Archive Result

20101219GRAA – Liberating Habits

00:00 - intro and short concentrated meditation

0:6

Good morning everybody and I should say Happy Holidays. Just to let you know what I did between the last time I was here and now. I went to Netherlands, Europe, where we have a Jewel Heart Center. They have all smiley faces and are doing great and the minimum number they maintain is about 200. Then they are divided into different areas. I gave Yamantaka initiation and teachings for about 10 days. There were about 80 – 90 people attending and a number of people from here came too. Many of them may join for next year’s summer retreat. We want to do a comprehensive teaching – from the first page to the last on Liberation in the Palm of your Hands by Pabongka. That is the very fundamental basis of improving our lives, our way of thinking, living and functioning. There is also a little bit on taking refuge, etc, so it will be a very comprehensive base that we can build for our spiritual path. Also I am trying to encourage you all to attend. It is going to happen here in Michigan and I am not sure if we are going to fit in this room here, probably not. But it will be somewhere in Michigan. If we can fit in here, it will be held here. It will be from August 25th to September 4.

Section on Ambassador Holbrooke

Now I would like to talk about something else. Tibet lost two very important supporters this week. One is Ambassador Holbrooke. He knew His Holiness the Dalai Lama personally, was a close friend of His Holiness’s permanent representative to the US, Lodi Gyari in Washington, the head of the Campaign for Tibet. He was a very strong supporter of Tibet, which is a dying culture and Buddhism is a part of it. We pray that all his negativities he might have accumulated may be purified from the limitless of the beginning and particularly in this life time. Even when you do a good job, at the same time we also create negativities. We all do that. It is part of the game. So all of them may be purified and he may in life after life meet a great path. It does not necessarily have to be the Buddhist path and reach the ultimate achievement that human beings can reach in the spiritual path.

Section on Gene Smith

0:13Then we lost a great teacher, scholar and wonderful person, a good personal friend of mine, Gene Smith. Those of you who know his name will know that he is a giant in Buddhist studies in general and in particular, Tibetan Buddhist studies. He also contributed tremendously to printing and publishing rare Tibetan manuscripts. He and I worked together and I was personally able to print some 170 odd volumes of the Gelugpa tradition teachings in the 60s and 70s. Gene was instrumental to be able to do so much. He encouraged a lot of people. He happened to be an American scholar from Seattle, Washington. He worked with Tibetologists like Richard Robinson, a professor in Wisconsin and a couple of Japanese professors who had dual citizenship – I don’t know legally or illegally! – some of whom were in Japan and some in America. They all got together and found a way to spend American aid money that had been given to India since 1947. The Indian diplomats of that time were so great. It was Gandhi’s time and then Nehru. They somehow negotiated with the US. They didn’t want aid, they wanted to borrow. And they only wanted to pay in Indian rupees, not US dollars. So the money that had accumulated in India was so vast. Sometimes the US had more cash in India than the Indian government. They kept on paying whatever they owed to the US in Indian rupees and they couldn’t convert that into any currency, because India couldn’t afford to. The US didn’t know what to do with that money. So it was possible to print the old Indian Sanskrit and Pali teachings and commentaries. Then along with that the Tibetan texts came in too. That is how the Tibetan culture was helped a lot and Gene Smith is the person who did it. It also worked in the US embassy in New Dehli as a representative of the Library of Congress. He was able to do all this. Not only the Sanskrit and Pali Hindu tradition and Buddhist tradition, but also the Muslim tradition, with texts from Indonesia, the Middle East and all of those old Muslim teachings that were dying away. He was able to print them and make them available to 17 universities. (18:17 flashback to Kathy 3 seconds overlay) Only 17 were interested. Somehow, for all the volumes they got they only had to pay $1000 a year. That was because of the US money in India that he made use of. (18:36 – another 3 second overlay from other audio source). Then later, after his retirement, he started a library of Tibetan texts in New York, probably the biggest collection, in conjunction with George Soros’ daughter and the Rubin museum. He began to electronically reproduce all the books he was able to print in India. He was still doing that this year and I was told he just came back from India last Tuesday and on Wednesday he was complaining that he was not well and on Thursday he passed away. In one way it is easy: one two three bumm. One day you come back and don’t feel so well and by the third day you are gone. I don’t know the details of how it happened. I have not been able to contact any person who was with him.

