Archive Result

20110820GRPT1

00:00 Initial Prayers Sang gye chö dang tsog kyi chog nam la…. 4 immeasurables

02:40

Lagon Rinpoche, Ven. Jhampa and friends. First of all thank you for bringing me here. I also need to apologize that I am behind schedule, almost 20 minutes. Maybe some people call that “Tibetan time”, but we had to get some gas on the road here. Rinpoche and Geshe-la asked me to come here a while ago. We also have a group of Jewel Heart people here and they are also very happy that I could come to Pittsburgh, though I have been a couple of times in Philadelphia. I think it is the first time for me to be in Pittsburgh and talking to you.

The subject they asked me talk is “Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism”. As you know Buddha’s teaching, although it is about 2600 years old, the years may be gone, but the essence of the message, if you cut out the cultural aspects, if you really look down at the bare bones of Buddha’s message, then it is absolutely relevant in our life today, just as it was 2600 years ago. The simple reason is that the source of our difficulties, our emotional problems that we face [are still the same]. I like to call them “negative emotions” and they are hatred, anger, obsession, jealousy, etc. They are the same old thing occupying us now just as then. Sometimes they are even more active now. That is the reason why also the antidotes to those negative emotions are still the same. That’s the reason why Buddha’s teaching from 2600 years ago is still absolutely relevant in our everyday life. As I said earlier, Buddhism also has tremendous amounts of cultural aspects. All the sectarian differences in Buddhism are born out of culture and tradition. True Buddhism is not the culture. I can’t say it is not the tradition, because it becomes the tradition. The culture is somehow added up. I sometimes like to call it “cultural baggage”. Because of that we have a lot of different types of Buddhism.

I have just come back from South-east Asia, from Malaysia and Singapore about 10 days ago. We do have a number of friends there. I don’t call them students, but friends. My idea is to gain some kind of personal relationship with each and every individual. So I like to refer to them as friends. But when the time goes then it is difficult and if I leave my door open I won’t have peace. But that’s the idea. So I have been meeting with a group of people there, trying to go there every year. This year a group of monks were supposed to come there at the same time, but the problem is they couldn’t get the visa, so I had to do everything. Jamyang came with me to help me, but it was almost like one person doing a group of monks’ show or program. We travelled a lot, including northern Malaysia, like Penang. I had not been in that area for a long time, 1984. People came out of the woods from everywhere and showing me pictures they had taken with me in 1984, quite a number of them, not just one, two or three. Everyone had pictures. It was a little …..interesting. We all looked much younger and more handsome in those pictures. But it is nice. So also in the 1984 I have given the same message to people and it has been very helpful to those people. Now they showed up again. So I am happy.

0:11

But in South-East Asia generally you have a different type of Buddhism. It is the same Buddhism, but within that there is Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, South-East Asian Theravadan Buddhism. They came through the original South Indian Buddhism that came from there to South East Asia. The northern Indian Buddhism travelled north to China, Tibet. The Tibetan Buddhism is the true Buddhism that Buddha taught in India, though you may call it Tibetan Buddhism. But the Tibetans did not have Buddha. He was Indian. Buddha’s teaching travelled north and became Tibetan Buddhism. Whether Southern Indian or Northern Indian Buddhism, there was not so much cultural aspects. When Buddha gave teachings he sat on a little mud platform. It had to be uplifted a little bit to 1) respect the dharma and 2) make it possible for people to see Buddha. These are the major reasons. Later it developed into big thrones with brocade decorations, accompanied by trumpets, umbrellas and scarves and so on. These are later cultural additions.

13.49

The real essence of Buddha’s teaching is the Four Noble Truths. That is absolutely relevant in our lives today. As you know, the reason why he became Buddha was because he was shocked and surprised to see the suffering of people. The prince was being locked into a beautiful, huge, wonderful palace that this Indian king built for him. At that time all the little Indian kingdoms were fighting about who was going to overpower whom. It is just like today, where we fight over who is the world police, us or somebody else. So then they were fighting over who was going to be the overall in charge. In that kingdom, a prince was born and they were worrying about whether he could become the Universal King that was their goal. They consulted sooth sayers and they said, “If you can keep him in the palace he will become a unique universal ruler.” But why should the kingdom keep the prince inside the palace? The sooth sayers said, “If he sees suffering he may run away.” So they tried to shield him from suffering and therefore built a new palace and kept all problems away from him. Old and sick people were not allowed in the palace. Only young, beautiful and handsome people could come in. But suddenly he went out of bounds and went outside and saw a lot of suffering, illness, death and misery.

0:l6 He also saw a meditator. He kept on asking his driver, “What is this?” The driver explained, “This is called illness. This is called death.” The prince asked, “Am I immune because I am the prince?” “No, you’re not.” “Are my parents immune, because they are the rulers?” “No, they are not immune.” “What about the subjects that I am supposed to be helping?” “These are your subjects.” So the poor little prince got the biggest shock of his life and asked, “What can I do?” That’s when he saw the meditator and decided to follow that path. That’s why he ran away.

