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20110402GRAASE1

00:00 refuge, bodhimind

00:01

Welcome here today for today’s topic. We will continue where we left last time. Before we do I would like to point out one important thing: developing the motivation, the motivation of learning and listening to this teaching, particularly throughout this short lam rim and particularly today: for the benefit of all beings one would like to obtain the ultimate state of buddhahood. That’s the usual motivation. It is important. Most of us have taken refuge, most of us have some vows. When you have the vows then you have the motivation that is generated for the benefit of all beings. But there are people who don’t have any vows. So for them, for every good work they do it is important to generate the best possible motivation. Those of us who have vows and commitments do have that motivation generally covered, however it is not a strong, specific motivation. There is a need to do something more. We have to remind ourselves always. It is important for whatever action you take. That is the reason why every Tibetan prayer begins with “I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, until I become fully enlightened, by practicing generosity and the other perfections, may I obtain full enlightenment.”

We repeat that all the time simply for that reason. Generally we have it covered, but we have to specific. Although we have already taken refuge in the beginning, but for some people that may just be a few words of mumbo-jumbo in Tibetan. That probably doesn’t really register. That’s why I am spending extra time here, trying to emphasize that. If not covered by vows and without motivation, then the efforts of such a great teaching and listening to it [are not directed in the best way]. Of course the action itself is a virtue. Therefore there is some virtue, but not the full extent we can gain. Some people may have prefabricated ideas such as anger, hatred or even obsession and then all the efforts that are put in may even become negativity. That’s possible. ;

We may think, “How can that be? I did great work. How can it become negative?” But it can be, because it is the mind that matters. It is mind over matter. That makes a huge difference. That’s why everywhere first and foremost is the motivation. The Kadampa lamas talked about the “two activities”, the beginning activity of motivation and the ending activity of dedication. These two are very important points. Otherwise, there may be people who sort of mumble jumble a lot of prayers and it looks like they are sitting and meditating. But in reality something else may be happening.

There is a story I want to tell you. There was a guy who was always praying something from his mouth and moving his mala. He had three domesticated animals, a cow, a goat and a sheep. Maybe one of them was a buffalo. In Tibetan we say pa ra lang sum. The goat and the sheep are definitely there. The goat said to the others, “He is going to kill us.” The sheep says, “Never. He is praying all the time. He is never going to kill us.” Then suddenly a butcher came to the house. The guy walked out to the butcher, still using his mala and insisted to the butcher that he wanted him to kill all these three animals that very day. The butcher said, “I am so busy, I can’t do it. Maybe later. Or if you really urgently need meat I can do one today, but not all three.” So this is what happens. Though he was saying prayers and looked like a meditator and had the mala in hand, virtually filthy with sweat, his action was to organize the killing of his animals. The mind is so important. Otherwise, an action that looks very holy and important may become extremely bad.

0:12

Particularly, saying prayers, while planning to call the butcher and deciding which animal to kill first, or all of them, with all of these the thoughts are what makes the difference to the action. That’s why motivation is important.

In the 60s, some American friend of Tibet began to come to India and spent time there. Then he began to organize the Tibetans. In the early 60s we were not that well organized, particularly the monasteries and incarnate lamas and abbots. That guy was a very nice guy, he is still around, a good old friend. So he tried to organize Drepung, raising money to build a temple. He brought two well known lamas to America. One was at that time the abbot of Gomang. Later he became the chair person of Drepung monastery. The other was an incarnate lama from Nechung, the State Oracle. This guy tried to organize these lamas and pushed them. These were very senior and elderly lamas. They didn’t move fast enough. Some of our friends used to call it the “Lama Walk” – whether rain, sun shine or snow, they wouldn’t move very fast.

Audience: I remember someone calling it the “power waddle”.

