Archive Result

77

20090929GRAANL

00:00 Opening Prayers, Heart Sutra, Lineage Prayer, Mandala Offering, Sang gye chö dang....

Do kindly generate the pure motivation normally described in the teachings of the lam rim tradition, such as bodhimind. If you can't, then think at least that for the benefit of all living beings one would like to obtain the state of a buddha for which one would like to listen to this teaching and practice.

0:17 The teaching you are listening to is the lam rim known as nyur lam - Swift Path. It is the 3rd Panchen Lama's text on the quick way of doing the lam rim practice. That has 2 basic outlines:

1. In order to convince the individual how traditionally, historically this has been practiced and who obtained which development. For this we talk about the lineage masters and their biographies. Along those lines we talked about which stages are involved and why.

We have covered this.

2. After being convinced about that, how does one individual trains on these stages.

That has 2 parts:

1. Root of all development, guru devotional practice

2. After developing this, how does one learn and practice

0:20 The second includes how to recognize the importance of this life and after convincing oneself of that, then practice.

The practice has 3:

Common with the lower

Common with the medium

Mahayana

We are still at the "common with the lower" level. That has: importance of this life and impermanence going side by side, death and dying stages, then what happens thereafter. Then, in case we don't make it before we die, what should we do? We take refuge. Up to this it is the "common with the lower level." We talked about taking refuge, to whom to take refuge, what and how and why. This includes recognizing what is buddha, dharma and sangha and how to take refuge. Then what happens thereafter? There are positive and negative advices.

After that it is the karma. Here karma is headlined as having trust and faith in karma. In one way it is very important, but normally people don't talk much about having trust and faith. Particularly having faith in karma is a big issue. What is karma? How does one individual create karma? What is the result? What happens? We are in the midst of this. We talk about positive and negative karma. As for the negativities there are three by body, four by speech and three by mind. These are the 10 basic negativities. Interestingly, in the Christian tradition you get the 10 commandments - very similar. There are some 600 years time difference between Buddha and Jesus, so I don't think Buddha had a telephone, e mail or face book communication with Jesus how to do this. But they are saying the same thing. So that probably means something. With 600 years and 10,000 miles difference they are still talking to people about what's positive and what's negative deeds.

0:25 If we look in our own lives - forget about faith and religion - even in normal, straight forward circumstances killing for example is really bad. Killing a human being is even worse. You don't need faith or conviction on that. It is clear. Everybody knows. Stealing is the same thing. Sexual misconduct is the same thing. And that how it goes for all of the 10 negativities. Even without religion, without the words of Buddha and Jesus, just common sense alone tells you that these things are bad. They create negativity and that is bad karma. That bad karma gives you results of suffering. That is very simple. We don't need religious faith, we don't need scientific proof. We can see it for ourselves with our normal, human understanding and common sense and behavior. So there is something called negativity and negative karma. There is something called "negativity" and "bad". We always want to talk about what's good. We don't want to talk about bad things. We don't want to think about the bad things. However, it is the reality. It happens. It happens within ourselves. It happens to me, it happen s to you, it happens to ourselves, to our families. It happens to each and every one of us and everybody. It is the reality. So it is better to know and have an understanding and awareness. We know that killing is bad. We won't do it, but sometimes we may get caught in circumstances. It is possible. I happens. There doesn't necessarily have to be a motivation of killing. Some might have, some might not.

If you think about that kid that got killed in Chicago three days ago - you could say he was in the wrong place at the wrong time or whatever. But there was somebody whacking this 2x2 and happens to hit on the head of this person. Whether he was fighting or not, that guy died. We saw it on TV. You can get killed. I know some Tibetan girls who got caught in gun fire in Chicago and they said they lay down in the middle of the road and waited till the gun fire was over. Luckily the gun fire stopped and they got up and left. So it happens. We create karma and we do get the result.

0:32 There are the three by body and the first of that is killing. There is a little rhyme I learnt as a kid in Tibet:

da so lü kyi le ne nam pa sum

nga gi nam pa shi da ne

ka yang yi ge nam sum

mi gi su po so sor shag

Three activities by body, four by speech and three by mind,

all ten negativities I purify.