0:17

He meditated for six years at the banks of the river Ganges and finally he became fully enlightened and his first teaching was the Four Noble Truths: the Truth of Suffering, the Truth of the Cause of Suffering, the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering and the Truth of the Path that leads to the Cessation of Suffering.

The Truth of Suffering is absolutely relevant to us today. The people now with us, and everybody, whatever they may say, we do have suffering, physical, emotional and mental. We have loss, separation and all of those sufferings are circling around with us. Sooner or later, one day they are going to catch up with us. Some are already catching up and that’s absolutely relevant. Can we avoid these? To a certain extent yes. We can do tremendous things. The medical scientific development for example is fantastic, no doubt about it. But it cannot prevent it completely. Actually no one can prevent it. It is something we absolutely will face, particularly these four: aging, illness, death and birth. Birth in our culture it is a happy occasion, but it is not necessarily always happy, because the person who gives birth suffers tremendous. I have no experience, but those of you who know, they know. It is not so easy. Also, for the person who is getting born it is not easy. We don’t remember, but it is not easy. Most babies don’t come out with a smile. They come out crying. That is an indication. Then comes aging. When I saw my pictures of 1984 they don’t look my me. I see a young, handsome, nice boy. Now I look different. It creeps up more every day. We add up wearing glasses, then hearing aids, we put color in our hair. I forgot to put some this morning (laughs). So sooner or later, these all become relevant. Luckily, right now we are all alive. When you recall, the older we ourselves get, the more of our friends and contemporaries are gone. I stopped in Cleveland and visited an old friend, a Tibetan lady and she told me how many of her contemporaries were already gone. There is now hardly anyone left. She can count them on 5 fingers. That’s what it really is. In about 100 years none of us will be here. We are all gone.

0:22

No matter what we do, whether we are successful or unsuccessful, good, bad, rich or poor or whatever may happen, by the time the conclusion, the big total comes, that is all going to be zero, zero. That is one of our major suffering. Buddha tells us about that not to threaten us but to make us aware.

That raises the question: Can we change it? Buddha gives us the answer and he proves it to us. It is not just saying “yes” or “no”. Everybody can say anything if they don’t have to prove it. But 2600 years ago Buddha proved it to us and millions of people since then have proved it. Yes, you can change this. We can’t change the symptoms and results, but we can change the causal level. That brings us to the Second Noble Truth, the Cause of Suffering. Even the joys are truly suffering. I don’t want to paint a negative picture, however, if you look closely you realize that the joys we have are not lasting. And they give you other problems. With anything we do we have that. We enjoy something, but if it is a little too much, it causes problems.

0:24

Years ago, how many people enjoyed smoking cigarettes? It is fun and great and wonderful, but now, how do you feel? Even if somebody else smokes you smell it. You smell that day and night. Now we know it. Drinking and drugs is the same thing. Sunshine is wonderful, but if you are in the sun too much it causes cancer. If you have too little, you get enough Vitamin D. If it is too cold, we suffer. Nowadays we have air condition. So that can get too cold. If it is too hot, we suffer as well. So even the little joys are in nature suffering. Why? Because they are contaminated. Somehow we are lucky. We have this wonderful life and wonderful mind. Each and every one of us is fantastic. Look at you, all of you, healthy, young, educated, intelligent and wonderful as you are. Along with that you also have all kinds of limitations. They limitations are there because of contamination. Intelligence is there, but what you want to see you won’t see. What you don’t want to see you will see. I am perhaps throwing a little bit of philosophy in here, but this is because it is contaminated.

The key to Buddha’s wisdom is not to try to get the symptoms out, but to get the contamination out. So it becomes pure - pure mind, pure thoughts. When contaminations are gone then it becomes pure. Buddhism does nothing else except try to challenge the results and challenge the contaminations. We do have the contaminations because our knowledge is not enough. We don’t know as much as Buddha. Buddha threw the challenge at us. He said, “Hundreds of years I was just like you. Then I did something and I have improved and now I have become a Buddha. You all are eligible, you all have the right to be like me. You may not necessarily be called “Buddha”. You may be called something else. But we all have the capacity. Being able to do it only depends on being diligent, not being lazy. That’s the difference.”

That’s what Buddha said. The goal of Buddhism is to provide the experience that Buddha went through, challenging the causes of suffering, the negative emotions, anger, hatred, obsession. Unfortunately we are absolutely addicted to anger. We don’t have to go to school to learn how to get angry. We don’t have to go to school to learn how to be obsessed or jealous. It automatically pops up in our mind. Something we dislike will pop up suddenly, like toast out of a toaster. It is just there. This is our problem and our challenge.

