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20110325GRNEComp

00:00 Introduction by Professor Yaroslav Kamarovski. My name is Slava Kamarovski. I am a professor here teaching Asian religions and my main one is Tibetan Buddhism. I came here last year and I teach different courses, introduction to Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism and other religious courses in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies. We have a Buddhist Studies Program and I have hand outs. One of the people in the program mentioned that there is a Buddhist Center here called Jewel Heart. The head of that center is Gelek Rimpoche, who is based in Michigan, Ann Arbor and he visits Lincoln at least once a year. I heard that he was going to come here soon and I decided to organize things a little bit for that. I found this beautiful room – I hope you like it. Next time we get together maybe we can get even a better room. Unfortunately it is spring break, so I see only a couple of my students, but other than that the house is full – it’s great.

Let me introduce Rimpoche first. He was born in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in 1939. He was recognized as a reincarnated lama at the age of 4. He was one of the last lamas to be educated at Drepung monastery before the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959. Drepung monastery is one what is known as the three great monasteries of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the most popular traditions in Tibet. After 1959 Rimpoche moved into exile in India and while being there he was active for example in editing 170 volumes of rare Tibetan manuscripts. He also was the head of Tibet House in Dehli and so forth. He also conducted multiple interviews compiling an oral history of Tibet. Finally Rimpoche moved to the west and founded the main seat of his Buddhist center in Ann Arbor. Besides that he travels widely, here in the United States and abroad. So here there is a little branch of his center in Lincoln, which is why he is here. Rimpoche will be talking about compassion. Compassion is one of the most important elements of Buddhist views and practices. Lets welcome Rimpoche

03:55 Gelek Rimpoche:

If I sit down you probably don’t see me and if I stand up I have to sit down. Anyway, thank you so much for the introduction and thank you so much for the beautiful room. It is very nice and thank you to all of you here tonight. I do owe an apology to our friends here in Lincoln. Last year I couldn’t come, though I was scheduled to come. Somehow I couldn’t. For one, I was not well and two, over-scheduling and all kinds of things happened. But mostly the reason was that I was not well at that moment. So I am sorry and I am trying to come twice this year but I don’t know whether I am going to make it or not. But at least I am here now. It is great that people in Jewel Heart are interested in Tibetan Buddhism and are working with Professor Serbia – I am sorry, Slava – I am glad I didn’t say “Professor Soviet Union”. He speaks beautiful Tibetan, just like one of those fellow Tibetans. I don’t remember meeting him before, but the teachers with whom he has studied are my class fellows, for example the head of the Dialectical School in Dharamsala. There are two geshes, one is junior and Geshe-la is my class fellow. The teachers with whom he has studied are great and he speaks beautiful Tibetan just like native Tibetans.

Particularly I understand he knows the dharma language very well, because he learnt that first, before he learnt the [colloquial] Tibetan. That means he learnt the written language, the dharma language, first before learning colloquial Tibetan. It is a wonderful icing on the cake for Nebraska, for all who are interested in Eastern traditions.

Can you all hear me all right? You don’t see me and I don’t see you, because I got this very strong light on me and you people are all in the dark. But if you turn the light on they won’t like it. So that’s fine.

08:09

The thing I have been asked to talk to you tonight is one of the essence of Buddha’s teaching and the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Naturally we will talk about wisdom and compassion. These are the real most important essence of Buddha’s teaching, whether it is the Theravadan or Mahayana tradition. Particularly in the Mahayana tradition, without compassion there is no Mahayana. The door way to the Mahayana is bodhimind. That is a Sanskrit word – meaning the mind of Buddha, seeking buddhahood or wanting to become Buddha. That is bodhimind. It is also referred to as bodhicitta, citta being heart. I better not say much because I don’t know Sanskrit and I don’t want to be talking about something that I don’t know. But that much I know for sure: citta means heart. Is that okay, Professor? The good thing with these professors is that they know Tibetan and Sanskrit, probably also Pali and probably Chinese too or Japanese. They are very good, unlike us. We have just been brought up in the monastery, just one language – Tibetan. Lucky enough I was brought up in Tibet during the last part of the glorious aspect of Tibet.

