Archive Result

Soundfile 20100508GRJHNLTFIL

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Jewel Heart Netherlands

Topic Transform Fear into Love

Transcriber Janet Bourgon

Date Nov. 10, 2021

0:00:00.0.

Welcome everybody. We begin with a silent meditation for a few minutes. [Silence]

0:01:58.0. Choosing this meditation, please [say for it???] all kinds of thoughts. Just focus internally and if you need to find some basis which you need to focus, then use your breath. In and out, out of your nostrils. [Silence]

0:03:00.7.

[Silence]

0:06:00.4.

[Silence]

0:09:06.2.

[Silence]

0:09:35.4. Thank you. Thank you for the meditation. And now we will wish the free from suffering and joy to all living beings, all sentient beings, through the prayer called Four Immeasurables.

[0:10:28.1 Chanting in English.] May all beings have happiness. Etc.

0:12:00.6.

[Chanting continues.]

[0:12:25.3 Silence]

0:12:34.9. Rimpoche: Thank you for praying. Now, one of our board member is here, will welcome you on behalf of Jewel Heart.

[0:12:59.3. Board member welcoming Rimpoche and group. Transform fear into love. The rest is in Dutch, seems to be a brief intro to Rimpoche’s background and life.]

0:14:16.6. Rimpoche: Thank you. Thank you for the introduction which I didn’t hear. Anyway. But welcome here for the talk today.

0:15:06.0.

[Dutch]

0:15:35.3. Rimpoche: So it’s all settled now? [Laughs.] Okay. Now, about to say is welcome here and this is, so normally whenever I get here, I give one little talk, and seeing you all, and wishing you all well, and share a little bit of thought. That’s what normally I do.

{But today… [Interruption in Dutch—seems there is an issue with a car.] What happened now? Oh, I see. Okay, okay. Do we have the car number? I don’t know what you doing. [Laughs.] Normally, if you have the car number then you can say, who this car belong to? [Response: But nobody’s getting up.] [Dutch translation.]}

0:17:47.4. Rimpoche: Today it is special. Special because we try to celebrate. Celebrate in the sense we look back for the last 25 years.

0:18:14.6.

Which, in other words, a quarter of century that we have been in Holland. And I do have a little organization—I don’t have it, but the group of people who have organization called Jewel Heart. The Netherland is the first one as the introduction level it says Helen, late Helen. Helen was a Dutch woman from [0:19:08.1 Melbourne?] there, the late called Mel… [audience answers] [Rimpoche: Melbode??]. [Laughs.] Okay? And Helen is a very wonderful person, and a great intellectual, socialist, and maybe even communist. I don’t know. [Laughs.] But close, quite close point. But very kind, very dedicated, wonderful woman. And I met her in India.

0:21:00.5.

And in India she’s searching for spiritual path. And she found us, meaning Tibetan Buddhism. Or Buddhism that traveled through Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism. And studying under a great masters who was my master, and master of the Dalai Lama. Two: both [0:21:41.8 Tribling?] Rimpoche and [???] Rimpoche. She was studying in Dharamsala and Delhi and in India. And she was doing some retreat on a female buddha called Vajrayogini. And during that period I met her, I think, through the introduction of [0:22:39.8 Tribling] Rimpoche. I’m not very sure. What I remember is she had so many questions. So I think then [Tribling] Rimpoche asked her to ask me, or something like that. And then she was so completing her retreat and doing a fire offering, a fire puja by offering. Then she studied with me for a few more years in India, mostly in Delhi. Then she would like to go back to Holland.

0:24:00.2.

And I was urge her to go to Holland and bring whatever she knows, she’s read it, for the benefit of fellow Dutch people. And then she came back and lived with her mother who lived here till last year. And so she lived with her and started this Jewel Heart. And there are some photographs of the other room, and the other room, and how did we begin the Jewel Heart. It is only three or four people who is started. [0:25:32.7 Karl?] was earlier ones. Not at the really beginning, earlier ones. But [0:25:41.9 Sutas and Pete Sutas???] and all that. [Mariam?] Yes. [Mariam?] came to visit me Delhi, so too many [Mariams?], so I only know as [Marian?] Delhi. And then Lynn and there’s a small Helen, and who else? [Audience comments.] [0:26:25.1 Marian DeCork??] is known as Marian Meditation because she first taught meditation. To me. To me. Identification, because that names is so hard for me. And Mr. [0:26:50.5 Hoopama and Mustarch?]. So anyway, so then that’s now Jewel Heart here with all of you to visit.