0:31

The Buddha gives two methods: directly challenging the negative emotions and working on the root cause of those negative emotions and therefore the root of suffering. There is one root out of which all these negative emotions come. The traditional language calls that “ignorance”, but it is not so much in the sense of stupidity, but rather a combination of confusion and fear. In everyday American language we can call it “ego”. I don’t speak English [well] but I understand that “ego” is a term developed by psychologists and they use it in the sense of building self esteem. However, in everyday language people will say, “That is your ego talking” and “That’s your ego, not you.” I am picking up the terminology from that angle to associate it with our understanding. Ignorance is traditional terminology and that is fine. But we are not really ignorant; we are too intelligent to be called ignorant. So it is our ego, fear and confusion combined and that starts to lead our life into certain directions, other than what they should be. That is our problem and target.

Buddha pointed it out: here is the enemy within you. It is the ego. So this is the source to go to. This is where you can say: before it hurts me I will hurt it. I am sorry to remind you, but in the 8 years before Obama we heard it all the time: pre-emptive strikes. Where does that come from? From ego, from fear. It is because of 9-11. 9-11 did happen and it was horrible. But that put tremendous fear and confusion into us and that’s why we are in all that trouble we are in today, all these wars. They are all killing machines, it doesn’t matter who they are, us or them. Human beings’ lives are being wasted. They are human beings like ourselves, with mind and intelligence, whether a lot of a little education. They all want to mind their own business, hoping to provide a little better for their families. Suddenly another war breaks out. We went through so many wars. We know what it is. The little box in our living room shows us the consequences of war.

0:35

It is all driven by fear and confusion and the resulting pride, jealousy, anger, hatred, obsession. All combined together made this problem. And it is the same on the big nation-level as on the small family level and even within the individual. Even between two small kids you can see the same thing happening. This is our suffering. That’s what we have to overcome. It is true that bringing peace is important. But the most important thing is what we have neglected: to look after ourselves internally. It is our own ego, our own hatred, our own jealousy, our own obsession – we did not look at that. As long as we don’t deal with that, then no matter how much we look at the outside the same old trouble will continue. This is a fact.

Look back in history. We have had so many enemies and we keep on destroying them, but some new enemy always pops up. In my own life time I have seen communism, fascism. Hitler came and then Stalin, Mao and then we have had Saddam, Gaddafi and so on. It continues. This is because we don’t look after ourselves. Our own internal reflection brings the external enemy. Honestly. Truly speaking, if you deal with your own enemy within yourself everything will be nice, friendly and wonderful. As long as we have that enemy within, everything will have reservations, hesitations and all kinds of things.

One of the early Indian Buddhist teachers gave the example by pointing out that there are so many difficult problems on the ground outside in the world. There is rough ground, and you can get cut and there may be needles and all kinds of things. So what to do? One way would be to cover up all the ground with leather. But where are you going to get that much leather from? So it is much easier to just cover your feet with leather. Two little pieces are enough and you can walk over the ground. That is easier than trying to cover the whole ground with leather. Similarly, it is better to deal with our own minds than trying to deal with the whole world. That is not going to happen. That’s why I am talking about the enemy within. You can also call it the evil within. And I don’t think there is such a person called “evil” with horns and fangs and tail. But there is somebody inside. So you have to deal with that.

The Four Noble Truths deal with that. You have to know where it comes from. It doesn’t come from nowhere, it comes from somewhere. And it is not from the external, but the internal. Internally, where does that come from? From our negative emotions. So deal with the negative emotions and then you will overcome all bad consequences.

0:42

Buddha’s teaching – or if you don’t want to call it teaching – what he tells us to do - is to overcome those. He suggests to work with three things: morality, love-compassion and wisdom. Morality is very important. Many people think it is not important, but it is. No one would like to be immoral. So why should a spiritual practitioner be an immoral person? No way, no way Jose. Morality is the fundamental ground of the spiritual path. Every spiritual person who thinks they are great, have to have the fundamental basis of morality. If that is not there, there is no ground for spiritual development. Plus you need compassion and love and wisdom. These three help us to get rid of that ego. These three help us to build our spiritual path. They are the spiritual path. These will bring the consequences of freedom from suffering and the causes of suffering.

That is the theme of Buddhism, whether it is South – East Asian, Chinese or Tibetan Buddhism. That’s the real essence of Buddha’s message. When you are interested in Buddha’s guidance these are the things you should look for. Other than that the rest of it is show biz, honestly. The most important thing among them: be a kind person. Everyone of us has a wonderful nature. Whether you connected with it rightly or wrongly that is another thing. Even Hitler had a wonderful nature, but it got connected with the wrong thing and he ended up becoming a monster. The same happened to Saddam and others. They have the same wonderful nature as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Sorry, honestly, but it is true. But Gandhi, Mother Teresa, etc, were connected to goodness and their activities turned out good for them and good for everybody else. The others got connected with badness and it turned our bad for them and bad for so many.

We all have the same thing and you have to make the choice whether you want to go to this or to that side. This is the essence of Buddhism. It is your choice. You can make it and no one else can do it for you. If they do it, it is not good. It is yourself who makes the difference. If you don’t do it, who else is going to do it for you? That’s how you do it and that’s what we try to provide assistance for. Lectures like this could be little suggestions and then centers may provide some help, whether Rinpoche is going to set one up or we have Jewel Heart here. All these people can provide assistance.