He lived like a monk. He told me a number of times that his wish was that his collection would one day go back to Tibet – not to the Tibetan monasteries in India, but to real Tibet. He always said that. He also made all these electronically available. Last year he personally came to my birthday (Oct 26) and gave me a little box. I thought it was a collection of CDs, like what he had produced before. He said this is all we have printed so far. It happened to be a little computer. I didn’t even know. I said thank you and left it on my table. Two days later I heard Jonas say, “Rimpoche has an extra computer”. I said, “no”. Then I heard that Debbie was enquiring about where was it, what was it, who paid, and how much?” then I realized what Gene had given me was a computer. It is a computer that stores all the texts and with which you can even link up and upload new ones. So Gene died and we will pray that whatever his wishes are maybe fulfilled. It was an easy way to go. Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism and the Buddhist world lost these two great friends.

Rimpoche said that in Gene Smith the world lost a great teacher, scholar and wonderful person, a giant in Buddhist and especially Tibetan Buddhist studies. He said he was also a good personal friend of his. Rimpoche said they worked together in India and Gene helped Rimpoche print 170 rare volumes of the Gelugpa tradition. Gene Smith, through the Library of Congress, was able to reprint many volumes of ancient Indian and Tibetan texts, not only Buddhist, but also Hindu and Muslim that would have otherwise been lost to humanity. After retirement in New York, Gene established the biggest library of Tibetan Buddhist texts and also converted them in electronic files. Only last year, Rimpoche said, Gene visited him on his birthday and gave him a computer with all the Tibetan Buddhist texts that had been printed and electronically converted so far. This computer is also capable to link to his organization and can be updated with any new texts. Rimpoche said Gene died suddenly, two after returning from India. He had complained of ill health the day after his return and passed away suddenly the next day. Rimpoche asked us all to pray that all of Gene Smith’s wishes may be fulfilled.

End of the year remarks (similar to video clip)

It is the time of the end of the year and the holiday period. What the Tibetan Buddhist tradition told me when I was a little kid, when we were ending the year, we do celebrate like you do here. As a matter of fact the Tibetan New Year is one of the most important celebrations in Tibet. But there are different New Years even in Tibet. Some villages or areas celebrate the New Year in the 11th month, some even in the 10th. Central Tibet does it on the 1st month. This year (2011) that falls onto March 5th. So even in the monasteries we celebrate the New Year and have holidays. Maybe for 20 days or so we don’t have to pay too much attention to the monastic discipline and order. You can walk up and down and even sing and shout and scream and gamble. There were those dob dos, a group of monks. Articles have been written about them, but apparently nobody pays attention. Dob dos are wild hippy monks. They have a very special occasion in those days. They will always try to keep their hair long, almost to the shoulders. So every day they have to hide their hair by putting their robes over their head or other means. The disciplinary order will not allow that. If they see hair this long, they will force them to cut it. So they hide it by putting their robes over their head. But in that holiday period they don’t have to. So then they even put their hair up high and curl it and paint their face, like these days some young kids put tattoos on their face. The dob dobs couldn’t do tattoos but they painted their face in all sorts of colors, almost like masks. And that was all allowed. They also had fighting competitions among themselves, by getting together in groups. Sometimes that was a little dangerous.

