Archive Result

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20110205GRAASE1

00:00 – prayers: Ganden Lhagyema with Foundation of Perfections, mandala offering

O:12 Bring also Glenn Mullin’s translation of the 3rd Dalai Lama’s commentary

(Welcome everybody for this session. Since this is live video web-cast, we have to make sure we start on time. Otherwise it makes it a little bit difficult for people who have to wait. Sorry for the delay. We should probably start the webcast at 10.30 then, when the prayers are over.)

0:14

Welcome to this teaching. If you read on page 11 of The Essence of Superfine Gold: chapter 2 is: The Greatness of the Instructions of the Lamrim.

It says here: Thus, this instruction [on the lamrim] is more exalted than others with respect to four greatnesses:

By relying on the instructions one understands that, of the entire scriptures of the Buddha, some reveal the primary paths while others reveal the secondary paths, and one understands that they are all either directly or indirectly the prerequisites for an individual such as myself to become enlightened. Hence, this instruction has the greatness of bringing realization that the entire teaching of the Buddha is non-contradictory.

Reading from the Tibetan it means: those of us who would like to make best use of our life, really need different levels or scopes of different beings. If you are familiar with the lam rim, it is divided into three categories:

Common with the lower

Common with the medium

Mahayana path

These are the three scopes of beings. Some beings are very happy with the hinayana path. That’s it. Some are very happy with liberating themselves from samsara, nothing more and nothing less. For them, being free from suffering and happy is good enough. Some people are more concerned with other beings out of altruistic compassion. So that’s how the different levels are being divided according to the different goals. You will hear this division all the time. Some people may be just beginning with the lam rim today. I am repeating that for their benefit. Also some of you may be listening for the first time too. After a little while it is becoming sort of its own language: Three Scopes. That is referring to lower, medium and great scope, meaning Mahayana. None of them is better or worse than the others, but if you want to go to the higher Mahayana level, you have to go through with everything. It builds one on top of the other. Without getting to the lower level you cannot get into the medium level. If you don’t get to the medium level you cannot get into the higher level. There is no helicopter ride.

0:21

When I first came to India, in 1959 – 60 I had to attend a conference. I had no idea what that was. In Tibet we never had that. The Chinese introduced us to something called “sit down and talk ” meeting. They would invite you, give you a cup of tea, some nice cookies and then they will say their propaganda or whatever they have to say and we will listen and then go. Other than that, the idea of a conference was not even familiar with me. In that conference a number of Indian scholars attended. Among them was the Kashi Pandit – Ujjen-la knows him well. People from the Varanasi area are called Kashi. The highest Brahmins throughout India are known as Kashi Pandits. Now we always hear about political pundits, economical pundits and so on. It refers to the most learned people. So this Kashi Pandit told us, “I am sure you people are very proud to be Mahayana and you are great.” And we were. At least I was very proud to be Mahayana, not even willing to listen or entertain any part of the hinayana path. So he said, “Mt. Everest is very, very high and it is wonderful on the top. But how do we know how tall Mt. Everest is? We have to measure from ground zero level.”

Usual Tibetan Buddhist teachings and particularly lam rim teachings like this tell you that too, but I paid no attention for whatsoever. The normal routine is that the teachers will say it but we hear it over and over again and just throw it at back of our ears – that’s it. That sort of brought my attention to it. Yes, very true, we can be very proud to be in Mahayana. But how is it big? Compared to what? Compared with this, this is big. Compared with that, it is small. It is all dependently originated. It is all due to conditions. So you have to compare. If you don’t have a basis for comparing the greatness of Mahayana, then it is losing its value. That brought me the awareness. I definitely heard about the three scopes. I definitely meditated on them. As a kid I had a great teacher who lived in a retreat area. He had two other disciples besides me. One was a business person, the other a very learned, great scholar. I was put in between the two of them. The teaching was in the afternoon and then we meditated on the roof top in the evening. Until these two stopped I had to sit there too, whether I was thinking or not. Even if I was repeating or reciting the subject, I was not to move until those two moved. One of them will sit straight and never move. I kept on thinking it was way beyond midnight, but it might not have been – you never know. If you are sitting there, doing nothing it must feel very, very long. Then I looked over at the other guy, the businessman and he sat slumped over, with his head tilted sideways. He was not sleeping, but meditating. Both of them would not move, so I couldn’t get up. So I was grounded. I might have been 6 or 7 years old at the time. So since childhood I have heard these things. But I didn’t realize properly what the 3 scopes meant. Then when somebody like this Indian pundit reminds you, then your mind collects back what these three scopes are all about and then it is the basic foundation of your spiritual path.

