteen for the first bag

Rimpoche: Right. Well the first bag means, the bag has a size, there is a limit of weight and then goes accordingly, that is how they tax you. So that is how they go. Just like an ‘I owe you note’, even if you forget your ‘I owe you note’, but the person who collects doesn’t forget you take it with you. Tthat karmic imprint is somehow attached to that consciousness. Not visibly, nothing, invisibly, when the condition is right, it pops up, and that it how they are transferred. It doesn’t really have to be carrying as a sort of packing bag or carrying it around, or shifting by Federal express, or something, you don’t. But whenever the terms and conditions are right, it pops up there, it materializes, I think that is how it is transferred, transported. Not necessarily you have to remember and make the packing list and put in there and carry. We will be happy not to include the negative karmic list, we will be much happier, but if you forget the positive karmic list, you will be a loser. But I don’t think it depends on that. It is somehow when the condition is right, it pops up. Because the individual person created it, so it becomes the responsibility of that person. It doesn’t matter whether life is changing but the karma goes together. So that is the unfair part. Sometimes we say: how come such an innocent kid gets such a difficult time? And not necessarily true, it is karma. The person is simply an innocent kid. But the problem is the innocent kid has a karmic imprint. It is not a bag, but baggage. So that is how I think it is transported. Sometimes we say people carry baggage. Not necessarily the person is lifting and carrying baggage. Sometimes in the mind of the people the baggage is there, and then somebody else will remind and will bring it up and it popped up. It happens all the time, so..

00:09:30

Audience: Do you lose your good karma if you don’t dedicate it?

Rimpoche: Possible, not necessarily you lose, but possible because anger could destroy it. Lose in the sense of incapable of giving result.

Audience: This is not exactly a question but it somehow doesn’t seem fair that one can build up bad karma unconsciously but not good karma

Rimpoche: You can build up good karma unconsciously too. So it is fair. Honestly. There is a story. It almost looks like a biblical story type of thing. There was some old king during the Buddha’s period who would like to become a monk at old age and goes to every Buddhist disciple and every one of them observes a little bit and says: “No, I can’t make you a monk because you don’t have any virtuous seed”. I forgot the name of that person rejected by so many. And at the end he came to Buddha and Buddha says: “Yes, yes, I can make you a monk”. And then the guy hesitated because “so many of your disciples have rejected me because of saying I have no good karma left at all”. So the Buddha said: “Well you are talking to my disciples, now you are talking to me, I am a Buddha. I do see here you have one good karma. Many lifetimes ago you were a fly, and the fly was attracted to a cow dung and the fly landed on the cow dung. The cow dung was removed by the stream of a small brook and that brook went around the stupa once, so the cow dung circled the stupa once, along with that river, along with that water, and you as a fly sat on the cow dung, you were attracted to the cow dung, you had that virtue, I can see that as a Buddha, my disciples arhats can’t see it”. So unconsciously you make virtue too. So to that statement I say it is very fair, both ways yes.

Audience: the base to be a dairy farmer

Rimpoche: Or a bee keeper. Carry the bees around the stupa

Audience: if you build a stupa, I will bring the bees

00:13:23

Audience: if you do good things with good motivation, do you have to remember them all later and dedicate them?

Rimpoche: Not necessarily. If you do good things you will remember them anyway. So, but you can dedicate later or you can dedicate even at that moment, or even sometimes pre-dedication is also possible. All of those. Dedication doesn’t really have to be, although it is supposed to be afterwards, but it doesn’t really have to be at that level at the end. I think that is my understanding.

Audience: How can an understanding of emptiness help our understanding of children dying in the earthquake due to their negative karma?

Rimpoche: Well, I don’t think you have to have emptiness to understand the children dying due to negative karma because death, especially dying at a young age is negative, it is a bad result. No bad can ever come as the result of positive or neutral, it has to be result of bad. That is a basic Buddhist principle. Good deeds will give you good result, bad deeds will give you bad result. That is a basic principle. That is something reliable, something unchanging, that is the reality, that is the fact. So therefore it is bad consequences. So it is bound to be a result of bad karma, what else? Good karma will not give you that result, so it has to be bad karma, no question, even a blind person will know this. So you know, even a naïve stupid person will know that, so you don’t have to have to know emptiness on that. Anybody will know. Maybe I am talking naïve. Maybe I am talking slightly blind faith. Maybe.

