Archive Result

99

20110409GRPH3P1

Transcriber: Hartmut

00:00 4 Immeasurables chant

00:00

Thank you and welcome everybody. It is very nice to see so many old friends here, honestly. [didn’t transcribe GR greeting particular people]. So it is good, nice, small group here and I don’t think we have to say prayers. We are ourselves in good prayers.

I have been requested to talk about the Three Principles of the Path. They are the three most important things in Buddhist practice. [didn’t transcribe GR personal comments to particular people]. Many of you are familiar with this. It is the Buddhist 1, 2, 3. I thought of doing this for people who are not so much familiar and I thought it may be easier for them. But you people are all very familiar. So maybe it is okay if I go the more traditional way. There is one new person here? So I don’t know what we should do, welcome you or beat you up? Normally in the Buddhist monastery, they will make the new monks work very hard. They call it the “New People’s Tax”. But it’s not a tax. They make you do every dirty job, like cleaning and washing and peeling potatoes, preparing food, washing dishes and so on. So I give you a work load.

The Three Principles root text is in the blue prayer book. You have to find it there. That’s like in the monasteries. They don’t give you a piece of paper with the subject. They say “It’s in the book called something something – get yourself a copy”. The new ones have to find their food, clothes, a place to stay and then they have to find their text books. No one will just give them a copy. So find that text book and read it yourself, not only once but 30 times at least. See if you can memorize that. That’s useful. Doesn’t matter in which language, English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch. Just memorize it. Then your job will be to try to think about the meaning. This text of the Three Principles is actually nothing but a letter written by one of the greatest Tibetan masters called Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa, who is also the founder of the Gelugpa tradition. He lived from 1357 to 1419. One of his disciples happens to be the chieftain of some Mongol-Chinese-Tibetan mixed tribes. They are a group of ethnic people, a clan type of thing. Maybe there are 300,000 to 500,000 of them. This chieftain went to central Tibet and had a number of teachings and he practiced those and was a very good person. He kept communication with Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa. Being a chieftain he could send his own messengers. As one of the replies in letter form Jamgön Lama Tsonkhapa composed this text called the Three Principles of the Path. So it is actually a letter.

0:10

But instead of “Dear So and So – how are you? Bla blab la” he begins with an homage to the great gurus: je tsun lama nam la chag tsal lo.

This is a nice good old group except 2 new ones and I don’t know about you

Audience: I have been coming off and on.

Rimpoche: hmm, so why are you off sometimes?

Audience: I surround myself with lots of things to do and then I don’t have time for everything. And I study in the sangha of Lobsang.

Rimpoche: Very good. A lot of people do that. It is not only you. Nr one, people are not so sure what they are doing. Nr 2, the path maybe right, but they are not sure whether it is right for them or not. Nr3, we have to make a living and our life circumstances and everything can hold us up.

I don’t know what to say. I can’t say that’s not right, because that’s the reality. I can’t say it is good, because it interrupts and disturbs your spiritual path. It is also necessary, because whatever you do, you have to make sure that it is not only the right path but the right one for you. We only have one life and the time doesn’t last that long. The time goes. In the beginning it is important to make it is right. Once you find the path and reasonably you think it is right, then it is important to put your efforts in. I have some friends – I don’t call them students, but friends – and some of them are too skeptical, always doubting. Everything is doubtful. The idea is “I have to observe it properly and then nothing is ever right and the life goes. You have a tremendous amount of information from every corner. That doesn’t contribute towards the development of the individual. It does contribute towards becoming more skeptical. If your personality becomes skeptical then you will be skeptical about every path you come across – even if Buddha came here himself into our life!

It is important to examine first and then it is equally important to draw a conclusion and put some time in. Not only time, but also examine back. That could last one, two or three years. You look back, “What have I done? Have I achieved anything? If so, was it good? If not, why not?” Looking back like that is very important. Particularly in the west you don’t have many reference points to compare. It is almost like saying, “This is a good friend of mine and he is doing this, so maybe I do it too.” There is not much of a solid thing to go by, which is very unfortunate sometimes.