29:00

In lam rim they introduce you to how you go. During the nyur lam teachings I told you: it is the roadmap to enlightenment. It is the way and how from this level of ordinary person I can change and transform myself from this level to the next, and the next and the next and ultimately where I am getting to. That’s what lam rim is all about. The Gelugpa tradition came through Atisha’s Kadamapa tradition and Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s New Kadampa tradition (Kadam sarma). In that tradition we have the term lam rim. If you follow other traditions they have different names. The name doesn’t matter, but in reality it is these three scopes. The three scopes are divided on the basis of your spiritual goal and the method you can apply to get there. Tibetan Buddhism is always geared towards Mahayana. That means that ultimate enlightenment, total buddhahood is introduced as goal. Whatever the tradition it maybe, Sakya, Nyingma, Kargyu, Gelug – that is the goal that Tibetan Buddhism introduces us to. Although your goal may be buddhahood, there are actually prerequisites before you can achieve buddhahood. There are at least two most important things.

One is freedom from suffering. The Buddhist terminology is samsara. That is a Sanskrit term. That’s commonly known in Buddhist circles. It means circle of existence. That doesn’t mean people sitting around in a circle. It means repeating it for life after life. That’s the circle [or cycle]. Life after life repeating comes without control by ourselves. It is controlled by our karma and delusion. Delusion here doesn’t mean just confused, but it means negative emotions, such as hatred, obsession, etc. That’s what I label “delusion”. Those negative emotions create our mental atmosphere. That mental atmosphere creates our actions, physical, verbal or mental – like meanness, etc. So it involves body, speech and mind. All that is influenced by our mind. Mind is the one that directs the physical and verbal actions. Unless you are crazy you are not going to just say or do anything. When you want to say something right or wrong, something sharp or not, your mind will think first: I should say that. Then you start talking. That is how the mind influences our actions. Mind is the director, who directs our speech and physical actions. Mind thinks, “I should say this” and then you say something sharp. Then the other person will respond even sharper and you in turn will stay it yet sharper. If you can’t respond sharper, then you will punch them. That’s how mind directs. We know that – all of us. That’s what it means to be controlled by karma and delusions, because when we act, physically, mentally or verbally, we hurt other people.

That creates karma within us. That karma gives us the results of suffering. Repetition of life after life means to be controlled by karma and delusions. That’s how it controls. In a term describing that we call that samsara. You will hear that statement in Buddhism: samsara is suffering, nirvana is peace. “Nirvana is peace” is one of the four Buddhist logos. Some call it “logo”, some call it “sign” or whatever. There are four of them and they show the difference between Buddhist and non-buddhist.

Over here we don’t have much of a problem. Earlier in India there was a problem. At that time there was not that much difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, honestly speaking. That’s why they introduced these signs of being Buddhist. For example, we put an orange sign out in front of our center that says, “Jewel Heart Learning Center”. That’s a signal. Now you may be thinking, “Being a Buddhist or not is determined by taking refuge or not.” That is true. However, there is more. That’s why there are four Buddhist logos or emblems or signs of being buddhist:

Du che tham che mi tak pa - that means that everything created is impermanent.

Everything contaminated is suffering

Every phenomenon is by nature empty

Nirvana is peace.

It is more than accepting these as true that makes you a Buddhist. You have to understand what you get and be convinced. Buddhists are supposed to be convinced that everything that is created is impermanent. Take this glass or plate or the nuts and the almonds in that bowl. They are all created. I and you, this house, the environment, everything is created. It is created by people, living beings, collections of things, etc. The huge piles of snow out there are created by the snow ploughs pushing the snow from the parking lot aside and now you have these heaps of snow.