Rimpoche: They told me that all the time too, and now I can’t walk fast anyway. So this guy went ahead and sat down first and started saying sang gye chö dang tsog gyi tsog nam la… So he not only organized and pushed these lamas to the end but since they didn’t do it fast enough he even started saying the prayers, trying to be the chanting master. When I came to visit these two lamas in New York they gave me lunch and they both told me, “You better eat faster, this guy is going to come and start saying sang gye chö dang tsog gyi tsog nam la…

So the words alone don’t go that great. But then having at least words is better than nothing. Without having anything else, at least if there are the words to say it is still much better. For those of us who have commitments of saying this and that, doing this and that in 24 hours, the words act not to break out commitments. Even if you don’t think anything else and just say blab la bla from beginning to end, that alone sort of fulfills the commitment. I guess the bottom line of my blab la bla for the last 20 minutes is that every time you say something it is best to generate a specific mind. If you look at the sadhanas, many of us are saying 3, 4, 5, or 6 sadhanas and the Six Session Yoga, Cittamani Tara guru yoga and the lama chöpa. Each one of these begins with taking refuge and generating bodhimind. If it is a matter of only saying that you can say it in one of those prayers and for the rest of them you don’t have to say it, but no, each and every sadhana carries that. Most of them have special generation of mind, “For the benefit of all beings, I would like to become fully enlightened Vajrayogini or Arya Tara or whatever, for which I will do this practice.”

0:20:55

Even lama chöpa and all of them have verses specifically saying that. These are the indications and messages that they are giving us about the motivation, generating bodhimind. Every time this is very important. Without that whatever you do may or may not be that great. Otherwise we will say, “I already said my prayers in the motivation and corrected my motivation. Why do I have to do it again and again?” Because it is part of practice. Let me put it this way: if you have done a great motivation strongly once in the morning, the moment you woke up, the moment you opened your eyes, the influence of that motivation continues for 24 hours. If you are able to maintain that, you don’t have to repeatedly do it again and again. You have done one very nice one and the influence is continuing. That’s why in retreats, in the 2nd and 3rd sittings we don’t have to say everything we have said in the first session. We can begin the practice with the accumulation of merit or something like that. But if the motivation becomes weak you can stop whatever you are doing and remotivate. That will also do, but then you are making yourself responsible. In case we have difficulties, it is better to continuously say the sadhanas with all the words. It is safer.

0:25

All right, so now we should where we stopped.

Audience: Last time you said that guru devotion was done.

Rimpoche: All right. But again, this is important, so I like to talk about it again. The Tibetan earlier masters are so kind and great. You can say some words according to composed texts and keep the basic structure and framework of the practice together. The important thing is this: my own observation is that the difference between the early Tibetan practitioners and western practitioners, even today, is that the Tibetan practitioners somehow have an understanding that the Buddhist practice is not just one single step. It is multiple activities. These are almost engaging the activities of the individual in 24 hours of the day. Also the steps you are using are multiple things. That’s somehow understood by Tibetan practitioners. Of course, those who don’t do anything, don’t. Some are only stuck with saying om mani padme hum and nothing else and they just keep saying that millions and trillions of times. That category of people is there too. That’s fine and right and they are there. But there are people who know about the practice and they know it is multiple and a lot of work. In the west people don’t have that understanding. They are beginning to realize and see it, but basically they don’t have that understanding. Practice is singular for them; either you go and worship or you do a compassion meditation or something. But actually we want to challenge our negativities. That is true spiritual practice – and particularly the negative emotions, the causes of all negativities. That challenge requires so many methods, because our negative emotions and negativities we are engaged in and addicted to, come in so many multiple varieties that it is very complicated. Dealing with that has to be more profound than that. That’s why organizing your practice is extremely important.

0:33

The earlier Tibetan teachers were so kind to put all the necessary practices together in a manageable way so that you can say it and think about or not say it and meditate on. It is organized. If you don’t organize then one thing is here and one thing is there. Buddha had the experience and the total knowledge and had applied it and gave us methods on how to handle it. But one teaching he gave here, one there and another one over there. So we would have to go through the hundred volumes of collected works of Buddha and try to figure out which practice applies to whom and where and what negativities and emotions are addressed. The early Indian pundits like Guru Padmasambhava, Atisha, Shantarakshita and others have made the practice ready for us. We call it simplified. But what they really did is organize it.