That is what I learnt when I was three or four. So it is on my tongue. At that age I just learnt it and didn't know anything. But later I began to know what it is. The first of the three by body is killing and this particular killing is killing a human being, not killing insects, etc, though they are also negativities. But here we are counting the ten big ones, so it means killing humans. Don't ask me why. It is not that animals should not have equal right to human beings. I don't want to visit such a comparison here.

Stealing and sexual misconduct are the other non-virtues of body. What makes a karma strong or weak? When you talk about killing a human being, what is the base you are talking about? Every activity has a base or ground. Here we are talking about someone other than yourself. If you kill yourself, that is definitely killing a human being, but not within the killing of the 10 non-virtues. This particular killing here means killing another human being. That is the base. If you kill yourself it is also a very strong negativity and much more so if you have vajrayana vows, in which case you are killing a deity. So the base is who you are killing. Now for example, if you are intending to kill a human being but happen to kill a horse you don't have the karma of killing a human being - even if you think you killed a human being. You could also try to kill a human being but that human being becomes a horse - like in those magic movies. If that could happen you don't get the karma of killing a human being. But then you have the karma of killing a horse.

What sort of mind you have when you kill is also important. According to the Buddhist teachings there are three kinds of mind. One is recognizing. You know you are going to kill John. You recognize it is him and you kill him. If you think you are killing John but instead you kill Pointdexter, you have the killing karma but not the karma of killing Pointdexter, nor the killing karma of John. In case of John, you had the wrong recognition and for Pointdexter you didn't have a recognition at all. It doesn't make the negativity less but on technical grounds you can get away. The karmic lawyers can play with that and argue in that manner. They can say, "Yes, my client killed Pointdexter, but he had no recognition for whatsoever, because he meant to kill John. So it was a misrecognition." So they can't give the punishment of killing Pointdexter, because there is no complete karma of killing him. You can get away. They can't punish you for killing John, because John did not get killed. So that is why the first point of the mind, recognition, is important.

The second point of mind, in order to make the karma strong, has to have one of those powerful negative emotions. That means, either one or all of the three poisons, hatred, obsession and ignorance. You can have either all three or only one of these.

The third point is the desire or motivation, in this case, the desire to kill. When you have all these three points, the killing karma is very powerful. If you have the recognition, a poisonous mind and the motivation to kill, that is the powerful mental aspects.

Then comes the action itself. How do you kill? Are you using poison, weapons, black magic or mantra, yantra and all of those? Again, here it can be all or either. You can use a weapon or poison. Poison also includes giving the victim a disease. It doesn't just has to be a poisonous substance. Killing through black magic meditation is killing. You are not escaping your karma, even though it may not be possible to prove it in a court of law. But in terms of karma you are not going to escape.

So we had: whom you kill; how you kill; mentally and actually. I don't know if saying mantras to kill is not more part of the speech negativity rather than physical negativity. But still, it is action.

Then the last thing to make killing a powerful negativity is the conclusion of the act. In order to make that complete the person has to die before you.

0:44 If you decide to fight with someone and you keep hitting each other and you die before him you escape the perfect killing karma. In that sense you win. You don't get the perfect killing karma. The other guy gets it instead of you. If he dies before you do then you get the perfect killing karma. So dying is not enough, the other person has to die before you.

In some ways this is quite detailed. Similarly, stealing. What do you steal? You take things that belong to somebody else. If they don't belong to anybody it might not be stealing. The recognition has to be that you understand that you are stealing this particular thing from somebody. During the Buddha's time some monk stole somebody's shirt. The owner had washed the shirt and hung it to dry. The guy came and took the shirt. When he came home and looked, he had taken two shirts. The monks went to Buddha and said, "This guy took two shirts, but wanted only one. What is his stealing karma going to be?"

Buddha said, "He has a complete negative karma of stealing one shirt because he had the recognition and all the other factors. But he doesn't have the complete karma for stealing two shirts, because he did not have the desire to steal the second shirt, not even the action of stealing. By grabbing one shirt he mistakenly took two." So the recognition has to be there, the negative emotion has to be there, the desire or motivation has to be there for the karma to be complete.

The motivation is: even if this person won't give me the shirt, I will separate him from his belonging.