All those are impermanent. That is absolutely true. Look at ourselves. We are impermanent. I am impermanent. I am not always like this – a big, fat, old man. When I was young, I was handsome. So are you and all of us. Then we get worse and worse and one day we are going to die – that’s for sure. We all know this. That shows us that we are impermanent. So is everything else. The glass can break, the nuts can be eaten. The house can get destroyed and run down. It doesn’t last forever, not even hundred years, not even five decades. Even after ten years it starts to get run down. Every time you have to maintain and fix something and remodel. That’s where the contractors make their living from. So everything is impermanent. That includes our physical body, our life and everything. This is easy to say, but difficult to realize. We always think, “I am the strong one, the solid one”. Everything has that sort of feeling. We like to think, “I am healthy, solid, strong”. In a way it is true, but on the other hand it is all impermanent. The solid ones go, the weak ones go, the strong ones go, the fragile ones will go – everybody will go and become dust. That’s true for us and also for our environment and everything else. That’s why we take care of the environment. Otherwise it decays. It runs down. So does our health and everything. It’s all impermanent.

0:45

All contaminated things are suffering. I won’t get into that today.

Every phenomenon is dependently originated. That’s why it is emptiness.

Nirvana is peace – for this we rely on Buddha’s words.

These are the four logos.

Learning this provides us with the basis for meditation. Meditation provides us with the basis for development, spiritual gain. It is almost like an evolutional process. You have a seed, put it in the ground, pour water on it, provide heat and the sprouts will grow, the flowers will come and the fruit will come. Very similarly, learning, analyzing and meditating brings the spiritual development within us. A lot of people think, “Yes, I meditate. Don’t disturb me.” That’s fine. At least that gives you peace, quietness and harmony. You take your breath in and out. That’s good. Is it good enough for a great spiritual path? No. It is good enough to reduce your blood pressure. It does that – believe me. If you sit there for a little while, your blood pressure goes down. That’s for sure. I have checked it so many times on my own personal basis. It does happen. Go and see a doctor and get your blood pressure checked on the way in. Then breathe in and think how everything has quieted down, even after 2 minutes your blood pressure drops quite a lot. If you want to meditate for that purpose, that’s fine. But our purpose is not to reduce blood pressure. If the blood pressure reduces along with the spiritual development, that’s great. It is the icing on the cake. You can eat it together. But our main goal is not the icing, but the cake.

0:50

If your goal is spiritual development it needs more than that. What causes us not to have spiritual development within us? Some of you may have it, some may not. These obstacles have a name in Buddhist studies – not academic studies, but when you are learning about it. They are called “blocks”. You know about writer’s block. When the writer can’t think and write, that’s called a writer’s block. The same thing happens for musicians and creative thinkers. Similarly, in Buddhism we call these things blocks.

Blocks are divided into two: delusional blocks and imprints. Delusional blocks are gross and imprints are subtle. Where do they come from? They come from our addictions. Addictions are running uncontrolled, because we don’t have knowledge. First you have to know something about what you do. Secondly, you need to get used to that knowledge. Then lastly, whatever you are getting used to becomes part of you. And that is our spiritual development. And that builds up bigger, bigger, and bigger and better. That is how we can reach our ultimate goal. We call buddhas all knowing or omniscient. Sometimes we call some people “total knowledge” or “all knowing” because they always have something to say. The moment they open their mouth they have something to advise. We give them the nickname “Total Knowledge”. Probably to 50% they don’t know, but they have no hesitation to say bla bla bla bla bla….and when you can’t say that anymore you shout and your voice goes higher and higher. That is our addiction. The addiction is trying to put “me” in the center, trying to draw attention to myself. When I can’t get attention any other way, I make noise and scream. When we need to call for attention, we scream, “Hi, help me, someone is killing me” or whatever. These are our addictions functioning.

Maybe it is true and somebody is really killing you. Maybe it is not true. We do say that and it is mostly done to draw attention to ourselves.