0:27:05.8.

And that’s one Dutch woman’s deed, service to the Dutch community. So we’re celebrating that. Celebration here is to appreciate what the earlier people, what they have done and hope we will move forward to the [0:27:54.3 merely?] to the service of the people. Nothing else. And nobody is here to do business. This is not business organization. It is service organization. Not only a service organization, it is also service in both mental and spiritual. So my job here is to appreciate along with me and all of you what you have done for benefit yourself and benefit for your fellow citizens. And not only appreciate and thank you from the bottom of my heart to each and every one of you. Each and every one of you, really, with no exception. Each and every one of you, thank you so much for what you have done for the last 25 years. And for next still move forward. Move forward to benefit not only our self, but the future generations represent by these young ones right here.

0:30:13.1.

What we do, now the question is what we do? We do, we try to utilize the experience of Buddha and the great Buddhist masters, both in India and Tibet. Particularly Tibet. So past 1000 years, Tibetan Buddhist have one focus and only one goal. And that is, is to relieve the suffering of all of us, all, all beings. That’s including everybody whether it is in the east or the west. Not only human beings, but animals, insects, and so forth. We call with the terminology called living beings. The method what we used it is love and compassion, not violence. It is only non-violence and love and compassion.

0:33:01.5.

Target, what we targeted, is the negative emotions within ourself, such as hatred, obsession, fear, jealousy, etc. That’s are the target. And because every human being, no matter wherever you live, whatever you are, whether you live in the developed nation like here, or underdeveloped nations like India, or backward nations according to the communist Chinese, backward and backward and what is it say? So backwards, so dark, and so barbarian like Tibetan. So, we all suffer. The suffering is common phenomenon with all of us. Mental, physical, emotional sufferings we carry. Physical is natural process. And natural [mental?] and emotional is we create it. And we can handle if we want to. Or we can make it worse if we want to.

0:36:00.7.

And by the [tendens?] the [tensis?], how the world is moving. The [tendis?] we create more mess. For the last take almost decade now, almost decade. You know I live in America, and so what I saw is the last Bush administration for eight years. It is the hatred. It is true. The 9/11 did definitely happened. It’s true. That is true. But you know then you try to reply that with hatred. Remember? Yeah. [I’m not talking to you. Laughs. I’m glad you do remember!] I mean remember such a terminologies such as the preemptive. And we had all this wars. All this wars. War in Iraq. War in Afghanistan. I mean undeclared war in Pakistan. Not only America, but all Europeans and even Dutch is also included with the Mr., the prime minister. I’ll leave it there. So if you really think how many people got lost their life in this war? That war? Iraq alone, how many Sunni’s we killed them under the name of sort of like a blood of, what is the name?

0:39:21.0.

Saddam Hussein’s party or something. How many? The figures are, you know honestly, figures are 600,000, 700,000. Of course, U.S. administration denies, saying, oh that’s [0:39:45.4 fact?] figures and this and that. But you know, no shadow will come if there’s no form. So sure, half a million human beings lost their life. What do the human beings have anything more precious than life? Not money. Not wealth. Not anything but the life. And when you see they’re losing one after the another, up to a half a million. It is a huge loss. Nothing compare with the [0:41:15.4 air-e-g??] collapsing, or [penny mey, penny mey???] collapsing, or the banks are failing, or Greeks are losing their salary. Compare with losing a life, no comparison. That’s what the violence does. We knew it. We see it, saw it. We experienced. But also, we learned one thing.

0:42:02.3.

You know one thing we learned with this? Out of this? You cannot change human being’s mind by bringing dollar in the hand, one hand, and gun on the other hand, and saying, which one you want? That’s what’s exactly what they did. You want a dollar? Oh join with us. Or you want shot? So everybody was, I’ll take your dollar. But they give you big, nice smile and put the dollar in their pocket and then say, to hell with you. [Laughs.] So, violence can do nothing. Honestly. When the violence can do nothing, then they started throwing the dollars. And the dollars give them a little smile, but they won’t do exactly what they want you to do. [Laughs.] Because it’s a human mind. Human beings have reasons. And their mind. They have traditions. They have their way of living, way of thinking, all kinds of things. And it is just cannot force to change because somebody’s showing you gun. Right? So the violence doesn’t do any good. On the other hand, non-violence has a record of improving something. Like look at Gandhi. Gandhi is just dusty, little Indian fellow with the [0:45:03.4 chappels?] or the sandal shoe.