The action can be various things: direct stealing, cheating, talking them out of it, etc.

The conclusion is: "Ha, now I have got it. Now it is mine." The moment you got that mind the action is complete, whatever the trick you played to get it.

0:50

Sexual misconduct goes similarly. Traditional teachings will include having sex in the wrong place at the wrong time. That may be sexual misconduct, but violent rape definitely is. I am trying to emphasize that, because there are some so-called scholars who are reading 2600 year old sutras and claim that rape is not mentioned there under sexual misconduct and that therefore rape is not considered sexual misconduct in Buddhism. That is very wrong. All types of rape are sexual misconduct. Then there is wrong place, wrong time, wrong base and all this.

Here you may not need the correct recognition of the person with their name. As long as you think, "I am raping this person" that is good enough for the recognition. The conclusion is having hurt the other person. It doesn't have to be complete sexual activities. When you physically invade the other person's body, that is the conclusion, not the completion of the sexual act.

Now the four by speech. First is lying. It is something you saw, heard, or know and telling someone the opposite.

54:29 Then the mind also wants to change it. It will think, "Something that I saw I don't want to say; I want to say that I didn't see it." And so on. The delusion here can be all of the three poisons or one of them. The motivation is the desire to say it the wrong way. That is a lie.

A lot of question will rise, like what to do if someone is chasing someone and there is a danger to their life. The pursuer is asking you if you have seen where they went, so what are you supposed to say? A lot of people will advise to say that saying the person went the opposite direction. But that becomes a lie - even though it is told for saving someone's life. So the best is not to say anything. You can choose not to say it. But if you are in contempt of court you may have to say it. Other than that, if you want to avoid more negativity being created, don't lie, just don't give information.

The problem comes when you look at the action of lying. The definition here is: either saying something wrongly or saying nothing. So saying nothing is included. So I don't know how to avoid that.

The conclusion is when the other person understood what you were saying - whether you said right or wrong or didn't say anything. So not saying anything is included as an action of lying. So that makes it more difficult.

The next non-virtue of speech is creating a rift between two or more people. The desire is to create some difficulties between two or more people who are getting along well. You want to make sure they don't get along well. That is the base on which you work. Mind, recognition, delusion, motivation - these are all the same. The motivation is to create disharmony between those who are getting along. If something is going on and you think that this is not right, you would like to create some difficulties. That is creating a rift.

1:00 If you do that within a group, you are creating a schism. The motivation, mind and delusion are the same as before. The action itself can include nice talk but also threats, manipulation and kindly advising and so on as long as the desire of the individual is to make it register in the other people that something is not right within their relationship. Then sweet talk, harsh talk are all part of the action.

The conclusion is not that the people you are trying to get apart have to lose their friendship. The conclusion is that the other person understands what you are talking about. They understand that you are saying that something in their relationship is not that good. That is good enough to get the karma of creating a rift. It is not that two friends have to become enemies. Just either one of them has to understand what you are trying to say. Then it becomes a complete negative karma.

The next is harsh words. That means scolding, yelling, saying bad things. The base here is living beings. You want to hurt a living being. You are not going to scold a tree, right? It has to be against somebody who understand what you are saying. Recognition, delusiong, motivation are all the same as before. The action is any harsh words. The action does not have to be a truth or a lie. If it is said for the purpose of the other person to feel hurt then it is an action of harsh speech. It can be either for you, for him or for a third person. The conclusion again is when the other person understands what you are talking about. The other person doesn't have to get angry.

Then idle gossip. These are useless points you want to talk about. Recognition, delusion, motivation are all the same as before. Actually the motivation is to just keep on talking. Nothing has to be connected. Some people think they have to talk no matter whether they make sense or not. They just keep on talking. They may think they are entertaining you, but for whatever reason they just keep on talking. There people who do that. Years ago I had someone who was cutting my hair. I told them that I was going to the far east, to Singapore and Malaysia. The person kept on talking to me about Peru and had no idea of the difference between Peru and Malaysia. She kept on talking until she finished cutting my hair. It was not for me to point out that Peru is in South America and Malaysia is in South-East Asia. I just listened and laughed a little bit. That is a clear example of idle gossip. Another example is all these television commentators. They keep on yapping for 24 hours. It says about the motivation that whether it is connected or not, you just keep on saying something. That sounds like the filibuster in Congress.