0:35

That’s why, when Atisha came to Tibet, when he started teaching, his first teaching was the theme of Atisha’s life-long teachings in Tibet, called lam drön – “Light on the Path” or however it translates [lamp on the path]. It became very important. For us it is simplified and organized. You may think it is more complicated. Maybe it overly simplified so sometimes it becomes difficult to understand. They put the absolutely necessary things together. They sort of dropped out certain teachings of the Buddha, didn’t include them. If you are really looking at this practice for example you are not going to find anything about astrology in there. There is huge teaching of Buddha on astrology and also on medicine. These are not included. There are four root tantras and eight branches of the medicine tantra. That’s not Tibetan, it is the Buddhist medical thing and it is so sophisticated and complicated. Then they picked up more from the Indian aryuvedic system and homeopathic as well as Chinese traditions. It is very sophisticated, complicated and wonderful. But they are not included in this. They are different matters for different purposes. Here they only collected everything that is absolutely must together and put them into a couple of pages. That’s what I call “organized”. The individual needs to look at this, understand that and review or preview it – if possible, every day. Even if you can’t pinpointedly focus and meditate, either review or preview it. That depends on the individual, right? Those who have some development at some level, for them certain parts become reviewing and certain ones are previewing. For beginning lay persons everything is previewing.

0:40

That is what we call comprehensive practice. If you don’t have that, you have only one thing. You can meditate or you can analyze one point. That doesn’t give you a comprehensive practice. To understand that takes a long time. Many people will say you have to simplify and make a sort of ‘bus stop buddhism’ or a single bullet point. People have been looking for that for a long time. But now they begin to realize that’s not going to happen. That can’t help you, even if someone says there is. When you think about it, if you are really looking for some short sentence, then compassion and wisdom alone makes that sentence. Even then it is compassion and wisdom. If you say it is compassion you are right. But can compassion alone achieve your result? No. If you say it is wisdom you are right. It is part of it. But can you really achieve your goal by wisdom alone? No. So even then if you have the shortest ever possible thing to say about what is Buddhism probably you have to say compassion and wisdom. Even then you have to use the word ‘and’. So I don’t think it is that short and easy. But is organized.

To tell you the honest truth: if you don’t have a lam rim practice you don’t have a practice. You don’t have a Tibetan Buddhist practice – no matter whatever you may have. You may have a great Heruka or Guhyasamaja practice. You maybe a great umapa, a madhyamika – middle path person. You may be a bodhisattva. You may be whatever, but you don’t have a Buddhist practice, honestly. That is a true fact. That doesn’t mean the other practices are not practice. Nor I am a saying there are not perfect practices. They all are. But any single practice is not comprehensive and if you don’t have a comprehensive practice you don’t have a practice – to me. So a comprehensive practice is absolutely necessary, whatever you are. Everything else becomes additional. The individual must have a foundation.

When talking about this teaching, the early Kadampa lamas used to tell us that if you have certain containers to maintain tea, salt or whatever your needs are and you go out and find a handful of salt, a handful of tea or sugar or whatever you can bring these home and add them to your containers. If you don’t have the containers, what would you do with the handful of tea, sugar, salt, chilly or whatever? Mix them up? You can’t eat them like that. When you talk about in that manner you realize, “Yeah, I heard about it, but didn’t think very much.” We just think, “Yeah, yeah, that’s how the Tibetans present” or “that’s how the teaching is presented.” So perhaps that is what is means. If you read Buddha’s teachings, either his collected works which we call kangyur or the collected works by the early Indian masters which we call ten gyur, you will find very profound messages, but dealing with something else than what you are really looking for. So you don’t know what to do with it.