Back in Tibet in my life it was very funny. Maybe it was lucky, maybe not. Lucky in the sense that I got all these opportunities and did everything. But I was not lucky in the sense that I did not examine anything. It was the only path known in Tibet, although there are Tibetan Christians and Muslims and Hindus. But they are almost non-existent. So it was not a question for me to examine my path. Even among Tibetan Buddhists there are all these different sects and traditions, like Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu and Gelug. I have been born and brought up in a circle within the Gelugpa tradition. Everyone around who I would see, thousands of thousands of monks in the monasteries were all Gelugpas. A few tiny little groups of Kagypas would be sitting in an area somewhere else and the Nyingmas were way back at the Chinese border or maybe on the Sikkhim or Bhutan side. But in Central Tibet where I was brought up there was almost nobody who was not Gelugpa. Nyingma, Kagyu and Sakya lamas would come and visit, but we almost treated them like strangers coming in, like “See who is here, a Nyingmapa lama!” Honestly, it’s so funny. I never had to observe what tradition I should follow in my personal experience. And the people of my age in whatever area they belonged to would follow that tradition. Suppose you are in the Dege area or Pepung area. There are nothing but Kagyupas there. If you go down a little bit form there, there are nothing but Nyingmapas. If you go up towards the Nepal border area there is nothing but Kagyupas and Sakyapas. So it was somehow geographically settled. We didn’t have to go through the searches like you people. You get everything presented and you see it and then you really have to observe which one is right for you.

In Buddha’s teaching none of them are wrong. They all are right. They have different cultures and traditions and systems, different prayers, different ways of doing it. So it is good to know which is right for you. Not only that, you have Burmese Buddhism, Thai and Sri Lankan and Chinese Buddhism. Then there is Taoism and all of those are there. So you have a need to see and know which is right.

0:25

What is not right is to pick up a bit from here and a bit from there and try to make it something. That is not good in my opinion. You have to make your own choices of course, but in my opinion that’s not good. The reason is that then you don’t have a perfect path. You need all the steps. If you pick up one from here and one from there and put them together, what do you get? Something that makes you feel good? Something that you think is right? You have no measurements, no landmarks that you are traveling through. So where are you reaching? You are creating something, which may make you feel good. You may think you are doing something. It will keep you busy. That’s fine, but truly, spiritually it is important that the practice makes a dent.

So here we have the letter Jamgön Lama Tsonkhapa wrote to the Mongol chieftain of the very remote Tralkor Tsa kho tribe or clan. It is somewhere in the border area of Mongolia, China and Tibet. It was very powerful militarily. Not really in a big way, but in those days in the late 1300s there was no organized military, but they were great fighters, very strong. Gengis Khan is not very far from there, so all the tribes were still organized that way. So it was a powerful group.

Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa provided him with that letter, but not only him, but his whole group. With that he provided them with a basis and not only guidance, but with a landmark, where you can see where you are moving and getting to. He provided 3 major landmarks or principles.

0:29

The language of the first principle that had come from India and was translated into Tibetan and now into English is actually not suitable for us. We can easily misunderstand the message. It is called renunciation. Why is that not suitable for us? Because we will immediately think that we have to renounce everything, shave our heads, go into the forest or cave and meditate. That is a misunderstanding. When I began to teach in English, I didn’t speak well and couldn’t communicate properly. It was not only broken English but one word, two words and so on. So this Buddhologist told me not to call it “renunciation”, because it could be misunderstood. He said, “Then you have to explain a hundred times that it doesn’t mean to shave your head and give up your life.” There is no substitute term either. The term “Seeking Freedom” really doesn’t fit properly, because actually it is renunciation. The question is: what do you renounce?

The reason for the misunderstanding is that people think, “Oh, that’s Buddhism. They talk about non-attachment, so you just have to get out.” That’s how it can easily go. That might not be very good for some people, particularly new people. I am not telling you to give up or renounce your girl friend. You can have as many as you want to. (laughs). But renounce attachment. Again, I don’t mean renouncing love, but attachment. The sticky stuff. You really renounce the negativities and the causes of the negativities, the negative emotions. Suffering is the result of the negativities. The cause, the result and the actual parts of the negativities – that should be renounced. Not the girl friend, but the negativities that come with the girl friend. Not the boy friend, but the negativities that come with the boy friend. Not the wealth or money, but the negativities that come along with wealth and money.

Why do the negativities have to be renounced? Because they hurt yourself and other people. They definitely hurt yourself.