00:17:20

Audience: When you truly cut the net of self-identity, do you still retain any of your relative self?

Rimpoche: What happens to the relative self then? If you don’t retain it, who gets it? (laughter). What a funny question. I am kidding. Relative self, yes true, where would the relative self go? You have to retain it. What you are cutting is the absolute solid self, creator of all. You know the problem or not problem I don’t know. When we say we are responsible for all our deeds and all of those, sometimes it becomes so strong and it becomes a creator of self, the individual. So that self, that big boss, that big me, who is independent, who does not depend on anything, that ones you cut. When that is cut, it doesn’t… Sometimes people think, they worry and even people get lost, saying: “Oh, suddenly I am not there, I don’t exist”, because you got completely skirted, the identity is completed shattered. So you may think: “I am totally gone, I am not there at all”, so then that means you are going too extreme of nihilistic, so going extreme. So to protect from that, then this dependent rising me, interdependent nature of me, whether you call it relative self or the interdependent nature of me, which is the basis of functioning of karma, which is the basis of the responsible being who is honoring your commitments, and that is the basis of me who is enjoying, who is going to enjoy the result of my good deeds, and that doesn’t get destroyed. What you have destroyed is something that was not there, pretend to be presumptuous me, powerful boss, who is not there, has been totally destroyed, that doesn’t mean it is completely shattered me. It is not. If that is the case, we go too far. So that is why His Holiness is really very much in the middle path, so much so that even his discussion with the Chinese he calls it middle path, even on that. Not only a Buddhist ideas on self and everything that but even the political discussion he brings into the middle path, trying to be free of extreme, either too extreme on the right or too extreme on the left, trying to be the middle, trying to be in the center, trying to be balanced. So this is the balancing between what you destroy and what you maintain. What we destroy is the presumptuous, projected creator of the individual self. That one is the… not the creator, the god outside, I am not talking about it, I am looking within ourselves, that is the one I am talking about. So unless one maintains that one, then we lose the basis of karmic functioning, the basis of existence. Then actually there is nothing there. Actually if there is nothing there, there is no difference, only the mind will make a difference. And then the stones and pebbles and the gold becomes the same thing. Pebbles and gold are not the same thing: gold is gold and brass is brass, they are two different metals. So two different metals are two different metals, although both are empty, both are impermanent, both are dependent arising, however brass remains brass and gold remains gold. And that is the reason because you can’t shatter this relativeness. Relativeness is the important basis of functioning of karma and one who comes from the previous life, one who remains here, one who will go in the future, that relative me. If that is gone, we are in big trouble, then we really become nihilistic. Completely gone, empty, nothing left.

00:25:13

Audience: If the principle mind is neutral and pure, how do deluded emotions arise and why do they persist?

Rimpoche: The emotions influence it. One thing we didn’t read through yet. Because those mental faculties are the agents of the mind. And the agents go on the field, find out and tell the mind what it is, the mind presumes, accepts the message whatever the agent gives you. And according to that, the nature of the mind itself changes. I gave the example the mind is like a clean, clear crystal lamp shade and emotions or mental faculties are the light bulbs. And when you are looking from outside, a clean, clear crystal lamp shade and with a yellow, red light bulb turned on, looked at from outside, it becomes the red lamp shade. Because it is clean, crystal, it has no color of its own, then the red light bulb radiates red color, it affects that lamp shade, and the clear crystal lamp shade and then it looks red, and it is a red lamp shade anyway at that moment. Although the lamp shade itself is not red, but it looks red, it serves the purpose of a red lamp shade. Because if you want to see a red letter, if you want to see a red color reflection on white paper it is serving the purpose, it is doing it, so it is almost like a red lamp shade. So this is how the electrical light influences the natural lamp shade. Just like that, the mental faculty like anger, makes the individual person hot. And that is how it influences vice versa. If attachment is cool, like a green blue bulb, it looks like a green blue lamp shade. So this is how it influences. Exactly the same way the mental faculties influence mind. And the mind at that moment changes from its pure, pure in the sense of neutral level, into a certain positive or negative nature. It will change because it is influenced by this particular semjung or mental faculty, that emotions. That is how it is working, that is my understanding. That is how it works. That question is what?