0:45:06.0.

Or dhoti round. And challenges the British empire. That’s not [0:45:18.3 golden brown’s??] British. I mean the old, old British empire. Those of you who are my age, around, will remember the sun never set on the crown of England. So all of us, sun shine either east or the west. That is the British empire I’m talking it. I think some ladies remember. Yeah, they’re knocking their head. So that such a great power has been challenged by one guy. Dirty little Indian guy. Dusty little Indian guy who did dhotis and sandal-shoe walking round. Challenged through non-violence. And brought his goat to London for the round table conference to drink his milk. [Laughs.] Such a great power like that has been reduced so much, and thereafter the British started losing their power to everywhere in the east, everywhere in Africa, everywhere, because it is the one little dusty Indian guy who has the weapon called non-violence. Not hurt anybody. But [0:47:44.6 started?] your own facts, insisted.

0:48:01.2.

So today, you know, non-violence came up to that level. Not only Gandhi, but a lot of others, like Mother Teresa, like that of Nelson Mandela, or even in America, Dr. Martin Luther King. They all applied non-violence. Dalai Lama today. Whether he’s gain or lose, whatever, but you know the principle is non-violence. So it is the non-violence that help us, not the violence. And I want you to remember this. We talked about the big nations and the guns. But the violence is violence, whether it is in your own home. The relationship between you and your family members. The relationship between you and your mother-in-law. The relationship between you and your pets. The dog. The cat. Everywhere. Children, particularly children. With the love when you bring children up is becomes, children are beautiful, but it will become great with love. They learn how to use love. If you have to yell and scream and shout, they will pick up the same thing and they’ll be yelling, screaming the same thing. If you have a pet, a dog, if you are using love and affection, when you’re getting home the pet will be busy near the door for you to open the door. And they’ll be moving their tails and whatever dog will be jumping up.

0:51:12.6.

But if you’re beating the dog, they heard you’re coming, dog will run away, hid under bed or hid under somewhere where you cannot reach. And that’s violence and non-violence. You know, talking about the nations is one thing. Thinking about the family is another thing. So I want you to think that carefully. Everybody will lose temper, no doubt. Everybody is not Buddha. We will lose temper. But you keep your temper losing for some, put some break on you, and because the other side is also human being. And you’re going to hit, hit. They’ll take as much as they can and then they’ll hit you back. Hit you back. That’s, I’m not talking about the physical violence. Even verbally that’s what happens. So remember that from now on. If you are having difficulties, never apply violence, particularly the word. Word. The word is so sharp. Your tongue is so sharp it cuts the heart of other person into two pieces, which we don’t know. You may say, I didn’t do anything. I just said a word. That word is sharp enough to cut the heart of the other person into two. So remember that. Try not to use.

0:54:02.1.

When that happens, that will be the first step reducing fear. The other person may or may not be afraid, but they are afraid of losing temper. They are afraid of getting hurt. People do ‘fraid all the time. Really! I mean no reason why they get afraid. They’re afraid of left lonely. They are afraid of getting sick. They’re afraid of losing loved ones. They’re afraid of getting hurt yourself. That fear is constantly with us. Always. We almost don’t know why we’re afraid of it. Even at the kids, you have to go, kids are so afraid of it, so either the father or the mother, the parents will make sure they tell the kids three times, there’s no monster hiding under your bed or closet. Say, I looked, there’s not there. How many times you people have done that? And that is because we carry the fear. We don’t know why we’re afraid, but we do carry a lot. Buddha tells us one reason why we’re so afraid. And that is, Buddha said, we lost so many times. We lost everything so many times because of our reincarnation.

0:57:07.5.

Previous lives we lost our loved ones. We lost our wealth. We lost our life so many times, so we have that fear within us. And also, it is manifestation of ego and confusion and a fear combined. A thing happens in our mind, what the traditional Buddhists call it ignorance. It is the confusion. It is the fear. It is the not knowing clearly, all combined together and manifested in the anger form, in obsession form expressing. Expression of that in anger, in hatred, in obsession, a fear, all that. So using the love and compassion and wisdom will challenge those. As we talked earlier, even, you know, even not using harsh word, even within the family. All this will reduce, will reduce the fear of people. I give you the answer [0:59:37.8 belong?] the pat, you know, the dog. Wagging a tail and running. So these are the even small first step we can take it within our life.

