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17

20110402GRAASE3

00:00 [When you go you go alone]. Your Rimpoche will not die for you or not necessarily go with you. So you better plan it yourself. That’s the best, honestly. Guru devotion should not be [blind following], just because it says to listen. So don’t ask the guru, “Should I go to the east or the south or west? Should I take this job or that job?” If your spiritual master is a fortune teller or astrologer you can do that. Then will tell you that your moon is on this star or this star is on your moon or is close or distant or whatever. Spiritual teachers will also know how to do that, but that is too much problem. Besides that, it is not going to help you much. What really helps is what you can manage and what you can do. Always bite what you can chew. If you can’t chew you will have a big bite stuck there and that’s not worth it. Whatever you do, don’t be at the service of the 8 worldly dharmas – certainly not the black ones and not the multi-colored ones and not even the white ones. That’s what we have done so far.

Not to be at the service of the 8 worldly dharmas is fine. But what do I really do? How do I make this life worthwhile? People ask, “What is the mission and purpose of my life?” We ask that a lot. To tell you the truth Buddha has already told all of us. He says: do the best you can and achieve the best you can. The best you can achieve is buddhahood. Buddhahood is the mission of our life. That’s for all of us. By chance we have the opportunity. This life has come to us by chance. I don’t want to go into that detail.

There are actually 3 levels to the mission of our life: The Best, the Medium, and the Least. Buddha defined them as the Three Scopes. Chok Tenzin Mönlam calls them “Three Capacities”. I used to call them: common with the lower, common with the medium and Mahayana. Why do we have these? Let me read from the Third Dalai Lama’s commentary.

How can we make our life worthwhile? You have to have the knowledge of the general structure of the practice and no matter what the Buddha’s teaching, there is nothing extra or apart from the teachings on these three capacities, layers or stages. When I talk about knowledge I don’t know what you get. You may think about educational, informational knowledge. I don’t think we are talking about that. In Tibetan Buddhism, and particularly in the Gelugpa tradition, when you hear “knowledge” we are talking about knowledge that changes the individual. It is quality. It is the combination of information and authenticity of the information and how that information works within the individual and changes the individual. It is all of those combined. You have to think about that. It is not just know-how. It is not like a manual for your i- phone or something. It is more than that. It is not just operational information. It is quality. That is what you have to think. General knowledge here means knowing how the path works. What is the spiritual path? How does it work? What are the challenges? How do you overcome them? What is the result of overcoming them? How do I know? All of these are included in “general knowledge”. When you say ‘general knowledge’ in English you don’t get that meaning. Usually you think it means you get some rough idea of what it’s about. Am I right? But the Tibetans think about developing yön ten – qualities. That’s what language does. It is the capacity of the vocabulary that makes a difference.

0:13

Generally, what is Buddhism all about? According to Mahayana Buddhism we normally say that first and foremost Buddha generated his motivation, followed by contemplation and finally he achieved the fruit or result level. You see these three steps in Buddha’s life. Why did they present it that way? There is a reason. It was not the first thing Buddha did. The first thing he did was that he was born and then he walked 7 steps raised his right index finger up and said, “I am the best.” That’s according the Buddha’s praise. Out of every step a lotus flower is supposed to have grown. But why here the first thing that is mentioned is that he generated the motivation? Because it is the first activity that corresponds with our own work. That’s why you always find that first Buddha generated bodhicitta, then he accumulated merit and wisdom through contemplation and finally he achieved buddhahood. That is how we talk, that’s the general understanding, the official line or slogan.

Many times we say, “I would like to follow. Where do I begin? What do I do? Should I say the Jewel Heart prayers? Should I do Tara practice? Should I do this or that?” So this gives you the answer: Buddha first generated bodhimind. That means first and foremost we have to deal with our mind. This is general knowledge. It should be Buddhism 101. The question that Jamgön Lama Tsonkhapa asked is similar, “What is the beginning of meditation – just like we say in the beginning of dharma books: ‘in Indian language….’? The replay came 200 years later, when the First Panchen Lama said, “The first step in meditation is watching your mind.” That could be again a translation problem. Some people say watching your mind, some say analyzing your mind. When you say watching your mind could mean to take yourself away into the distance and watch your mind over there. That’s what we do. We watch our breathing, our head goes down and we try to watch inside. Since our head can’t turn up to see it, that’s what we do. We try to watch our mind. But what does that mean? It is not our two eyeballs fixed on the mind. It means to see whether our mind is under the influence of negative or positive thoughts or whether it is focused or not. So this tallies with Buddha’s first activity of generating bodhimind. It has something to do with the mind. So the first thing is mind.

0:20

Also remember, the whole spiritual path is mind over matter. Mind is more important than the material. Most of the physicists and scientists believe that matter is more important than mind. Am I right or wrong?