00:30:18

Audience: If the principle mind is neutral and pure, how do deluded emotions arise from it?

Rimpoche: Oh, arise from it.

Audience: Become from it

Rimpoche: That is because of terms and conditions, you see somebody is bothering you, threatening you or whatever. Saddam Hussein comes on television and shoots a gun in the air (laughs). Like that. Now we look back at it and we laugh. If Bin Laden comes on television and says something we also laugh but at the same time we have a little fear too. So you know that is how mind is played.

Audience: The second part of this question is: how do deluded emotions persist?

Rimpoche: Persist means how it continues?

Audience: Yes

Rimpoche: It continues because a) actually emotions are short-lived but a) there are conditions like fear, fear makes it last longer. Remember during the Bush administration, - still it is Bush administration but during the earlier period-, remember people are losing because they are afraid. People are willing to tolerate everything, whatever in the name of safety and security, remember? They would like to listen to your conversations, they will take the people with no right, they lock them up without charges for years, and all of those. Now it is coming up one after the other, if you listen, the day before yesterday on the NPR, in the afternoon, I was in New York, if you listen to the unthinkable thing: this torture business is accepted policy to all prisons, it comes out like that. So how can the Americans tolerate cutting the individual rights, never possible. But fear of Bin laden or whatever, all these fears makes persons tolerable. Whatever the measures they have to take: okay. Whenever you have to go on the plane, you want me to take my shoes off, fine, or you want me to take my hat off, fine, you want me to take my clothes off, fine. Next time they will probably say: “Take your pants down”, fine. The next one is they will say “Take your underwear down”. We will say: “Fine” because of the fear of threat to life and that fear makes it persistent, remaining. That emotions, if there is really a threat, and you have to fly, they will tell you “ Take your underwear off”, we will probably do take it off. So, way and how we go, which is not possible, but may be that is possible, why not? Before 9-11, can you ever think any Americans would take their shoes off. You will think we will all voluntarily take the shoes of, maybe in some temples, it is South-Asian culture, we may take it off, other than that, are we going to take it off, no way! Right? So now we don’t only take the shoes off, but we even take the socks off. We don’t only take the jacket off, we haven’t taken the pants off yet but if they say “Take it off”, we will probably take it off. I don’t know whether we are going to take the underwear off after that, but more or less that is what happened. I remember this John Dinger (??) was once stuck at the Detroit airport and something happened, they took off everything, even they took the pants off, so he was in his boxer short. Some journalist saw it and took a picture, and it came out in Detroit Free Press next morning (laughs), in his boxer and t-shirt, nothing else. Every time he goes through it is making some noise, so they take everything off. So that has happened. So that is what it is: the fear factor.

00:36:13

And these negative emotions support each other. People get so angry with jealousy, they kill people. If you leave it alone, that individual person perhaps will not even hurt a fly. However the anger of that and the attachment, both are supporting each other. Is that clear?

Audience: That is clear

Rimpoche: Clear, right? So that anger and obsession support each other and then one even gets willing to kill people without realizing. So this is how persistence: negative emotions support each other. So do the positive emotions too. Again we have to be there. The positive emotions also support each other. That is what I believe, I don’t know whether it is called emotions or not. His Holiness is using the word emotions a couple of times. If I am wrong, I think Ben will correct.

00:38:08

Audience: I wonder whether for taking your pants off will be taking a fee, they will charge 15 dollars, like you have to pay a fee to undress. It is a good time to stop flying. Moving on.

00:38:24

Audience: What is the ‘Bodhisattva prayer of good activity’?

Rimpoche: There is nine different prayers called ‘Nine rounds of prayers’. One begins with the thirty five buddha purification, then the general purification, then there is a booklet named “The good activities of a bodhisattva prayer’ Phagpa Sampo Monlam (?name 00:39:04) or maybe some people are translating it as ‘good behavior’ or whatever. I think it is translated into English, I think I saw it somewhere translated. And then there is another prayer saying ‘The beginning and the end: auspicious and virtuous’ or something. Then the prayer of good rebirth in the western paradise Devachen. Then the dedication of Maitreya Buddha image. Anyway, a sort of a set of nine prayers called ‘Nine rounds of prayers’, and the most important is the bodhisattva good behavior or good prayer. And that is a sutra said by Buddha, followed by Buddhist disciples throughout generations. So that is that. And mostly there is the seven limbs in there.