0:35

I came to the United States in the mid 80s. We started Jewel Heart in the United States in 1988, but Jewel Heart first started in Holland in ’85, ’86, maybe two years before in the United States. We started with a very small group. It began with two girls and their friends. I am giving you some background, but now I forgot what the background was supposed to be for. Must be my old age and beginning to forget. Old age is suffering and we don’t like suffering. How do we get rid of it? By not having the causes and conditions that made the suffering become obvious. Old age is something you cannot actually get rid of. You are going to be old – if you are lucky enough to live long enough. We have a saying in Tibetan

Ge long chon dang u ga le – if you have time to grow old the gray hair will come naturally.

So you cannot get rid of old age. But you can get rid of the suffering of it. Suffering is based on causes and conditions. You not be able to get rid of the cause, but you can avoid the conditions. That’s why people do exercise, eat the right food, do the right things. All of those are trying to delay the effects of age. The cause is there, but the conditions that cause the symptoms and suffering of old age doesn’t show. So you are sort of diverting the conditions. When causes and conditions don’t meet the result doesn’t materialize. Materially we know that.

Spiritually, we are supposed to cut the cause. Conditions we can physically work with. Spiritually, you work with the cause. Physically, as long as you live you cannot reverse your age. But again, the cause of the suffering within that can be changed. That’s why it is called renunciation. We are renouncing the negativities, the causes of suffering. These are created by negative emotions. So renunciation really means to renounce the negative emotions. You cannot change negativity – with our power right now – into positivity. You may be able to do it later. But now, what we can do is the change the causes of negativities – our negative emotions, such as anger- hatred and jealousy, fear, obsession, superiority complex, ignorance, wrong views – the doctrine type of views. These are the six of them, which we call the 6 root delusions. The superiority complex is traditionally called “pride” in Tibetan. When you listen to the explanations, when you watch the nature of that particular emotion, it is more what is called “superiority complex” in English.

There is also something called 20 secondary negative emotions, so altogether there are 26 negative emotions. If you want to know there is a transcript called “Mind and Mental Faculties” and now we call that “Inner World of Mind”. If you read that you will understand what it is. These are the 26 to be renounced.

Why do they have to be renounced? Because they cause suffering. When they are influencing and occupying your mind, you will want to do something wrong and you will do it. When we are occupied by hatred we don’t want anything else except war.

0:46

Really, if you look back at how we spent the whole 8 years of the George Bush period, especially the first 3 years of his first term, we were talking about nothing else but war. It was pre-emptive strikes and “we bring justice to them” talk. All those things happened. There were the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and everywhere else. This is because people were influenced very strongly by hatred. It was anger that actually became hatred. And fear was great. 9-11 happened and no one can deny that. I don’t know who made it – it doesn’t matter. There is a group of people who say it was the CIA who did it. I don’t know if the CIA would go that far. They do all kinds of things, but whether they would go that far I am not sure. But whoever did it, that happened. People lost their lives, their loved ones and it was miserable. The two beautiful buildings in the middle of New York City were no longer there. That is real. That really happened. That created tremendous sadness and fear within our mind. We saw people falling from the windows. We saw it live on tv – jumping in the open air. We saw the buildings collapse and dust covering New York City. Then we labeled that as done by Osama bin Laden. Then everybody got angry towards that group of people – rightly. That anger and fear that they were going to do something else was there. Everywhere, where anything happened, we were afraid of terrorists attacks. They also continuously tried to do something. The combination of fear and anger and sadness forced the American people who were actually peace-loving, kind and caring people to be willing to say yes to war.

0:51

We were willing to say, “Spend our tax money to kill people.” We went to that extreme. We were willing to give up our rights. Nowadays, when we go to the airport we have to take our shoes off. Luckily, we don’t have to take our pants down. If we continue the same thing that will happen too. Now it looks like it is not going to go further that much. If you go to European or Asian airports you don’t have to take your shoes off. But here you have to, in order to get into a plane. I tried to take my shoes off in Amsterdam, going on a plane to the US. It has so much become my habit from doing it here. The guy at the machine told me, “We don’t take our shoes off. Put them back on.” It is the same plane, whether you fly from here to Amsterdam or from Amsterdam to here. But from there to here we can wear shoes and from here to there we have to take them off. Why? Because people have just gone crazy. Nobody stopped or challenged that. Only this year, finally a challenge came. They were beginning to touch people everywhere until some guy started punching them. Then they didn’t go beyond. Honestly, if you let them continue, they will go on and do anything. Somebody behind these electronic screening machines will watch and then send it to different people. That happened, remember? So when someone starts challenging them then they stop. So that happens. So the fear and anger combination makes us do any crazy thing.

