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White Tara Teaching Chicago 2011 (At Shambala Center)

20111022GRCHWT1

0:00:35.6 Greg Holden Intro

Welcome to Shambala. We thank our friends at Shambala Meditation Center for inviting Jewel Heart to this wonderful event. Some housekeeping: standard cell phone warning. In this beautiful building there are bathrooms on every floor. We are very happy to welcome Gelek Rimpoche this morning. In this book “Wit and Wisdom of Gelek Rimpoche” today’s quote is:

Love is absolutely necessary. Otherwise compassion is meaningless, with no personal concern

I also like the one from two days ago:

If you keep on thinking what’s in it for me you become a moron

Born in 1939 and recognized as an incarnate lama at age 4, Gelek Rimpoche is one of the last of the generation still fully educated in Tibet and come to this country as the result of the Communist invasion. He has worked hard to preserve many rare Tibetan manuscripts, many of which we study from. He is known for his wit and wisdom and he is playing a crucial role in the survival of Tibetan Buddhism. Like Tara herself he is always ready to get up and help people and he is always getting up out of his comfortable chair to go out and travel around the country and around the world to various centers and Jewel Heart centers. This here is only one of many and we thank him so much for coming and sharing his wit and wisdom and knowledge with us.

0:02:52.7 At the table over there we have a little information about our center with some incredibly beautiful brochures and there is also a list of restaurants.

Thank you very much and I am very honored and pleased to welcome Gelek Rimpoche.

And we do the Jewel Heart prayers first

0:03:31.6 JH Prayers

0:21:20.0 Rimpoche: Good morning everybody. If I remember correctly, or heard correctly, when Greg was reading the quote from Wit and Wisdom, I think he said that compassion without love is meaningless. I am glad the quote was for today. That is what I think and I feel and not only feel, but my understanding is this.

0:21:58.0 (side remarks for seating arrangements….)

0:24:30.6 Compassion without love, what does that do? You see the people suffering and you feel it is wrong. You feel it is wrong. Yet, you are not that much willing to go out and do something, because you don’t really care. You don’t love the person. You are not going to go out of the way to remove the suffering of that person. You may feel “Ah, they could have done better.” Compassion without love becomes almost like a pity feeling or sympathy, not so much active.

0:26:32.3 I don’t know many of you. To me when we were looking at Gaddafi yesterday, normally when a dictator or tyrant like him goes down we will always say “Ah yes.” But yesterday the situation was different. Nobody really said “yeah”, because of the way they killed him, how they murdered him. It was a very brutal execution of he and his son, both. No people, how are kind and compassionate, such as yourself, will say “yeah!”, although it may be the end of the war. If that is true it is wonderful, but about that particular incident we all feel, but we are not going to go out and condemn the incident. We almost say nothing, because you think that for 42 years he had tortured people and all that. Truly speaking, we try to be better than him.

0:29:00.3 If you do the same thing as he did, it does not make it better at all. So it is very disappointing. That shows us, looking at the pictures where he is with a bloody thing, dragged around and being hit and finally gone and falling on the floor and then lastly, three shots in the head, throat and heart execution style, almost like OM AH HUM. That is really disappointing. When we see this our compassion kicks in. This is also a human being. But we are not going to do much or say much because of various reasons and we don’t love him. We don’t have love for him. We have just kindness and sympathy, because he is a human being who was brutally tortured and beat up and made as bloody thing and finally shot and killed.

0:31:05.1 So we feel compassion, yet this compassion is not strong enough for so many people. Even those big yuppers, who are always yupping on television, they also neither praised nor condemned this.

0:31:46.7 (remarks in Tibetan)

0:32:11.9 You know we are not used to sitting on that extra cushion, sometimes it is not so comfortable, so whatever you want to do.

So it is interesting, because somehow Greg read that out today and we heard what happened yesterday. If you look at this you see the limitation of our compassion. I don’t know if it is compassion or sympathy or pity or disgust. It is a mixture of feelings we get. It has also prevented us from cheering that somebody got murdered. That is where love makes a difference to compassion.

0:33:47.2 Let’s say that person happens to be a family member, like his wife who was sitting somewhere else or his son who was running, his family members - I don’t know about the relations – maybe the people who were loyal to him. If you start looking at their feelings, the feelings of the wife, the kids and the feelings of the loyalists, if there are any. They say there is. A single person came out on TV to condemn this, a Lybian guy. If you are looking at their feelings, not sympathy for Gaddafi, but compassion alone, their compassion, the family’s compassion, the wife’s compassion, the child’s compassion for him will be much stronger than that of us observing.

0:35:29.6 What makes the difference? The love makes the difference. Can you see it now? That is the reason why this statement is saying that compassion without love is useless or meaningless. Particularly, the purpose and meaning of compassion is to care, to be concerned, for yourself and for others. So it begins with family.

0:36:25.7 9 (side remarks in Tibetans)

0:36:57.5 Brenda, where was I? I am lost.

Brenda: Compassion without love is meaningless, the difference of looking at someone as…..