Now I am 73 years old, according to the Tibetan system. In western terms I am probably 71 or 72. I have got one extra year in between somehow – one year younger. Maybe it is good profit. Looking back it was very fortunate that I was born at the right time. It was really the last part of the glorious period of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet itself. During my period we had so many great outstanding masters. The popular masters, like the Dalai Lama’s tutors or masters or teachers, as well as great learned teachers in each individual monastery. At my time there was no shortage of great teachers. You could pick and choose.

0:12

Those masters were not simply just learned. They were very well trained – what we call in Tibetan kä tsün sang . kä is the quality of learning; tsün is the quality of perfect morality and sang is the quality of wisdom, kindness and compassion. These are the basic qualities we look for in Buddhist spiritual teachers. We just don’t go to a teacher if somebody is only learned, or only highly spiritually developed, but is not well trained and learned. We need all three qualities. And there were plenty of teachers with all three. That’s why when I look back I recognize is was such a glorious period. One can never dream to have it. That’s what I think now that I am in my 70s.

When I first came to the United States it was Bob Thurman who took me to one of the workshops he was doing. He wanted me to join him doing the workshop. There were plenty of spiritual teachers there at that time, including Baba Ram Dass, and all the usual suspects. There were quite a lot of them there, but it was the first time I was meeting many of them. They kept on telling me, “You are from the home of the spiritual path.” At that moment I was a little surprised and thought they were talking to me in a polite way. But later, when I really thought I realized how lucky and fortunate I was. It was really a unique period. It was there earlier in India, during the time of Nalanda and Vikramalashila and functioned very well. But then it died – I am not going to go into the Indian Buddhist history, but it was damaged so badly during the Moghul period in India. Afterwards, not even Buddhist teachings were available in India. Then later, when India became independent – around that time, they started what we call jang chub chöphel chö so in Tibetan. I think it is the Mahbodhi Society. They had to go to Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, in order to get Buddhist teachings back from Ceylon to India. Even the bodhi tree was re-transplanted from that area. So Indian Buddhism was truly wonderful, truly the father of all Buddhism. But it died in India. Then it developed in Tibet and I happened to be there at the last glorious period in Tibet. When I look back now I begin to realize that this is what happened.

Ram Dass and all these people then said, “You are from the homeland of the spiritual path.” I began to understand that years later, how fortunate I was. You know what happened after that in Tibet. Not only the communist Chinese took over, but they introduced the culture revolution. That destroyed everything – not just Tibetan Buddhism, but even the Chinese tradition and culture – everything, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism – everything was gone, even the antiques. Such a horrible thing was the culture revolution. It really deprives us of the rich tradition of mankind, from the greatest civilization. China is one of the greatest civilizations. All just gone. Tibet happened to be occupied by China at that time.

0:20

Gone along with that – just like we have that movie called “Gone with the Wind”. So it’s gone. Lucky enough that we have a little left-over Tibetan teachers, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and his great masters and many other great masters, like my teachers. They came to India and tried to revive everything. But Tibet’s glorious part was gone. I happened to be there during the last 10 year period. When I began to sit down I realized how fortunate I was.

That’s the reason why from whatever little I learned there I like to bring a little piece and present it to the world. What I learned out of Tibetan Buddhism is almost like a drop out of the ocean – not even a handful, just a drop. But even then that is so important, so valuable. Particularly today, these days, when the world is in such a horrible condition, we are faced by three wars. We have Afghanistan, Iraq and now we have Libya. And who knows what else. The Middle East is in terrible turmoil. Then we see what happened in Japan – it was a one – two – three punch. First the earth quake, then the tsunami and then the nuclear disaster. This is the period where we need anything, from any spiritual tradition that can relieve our pain a little bit. We need to relieve the pain we are going through. It doesn’t matter if it is the Judeo-Christian tradition or Hindu-Buddhist tradition or whatever. We need it. And we need it now. Not only do we need to relieve our pain but we also want to make sure that people don’t suffer thereafter – the future generations. If we don’t do it right, the world will suffer. It is not like before. It is a wonderful electronic age, beautiful and great. But at the same time effects are so quick and so sensitive that anything can be developed. Electronic things are almost like nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is good if it is used for clean electricity, but then if something goes wrong, everything goes wrong.