Knowing what to do in meditation is really important. If you don’t know what to do, what else can you do besides sitting there without thinking? It can reduce your blood pressure and give you calm and quiet and it can give you a little strength too. That alone is very good. But to make it a little bit better than just sitting you need to meditate on different subjects. The subjects change.

It’s called lam rim. Within lam rim, though the goal is total knowledge and buddhahood, however, there are two other smaller goals that are easier to achieve. The second goal is total freedom from suffering or samsara. Samsara and suffering are almost equal and nirvana and peace are almost equal. Out of the four logos the last, “nirvana is peace” doesn’t say “samsara is suffering”, but it is understood, right? The moment you talk about freedom, here it means freedom from samsara. We are talking about more than what they talk about freedom in Egypt today or Iraq yesterday and I don’t know where tomorrow is. It is more than that. At least we need this freedom. It means choice. You can choose where, when and as what you are going to be reborn. You can also choose to live – a little bit, not too much – longer. You know why?

The life of the individual depends on their physical body and that is a contaminated product. So it has its capacity, its limitation, its life and it has everything in there. That’s why even if you have a choice you have limited choice, because it is a dependent origination. Of course they say that by certain practices like Vajrayogini or Cittamani Tara you can obtain the state of Kachö Rigpa Dzinpei nä – the sky goer’s place where you can be youthful, 16 years – old looking, living on the sky treasure, traveling everywhere. These are wonderful ideas and not very practical for us at this moment, because of these blocks. If you can overcome these blocks, yes, you can have a 16 years old looking bold, shiny head or whatever it is. But that’s not the subject we are talking about.

1:01

The subject we are talking about is the dependent origination, which also depends on physical conditions. Physical conditions are limited from the beginning.

So there is choice, but with limitations. Similarly, there is choice of rebirth, but that’s also limited. Limitations will come because of karmic connections with individuals who will be your parents. There will be karmic connections with the environment, the country and the people around, including family, siblings, and so on. All that depends on karmic connections. So it is choice and freedom, however, with those limitations. It is better than not having a choice.

Not having choice is like the moment you die being carried like by a storm. The analogy you can use is a dry leaf that drops out of a tree and is carried by a strong wind, not knowing where it will go, how high it will be carried and suddenly the wind dies and it drops wherever you are – it could be in the middle of a lake, in the middle of a swamp, in the middle of a forest or wherever. You have no choice and no control, because the storm does that. That’s the analogy they often use. Getting a little choice and control through a variety of ways is freedom too. It’s not total freedom but a little . That is necessary to achieve. That’s the second goal. In order to achieve that second goal you have the ‘common with the medium’ level practice.

The Mahayana practice, the big vehicle or bodhisattva practice, is based on the ‘common with the medium level’ practice. Without that base it will collapse. That very medium level achievement is based on achieving a good future life. That is the lowest goal. The next immediate life should be a good one. You don’t want to go to a hell realm. You don’t want to become a hungry ghost or animal. You just want a good life. The best life recommended by Buddha is the human life, not the samsaric gods’ life, neither the form – nor the formless gods’ life. Those of us who are born from the womb of the mother, those of us who have six elements in our body – that’s buddha’s recommendation.

One thing is we have the capability of understanding and expressing. Then our physical body is perfectly right to become a fully enlightened, particularly from the vajrayana point of view. That’s recommended. It is your choice. Some people choose differently.

There was a great teacher, an old monk, in the 1700s, called Longdol Lama, in Tibet. He was an extremely simple and humble ordinary monk. Not every monk is necessarily simple and humble, especially some of the incarnate lamas are sometimes very proud and fancy and sophisticated. Normally they allow a little bit of fanciness and sophistication for them. That is the culture. But some are so much so…..If you are reading the Indian news these days, there is a huge money scandal around His Holiness Karmapa there. That tells you how sophisticated and complicated it can be. The Longdol Lama was absolutely humble and very old. Then one time the Panchen Lama came to Central Tibet. The Longdol Lama was so old he couldn’t go and see him, but he sent somebody with a little gift for the Panchen Lama with the simple message: Could you please check whether my wishes can be fulfilled or what more I can do? The Panchen Lama said, “What wish is there to be fulfilled for a well-known simple monk like him?” Then he threw his dice and got a little shock and then he said, “I did not know a simple monk has such a desire! Anyway, please tell him that he will achieve whatever he would like to. I did not know that he has such a great desire.” The messenger went back to Longdol Lama and told him what the Panchen Lama had said. “Oh okay”, Longdol Lama said. The messenger was also the student of Longdol Lama and was wondering what his great desire was. He asked him, “What do you want?” The Longdol Lama said, “King of Shambala.”