I am sure many of you have encountered this – “I have read that book, I have heard that teaching and I don’t know what to do with it. What is it all about? What do I do about it?” I am quite sure a number of you had this happen to you a number of times. That indicates there is no organized practice within ourselves. If you have an organized practice within yourself then you can [use anything]. If you have heard or read let’s say about something dealing with the vajrayana you can put it in your vajrayana container. If you hear something about dzog chen you know you can put it in your wisdom box. If you hear anything about compassion you can collect it and bring it into your compassion container.

0:50

If you hear something about the difficulties and sufferings of samsara you can maintain that in your container of the First Noble Truth. When you see what’s happening in the world, like in Japan, the Middle East, North Africa and so on, you know where it comes from and where it goes. It is maintained in the container of the Four Noble Truths and particularly in the First Noble Truth and Second Noble Truth. So everything is organized. If it is not organized you don’t know what to do with it.

I do have a lot of Tibetan books in my house, but when I need to find something I can’t find anything. Absolutely. Something went wrong when we put the catalog together and now we can’t find anything. In order to find a 20 page book I probably have to look into a couple of tens of thousands of pages. Then I tried to write it down on a piece of paper or in a notebook and then the notebook is gone. So that’s it. Just like that, [the same thing happens] if your practice is not organized. If it is organized then every single thing that happens in the world is dharma practice, including movies, dramas, musical concerts, children, school – everything, even the elections. If you are not organized, then everything is by itself.

The western mind – I am sorry to say – is maybe looking at everything independently. You probably look for something that is called “Tibetan Buddhism”. Then you want to have that in one or two comprehensive sentences, so you can say, “Yes, that’s what it is.” That can be good for multi-religion scholars and theologians, but for practitioners it is not good. For us, every single thing, whatever appears to us, whatever we read – whether the subject is war, the world economy, natural disasters, naturally good things happening, a new scientific discovery, everything should become our spiritual practice. When that happens we are beginning to do something right. That’s why a comprehensive spiritual path is absolutely necessary.

Not only that. You may think, “Well, I don’t really want to know what is happening in the world”. You don’t have to. But we already have so many complicated emotions within us. They come up, either now or later or in between or anywhere. Then what do we do? We have to handle them. We don’t just want to sit there and cry. Crying with emotions is silly. A simple, kind, sensitive human being – that’s what it is. But that’s not the spiritual practitioner’s solution. A spiritual practitioner should be able to recognize and look around and turn them into pieces and do something with them, rather than letting them take over. Anyone can cry. Who doesn’t know how to cry? Maybe some don’t want to cry, because they are too proud. Instead of crying they become angry. In comparison to that the crying is better. You shed your tears and it is finished and something else comes up. But spiritual practitioners should be able to handle that.

For that you need a comprehensive path. You don’t need to know what is happening in the world. That is true, but you need to know what is happening within you. Everything is happening within you. More things are happening within you than are happening out there. Whatever is happening out there is a reflection of what’s happening inside. Believe me. Whatever is happening out there has something to do with inside, including natural disasters, such as what is happening in Japan. I am not blaming the Japanese – it’s all of us. Everybody who is sharing this world, our internal matters are affecting that. Japan happens to be the point where it hit, where it manifested. Libya happens to be the point where it manifests. But it is the reflection of our own thing.

You hear about that wonderful, true God nature or Buddha nature within us. But there is also the horrible demon nature within us. Each and every one of us has that. How strong or weak it is depends on the individual. The symptoms of it are the emotions, like anger, hatred and sadness and crying.