The conclusion is when you stop talking, when you shut your mouth. That's interesting. That completed the four by speech.

Now the three by mind. The first one is what we call ngap sem in Tibetan. You would like to have someone else's belongings for yourself. The base is things that belong to another person. Recognition and delusion are all the same. The motivation is what you want this particular thing to belong to you. The action can be any action that serves to get that thing. The conclusion is not that you get that thing for yourself, but just the wish that it should be yours is good enough to have the conclusion.

The second non-virtue of the mind is the desire to harm. Recognition, delusion, motivation are the same. The conclusion is when you are able to hurt, injure, hit, or verbally abuse someone.

The last non-virtue through the mind is wrong view. Here that is not the philosophically wrong view in relation to emptiness. Here it is doubting whether something that exists actually exists. It is mostly insulting, saying wrong things and bad things about a good person. The conclusion is - you can't change a good person into bad, but when you talk about them being bad, whether true or not, that is the conclusion here.

That completes the 10 negativities. The opposite of these are the 10 positives. An example is when you are about to kill somebody to decide not to kill them. It is deciding not to commit sexual misconduct, not to steal, etc. These are the positive karmas. Do you have to be ready to commit sexual misconduct and then decide not to? Not necessarily. But if you decide not to and then you come closer to stealing, then you really decide not to steal. If you come closer to killing you decide not to kill. These are good actions. In order to create the positive karma of not killing, not stealing, not committing sexual misconduct and so on you don't have to go close to that action and then decide not to. The best way is right from the beginning decide not to. That's why the vows are best. By taking vows you are committing not to engage in these things.

With that general statement you should be able to cover the rest of the 10 virtues too. Non-virtue and non-virtue have to have base, motivation, action and conclusion in order to become perfect - in the good way and the bad way. When it is perfect it is powerful karma. When it is imperfect it is not that powerful. That goes for good and bad both.

Then there are some bases that are more powerful than others. That may be some influence of Buddhist doctrine. For example the base, the Three Jewels, your spiritual master and your own parents, whatever you do in relation to them, help or harm, that becomes powerful karma. Mentally, if there is strong compassion or strong hatred a karma becomes more powerful. Strong compassion makes an action of saving a life more powerful compared to doing the same action with weak compassion. On the other side it works the same with hatred.

Look at actions of generosity. Generosity of the spiritual path or dharma is considered more powerful than generosity of food or something.

Then the person who is committing the action: when that person has vows, then the action is more effective and powerful, helpful or harmful, than if they didn't have vows.

These are the points of karma. To conclude: kyab ne kun du la ma lha pai lha - the collection of all objects of refuge, the lama-special-god Thubwang Dorje Change, the Buddha Buddha Vajradhara, is on your crown. You recognize each of the 10 positive and 10 negative deeds, their motivations, their connections with negative or positive emotions and clearly imagine all these actions. The conclusion in your meditation will be: I will not be associated with any of the 10 plus negativities at all, not under any circumstances. I would always be engaged in the 10 virtues plus. I may be blessed to be able to do that. Light and liquid are coming from Lama Thubwang Dorje Chang on your crown and purify all negativities, particularly obstacles to this and I may develop the positive deeds, particularly this: avoid negative karma, build positive karma and have trust and faith in the karmic system. Thereby I will remain always in the causal positive karma and thereby always have positive karmic results.

1:20 Think that Lama Thubwang Dorje Chang made that possible and your own meditative actions make that possible. As the result of that you will always have positive future rebirths with the 8 qualities. These are different from the 8 leisures. We will talk about that next time.

I won't be here for the next 2 Tuesdays. I would like somebody to do a review of the 10 negativities and the 10 positivities. I will be back on Oct 20. In the mean time I will be in New York and Garrison. So for that time meditate on the lam rim and especially negative karma. The first thing is to recognize the negative karma. Then it is easy to avoid. If you don't recognize it you won't even know what negative karma happened.

Thank you

(Announcements and Dedication Prayers)