00:40:34

Audience: The next question is: Can you explain how to use wisdom and compassion for purification?

Rimpoche: Use the compassion and wisdom understanding as antidote for that purification, meaning: you are thinking or even you want to say it, talk to yourself: ‘My antidote action over here is my meditation on compassion’. Or ‘My antidote action for this is my meditation on wisdom’. So even you say it, it is fine, talking to yourself or talking to the field of merit or by mind you are thinking and doing it. By saying it and doing it, that is how you use it.

00:41:35

Audience: The next question is: Some traditions believe we are enlightened and just don’t recognize it, and Tibetan Buddhism says we have the seed of our future Buddha within us. How would you address this apparent contradiction?

Rimpoche: I don’t know whether it is a contradiction. To me, I can’t be enlightened. If I am enlightened, why am I so stupid? It just doesn’t make sense. If I am enlightened, why do I have to put efforts to learn something, to memorize something, to remember something? No matter how much you try, every minute you forget about it. And if I am enlightened, why don’t I have good compassion? If I am enlightened, why don’t I see the nature of reality? Forget about it. If I am enlightened, why don’t I see what is going to happen in the evening? Today in the evening. So all of those clearly tell me I am not enlightened. For me personally I don’t have that contradiction. I don’t have to explain what the traditions say, because 1) I don’t even know anything about those traditions, 2) I only say what I know, what I am aware of, otherwise I will be misleading you. So therefore there is no reason why I have to say: “Although you are fully enlightened, but your negative emotions now covered your wisdom shining light”. You know, why should I say that? Because for me: I don’t have that understanding at all. I read it, yes, I did read it, but I can’t accept that. Not only Tibetan Buddhism but even within the Tibetan Buddhism, some traditions even say: “The nature of the mind is fully pure, fully enlightened”. And I can’t say that, I don’t say that, I can’t say that. Because I don’t know that. I do have a nature of mind within me and I don’t know that is total knowledge. If that is total knowledge then I don’t know me. So I must know myself well. I should. And if I don’t know myself, then I am not there. Honestly. Because I am not a secret for me. My mind is not a secret to me. I am not a secret to me. I may be a secret, but I am not a secret, hiding business, you know. Top secret business, that is not. So therefore, if I have, I should know, if I don’t have it , it is a clear sign I don’t have it. So for me it becomes very difficult to say my nature is enlightened but I am stupid. That doesn’t work or me. When I become enlightened, my nature will be enlightened, I will be enlightened, I will be no longer stupid. So I don’t know how to explain that contradiction because for me the other one doesn’t even exist. I am pure, I am pure in the sense, I mean neither positive nor negative. In that sense yes, I am pure in the sense of neutral. That doesn’t mean pure and impure, in the sense of pure enlightened, I don’t think I am. If so, my mind should know. My mind doesn’t know, therefore I am not enlightened. It is a clear fact, straightforward. Good reasoning, no one can contradict that. Nor you can force me with a stick saying “You have to accept that you are enlightened, otherwise I am going to beat you”. That is what the Chinese used to do. (laughs) That won’t work. Or the Tibetan old government does too. They used to do that too. They used to force and beat you, Gendun Chopel (name? 00:47:30), this mad monk was lashed by the old Tibetan government, saying: “Yes you are foreign agent, accept it, accept it” He said: “No, no, I am not”. The more, he said “Yes, yes I am”, and they stopped beating, and then they said: “Tell me”. “I have nothing to tell”. They beat him again and he said “Yes, yes I am”. That is what happens. So you can’t force it. And that is what happened for us in Iraq too, right? Exactly.

00:48:22

Audience: I have one last question. The question is: Can enlightenment be realized through the body? And what they are talking about as I understand it, is examining what the body is, realizing, and then using that energy to go through the enlightenment process.