0:25

Actually we don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know and can’t handle it. We don’t even know what’s going on. Honestly. That’s why we are having these difficulties. That’s how the world is today. This is the time where we need the buddhas to keep compassion and wisdom. We need it for me, for you, your children, for the people who are suffering directly and indirectly. We need it for those of us who are just watching. The real essence of Buddha’s message, especially mahayana buddhism, is wisdom and compassion.

The subject we are talking about tonight is compassion. Compassion is something wonderful. We all like and enjoy it. But I do remember one time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The late American poet Allen Ginsberg did a reading for Jewel Heart in one of the biggest halls the University of Michigan has. It was completely packed with students. Allen has a funny way of doing it. In the middle of the reading he called me up on the stage and started asking me questions, “What you do think about this and that?” I forgot the exact question but my answer was “compassion”. Then Allen said something I couldn’t understand. You have to remember that I don’t speak English well. I didn’t get what he said, plus there were 4000 – 5000 people watching and there were huge lights. I said, “What?” and he repeated and I still didn’t get it. So then I smiled and gave an excuse and tried to run away. But Allen was such that he wouldn’t entertain such a thing. He wanted to make sure I understood what he was talking about. I started sweating. Somehow he let me go. Then the moment he finished his reading he asked me, “You didn’t understand what I said?” I said, “No.” “I said: buzzword.” I asked, “What does that mean?” So Allen went to sit down with me somewhere and talked to me for 20 minutes about the meaning of “buzzword”, there that language came from, who used it and so on. I was not even hearing it. He was very kind. If I had paid attention when Allen explained things to me, my English would be a little better now, for sure.

0:30

So a buzzword is an overly used word, which doesn’t mean much anymore. The next day Allen started showing me that there was even a construction company called “Compassionate Construction Company”. So people were using the word that much. So because of becoming a buzzword we lose the value of compassion tremendously. So you really have to catch the meaning of compassion. How do you feel that compassion from your heart. What does that mean to you? That’s important, otherwise it is just a buzzword. It sounds nice, everybody likes it and uses it, and – excuse me, I am in Nebraska and have to be careful – even George Bush Junior uses the word compassion. He talked about conservative compassion, remember? That’s why we have the Iraq war and Afghanistan war happening today. That’s really what it is.

What does compassion really mean? How do you feel it? What is the difference between sympathy and compassion? All these are questions we should be thinking about. For many people compassion means looking down on people who are suffering. They say, “The poor things, the poor little immigrants, who don’t know where to go and how to speak!” Or we may say, “Oh, more poor little Iraquis got killed”. We may think that is compassion but it is not. It is looking down. Women always have that problem too. We always talk about “little old ladies”. They become the object of compassion. We use that very often. I have tried to give you examples in a gentle way, but along with that so many other things come, right? You can imagine, I don’t have to say it.

Sympathy and looking down are not compassion. It’s something else. Many people will answer you,” Thank you for your concern, but no thank you.” I noticed a few years ago in New York City the Tibet Fund, an organization what looks after Tibetan refugees, had invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a number of philanthropists to have a conversation for one day or half a day. It turned out to be half a day anyway. To prepare for that somebody arranged a dinner and I was asked to attend. There were not so many, 8 or 9 people. They were all philanthropists. The Rockefellers were there and the Goggle chief and all kinds of big, wealthy people. They were all extremely concerned and were thinking of the best way they could be generous. They were seriously thinking. Rockefeller had a couple of interesting questions. I turned to him and said, “You have thought really carefully about this.” He said, “Not only that, I hired Professor Thurman to polish my questions.”