The Longdol Lama was a very simple and humble person, but he wanted to be the King of Shambala in his next life. So the Panchen Lama said “Yes, it looks like it is going to happen.” That is what I mean by choice. The “common with the lower level” will give you a better life in future. You don’t want to be a yak. You don’t want to be in a hell realm. You don’t want to be a samsaric god who enjoys a long life in total pleasure, because after that life time you will suffer again. That’s why Buddha didn’t recommend that. The pleasure is so much that they have no time for anything else except pleasure – sounds like us. We don’t have time for anything except our usual routine chores.

Shariputra, the Buddha’s disciple, had his own disciple who was totally devoted to him. When he alive as a human being and he was riding a horse, then the moment he saw Shariputra from a distance, he would jump off and run to him. The scriptures say, “He didn’t take the time to climb down from an elephant. He jumped down to be closer to Shariputra.” He died and Shariputra followed him to wherever he had taken rebirth and of course he had prayers for a better rebirth. So he took rebirth in the samsaric gods’ realm. Shariputra went there and appeared as Shariputra to him. Samsaric gods know their past life, present life and future life – all together. They are therefore known as “Three Timers.” They won’t look into the future, because they are very much engaged with their pleasure. The past is automatically known to them. So he recognized Shariputra when he saw him, but he wouldn’t come out from playing with his company. He just raised his finger to acknowledge Shariputra and pay respect – that’s all. Shariputra thought he would continuously teach him dharma and his spiritual development would continue. But this guy only raised a finger and ran away to do whatever he was doing. Shariputra got a little shock and went to Buddha to complain. Buddha said, “What do you think is going to happen? What did you expect? The guy is in the samsaric gods’ realm!”. That’s why, although the samsaric gods’ realm is great, Buddha doesn’t recommend trying to get reborn there.

1:16

So the human rebirth is very strongly recommended – and not only the human life, but the human life with that pain and suffering we experience because that helps us. Not only that, we want to have a human life with the path that Buddha has shown. That is the path we select and choose. That is recommended. If you don’t have the path, the good human life can be as good as that of a samsaric god or as bad as that of a hungry ghost. It can be like that. The good future life is absolutely necessary, because the moment we close our eyes in this life, the next immediate moment is the beginning of the next life. It is breathing in and breathing out. It is only one breath that goes in and out which stands in between this life and the so-called future life. It is just a thin breath. If that breath doesn’t come out or go in that’s the end. The next immediate incident will be the next life. So from the spiritual point of view you have to at least achieve a good future life. Then the next goal is freedom and then helping others and reaching yourself to total enlightenment and helping others. That’s the three scopes we are talking about in the lam rim.

The 3rd Dalai Lama’s commentary (page 11, para 3 and following)

With this instruction the false conceptions - that the scriptures of sutra and tantra and their authoritative expositions, are merely theoretical teachings for intellectual knowledge and that there are other branches of teachings showing the essential practices which are not included in these scriptures – will be eliminated completely.

So if you know the lam rim, this will be the benefits you get.

Thereby the entire subject matter of the teachings of the Buddha, and their authentic treatises – from the teachings on how to follow a spiritual master up to those on calm abiding (shamata) and special insight (vipasyana)- is condensed in the Lamrim and held as the principal instruction; and since the Lamrim shows the instructions for the practices of analytical meditation wherever needed, one understands that it is the spiritual instruction revealing these practices. Thus, this instruction has the greatness of reflecting that all the teachings of the Buddha are spiritual advice.

We are talking about the 4 qualities of the lam rim teachings here. These instructions and transmissions can make you understand that all the teachings of the Buddha are sometimes principles of the path or sometimes branch practices. You can see whether they are directly or indirectly meant for you, the one person to become totally enlightened. It has the quality of not only contradicting each other but meant for you to boost your spiritual development. It is your transmission.