0:48

[I guess I am running out of things to say – unless you rescue me by asking questions. This talk is supposed to go till 4 pm right? Till 5pm? Oh, so that means I have to talk to you a little more detail then. All right. So let’s take a little 20 min break here and then we have some questions and answers.

Welcome back and it seems we lost a lot of people. There are two different reasons. One is that is has been quite boring before and the second reason is that we are looking for people who are more deeply interested. I don’t know, maybe I am misreading. So since we have another hour, let me talk to you a little more about the essence of Buddhism.]

0:51 Earlier I mentioned the Four Noble Truths and basically just counted them. Along with that we introduced the target and challenge and we deal with the challenge by these three things: morality, compassion and wisdom. We didn’t go into detail. So you don’t need much more explanation about morality. More or less we do know. Just briefly, when talking about morality that means our major commitments of avoiding negativity and building positivity.

Buddha divided morality into three categories: one is restraining ourselves from doing the wrong thing. The second is: accumulating positive deeds as much as possible. The third is: helping and serving as many as you can. So morality is not just based on sexual orientation. It is our normal understanding. First, restraining ourselves from doing the wrong thing. What is right and wrong is another issue. It is very difficult to point out. What is right for you is wrong for me and what is wrong for you is right for me. It happens all the time. Look at the Chinese-Tibetan issue. Whatever is right for the Communist Chinese government is wrong for the Tibetans and whatever is right for the Tibetans is wrong for the Chinese Communist government. What is right for Obama is wrong for Republicans and what is right for Republicans is wrong for Obama. What is right for the left is wrong for the right extreme, sorry the right conservatives. I didn’t mean extreme. I mean liberals and conservatives.

Basically, with right and wrong, whatever hurts anybody is wrong – any individual including yourself. Even there you can interpret what hurts and helps. But actions that hurt yourself and others are wrong and actions that help yourself and others are right. We sort of draw a line there. It is not only sexual orientation. That doesn’t mean you don’t include sexual issues. Hurting people through sexual activities is immoral, no question. Therefore, individual morality is important. It is the first and foremost thing. But you can’t be too righteous either. That again brings trouble. Also, if you keep turning right, right, right, you come out left anyway. So too much righteousness is not right. It has to be reasonable. Some people are so serious and everything has to be right. That is a little difficult. The time, the age, people’s issues and everything, you have to give a little discount here and there. Otherwise everybody is doing something that is not right.

The second point is love/compassion. I think that has begin with caring for yourself. I think oneself comes first. I am sorry, you may think you are hearing wrong, but you are not. I am saying that oneself is important. A lot of people will say that love can’t have any self interest, it has to be in the interest of others. Sure, but also you have to take care of yourself. There was a great Indian mahapandit, a great teacher, called Atisha in the 1100s. Tibetans had a lot of difficulty getting Atisha to Tibet. He happened to be one of the younger, outstanding scholars who was going to be the keeper of Vikramalashila in Bengal in East India. So the Tibetans took on so much hardship to bring him to Tibet.

The Bengalian people, including taxi drivers, don’t refer to him as Atisha, which is what the Tibetans call him. They know him by his personal name Dipamkara. Atisha taught the Tibetans that “first it is most important to look within yourself. The basis of love and compassion is within yourself and caring for yourself.” If you don’t know how to help yourself how can you expect to help others? This is the advice Atisha gave to the Tibetans.

1:00

When you talk about love/compassion, normally we look outward. However, first it is very important to look in and see within ourselves, “Do I have compassion and love, or is my mind occupied by hatred? Is my mind totally overpowered by obsession? Is my mind totally overpowered by jealousy? Is there something to look for?” Particularly, Buddhism is about internal development. If you don’t know what is happening inside yourself there is nothing to measure externally, where you are and what you are. So the first guinea pig or target is you. It is you working with your negative emotions, you getting away from the clutches of hatred and obsession. We are really addicted to them. When you are addicted you know how difficult it is to get rid of these. Even a tiny, little thing can turn the clock back completely, as we know very well.

Many of us, I am included, have been addicted to cigarettes or drinking. This is the reality. If you cannot handle your own addiction you cannot tell others what to do. The good American saying goes: Practice what you preach. That is really true. The first and foremost is looking at yourself: Am I okay with my morality? Look at the three points of morality: restraining from wrong doing, accumulating positive deeds and serving all. Think: where am I with that? How much can I restrain from wrong doing?