1:00:00.1.

Is that enough? No! That’s not enough, but that’s beginning. We can all easily do it. Sometimes our anger are so much we don’t even know what has happened. We have said so many things. Cut the hearts into too many pieces. By the time when you realize, then at least say sorry. It’s nothing wrong to say sorry if you are sorry. But if you are not sorry [1:00:52.6 up from??] here sorry may not be that good. [Laughs.] But if you really don’t want hurt other people, if you really don’t want violence, if you don’t want any threat to be used, then the sorry will be there. True sorry will be within your mind. Some people are very difficult to say sorry, particularly men. I’m man. Why should I have to say sorry all the time? You know. [laughs.] But one thing we have to know. There’s nothing wrong to say sorry. Honestly. There’s nothing wrong to say sorry. You know people are sometimes afraid of two things. I notice two things. They don’t want say sorry . They don’t want say I don’t know. What’s wrong? I mean, you don’t know, you don’t know. Just say, I don’t know. And there’s nothing wrong to say sorry. Nothing wrong to say I don’t know. We don’t claim to be total knowledge. The other day Mary Ann asked me, what does [1:02:45.1 ackta shamaranza…???] mean? I don’t know. I really don’t know. Say I don’t know. [Laughter, laughs.] She say, we said that all the time, we don’t know? I said no. [Laughs.] That’s true! When you don’t know, you say you don’t know.

1:03:03.5.

When you’re sorry, you say sorry. And mean what you say. You can’t be saying I’m sorry, but. Honestly. So then on top of that also you have to understand, the understanding, understand the other people said, the other person. I’m talking about, just talk about family, within the family. The other person. The naughty child. Or whatever. The naughty teenager boy or something. You know, whatever. The other person, he or she is also suffering tremendously. He or she wants to do something but can’t do it. Can’t manage. Not allowed. Cannot do it. It’s not right but I don’t know why it’s not right. And there’s so much desire, a burning you want to do the naughty thing but you can’t do it. So they have also suffering. You know, for us it’s not suffering. He just wanted to be naughty. Right? But for him it is suffering. He can’t fulfill his wish. He can’t do it his desire and he had suffering too. It’s not that he is, well, we may call it he’s spoiled. But he may be spoiled but it’s also spoiled is type of suffering too.

1:06:00.9.

So, understanding is required in both side. Husband and wife, mother-in-law and the family, need understanding. The kids may not understand that much so it’s called kid, right? So the mother-in-law and the family needs understanding in two-way street. And understanding will bring respect. Respect will bring they like each other. No one can like anybody if you don’t have respect. So the respect can bring they like each other. The like can bring love. And the love will give you joy and happiness. And opposite of that give us the misery and suffering. So thinking and understanding not only you have difficulties, they have same difficulties, specially family. Between husband and wife they share the same difficulties. And when you understand that it is much better. Actually, what you don’t need, what you do need is understanding and respect. If you have understanding and respect, love will come automatically. If you don’t have understanding and respect, no matter whatever you may say, om love come, om love come, om love come [1:08:41.6??] as a mantra. Nothing will happened. Or you may pray for love, nothing will happened. It is your mind, yourself, you are the one who can make difference to you. And, on top of that, you may say few mantras.

1:09:03.7.

On top of that you may pray. That is all icing on cake. So understanding and respect, that brings happiness. And that is how you transform all negative emotions, including fear, into positive love or compassion. I don’t think there is a magic that comes out, zoom, and then you know, like the angels comes and hit you. Zoom. And then you know the fear doesn’t become love. I don’t think that happens at all. I mean I don’t mean happens it may be happening, but not that we know. We are human beings. We have understanding. We have a mind capable. And you have to use that. If you can’t use your intelligent mind, and then it’s not good. I don’t want to say, too bad, but… So honestly. And many of us behave that, oh, we know nothing, and everybody is depends on somebody else. It may be true but may not be true. And we can make a lot of difference to ourself. If you fail to make a difference to yourself and then it’s nobody else’s fault except your fault.

1:12:00.9.