Rimpoche: Well, when you look at the Panchen Lama, the present Panchen Lama, unfortunately the Chinese have one and the Dalai Lama recognized one anyway, that is the eleventh Panchen Lama if you count it. If it is the eleventh, then the first Panchen Lama must be Kedrub Je, Tsongkhapa’s disciple Kedrub Je. If you count that as first, the present Panchen Lama, whether this one or that one, whoever, is the eleventh. But normally in the Tibetan culture, the first Panchen Lama is Panchen Lobsang Chogyen. If that is the case, the present Panchen Lama, whichever one it is, it doesn’t matter, the present Panchen Lama should be the eighth one, the eighth or ninth, not the eleventh. So anyway the first Panchen Lama remained very old in Tibet, very, very old. I don’t know exactly, I read the biography a couple of times, and I forgot. I don’t think he is well over hundred. But they say he is very old, always. And he is carrying some very important teaching lineage tradition. So he has to pass on that tradition to someone. And that someone happens to be not one of those big incarnate lamas, one old monk called Dorje Zangpo Kunchog Gyentsen (Name 00:51:12). So the Dorje Zangpo Konchog Gyentsen is an ordinary, meaning ordinary in the sense of a common monk, who has no privileges in the monastery or anything. The Panchen Lama happens to be the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s number two person, so something huge. So this Dorje Zangpo Kunchog Gyentsen wants to take this teaching from the Panchen Lama, but the Panchen Lama is so big and Dorje Zangpo Kunchog Gentsen is so low, so they couldn’t meet, they couldn’t get together. So Panchen Rinpoche is almost waiting, so he keeps on asking whether anybody came to ask for certain teachings. The answer is no, no, no all the time. You know the Panchen Lama has a big set-up it is almost like presidential type of thing, governmental type, huge, the cabinet and below that this and that. To get something through to the Panchen Lama is extremely difficult at that time. So one time in the morning Dorje Zangpo Konchog Gyentsen pops up, at the door outside the main gate of the Panchen Lama’s house somewhere. Just a simple old monk with a torn cloth, filthy looking, no attendant, no retinue, nothing with a little book on the back, and then saying; “I want to see the Panchen Lama”. So forget about those attendants up there, even the gate keepers will not allow him in. And then he said: “What do you want?” He said: “Well, I want to get a teaching of this from him”. So he said: “You? You want to get teaching from the Panchen Lama, get out of here”, chasing the guy out with sticks. So it happened a couple of times. Sometime the guy got through a little bit inside. Somebody might have thought: a respectable looking old monk, let him go or whatever. And then no way he is going to get up there. So then there is some kind of noise developed outside Panchen Rinpoche’s room. So Panchen Rinpoche knew, Panchen Rinpoche came running out of the room, saying: “What is going on, what is happening?” “There is an old monk who wanted to see you and you have no time”. “What does he want?” “He wants teaching”. “Oh, I will be waiting for him, let him in”. “I have been waiting for him for years actually” he was saying. So when he goes up and wanted the teaching, Panchen Rinpoche was so old, he had no glasses, he can’t read the book. Then he decided to read the books by finger like this, like blind people read. The books are smooth printed, not a blind book. So he started reading by finger and give the oral transmission. He gave the explanations by going through the prints like this by finger, a smooth print, not a print for the blind people. So that should answer the question; the physical body is also enlightened and it works.

Audience: It wasn’t my question, but I was thinking about what the question referred to and I was thinking more of physical sexual sensation, did you refer to physical sensation?

Rimpoche: Did you say physical sexual?

Audience: Well yes

Rimpoche: John, you are very romantic, you are chocolate Tara

Audience: I didn’t ask the question.

Rimpoche: Was it you?

Audience: No, it is not my question (laughter)

Rimpoche: So I don’t know, does anybody want to own the question, and you want to clarify that is fine, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. People always hesitate to talk about.

Audience: Can the body form the mind? (inaudible)

Rimpoche: Yes it can, because the body consciousness is one of the consciousnesses, the fifth one, isn’t it? I believe the physical and mental connections are very much. If there is not that strong connection when you start walking on the teeth, you don’t have to give any Novocain up here, you are going to have pain. But since the connection is so strong, whatever is happening physically here, gets up here. So that is why you inject the Novocain here to get numbed here, right? So that itself tells the body- mind relationship, connection. If the mind doesn’t get the message of pain, no matter how much pain on the physical, you don’t feel it, right? You can’t because then it is not pain. Because who experiences: the consciousness. The physical body may experience but may not necessarily recognize it as pain or joy without consciousness, confirming and acknowledging. The relationship is like that, between body and mind. Maybe I am just saying rubbish.