Sometimes we say, “Oh these rich people, they don’t care.” They do care, honestly, they want to do the best they can. But nobody ever thinks about the receiving side of things. I said, “What about the people who receive?” They all turned to me and asked, “What about it?” I said, “How do we look at them? Do we respect them? Do we care?” They said, “Yes, we do care, that’s why we are helping. Then I asked, “Do you treat them equal as one of you or as subject of your giving?” It is like giving them something, whether they like it or not and say, “Take it or leave it.” They thought for a while. They are very intelligent people and the next day when they were asking questions, all questions changed to the receiving person’s point of view and whether we respect them enough or not. Then the Dalai Lama came and said that when the early Indian kings wanted to be generous to their subjects the Buddha had recommended that the kings and queens should personally hand over the gifts to the people, rather than lining people up and distributing gifts to them. You have to not only treat them equal to you but treat them as precious. Think about them with compassion.

0:40

The bottom line is this: if you have compassion without love, it will be something else than having compassion with love. If you care about the people, if you are concerned and love them, the compassion that follows that love is living compassion. Without love, compassion is only dry and academic compassion. That compassion will not have so much effect to the other people, to yourself. Compassion with love affects people better and affects you better. In other words, compassion must follow love. You have to think, “I know you, I respect you, I like you and I am very concerned about you. I love you and I will do whatever you need.” Then the compassion that comes after that will be different.

I have an example I often give. Let’s say there is an accident outside. You can hear it and think, “Oh, there was an accident.” And you let it go. Then somebody tells you, “Somebody ran over a dog.” Then you will say, “Oh, poor dog.” But imagine that person said, “Somebody ran over a human being, a man or woman got knocked down” and now watch your thoughts. Then think it was not just any man or woman but someone you know. It is So and So with a name and face. Watch your feelings now. Then think it was not just So and So, it was my family member. Now watch your feeling. Then think, “It happened to be my spouse” and then watch your feeling. You see there is a big difference from the dog to your spouse. Look at how strong and how effective the compassion is. That is because of the love. Compassion without love is dry and boring. Compassion with love is something else. It is alive and effective. That’s the difference I am trying to tell you.

When the bodhisattvas, those who will become buddhas, talk about compassion, that’s what they are talking about.

It is my job here to show you the difference between compassion and compassion. It is up to you what type of compassion you are going to pick up.

0:45

You see very often that we try to give love and compassion to children or to the mother in law and they say, “Thank you, but no thank you.” That’s the reason why. You may be wondering what may be the reason behind that. You think, “I have been doing my best, but they not only reject me, but they also resent me.” That’s because you are not giving love. You are using dry compassion as an excuse. It can sometimes even go to the passive-aggressive level, if you completely wrongly use the compassion. People such as yourselves, kind, compassionate, you go out of your way to help people who need it, like the handicapped. That is kindness, that is compassion.

Some people get burnt out. “I have done enough, but no matter what I do it is never good enough.” True, it is never enough, because the desire of the individual is so strong. If you give

an inch they want a yard and if you give a yard they want a mile. For sure, this is because of the human greed. But at the same time if you really have compassion coming from love or influenced by love you will not get burned out. If you go deeper into the Buddhist teachings they will tell you that even for the sake of one single individual, if you have to go to the hell realm for eons, don’t be sad. Develop compassion.” That is rather extreme for us, maybe too far – a long shot. However, little things – why not? That tells us that our compassion is not really genuine compassion. To us it is a secondary activity. If everything I need to do for myself is done it is fine. If I have a little extra money, a little extra time, I will be happy to do it. That is limited compassion. I don’t think anyone is seeking limited compassion – neither you nor the receiver. We develop compassion because we want to be the good one, the right one, the winner. No one will say, “I am not compassionate.” Somehow people like compassion. Particularly we, the Americans, like to be on the side of the winners. If you are a journalist, you not only want to be on the side of the winner, you want to be the winner and not only that, you want to be the winner today, tonight, this moment. You can’t wait till tomorrow.

But if we not getting it the next day or the week after or ten days or two weeks or three weeks later, we will say, “Forget it.” At that moment it means you don’t care. It is only artificial love, artificial concern. If you watch TV, all the anchors, one after another, will be absolutely impatient. “When is it going to happen – is Gaddafi still going to be there in six weeks?” “How long will Mubarek still be there?” How many times have we heard that?