When I say it’s your fault you don’t have to blame yourself. You blame yourself and then you worry about it. Then you go in the depression. Those are, you don’t need it. That door should be shut down. And what you open when you shut that door, you have to open another door. Another door is, okay. I made mistake once. Let me correct again. Let me correct again. Let me try again. You can fall 300 times a day and get up 300 times. If you don’t know, look at the kids. They do. They show you. When they walk they fell down. They will get up. They will fell down. They will get up. After a little while they begin to walk without felling. Exactly same thing we learn from. I mean just a little from the kids. And don’t visit that place ‘it’s my fault.’ Because I saw in the West it’s very easy for people to feeling guilty bout it. And the guilt has created and people utilize guilt to make you feel bad. I don’t know what makes them happy if you feel bad. You know for me if someone’s feeling bad I better run away, rather than, you know, make myself suffer. I’ll run away 500 miles without looking back. So don’t visit the guilt. Don’t take the guilt. I am, I always say, I’m a non-believer of guilt.

1:15:00.1.

I regret. Yes. Guilt is two different thing. Regret, you did wrong, you have to regret. Regret, make sure you don’t repeat. Then it becomes guilt and heavy and say, oh it’s my fault. What can I do? What can I do? What? You can do nothing. You have already done it. And if you want to torture yourself by saying, what can I do, what can I do? So nothing! So if there’s something to be corrected, you should correct. When there’s nothing to be corrected, don’t add up additional suffering for yourself, says Buddha. So that’s what you not to do. Then, what you to do is generate a little bit of compassion, little bit of love to everybody. Doesn’t matter whether you’re not the person or not. They’re human beings. We do need to share our love. With love, if you have a little compassion, it will be much more powerful than that of without compassion. I feel personally bad and compassion for those 600,000 or so Iraq people who died last, I don’t know, eight, nine, ten years. Obama’s not better anyways, though Europeans love it.

1:18:03.5.

I thought he’s going to end the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Still going on one year over. Oh that’s supposed to be the change, right? We go and change our history. Turn the page, we’ll change. That’s supposed to be change from violence to non-violence, from attack to love and compassion. No change so far. Hopefully there will be. I don’t want to drag you in the American politics, but on the other hand Hillary Clinton told truth. She’s saying, no, you can’t end the war. You will end, we will end it, will take two years, or three. Maybe even four years. And then everybody didn’t like it, so Obama will change tomorrow. [1:19:32.4 Let him be there??] So that’s what happened. So anyway, what we need is not Obama, not Hillary Clinton, not the Bush. But what we need is compassion and love for ourself. What I wanted to talk to you the last one is this. If you have compassion that comes with love together, that compassion is much more strong and much more powerful, and much more effective. If the compassion come without love, that compassion’s not necessarily that powerful. It could even be a strong sympathy. We don’t want it. No one wants sympathy. We want care. Everybody wants care. So compassion with care.

1:21:04.1.

Care cannot developed without feeling of love. I give you an example. So suppose out there in the street if a car’s running, they run over something. So is oh, the car run over something. That something happens to be a dog in the street. So car run over dog. We will all feel sorry. Ah, the car run over the dog is hurt. We will all feel sorry. If you don’t feel sorry, something’s wrong with you. So you will all feel sorry about it. The next thing if you know this is not just a dog, but it’s human being. So we feel oh much more because we have more [1:22:59.8 affect? effect?], respect, love to human being than animals. Next thing you know it’s not only a human being, somebody I know. So our feeling is even more stronger. The next thing you know, it’s not just somebody I know. It’s my family. So how much you feel? So that is the difference between compassion with love and compassion without love. So love is the most important power and tool we have for us to be good.

1:24:00.3.

So that’s what you do. And you’re giving yourself opportunity to be better person. That’s all I have to say. Take love home. Don’t leave it here. Okay. Take it with you and bring it back. [Laughs.] And I think I should give you asking question and all that, but my time is quite up, too. So I’m sure there a lot of questions and if I entertain question, there may be a lot. So I will just say thank you so much for coming today and being here. And sorry we didn’t start on time because everybody couldn’t get in. So, a little bit late, but thank you. And the Jewel Heart is here to serve you, give you such an information like this to improve your own way of living and thinking. And I hope you will utilize them and be round. And thank you. And thank you very much. Oh, by the way, the tomorrow’s, the [1:26:13.1 protection?] initiation, will be at 12:00, not at 11:00. Is anybody’s coming? [Laughs.] If all want to come, you’re all welcome.

1:26:31.3. End of Rimpoche’s teaching. The rest is in Dutch.