The second issue is thinking, “If I can manage this much, do I care for others?” and “If I care, how can I contribute the little I can?” If you don’t have enough to give you can’t do anything. There is nothing there. Then you will be misleading people and you are doing it like a professional job. You will be preparing your lectures that way. That’s why I never prepare. It is not because I am perfect, but because I am lazy, honestly. Also, if I do prepare, it doesn’t work well at all. Today I wasn’t even sure whether my time here is one hour or two hours. So the moment you start preparing you collect beautiful words and add up things here and there and make sure everything looks nice, but it is meaningless. There is nothing to share and nothing to gain. You people come and spend your time and energy and I don’t know if you spend money or not.

The people who make the preparation here, Rinpoche’s group and also Vivian, Craig and Bob, spent time and energy trying to materialize this and that should not be wasted. There should be something coming out of this that will be helpful for yourself and others. You should be able to get it, if there is something to get. You should be able to build that within yourself. We should be able to at least challenge our negativities a little bit, these wrong thoughts and emotions that lead to wrong actions. There is a little awareness of what it is – right or wrong; a little awareness of if you are helping or hurting. If you don’t have that you don’t have any spiritual ground. Basically it is collecting positive deeds, the second part of the morality. Positive deeds means overcoming the negativities. Lets say you are able to cut some anger or hatred. By cutting that you gain positivity. That positivity is a step in your spiritual development, maybe not a big one, but something. Even if it is small, like a drop, keep on saving that every day and then one day your bucket will be filled.

If you think of something big it is not going to happen. It all has to be built, each and every small step. You know about restraining from harming someone. So you tell yourself, “I am an intelligent human being. I am a nice person. I don’t want to do that. Yes, my ego wants me to do that, but I am not going to do it. This is the opportunity for me to get away from my ego. Here we go!” And you decide not to do it. That is restraining. Restraining from negativity needs a tremendous amount of patience. Without patience you won’t be able to restrain yourself well, because you have addictions. They will overtake you and it will become very difficult.

1:10

Patience doesn’t mean one has to be able to continue and continue. That may also be patience, but not the patience we are talking about. I give you an example: Suppose you have been dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend and you try to get back with them from any angle. Suddenly you get a message saying, “Meet me tomorrow in the middle of the desert at 5 in the evening”. You will be happy to go there by 2 in the afternoon and wait there till 8 or 9 in the evening. You may call that patience, but it is not. It is suffering that you bought for yourself. Patience really means that you are able to restrain yourself from engaging in negative activities. That is the definition of patience. It is not turning the right cheek when someone hits you on the left and then the left when someone hits you on the right. That is very nice and wonderful, but that’s not patience. Maybe it is restraining from hitting the person back, maybe. But if you are whimp you would do that too. You would be too scared to hit back anyway.

And not only do you need patience you also need enthusiasm. If you have enthusiasm you can do it. Without that it is very difficult. It is the same thing with your job. If you have enthusiasm and you are interested you will be very happy to do it. You work hard and you do it well. But if you are just doing a job for the money it is not that great. We all know that. It is lack of enthusiasm. The same is true for the spiritual path. If you have enthusiasm and you care about people then you will want to talk with them, because even a little word could contribute to the joy of the person. It could bring a little relief to the individual’s pain. Then it is positive.

One time Allen Ginsberg, the late poet, asked me, “What is the purpose of poetry and music?” I said, “To relieve suffering”. If it can relieve the pain and suffering of somebody even for a short time that is a great deed. People are tortured and tired of pain and suffering. Whatever relief you could get through poetry, art and music and entertainment, through the spiritual path or anything, it is something. That is the purpose of caring. And especially care for yourself. Charity begins at home. If you can’t help yourself you can’t help others. Those are Atisha’s words, rang gyu ma du pa tö zhen gyur mi dü pen a to ma rang gyu dön….It is always true: unless you can tame yourself you will not be able to tame others’ mind. And that is true whether you are talk about the Mahayana principles or vajrayana principles, it begins here.

That’s why I said earlier that the Four Noble Truths of Buddha’s teaching are the fundamental base of Buddhism, no matter if it is theravada, mahayana or vajrayana or zen or whatever you may call it. As long as you have Buddha’s name connected then this is the principle. It begins with dealing with oneself. We have to see the suffering within ourselves. We have to see the cause of suffering within us and deal with that and overcome it. You may call that the 8 fold path or the 37 wings of the buddhas or whatever you may call it. The reality is how you can restrain yourself from wrong doing, how you can build your positive deeds and how you can contribute to society and the people. That is the principle of morality according which you function.

The next is compassion. The same thing is true here: begin with yourself. If you don’t have compassion for yourself, how can you have compassion for others? A person who doesn’t care for themselves doesn’t have any caring at all. They may say whatever they want to but it just becomes politician’s compassion. It is lip service. Even George Bush used to talk about conservative compassion. That doesn’t mean he is a bad person. HH Dalai Lama says he is a good person. So he must be a good person. But it should not be a politician’s compassion. It should be sincere and honest compassion.

Compassion has to be based on love. If you don’t have love, then your compassion becomes dry compassion. It doesn’t become juicy compassion. You will just say, “Oh poor things.” It is like when we look at what’s currently happening in the Horn of Africa. We look and feel something, but it is dry compassion to some of us.