At the same time our teachers would tell us that the New Year reminds us of two important activities: looking back at the past year and counting what we have done good and well, to benefit ourselves and others during that whole year. Review it. Whatever you find you have done good, keep it and appreciate it. Whatever you have done not so good, notice and regret and purify. Give yourself a little commitment, saying, “I shall not repeat that, particularly in the upcoming year.” So make use of that opportunity. That is one of the way of seeing our negative habits. Many of them we have done, with or without realizing – habitually. It is really true. If someone tells us that we have not done something right, then instead of appreciating the other person’s suggestions, we get angry and feel challenged and think we have to challenge back. We try to meet violence with violence. We do have that habit. So looking back over the past year is one of the easiest ways to notice these bad habits or negative addictions.

So notice and acknowledge and recognize and then resolve: I shall not entertain you again, particularly not next year, for sure. By recognizing and acknowledging you begin to realize that some mistakes were made there. At the same you are making mistakes and someone tells you about it, you feel like challenging them and fighting them. Instead of help, it becomes harm. So some people think, “I have to tell them the truth, whether they like it or not, because it is the truth.” You think you are doing great, but you are not. You are sometimes harming the other people. That’s not the behavior that bodhisattvas have recommended for us. They recommend that even if we notice something is not right, say something in a very gentle, sweet way. Why encourage negativity? Why encourage them to have more negative emotions?

If we really want to help and serve, point it out later, when the person is not engaged in that conduct. Yet, sometimes you may to go along with what they do or at least say nothing. Just give a nice big smile. Don’t argue. Some of us, I am included, are in the habit of arguing, saying, “It is the truth and I am sincerely telling you…..” I do that too. That is sometimes not good. Some people can take it but for many people it creates more negativities. If that happens, it is no point.

It is our own good old American culture to make a New Year’s resolution. Do that by looking at the wrong deeds you did earlier this year and resolve to avoid them. And the opposite of the wrong is right. So then you make the resolution of going the other way. Each one of us have done great things in the past year too, with or without realizing. You make your outstanding mark of your own, your knowledge, your wisdom, your kindness, your compassion, which you have applied to yourself, your family, your fellow citizens and fellow human beings. All these are great. Disliking the war is one of them. But we also see sometimes that there is a necessity. So we don’t go completely crazy about it, but express our dislike. Even when we are looking at Washington last week at least, something has been done. Though Mr. Bush’s tax cuts may continue, however, at the same time, the middle income group also takes a cut and at the same time, those who don’t have a job, their benefits have been extended for a whole year. So there are good things also in the midst of bad things. So separate them. Rejoice in the good ones and mark the bad ones and continue to repeal them.

I didn’t realize how much the tax cut for the higher income groups was. One family alone, the Walmart family, gets a tax cut of $13 billion for the year! I thought that was a joke, but it is the reality. We did hear that the upper 1 per cent of income earners are getting a huge cut, but I didn’t know it was that much. I heard a Congress man giving a speech, naming 5 families and the biggest was Walmart. That is interesting. Good to be noticed.

Then we look forward to the New Year, and we really look forward that the principles of our lives be guided by love and compassion. That is what we need in the family, outside of it, in human society and all human beings and all living beings, including the animals. That’s what we try to dedicate out lives to.

Very briefly that is what I wanted to talk to you about today. Thank you every body for coming and try to help yourself. That is the most important, because if you don’t know how to help yourself, no one can help you. Honestly. Other people will give you suffering as much as they can, with or without their knowledge, so if you don’t help yourself, no one can. So I would like to thank you for helping yourself and therefore coming here.

Thank you so much and wishing you a very Happy New Year, and also Merry Christmas. By being Buddhist we should not ignore Christmas. This is another great being. The first time I came to America, somebody asked me, “What do you think of Jesus?” I said, “If not a Buddha, then at least a bodhisattva.” When you really think about it, these are enlightened beings, all of those. We can’t look down, they are great and we have to appreciate and rejoice in their work. Rejoicing along benefits us tremendously. You know that. So take advantage of it. We need it. Rejoice in the activities of the great beings. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and thank you.

0:43

© 2010, Ngawang Gelek 2010........... Page 5 of 6