Audience: Yes, I believe that most scientists at least publicly will say that they are materialist. Some of them don’t argue that the mind exists, but it is said to be an emergent property that develops from different material or energetic forces. It comes about like kind of a side effect of matter and energy.

Rimpoche: The Chinese tried to educate us. When they first came to Tibet they [introduced the] vocabulary of material importance and – they didn’t call it ‘spirituality’ but ‘mental importance’. They tried to educate everyone in the monasteries when I was a kid. They came in 1950, 1951. They didn’t come to give lectures in the monasteries. But somehow they were able to influence and penetrate throughout the monasteries – at least as far as I know - as well as the political and business field. Everywhere they were able to introduce the idea or concept of mental importance versus material importance in the mind of the Tibetans at that time. Then it became easier for them to say that in the view of communism the mind importance has no place for whatsoever. They say that the basic principle in communist theory is the importance of matter over mind. That was the goal of Mao and communism. That’s why up to today, through the Mao period, the Den Xiao Ping period, then the Jiang Tse min period, then the Hu Jin Tao period, through these 4, 5 generations, all Chinese leaders are supposed to be scientists. The country is run by scientists, not by politicians, not by spiritualists. That’s how the concept was first thrown around in the monasteries during that period. They talked about mind and matter before, but not so much. For the 10 years of Chinese occupation that I was in Tibet, the concept of which is more important, matter or mind – that question somehow penetrated – not as Chinese propaganda. Chinese propaganda was “If you are united you have power, if you don’t united you will fall into pieces” and “If you unite, the whole is greater than the parts – it is the iron, the rock”. They taught us rhymes in which to say that – even in the monasteries. But somehow they managed to have this question [of mind and matter] penetrate [society]. ‘’

0:26

When I look back the second thing that happened is that they raised a question. Which is more important: matter or mind? Then they came in and introduces two theories, one that says that mind is more important and the theory that says that matter is more important. The theory that matter is more important was introduced as the communist theory. The theory that mind is more important was said to be the old spiritual traditions like Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and so on. That was the beginning of the thought of Mao Tse Tung to start the culture revolution. The culture revolution was in 1961, 1962 [actually 1966 to 1976 acc. to wikipedia] . But the thought about that was started in 1951-52 – not only in Tibet, but in China, which had tremendous spiritual paths and Mongolia and even Xin Jiang, which had a muslim spiritual path. Somehow he had that idea of gradually penetrating the division into thinking whether matter was important or mind. And then which is correct. By that time doubt about that had penetrated the minds of people. Then he took the opportunity saying that matter is important because it is factual and the spiritual was imagination or false hope or whatever. Then it came up to the level of the culture revolution, saying “this is wrong, we have to throw it out”. Within the culture revolution, they not only rebelled against the old, ancient cultures but even against western education. Not because it was western, but education itself was seen to be the problem. The guy might have gone crazy. He couldn’t control the millions of people. Then he began to think of reducing their intelligence and declared war against education. It the wrong way it came up but it is a good thing for us. We really have to think whether it is mind over matter or matter over mind. Or can we equally manage them and have them complement each other? That’s why the Dalai Lama has the dialogue between Buddhism and science, trying to balance them, almost trying to see how complementary they can be to each other.

Every part of Buddhism does not necessarily go with scientific findings. I can’t say that’s going to be the case. For example “following the kind master” is not going to go well with the scientists – right in the beginning, right there you have an issue. Then precious human life, maybe – we don’t know. Buddhism will come it has these qualities and endowments and leisures and opportunities but scientists will say, “How do I know? We don’t know.” They will definitely accept that life happens, because of conditions coming together and things materialize because of the conditions and when the conditions fall apart the life is going to fall apart. Buddhism will say that this physical body will fall apart but not the mind. The mind is going to go away from the body. The good scientists will say, “We don’t know that. There is no proof.” That is also true. There is no proof. Scientists say, “We can’t accept that. Who is going where and when? Show me, give me the data”. That’s what going to happen. So I guess it is my turn to say now: mind is more important than matter (laughs). Since the 1950s I have been hearing that matter is more important than mind, but before that mind was more important than matter. The true reality is that they are complementing. You see it. There are differences but they are complementing. With an open mind we have to be looking at it and accept it.

0:34

We are talking here about the general Buddhism. As Buddha first generated bodhimind, he then contemplated. What does contemplation mean?

Audience: to think about, to consider over and over deeply, seriously.

Rimpoche: That’s all?

Audience: it goes deeper than just thinking about something.

Audience: it has the world “temple” in it. It includes holding something sacred.

Audience: and then con – means with.