1:20

To others it may be very serious. We all feel sympathetic, and the cheapest we can do is pray. That is the sort of thing we do. When you really look carefully, how much do we feel in our heart? I very often give this example:

You are sitting here and outside you hear the noise of a car crash. You go out on the street to see what happens. People say, “There was a crash and someone got killed.” Then somebody else says, “It’s a dog.” Then we say, “Sorry, sorry, but it is okay, it is just a dog.” So our compassion is leveled down, it is just a “poor dog.” Of course, some people care especially about dogs, but generally it is “poor dog” and we will slightly withdraw our attention. But then, if somebody comes and tells you, “It is not a dog, it is a person” you go, “Oh, what? Oh, poor guy.” Then the compassion is a little more. Then somebody else comes and tells you, “It is not just anybody, it is our friend So and so.” Then you will be very much more concerned. Then if you were told that it is not only a friend, it is a family member then our feeling is much more. We will run there and do whatever we can. So the difference of compassion on the basis of hearing about the car crash outside is so much. Why? Because of love. You love your family member. It could be your spouse, your kids. Love makes the compassion different. The nature of compassion itself is caring, but when it is influenced by love it makes you feel the pinch and it will drive you to act. That is the compassion we are looking for. That is what we need, not just the “poor thing” sympathetic lip service. If that’s what you have to offer then the others will say, “Thank you, but no thank you. We don’t want that compassion. We want compassion that really cares.” Compassion with love is the compassion we are really looking for, not only sympathy or empathy. That will make a difference for us and others – for all beings.

Buddha’s love and compassion is not just simple, it is something very strong. We are trying to follow the footsteps of Buddha and that is what we are looking for. You cannot do without compassion and compassion cannot do without love. They have to go together.

1:25

Then you also need know how. You need to know what to do. You have sympathy and empathy, but if you don’t know what to do, then you will be jumping around shouting “What can I do?” That’s very familiar to us. We all would like to help but don’t know what to do. So we need wisdom and especially the wisdom that knows how to deal with our ego. There is a tremendous amount of Buddhist wisdom. You don’t have to learn all of it, but at least you have to know what you are dealing with and what you want to do. So that is a little more elaborate talk on morality and compassion. I didn’t address wisdom much. So with this I would like to open it for questions. If I don’t ask now I will run out of time.

1:27

Audience: You said that “ego” was a western term originating from psychology, maybe Freud? How did the Buddha describe it? What words did he use?”

Rimpoche: Well, I don’t speak English well, but let me say it this way. He talked about ego, but not in the sense of building self esteem, but in the sense of “this is your ego talking”. It is the same name, but that very ego is a false self, based on fear and confusion and all other negative emotions, such as hatred and obsession, all combined together. We had a very strong thing after 9-11. Americans were suddenly willing to have all their rights and liberties cut down in the name of security. Do you think Americans would have said yes to taking their shoes off when checking in at an airport? Never. But the fear of 9-11 followed by the rhetorics of the previous administration made us willing to cut everything, almost willing to take our pants down. Honestly. The media also reported that everybody was happy to take their shoes off and their jackets off and may also be happy to take their pants down or whatever. They kept on reporting that. That’s what happened. That is only possible because fear dominated our mind. Do you think Americans would agree to something like Guantanamo Bay? That is crazy, but we accepted that because of fear. We accepted torture because of fear. Whether you call it torture or not, but we are doing it. That’s how ego-confusion and fear combined together make you do things that you never dreamed of doing. That’s how ego works with us.

That is our challenge. We don’t have freedom from ego. Ego controls us all the time. We think, “If I do this what will happen to me?” That is the true example we have had in front of us for the last ten years.

1:31

Before 9-11 if somebody told us to take our shoes off in the airport we would have used the f-word, no question. Now we are happy to take off whatever they are telling us. So I will say that the ego is a false self. The true self is overpowered by the ego. When I say that we have to gain freedom from ego that means gaining freedom for the true self. We like the true self, we would like to be what we are really are, but we can’t, because we have false things to do to make things look better or worse or whatever.

Audience: Is there a written history about Jesus [Atisha] traveling through Tibet?

Rimpoche: Oh yes, yes. There is a lot. There is Atisha’s biography, called Kadam Pa chö. It is the father’s story of the Kadam tradition. It is a whole volume in Tibetan, not translated yet. There is also a brief praise of Atisha by some translator called Gya Tsöndru Senge. Also Atisha’s stories are normally documented in all the lam rim teachings because they are in the Kadam tradition. The Kadampa tradition was started by Atisha.

Audience: One of the things that draw me to Buddhism is that the reason we want to be moral people is that even if we kill someone they are probably going to come back and be born into our family and it is getting even more miserable. So it is then better to be nice to them or somehow deal with them now. But what is this self? If is it not the false, constructed self? What is it that lasts and returns again and again and is reincarnated?