The second quality is that whether it is sutra or tantra or commentary you get it. In whatever form it comes it is not only to refute other people’s explanations, nor for you to talk only, but the real essence of what you can practice and sometimes we think that these are theoretical explanations and not really actual practice. Actual practice is hidden somewhere else. But actually, every one of Buddha’s teachings is for practice. There is nothing hidden. Sometimes some practices carry a title of secrecy. That is not because there is something to hide, but because it may not be the right thing for the individual at that moment. Prerequisites may not have been done. Other than that every one of Buddha’s teachings are meant for everybody. There is no secret, nothing is hidden. Normally in good old Tibet they give you the analogy of Tibetan doctors. They normally give you medicine. They make it for each and every individual – not like the mass produced pills we get these days. These days all the Tibetan pills are also mass-produced, both in Tibet as well as in exile in India. Traditionally, each individual physician would make individual medicine for every individual patients. If a doctor had 2- 30 patients he or she would make 20 – 30 different medicines. When I was in Tibet it was still like that. When I came to India all the Tibetan pills began to be mass produced and made into pills. In Tibet it used to be powder in a dirty, little piece of paper. It depends on the doctor. It almost looks similar to the native American Indian medicine men. The Tibetan doctors carried leather bags of different medicines. Sometimes they don’t have to make medicine from scratch. They have substances in their bags and pick up a little from here and a little from there, measured by a little spoon. They would make a couple of heaps of powder and tell you to take them I the morning or in the evening or sometimes they would give you one heap and tell you to divide them 3x per days for 7 days or 10 days or something. That’s what I am familiar with as a kid. The moment we came to India we didn’t have that any more.

My late wife had diabetes. Her niece was married to the Dalai Lama’s brother. So they came to Dehli to our house and stayed there. He brought the chief doctor and he slept in our house in Dehli. He got up early in the morning and felt her pulse and told her to take medicine. He looked at all the pills in the house and said, “Well, I better make medicine for you.” So he really did and gave her this powder. A month later he came and changed the medicine completely. She took whatever medicine he made for about a year and then was totally cured of diabetes. Later, when she passed away she died from cancer. The diabetes never came back. Tibetan medicine can cure illnesses if properly produced. These mass produced medicines you can keep on eating till you die. Nothing will happen. That’s unfortunate. You can eat them by the handful or by the pound every day and nothing will happen.

The scriptures give the analogy of the doctor. A doctor will sometimes treat you and in the beginning emphasize that you should be totally vegetarian. You shouldn’t eat meat, nor any animal products, like butter, milk, yogurt. Then sometimes the same doctor will tell the same patient to have meat, like bone soup. One doctor treating one patient with vegetarian, non-vegetarian, vegan and non-vegan food. Likewise, here the Buddha’s teachings say sometimes this, sometimes that, sometimes hot, sometimes cold. And all that is meant for one individual done at the right moment, rather than one method contradicting the other. If you look into the Buddha’s Collected Works and I want to find references for needing to be vegetarian I can found hundreds and thousands quotes that say one should be vegan. I can find hundreds and thousands of quotes that one should not be vegan. If my objective is to find such quotes I can find them. You can quote and you can say in which text, which edition, which translation, which page the quotes are. You can provide volumes of that, and not only regarding vegetarian and non-vegetarian but also regarding other things like whether to consume alcohol or not and having sex or not having sex. You can find hundreds of quotes. Then you could think, “He is telling one person here to do this and another person there to do the opposite. That’s a contradiction.” But here the lam rim tells you it is not a contradiction, because the needs of the individuals differ from time to time. How do you know what to do? If you know your path you will know. If you don’t know your path you have no way of knowing. That’s what this quality is all about.

1:33

In other words if you gain a basic understanding of lam rim you are going to gain not only the understanding that not only the teachings are not contradicting each other but that they are transmissions for you at the right time for the right purposes.

That is up to the teacher. But there are times when you don’t have a teacher. Then it is up to you to know.