Rimpoche: with what? As a Buddhist, when using that word, I understand that it is not only thinking, but also acting, functioning. That’s why when you said “with” I asked “with what?” To my mind it is not only understanding, analyzing and thinking, but simultaneously purification and collecting merit – all together. That’s what I am hoping the word ‘contemplation’ means. It is not just repeatedly analyzing. We use the words ‘purification’ and ‘accumulation of merit’ separately, but basically Buddha’s idea of working and building is that.

Audience: the Oxford dictionary of 1200 words says it is ‘religious musing’

Audience: that means thinking about something in a religious context.

Audience: the Oxford dictionary: to observe attentively, to gaze, to mark out a space for observation…….

Audience: there is an intention for action involved

Rimpoche: Are you are sure you are not Buddhist – influenced?

Audience: No, for example if I contemplate buying a car, I have the intention to buy one

Audience: That’s the vernacular, the current use of the word – originally it has more of a spiritual connotation.

Rimpoche: I don’t know

Audience: just the aspect of the word ‘contemplate’ for me raises the idea that there is something that you are choosing to reflect on and to sort out what to get rid of, what to keep, whether you can understand and implement something in your life. Usually contemplating refers to something where you are reflecting more deeply for a purpose.

Audience: If you consider contemplating the Buddha or compassion, I have always considered that it means to sit with, to take your understanding or image and to sit with that understanding and nothing else. It is a total envelopment of the concept or image that you are looking at.

Rimpoche: I can’t change the English meaning…..

Audience: Yes, you can!

Rimpoche: Thank you, but that will then only be by me, for me, my use only.

0:40

Really, when they say that after generating the mind, the second stage is accumulation of merit and purification, etc, a lot of people will call that the contemplation period. The major purpose is two things: we try to purify the negativities we have, because they are purifiable. At the same time by emptying the negativities out of your system you build your system up with the positive. We call that accumulation of merit or good karma. There may not be that much difference between merit and good karma, but there is something there. These are the things you spend time on – not only learning but learning is supported by purification and accumulation of merit – the combination of that. That is the real, true, genuine Buddhist practice, which will lead to the result what you can get. The result that it recommended is divided into the best, medium and least, these three levels. You can call that the Three Capacities, the Three Scopes or whatever. That’s what is begin introduced.

The lowest of all is the first. There is a quote by Atisha

Whoever, by whatever means

Aims merely for happiness in samsara

And pursues it for himself

Is understood to be a being of the lowest capacity.

(Translation Chok Tenzin Mönlam)

Someone, with some method and effort, who would like to have joy of samsara and benefit for oneself, self cherishing – that is known as the lowest capacity.

Someone who is seeking material benefit is never considered as spiritual. That’s where the line is drawn. The teachings say “Don’t work for this life, work for future lives” and also in our initiations we say “Don’t seek for benefits received in this life. Whatever benefits you receive in this life are not going to be helpful in future. If you seek future benefit, this life will also be benefited.”

This is not telling us not to seek benefits for this life, but it means not to go for the material part. If you do so, you may be able to bring certain comforts to your life at a certain level, but then that’s the end of it. In future lives nothing is going to happen. But if you keep on seeking the future lives’ benefit, then that may benefit this life too. Thanks to communism telling me about of importance of matter and importance of mind you can see that if you make material achievements your goal that’s what is going to happen. If you make the mental thing your purpose and goal, then not only this life and the future life but ultimately even buddhahood is available. Thereby Buddhists draw a line here. If you seek material benefits we don’t call you spiritualist. For spiritualists mind is more important than matter.

0:48

I was hoping to have some questions and answers, but I realize it is getting up to 5.00 o’clock. People have plans tonight so I may have to stop here. I will be here doing the Sunday talk tomorrow. After that we have a meeting. Who is in there anyway?

Audience: You invited dharma coordinators and sangha council presidents and associate presidents

Rimpoche: yes, it’s over skype. I think we are connected with the centers in Cleveland, Chicago and Nebraska and New York. Philadelphia only has Vicky and she can’t make it tomorrow. I will be looking forward to that. We will see you all tomorrow and don’t forget to register for summer retreat – everybody. First we thought if there will a lot of people we may have to move to another venue, but now they have decided not to move. It is going to be here. So we are limited to 220 people. If you don’t register now and just want to show up you may not have a seat. So register now with Debbie or on-line. If you don’t register you may not get a seat. That would be a pity. Many of you – we have been working years together. Then whatever knowledge you have and even this teaching – the conclusion of all these will be drawn with Pabongkha’s Liberation in the Palm of your Hand. I think that’s going to be from the beginning to end. That’s why we have ten days for it. It will be a little tighter than usual, because we have to finish. So do register now. If you wait till last minute everybody will be fighting with everybody and there will be no seats left and we cannot do anything. We cannot put people outside. That’s what is going to happen.

Thank you and good night – till tomorrow – da gi ni nyi sag pa ge wa di……0:53