Rimpoche: This is a difficult question. But truly speaking the self is dependently originated. It is not independent. It depends on causes and conditions, all kinds of things. One of Buddha’s principles is that every phenomenon is in the nature of lacking inherent existence. If that is the case it has to be existing conditionally. Conditional existence is dependent origination. The true self is dependently originated. I just said this in a few words and I don’t know if we communicated. Even if we did maybe other people are not with us. I am not so sure.

This is the philosophical point of view. The lack of inherent existence means that there is nothing solid. Everything is conditional. Then if you say, “Isn’t there a “me”? I will answer, “Yes, but that is a conditional “me”, not an inherently existing “me” and that conditional self is continuing. Then people will ask the follow up question, “If it continues to exist, isn’t it permanent? And since Buddha said that everything is impermanent, how can that be permanent?” The simple answer is “yes, it is impermanent, but it is a continuation of discontinuity.” These are funny answers, they are automatic, like templates. Some people will the example of beads joined on a rosary or ice cubes.

Audience: How does one maintain one’s true self when being in the midst of turmoil. Sometimes we are in situations where we can’t remove ourselves from it. How can we center ourselves again?

Rimpoche: The example I thinking about just now may be a very political statement. I am sorry. You know what’s happening in Washington today? That’s exactly what’s happening. The whole purpose is just to bring Obama down. They don’t care what happens to the country. That’s a very political statement, but that’s what it is. So how do you maintain yourself? Sometimes you can’t even maintain. But you have to do the right and honest thing. I am not an adviser, but that’s what Obama should do. Some people have hinted that I should become a Buddhist adviser to him, but I said, “No way, Jose.” There really is a law firm in Washington that kept asking me, but I said “no way”. The honest thing is to do whatever you are doing and do the work with total dedication. I don’t know whether he is dedicated or not, but I am presuming he is, hopefully. So you just keep on doing it.

1:41

Likewise, if you are caught in the midst of all these negative emotions you have to keep your principle to be not selfish but live compassion – love - dedication – oriented. If you have a spiritual practice, lean towards that a little bit. If you can pray, pray to Buddha, pray to God, do that honestly and have a spiritual practice and try to lead a true life. Really mean what you say and do what you feel. Keep your principle in that way. Then you may fail or you may not. Even if you do not prevail you will have no regret, because you have done nothing wrong. Unfortunately the time is such that so many negative things are functioning. I am not just talking about politics, but even personal things. Everywhere and every day that is happening, but if you keep yourself straight that’s how you prevail.

1:43

Audience: You talked about the need to have compassion for yourself and take care of yourself. But sometimes it can be tricky to see the difference between that and feeding the ego? Can you give some guidance how to recognize it and what to do at the time we need it so we know which way to go?

Rimpoche: This is a very difficult point. But the ego always wants to build either material wealth or name or fame. The true self is not interested in name, fame, wealth or anything, but just wants to be truly doing what you want to do. It is like in the song “mean what you say”. The true self will do that. That may be one point where you can see if it is ego interest or the interest of the true self. The true self interest is about the overall benefit, not emphasizing the material or fame, or name aspect. Ego always has some weakness in that. Probably you can judge from there. Otherwise it is very difficult to judge in the beginning. When you are in the spiritual path you will somehow know. But this way you can judge. The true self doesn’t want name, fame or money, but just wants to do it for the reason of wanting to achieve it. Ego always has some agenda. Other than that I don’t know.

Audience: One of the things I struggle most with is the concept of duality. To me, if you can conquer the concept or remove yourself from duality, that answers the question of ego and self, because it is oneness of me and everything else.

Rimpoche: Yes, true.

Audience: You spoke about morality and right and wrong and that what might be good for me may not be good for someone else. Do you have any advice how to respond to someone close to us, as family member or friend who doesn’t believe that this is true and thinks there is only one way to do things?

Rimpoche: I don’t know what to do, but I can tell you what not to do: don’t push it. Especially don’t push your own ideas. That person is not going to buy that anyway. Although we want to show it has to be right, we don’t want to impose our own understanding of right or wrong or what’s good for the person. I don’t think we should sell it.

Audience: It is the other way around though, it is about somebody who pushes their own view.

Rimpoche: Right, but I think you have to know how to put the brakes on and do it gently, gently. Don’t let it poke through. Don’t let it rock the boat. Put the brakes on gently.

Audience: I volunteer at Pennsylvania Correctional Facility. I deal with guys that are in a bad situation. They are going to be there for a long time. They don’t get very much compassion. They get some sympathy and empathy but not much compassion. They don’t give much compassion either. How do you change that? What do I tell these guys? Do you have any ideas?