0:51

That’s how limited we are. The earth quake and tsunami disaster that struck Japan is not going to be over in a couple of days. The effects will there for a long time and people’s concern and compassion has to follow. If you look at the Japanese who really went through disaster – how great dignity they maintained! I am really surprised and appreciative. They didn’t become hysterical, cried or shouted. They lined up and waited patiently for a bottle of water or a blanket. Nobody tried to cut the line. Nobody was doing anything. Very nice. And they didn’t blame anybody. I was very surprised. I saw an interview with a Japanese woman who lost everything. The reporter tried to get her to say something. He asked her, “Don’t you get angry at your government, because they didn’t do anything about your suffering?” Her reply was, “The government has so much to do. We had an earthquake, a tsunami and there is so much to do, but international aid is coming and everybody is so kind and wonderful. So if I get a bottle of water and a blanket, that will be useful.” How dignified the people are! Human dignity is not lost even in such a disaster. I thought it was wonderful. That is having compassion for oneself. You are struck by a natural disaster, however you don’t want to lose your human dignity. Yes, you need water and a blanket, and you are not the only one. So people did help each other.

0:55

Honestly. I was talking with some friends this afternoon. I said that we had this disaster in New Orleans six years ago and even now how much difficulty is still there. Nobody is talking or thinking about it. I am quite sure the Japanese will rebuild the city of Sendai within the next 3 or 4 years, without any difficulty – if they utilize their savings. That could be a great economic boost for them, rather than a loss. We may be surprised, provided they distribute their wealth properly. For me, the emergency funds the Japanese have are meant to be used for this. It should be used for people not the government – by the people for the people. If they let people build, they will show their government. It goes the same way here. They will show their government how they can improve their lives. We Americans had an economic stimulus package. Who knows where it is gone? Honestly. We begin to see some road repairs here and there – in my case in Michigan. Who knows where it is gone? It is not corruption or that somebody didn’t get it, but in this bureaucratic system, where did what go? But if you just let it go and let the people manage, they will manage well. They are all concerned for their lives. They need to build their houses and their lives. They need to build their health.

And we, as compassionate persons, can help them build effectively. That will probably be compassion in action. There are a number of things people organize for compassion in action. Some are good, some are not. I am always very skeptical of institutions and their organizing. Somehow things get lost. But without institutions we cannot function either. With institutions something goes wrong somewhere and nobody knows. But again, the general trend or policy doesn’t matter. The individual has to do something, wherever and whatever. We as individuals can help. So we should help. If we as individuals can contribute we should contribute. We can do it in terms of volunteering, hard work, thinking, money and all of those. We should contribute wherever we can – physically. Mentally, we should train ourselves, thinking positive, compassionate. We should meditate on compassion. We should do both, analytical and concentrated meditation. If you don’t do your analytical meditation on compassion you won’t know what compassion really is. If you don’t do concentrated meditation on compassion, compassion won’t become part of your life. It has to become part of your personality. People talk about interpersonal [relations]. That is nothing but compassion.

1:01

It is compassion for yourself and compassion for others. The nature of yourself as human being should have that. It should be part, piece and parcel of yourself. You can do that by meditating, but doing concentrated meditation on compassion. You can do concentrated meditation on compassion, if you do analytical meditation on it. What is really compassion? You have to think, “If I do this, will that be a compassionate act or an uncompassionate act?” I am not trying to be politically correct or incorrect. I am presenting to you straight forward from the spiritual point of view. Some of you may not like it, some of you may. This talk will be put on our website. And people who are listening, some will like it and some won’t.