Sometimes we look at the great early Indian mahapandits’ commentaries. We call them great teachings. We very often quote from Maitreya’s metaphysical text Abidharmakosha or Chandrakirti’s “Middle Path” or Dharmakirti’s Logical text or Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara and we think that they are great sources. Then small, little booklets are not that important because they are just little booklets. But sometimes those little booklets have the perfect, suitable transmission for you, more so than the great treatises. If you know lam rim then you will understand. Particularly some 2 – 3 page root texts, like Atisha’s Lamp on the Path will show you. They are like the key to open the meanings of those great treatises. That’s another quality of the lam rim.

1:36

Also the last of the four qualities: all the Buddha’s teachings are meant for one individual, either directly or indirectly, to become a fully enlightened Buddha.

You may say: some teachings are not necessarily for me. But this one is for me. These teachings are for those people.

Thinking like that make divisions in the dharma. It leads to thinking, “We are the Mahayana people, the hinayana is not good enough.” “This is not for me. It’s for the yellow monks, not the red monks.” Or other comments like………I need some self generation here……oh yeah, “I am a great yogi and these are just the monks, these are not meant for me”. “I am a Gelugpa, purest of the pure, refined gold and these are the Nyingmapas, the red hats and these are the Sakyapas, they are multi-colored and these are the Kargyupas, the red hats”. The same happens from the other traditions too, “We are the Kargyupas, they are the Gelugpas. They only know how to talk and debate, but the practice – that’s us.” “We are the Nyingmapas, we have the real essence of Buddha’s teachings delivered by Guru Padmasambhava, they don’t.”

Thinking this way is one the great downfalls of giving up dharma. There is a downfall mentioned in the 6 session yoga: remaining in the home of a hinayana person for more than 7 days. That’s interconnected. If in that time you develop the attitude of looking down on them that become giving up dharma. So each of the points taught by Buddha is meant for you. Giving that up is a big downfall. If you know the lam rim, then the quality you gain is that you begin to see that everything is meant for you. Nothing is to be discarded or looked down on.

These are the four qualities. It got stuck here and didn’t reach very far. In the last teaching in New York I went on the basis of Tsong Khapa’s short lam rim the root text. I reached up to the guru devotional practice. But the commentary by the Third Dalai Lama on that root text is what I am looking at here. I know of at least two translations: one is the printed book from Dharamsala, called “Essence of Superfine Gold” . The other one is Glenn Mullin’s translation. The title is “Essence of Refined Gold”. What’s the difference between “refined” and “superfine”? This is the problem. When you translate from one language to the other that’s what happens. If you are not aware of that you may think they are talking about two different texts. This sort of transition problem will last for about 100 years. If the Buddha dharma still continues then, in about 100 years time it will begin to settle down. Right now each and every translator has their own understanding and their own ego and their own self generation. So they will argue and defend their translation as perfect.

Back in India there were different languages and they had the same problem. But back then the kings decided what was right and wrong. More or less the dictators have dictated. There is a word in the Manjushri Nama Sangit tantra: tsi gi dag po tsi zu che – “the person who owns the word has cut the word” – meaning the kings decided to cut the terminology. Then everybody has to follow. You get the same meaning and it is better. In a democracy there is no tsi gi dag po – no owner of the language. So nobody can cut it. So it is going to take about 100 years or even more to settle this.

1:44

The commentary I have has Tibetan and English in the same book. That’s easy for me to find. I do have the Tibetan text separately, by the Third Dalai Lama but I couldn’t get into my library. So luckily we found this book that has English and Tibetan both, in the Jewel Heart bookstore. And this is translated by somebody in Dharamsala for the Tibetan Library. So it is good work. We can compare the English from this book with Glenn’s translation. Glenn is good too and poetic. This guy [Chok Tenzin Mönlam] is great but it sounds like me.

So we have to read the preliminaries of this: how to listen and explain the teachings (Chapter 3 of ”Essence of Superfine Gold” and then “How to rely on the spiritual teacher” (Chapter 4).

When we come back from lunch we will read these sections. We will start back at 2.00 pm.

1:49 mandala offering – end file