1:50

Rimpoche: I am glad you said Pennsylvania Correctional Center. That is important. A lot of people use the jail as punishment center. That’s not right. It is a correction center, giving an opportunity for people to correct, who are completely overpowered by their negative emotions. The things you describe there are a clear image of negative emotions running so strongly. My suggestion is what we already do at different prisons, like in Jackson, near Ann Arbor and another institute in Michigan. We have been requested to do that by the former governor of Michigan. We have difficulty of people getting there to facilitate. But we get constant requests again and again from prison authorities to teach meditation. The first I noticed is simply concentration. That is just giving them a little time to breathe. Begin from there and then do a little bit of an introduction to the negative emotions such as hatred, jealousy, etc and their consequences. Then gradually try to develop their admiration for peace – traditionally called nirvana in Buddhism. And then introduce the causes of these negative emotions that disturb the internal individual peace, the group peace and the society’s peace.

Gradually they will have a little better understanding and begin to smile. Normally they would have felt hurt and hit the ceiling, but then they will begin to have a smile. That is how the improvement comes. It is a long process. I don’t think one word or two words can do that. We do have a program based on how that works. The prison authorities keep asking us to come back, but we can’t go there so much. That’s probably some help there. There are some levels of prison with high security, like Level 4 and some of the people taking the meditation course had their security level dropped down. They became a lower security risk for themselves and others, within a year or two. That maybe helpful. I don’t know if a few words can help. Some people in the prisons organize themselves and start Buddhist study groups. They get reading materials and tapes to listen to. I don’t know how much that helps them. I have no idea. Thank you for thinking about that.

Audience: I have been very impressed with the Buddhist concept of the construction of the personal, but I know very little about Buddhist constructions of justice. Could you speak to that a little bit?

Rimpoche: You are asking the wrong person. You know, justice is something I have a problem with. I have a problem with judgment and who is judging whom. I have a problem with people saying “We are bringing them to justice” or “We are bringing justice to them”. That is a big problem. Especially the groups of people you can hear on television saying, “We have to punish them on behalf of God”. I do have a lot of problems with that. It makes me feel uneasy. What can they do that God cannot do? Who are they anyway? Correction is wonderful. Justice? There is natural law. That is also making a judgment. It is making adjustments and settling. Plus human beings do one more thing. My answer is “I don’t know”. I mean justice, yes, but who judges whom for what? And particularly capital punishment is something horrible. And then it proves to have been a mistake and the DNA shows it was wrong. All this tells you. Wasn’t it just yesterday that some people in Texas were released after having been wrongly locked up after 18 years? So that is justice and seems to go the other way. But you can’t be lawless either. You have to have consequences. Without consequences it is also a problem. That’s why I said: you are asking the wrong person, honestly. I better keep my mouth shut, because I don’t have a correct answer. I don’t like capital punishment. I am against it, because it is killing. To have justice done, answer killing with killing – these are difficult things in life. I don’t know what to say, sorry.

2:01

Audience: Recently there has been a book out called “The Anatomy of Emotions” on the subject of negative emotions. This research claims that emotions are based on memories that are held in the cells of the body. If we carry these negative emotions physiologically, then by practicing compassion and morality and wisdom, will that actually help to clear the physiological effects of negative emotions?

Rimpoche: I am not sure. There is a lot of research going on, unlike 10 years ago. It is about the relationship between the mind and life. There is even an institute called “Mind-Life Institute”. Almost every major university has huge amounts of grants invested and they are opening up departments that look into mind, emotions and their relationship. We recently had Professor Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin come and give a talk in Jewel Heart Ann Arbor about the result of his research studies. He gets $15 million a year grants. Almost every other major university does that and there are lots of professors at MIT, Stanford and everywhere else. These are physicists, not psychologists. They measure happiness and sadness through the movements in the brain cortex. They are saying that when you are meditating on compassion and love the [brainwaves in the] brain cortex are moving towards the happy side. They are using seasoned meditators as guinea pig as well as immature meditators also, five, six hours in the MRI, with all kinds of sudden interruptions, like a child crying or a woman’s screaming and seeing how the brain wave movements are corresponding. They are saying that not only meditation in general, but specifically meditation on compassion and love is making the difference.

If it proves to be true, then it is confirmed according to the teachings that the Buddha gave 2600 years ago, saying that making other people happy through practicing compassion and love will make yourself happy. That is proved to be right not only spiritually, but now also scientifically. That’s great. With this I will say “thank you very much”.

2:07

I am happy to be here and thank you Rinpoche, Geshe-la and also the Jewel Heart people who are here, Craig and Vivian, who have been with me for 15 years and Bob and Eric and others too. They will do something here too. The whole purpose should be to serve people, to help in whatever way we can. I always make a statement in Jewel Heart: if the needs of the people contradict the aims of Jewel Heart then Jewel Heart should go. That is the principle. We should always try to be of service and help, whatever we can. If we keep that as principle, then everything works. If you introduce some other interests, whatever they maybe, then it will become difficult. The consequences will be neither helpful nor successful. I wish you all the best and thank you again.

2:09

(short statement by Lagon Rinpoche inaudible, then giving scarves to Gelek Rimpoche, who gives them further to Jewel Heart members who helped organize the event and others)

2:13 short concluding dedication prayer – 2:14:45

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