Otherwise can you imagine Americans like you and me willing to take off shoes or anything? We will say, “I am an American, I am not taking my jacket off!” But the fear made us do it and also they have manipulated us by using the media. They put people on who say, “Safety is most important. It is good to take the shoes off and I don’t mind taking my pants down.” Some silly people say that and they put it on TV and make everybody follow that. Then if you don’t obey them, they declare you a “threat to national security”. All that fear is able to manage us and that is how they have been able to cut individual rights so much. Between George Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft they have cut our individual rights and freedoms so much in the name of safety and security. That was all because fear and anger was created among the people. So they could do that.

As a matter of fact, if you look back in history, almost all those dictators and kings earlier ruled through fear. Look back to old European and Asian history. The Chinese dynasties, the Mongol dynasties – it was all fear. Everybody was afraid of them. So the power that was played was not through political games like today. Today the game is about whether the government is going to get shut down or not. It is about playing the right poker game to the last minute. It is about who has what cards to play and not telling the other side what cards you are going to play and waiting till the last minute – even a few minutes after midnight. That’s what we are playing today. In the old days they were playing the fear over people. Fear has provided the royalties and dictators with power and now we did it ourselves. Fear is what cuts badly into ourselves. Fear combined with confusion, misinformation, misleading people – that makes the individuals confused. Buddha called that "ignorance”. It is simply not knowing and wrong knowing. Sometimes we call it stupidity, but it is a little more than that. It is more being confused and misguided.

Ignorance, according to the Buddha, is the cause of anger. It creates anger, hatred, obsession. Actually, obsession and hatred and ignorance are called “Three Root Poisons” in traditional Buddhism. All our sufferings and difficulties are the result of negativities. We committed them because we have negative emotions such as hatred or obsession. These become very active within us because of the ignorance. These three are the major points we should renounce – not the boy friend or girl friend, not the luxurious life, nothing of that type. Not your house, not your bunker, not your palace, if you have one. That’s not what is to be renounced. What is really to be renounced is these three. If you can renounce the Three Poisons you will be a much, much happier person. Your mind will not be so much disrupted. You are not giving fear a chance to manipulate you. You are not giving attachment a chance to control you. You are not giving hatred a chance to bully you. That’s in everyday life. In the spiritual life, if you renounce these three, you don’t hurt anybody or yourself. You will not create negativities and not the causes for suffering. So Buddhist step No 1 is to renounce those things. If you meditate you meditate for that. If you put any efforts in, it is for that. In Buddhism, two major activities are important. One is clearing the obstacles through meditative practices. These things are obstacles. The other is to accumulate or collect positive deeds.

1:04

These are the two major activities – that’s all you do. How do you clear the obstacles? By purification. How do you collect the positive deeds? By not having the negativities you try to change every deed you do into a positive one.

We know that. With every action, even just moving your hands and legs, you create karma. Very definitely. In general, with the influence of negative thoughts every action we do becomes negative and with the influence of positive thoughts every action becomes positive. That can be intensified on the positive side by doing very specific actions, such as generosity or morality, patience, etc.

Patience is such a thing that is very lacking with us. Honestly. We realize, looking at the television, how impatient we are really. I think during our winter retreat the trouble in Egypt and Libya started. Egypt went very well. Mubarek stepped down. Then it started in Libya. We were watching TV at night and people started drawing conclusions about Gaddhafi. Some of our people said, “He has lost. He is gone.” Conclusions were drawn before anything had really happened. Then they reported the US attack on TV. People immediately started asking, “So is he gone? Is he stepping down? Maybe he is dead. We bombed his palace, so did we get him?” So immediately they wanted results. We threw bombs continuously, very strongly and every minute we were looking for results. In a way it is right, but on the other hand it shows how little patience we have. If nothing happens for a while then we give up. That is also lack of patience. It is amazing. This shows our lack of patience. We just cannot wait. We are extremely impatient. Buddha says that patience is a virtue. As a matter of fact, it is a very difficult one.

Such intensified positive deeds act in addition to a life that is influenced by positive emotions such as not only avoiding killing, but [active] non-killing, in the sense that “I myself will never engage in killing”. Underline never.

1:11

Sometimes you may break that. If you don’t kill them, they may kill you. You don’t want to lose your life so you may have to protect yourself. That happens. You cannot deny that. But in general, you are committing that way. That is non-killing. If you have that commitment then every action you are taking becomes non-killing. In general, just sitting here is not non-killing. But with the commitment of not killing, just sitting here becomes non-killing. You have that motivation and you are not killing. That’s why it becomes positive. It is sort of the nature of the action itself.