1:00

Up – down, every one of them are symptoms. So we need to handle what we have in there. This is our challenge. My understanding or spiritual practice is not just this one thing. It is part of it. It’s not that. It is part of it. Think and analyze. We need it. As a matter of fact, a lot of critical analyzing is so important. You have to be very strong on this. Without it we can’t handle it, we won’t be able to develop. Honestly. Yesterday we talked about the improvement of the individual, our lives, our friends, society. The improvement of ourselves is the improvement of society. The improvement of ourselves is the improvement of world peace. There is no such thing called separate world peace over there which has nothing to do with you and me. No, that happens in politics. The politicians have nothing else to do. We say we like it or don’t like it – get out of it, get in here. We do that. That’s why you don’t need to know what is happening in the world, but you need to know what is happening inside yourself. Some practices are for motivation, some are for actual analyzing, some are for focusing and fixing, some of them are to be picked up as habits, some of them are to be adopted, some of them are to be rejected. That’s why it is important.

1:04

That’s why the root of development, guru devotional practice, becomes very important. Many of us know how to say: O glorious, great root guru, take your lotus and moon seat at my heart…

Now we begin to know what is happening. You are not asking for that great, glorious guru to come over here and pour him inside your heart. The essence of that is getting in your heart, which is representing the essence of ourselves, actually mixing them together. It is like a mixer, that kitchen aid. This is an important point. Those of us who are influenced by our normal [Buddhist] language, will think about emptiness when I talk about “nature”. Our mind will shift. It is funny. But I am not talking about emptiness, I am talking about essence, the nature of the lama and the nature of the yidam and the nature of our own subtle mind. They all become one. Right now we are not thinking of that nature as emptiness. In emptiness everything becomes the same. Nothing is different. But that is the reason why guru devotion is important and is called ‘root of development’. At the same time it also has to be the right guru, not just simply a guru.

In old Tibet, when I was a kid in the monastery there were some people named “Buddha”. There was a geshe from Gyalrong; so we used to say gyal rong sang gye sang gye ma re – the Gyalrong Buddha is not Buddha. It is just the name of an individual person. Another is lama lobsang lama ma re – Lama Lobsang is not a lama. So not anybody called “Buddha” doesn’t become Buddha. There people with the name “

Guru”. Some are called “guru blessing” or “guru sun shine” or “one who sees the face of the guru” – Guru Darshan, “one who is blessed by the guru”, “one who is the kind, compassionate moon of the guru” like Guru Charang. All these names are there. So anybody who says, ”I am a guru” is not necessarily a guru.

1:10

Anybody who says, “I am a lama” is not necessarily a lama. There was a guy called “Lama Lobsang”, a very good guy and he wore monk’s robes, whether he was a monk or not. When you asked him, “Why are you wearing monks’ robes?” he would say, “this is my bread and butter.”

So everyone who is named “guru” does not become a guru. I say this because you people will remember. Nowadays the name “lama” or “guru” are almost used like PhD. People put “lama” before their names, particularly western Buddhist practitioners. There are so many “Lama this” and Lama that”. So the quality of the lama is necessary. “Lama” is Tibetan and “guru” is Sanskrit. It has the same meaning. “lama” means quality. It really means la na me pa – no one better than you. It really goes up to that much. That is even more than “guru”, which means heavy, loaded with quality. When you buy a car with all other things included you say it is “loaded.” Just like that the guru is loaded – with all qualities.”Lama” is the short word and if you spell it out it becomes la na me pa. La na means above or better and me pa means negative, so together: there is nobody better of above you. That is talking about the qualities of the individual.

Know the quality and then make your own lama. That means to make yourself a lama, so that there is no one better than you. That itself introduces the goal of your spiritual path. You have to make yourself that way. It is one thing to say that the goal of Mahayana Buddhism is to make yourself a Buddha. That is one way. In another way Buddha means total knowledge, no one better, nothing more. If you have reached the ultimate, there is nothing beyond, right? That’s what Buddha is really all about. So the ultimate achievement is when nobody is better than you. There is no one above, no one better. The word lama itself is not only introducing that you pick up one individual as guide, but ultimately the essence of your mind, the mind of the lama and the mind of the yidam become oneness. That really means that you want to make yourself into someone of which is there no better. That’s your goal. If you look at the guru devotional practice to give you something to act or perform you are wrong. If you look at it as the real essence, your goal, your challenge, your aim, your purpose, all together, then it is something else. That’s not really looking at other persons, but looking at yourself and making it, taking the challenge. Then you conclude with:

PAL DAN TZA WAI LA MA RIN PO CHE

DAG GI NYING KAR PA MAI TENG ZHUG LA

KA DRIN CHEN CHEN POI GO NA JE ZUNG TE

JAN CHUB NYING POI BAR DU TAN PAR ZHUG

O glorious and precious root Guru,

Come take your Lotus and Moon seat at my heart

And keep me safe in your great kindness.

Remain steadfast until I achieve Buddhahood.

When you look at it that way then guru devotional practice becomes perfect. Otherwise, if the guru is over there, and I think that I devotional practice means to worship and that’s not right.

Sometimes in the 60s I heard some Hindu-Buddhist gurus making your drink their bath water, their dirty body laundry water. And people were happy to drink that. That’s not guru-devotional practice.

1:19

On the other hand that did happen. Tokden Rinpoche is a lama who came here in one or our summer retreats and gave all of us the oral transmission of the prajnaparamita text. He is now not only the ex abbot of Gyütö tantric college, but also the present Loseling abbot and thereby the future Ganden Tripa, not immediately but a little longer in the future. The previous Tokden Rinpoche was a very famous guy known as Dagyab Tokden. Dagyab is his native land. He was a very humble person and very poor, extremely poor, whithout any means for food. He relied on going to the monks’ gathering and getting whatever food he could get there. I was told he carried a huge bowl around with him. So every time somebody would give tea or something he had that big bowl ready to come out and get it filled. Many would not fill it completely but only gave half, because it was too big. He was totally dedicated to analyzing. At the beginning he was not smart. I don’t want to say he was stupid, but he was not smart. He got confused between words. In Tibetan impermanence means mitakpa. But if you say mi takpar with a little pause in between it becomes man – or human being – permanent. He spent years debating with himself about that. He used to run to teachings of Pabongkha, wherever he taught and also the previous Lochö Rinpoche was his teacher. He ran to Drepung for Lochö Rinpoche’s teachings and to a place outside Sera for Pabongkha’s teaching. Running in between those he tried to figure out why this small pause makes so much difference. That much dedicated he was. Everybody knew that and also that he was not so smart. Everybody gave him some extra food. Then he used to have horrible migraine type headaches – for years they say.

One time it was so bad he couldn’t do anything. You don’t have to pay Tibetan doctors, they treat you and give you medicine and even feed you, instead of you having to pay them. Lochö Rinpoche was teaching, so he ran there. Lochö Rinpoche saw him and asked, What’s happening with you?” He said, “I have a horrible headache.” “Is that your usual headache?” “Yes.” “Do you have your big bowl with you?” “Yes I do.” “Take it out.” So Lochö Rinpoche peed in that bowl and then gave it to him and he drank all the pee – not even a drop was left. Since then, not only was his migraine cured but he became an extremely smart person and later became known as Tokden Rinpoche. There are volumes of his collected works. He was referred to as do me ten pai drön me light of the lower part of Tibet. That is a very exceptional case. The total devotion of the disciple and Manjushri – that’s a really exceptional case. That should not be copied by every Tom, Dick and Harry. If you do that it’s not that great.

1:26

Not to repeat that is the quality of the guru. That becomes very important. I have given you now a lot of the essence of guru devotional practice. It’s not over there with that person, it’s over here with me. It’s my challenge, my goal, my purpose. It is the link between enlightened society and myself. It is the bridge to cross over. The essence of my mind, the lama’s mind, the yidam’s mind becoming one – that’s the real bridge that carries you from the ordinary level to the extraordinary level. That’s why you hear the guru called the source of all accomplishments. It is very important and also a little dangerous, because if it goes wrong from the individual’s side or the lama’s side, you can get into all kinds of trouble. One should know.