Our intervention in Libya today – is that compassionate action or what is it? It is very difficult to say that it is compassion. It is very difficult to say that it is not compassion. The intention of people is such that we don’t want the innocent people to get slaughtered by this crazy guy. On the other hand, the way and how we do that is by engaging in violence and killing. Killing is killing – no matter whoever the person is, pro – or anti Gaddafi. Killing is killing – to me. It is violence. Look at how Gandhi developed. He went against the British empire. In those days the sun never set on the crown of England – because they occupied the whole world. So when it became dark on one side it became light on the other side. So that’s why they said, “the crown of England shines for 24 hours.” Such a huge empire was challenged by a little, dusty Indian guy, walking around in chappals and with a stick and a little goat. He challenged them through non-violence. Gandhi never challenged the British through war. Yes, there was violence, as the British beat up people. They went line by line, let themselves get beat up. Those who fell down were removed but immediately the second batch went up. That’s the way of non-violence. Mind you, Gandhi went into the sea to get salt. That’s how he went against the British empire. He collected salt from the sea so that the tax collected for salt was cut out. People bought sea salt collected from the sea, way beyond the British territory. There were no Tomahawk missiles used.

Dr. Martin Luther King brought non-violent change here, again, in the same way. Then, if you look at Nelson Mandela, he did the same thing. Look at His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, throughout his life time he has been trying to bring change without violence. He did not engage in violence. This gives us some message. Yes, we must protect the innocent. But can’t we do something else? To me, violence is violence. Killing is killing. I can never justify the means because of the end. The end can never justify the means. To me it is the principle of compassion. That’s me, one individual, old Tibetan ex monk and crazy guy. Honestly. And to me, violence is violence. Our principle should be to achieve everything and anything through non-violence. America’s public, the people, are kind and compassionate, really. They are good Christians and good Jews, good Buddhists, good Hindus – whatever you are, maybe good new agey – whatever you are it is good. But non-violence must be the principle. That will be perfect compassion in action. As human beings it is our duty that we should do something and act. We should not waste our energy. We should act. If you can make every action non-violent, it won’t hurt anybody.

1:10

If you hurt somebody, hatred and anger develops. Hatred brings hatred. Violence brings violence. As a result we will be killing each other. What is the use? As an educated, intelligent person we should be able to engage in a non-violent way to help and protect. I am glad I had this subject of compassion in action tonight. True compassion should be non-violent. Life is so precious. Any individual – take you and me – the most precious thing is our life. We may think our most precious thing is our money, our green dollars. But it’s not. Our most precious thing is our life. If we lose that we have nothing. We have lost everything. That goes for everybody, whether you are Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani or Libyan or whoever. That is what we have to protect.

The normal understanding is that if you are dressed in uniform and carry a weapon in your hand you can be killed. If you are dressed in villager’s clothes and cover your body completely with a piece of cloth you cannot be killed. You are innocent. But everybody who is carrying a gun in hand are not just hate-filled people. They are not just soldiers. Many of them are forced to do it. Many of those who are dressed up like women and have kids around are not necessarily non-violent either. Almost all these suicide bombers are dressed in that way, whether they are women or not. We are in such a world today. On one side there are natural disasters. People suffer. On the other side there are man-made disasters, torturing humankind. In between that, what little light you can share about people like Buddha, like Jesus, like Gandhi, we should. We should be able to use that, not only outside, but also inside, to have a little light in the darkness, within ourselves. That will affect me, the individual and that will influence your companions, your spouse, your family and that is how peace can be found. That is how non-violence can be promoted. That is how we engage in compassion in action, to bring peace and harmony within mankind.

1:15

I think it is our opportunity, our duty, and we are here, right this moment and so let us start from Lincoln, Nebraska. Why not? You know the good old American saying: Charity begins at home. That’s what it is. That’s all I wanted to say. If you have questions – fine. Otherwise we go home.

(audience claps)

There doesn’t seem to be any questions. That’s good. Thank you. I forgot to tell you something and of course all of you should know. I think I am excited to tell you. We do have a new Jewel Heart website. It is www.jewelheart.org. There you can find the information about the White Tara Healing empowerment I am going to do tomorrow. All of you who are interested, are welcome. I have no idea where we are meeting. But the Jewel Heart website, if you go there, you can see what we are doing in Jewel Heart. There are a number of things that I taught that are live. I don’t know if you are showing this talk here live, but the posting of it will be there.

I just wanted to tell you to please do visit our website and you will find a little something that may bring some peace to you. That’s all I wanted to say. So thank you once again. I better get out here.

1:18:37

© 2011, Ngawang Gelek 20110325GRNEComp Page 1 of 9