I am glad to mention that to you because it is not very clear to people. In general, if you don’t have a vow or commitment then the action of non-killing will only come if you have the opportunity to kill and you decide not to kill. That is non-killing. But with the commitment of not killing, then any time you don’t kill, any action is non-killing. That makes a huge difference to our life. It is like money that is invested well somewhere. Even if you are not doing anything with that money – you may be sleeping – but your money is making money. Similarly, if you have money and you put in a bundle or in your boots and put it under your bed. Then you go to sleep and that money remains whatever it is. It is not making more money. Just like that karma happens. With the commitment of not killing it is building up. That’s why karma is delicate, important and it functions with us every second of our life. Anything we do, going to the bathroom, walking, sitting, everything is creating karma all the time. It is either is going to be negative, positive or neutral. There is neutral karma too. It is neither contributing to the positive nor the negative karma. Knowing that, managing your life accordingly it s a good thing.

I did say meditation. Meditation I would like to say is clearly for your benefit: The understanding of meditation in the west for most people is that meditation is something passive. It is just sitting down and relaxing and concentrating. Thats one thing but I also want you to know that meditation is not passive, but very active. It is almost aggressive. The spiritual training or opportuniy that I have received are very rigorous. It is penetrating, analyzing and that is part of the meditation. It is not only just sitting down and counting your breath and watching your abdoemon. It is very actively analyzing.

Particulary in case of anger. You watch with your own mind and see what anger does to you. We all experienced. We have the realization of anger. Think about when you are angry, what that does to you. It disturbs your piece of mind. It makes you unhappy. It makes you sweat. Sometimes it even makes you physically shaky. It makes you ready to punch, although you are not that type of person. It makes you ready to kill anyone. That is the idea of “Better kill them before they kill you.”

That changes the individual. Good kind people becomes angry. They lose respect in the mind of others. When I see someone getting angry I lose the respect for that person. I am telling you honestly. When you have respect for somebody, when somebody is huge and suddenly you see that this person is very angry and upset then suddenly you see something different.

1:21

I used to work for the Indian Radio in Dehli in the 70s. I was the head of the Tibet Unit. We had 14 people working there. In India there was only one radio station, run by the government of India. There is no private radio. It is a democracy, but there are no private stations at all, neither radio nor TV. Nobody can run one. The whole radio, throughout that huge country, is run by one government organization. That was headed by a Director General. I was in an external service division. Between the Director General and me there must have been 80 – 100 directors. This director and that director and many deputy directors. The idea of the Director General was like some god in the air. Generally I had quite a good respect for all my bosses. The Director General was beyond imagination.

One day there was a big meeting and the Director General got so mad and started yelling and screaming and banging the table, almost like Khrushchev at the United Nations. He didn’t take his shoe off, but he was banging the table with both hands. I was a little far away from him, but I looked up once and he had a funny face and to me the image I got was of a monkey turning around and showing his butt. I couldn’t help but laughing. He heard me laughing and turned to me saying, “What are you laughing about?” I saw nothing but a monkey’s butt. That image of the Director General being like beyond the sky was gone and became a monkey’s butt. Honestly. So that respect was lost. Two, three days later I was out shopping and he came there to shop too. We were both in our cars. He saw me and I saw him and he took his face down. He was probably embarrassed, because he had been screaming so much. He became so small. I had lost my respect for the Director General and thereafter for everybody else there too a little bit.

So because of his anger he lost all respect. So when you meditate you have to realize that even that much respect can be gone by anger. So you draw a conclusion. If that happens to me, naturally I will lose the respect of the people. Therefore anger does not do any good. Some people may think that anger will give you a little power. But no, compassion will give you more power. Anger does not give you power. A number of people will think that if we don’t fight for social justice we won’t get it. True, but you don’t fight with anger. You fight with compassion. This is what you meditate. When you realize that your consciousness or soul is totally been influenced by this meditative influence and that will help you not to engage your anger. I am using anger as the example, but the same is true for hatred, obsession and all other negative emotions. Whatever your problem is, penetrate, concentrate and meditate on that. That will influence you. If you don’t analyze you are not going to get anything passive. Meditation should not make people into couch potatoes. It should make people very active. When you see this big stomach of mine you see that I am not meditating. I have been eating. So let’s eat now.

1:30 -