This is the first and foremost point. There is a verse in Tsongkhapa’s short Lines of Experience. There is also one verse in the lama chöpa saying the same.

ZHING CHOH DHAM PA JE TSÜN LA MA LA

CHÖ CHING GÜ PEY SÖL WA TAP PEY THÜ

DHE LEK TSA WA GÖN PO KHYÖ NYI KYI

GYE ZHIN JE SU DZIN PAR JIN GYI LOP

Precious Lama, supreme field of good fortune,

Root of all goodness and joy, my Protector,

By the power of my offerings, respect, and prayers,

Gladly bless me with your care.

Then in the Foundation of Perfections there are two lines as well:

YON TEN KUN GYI ZHIR GYUR DRIN CHEN JE

TSUL ZHIN TEN PA LAM GYI TSA WA RU

Following a kind master, foundation of all perfections,

is the very root and basis of the path.

If you read the lam rim chen mo there are probably 100 pages on that. In Pabongkha’s Liberation in the Palm of your Hand there will be 15 – 20 pages on it. In essence these two lines of the Foundation of Perfections have that – actually just the first line: Following a kind master, foundation of all perfections. That’s it.

That’s where you establish that basic foundation. Think about it, analyze, draw a conclusion and meditate and then later, when you say the Foundation of Perfections the whole thing will come up together and will take root. Without that it becomes very difficult. Not only Tibetan Buddhism, but all Buddhism and also Hinduism and any eastern religion would be difficult.

Anyone who we know as a teacher has that quality. I was remembering that one time Ram Dass was giving a talk here in the Power House and I went there with Aura and we heard him speak. I said, “You can see very clearly that he has the perfect guru devotional practice and Aura said, “Yeah, I can see that too.”

1:32

Then it becomes a part of you, a quality of you. Then you don’t have to say and meditate on it. Until you get to that level you have to purify negativities and clear obstacles. I have not taught you the detailed lama chöpa yet. I just taught you the brief lama chöpa. But if you look in it there is the 3 pointed request – though I might have introduced you to that.

Clearing obstacles

Developing

Maintaining till full enlightenment

Until that is developed fully, that’s what you do. That can develop in a short time, like through the efforts of weeks or months. To some people it takes years and decades. That is challenge No 1. That’s why we don’t wait till that is established. That could take a whole life time for some people, particularly if you analyze a lot of things. One good thing is that it improves your quality, but sometimes, when it goes wrong you can become very skeptical of everything else and everybody else. You think, “Everybody else is wrong except me.” If you have that skepticism it becomes much more difficult to develop guru devotional practice. Your skepticism will stand out. You have to be critical, but you have to be critical with limitations. The problem in the west is that the critics are critics. For the rest of their life they keep on critiquing, whether they are critics at the New York Times or CNN, but their job has become to critique throughout and all the time. For spiritual practice that is not right. You have to critique to make you understand better. Once you understand you have to take the critic’s hat off and wear the spiritual practitioner’s hat. Then you move along the path. Otherwise you keep on critiquing till you die and even after that you will keep on critiquing.

1:36

That’s not to your advantage. Critiquing is great and analyzing is must – to the point where you understand. If you are such a stubborn person you will keep on insisting, no matter what is happening in the world, who cares. That is a sign of stupidity. That hurts us. When it hurts you, particularly on this point, you will be deprived of the total path, because this is the very root.

In the afternoon we continue with the Previous Life. I introduced you to the short forms of guru devotional practice in the lama chöpa and Foundation of Perfections and this very short lam rim itself. So you do have a basis on which you can function. You have the words and the meaning and detailed discussion. Follow that with your practice and analysis. Analyzing is must. But you must draw a conclusion too. It may take to draw a conclusion, that’s fine. But you have to do it. Right or wrong. You can keep on debating this and you should. We stop here for lunch. Thank you.

1:39