0:37:15.7 Rimpoche: That’s right. The meaning of compassion is care and to do something. If you don’t do anything, then the compassion becomes sympathy. Even weaker than sending good thoughts. You know the love and light people will say: I send you good thoughts. Yes, you can send good thoughts, but you don’t have to do anything. That’s fine. That’s also better than nothing. So if you have compassion and do nothing that is even worse than sending good thoughts. So we look down sometimes on the love and light people. So the love and light people say “O yeah, that is enough.” But still, that’s much better than doing nothing. That is important.

0:39:11.0 What makes you act and do something and take responsibility? It is love. It is really almost like the main engine, the main thing that makes the individual move on the compassion. That is really love. It is because you care. When you look at the mother and kid, that shows you. The mother is willing to do anything for the sake of the kid. Even if the kid is independent and self-managing, even then the mother will go out of her way to do anything for the betterment of the kid. Many of you are mothers, so you know that. I don’t. I have never been a mother as far as I know. But if you watch a mother and see the feeling of the mother for her kid and her concern for her child or infant. It is so much. Why? Because of the love. Their compassion to their kid is different than anybody else’s compassion.

0:41:09.4 That’s because of the love. So compassion is wonderful. We all accept that and know. Even our western background will also know that compassion is necessary and important, thanks to our Christian tradition. They will tell you that compassion is necessary. That is somehow influenced and engraved into the society, really in general. It is easier to talk and explain about compassion to the educated persons like yourself, than talking to some kind of group of illiterate people, even Tibetans.

0:42:44.0 That is because of the background of a) education and b) tradition through which you get influenced. My original thought was to say “barbarian”, but that may be a little too strong. So I substituted it by saying “illiterate and uneducated folks, including Tibetans”. But that is really what it is. That shows some understanding of really what compassion means. That makes the compassion we are talking about a little more – I don’t want to say important – but a little more than just the word “compassion”. Sometimes people say: what is the difference between sympathy and compassion? So that is now quite clear. You also say: if it is your sympathy, I don’t want it. People say that: I don’t want your sympathy. If I get your help, great. Didn’t you notice that people say that?

0:45:21.4 They do. That’s what it is. A very good example given to us in this unfortunate incident was what happened to Gaddafi. It gives us a very vivid example of the difference between compassion that cares and sympathy that could be mixed with disgust. A really vivid example. Sometimes it is rare to get an example like that. I am so glad it happened to be that quote today in the light of what happened yesterday. When you put them together you get a better understanding and a better feeling of compassion. So that’s what it is.

0:46:50.2 Now coming to today’s subject: my glasses are broken, it is not that comfortable. The write up says: Healing through the wit and wisdom of Tara. Oh, that’s what we have taught so far, honestly, there is nothing new for Tara’s wit and wisdom.

0:47:53.1 Anyway, I am so glad that this group of friends and particularly those of you in Chicago and very particularly Rocky and Jim and others worked it out and made this book “Wit and Wisdom”. It is at least a great coincidence that I am in Chicago today and this particular quote came up and it is within the wisdom of Tara too. Tara’s wit and wisdom is compassion and care. If you look in the Buddhist field, particularly the Buddhism that comes through Tibet, known as Tibetan Buddhism, is Mahayana Buddhism. There is Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, as they are traditionally called. So this is Mahayana Buddhism.

0:49:17.4 It is very interesting. Many of you have attended our summer retreat for 10 days and a little over 200 people attended. There were some zen teachers, zen masters, who attended. I was talking with one of them yesterday on a call. They wanted to talk to me and said, “We, the zen people, have very good koans, which is the wisdom aspect, but our compassion side is so horribly weak. So attending these ten days of your retreat, after that I read the whole book twice, from the first to the last page and now I am reading your three volume (Lam Rim) book and attended two more workshops of yours, one in Ithaca and one somewhere else.”

So they said, “We are terribly weak in compassion and we have enough koans. So you need to spend time talking more about compassion.” So that’s not what I was saying, but it is really true. We are rich with compassion, as far as the mouth is concerned, as far as the lips are concerned. Really. But I don’t know how much we act. That the big question to be checked. We are very good at talking about compassion and we are really rich in that. But that is not the compassion we have, but it is the compassion that our lineage masters had for about 1000 years in Tibet and another 1,500 years before that in India. We carried that over. That’s why it is very rich, at least in words, explaining the compassion.

0:52:37.4 So if we leave it only at words that is not the teaching’s or the teacher’s fault. It is the fault of the individual, because it is there. So I told that Zen teacher on the phone yesterday, “Very good that you are looking into this carefully, but do not lose your Zen principle. That is your core.” That person said, “Of course not, I have been for 35 years in Zen”. One does not become the abbot of a monastery without spending some time. The richness of compassion is made by love. You know we have a saying in Tibetan. We Tibetan enjoy a certain cheesecake, which is dry cheese made into cake. Some friends of mine call it “stinky cheese”. In the west they call it yak cheese, but the yak is the male and does not give milk. The female is called “dri”.

0:55:17.2 It is dry cheese made into cake. What makes it good it how the dry cheese is moisturized. If you put water in it, it is not good. It becomes watery cheese cake. Honestly, so we soak it and melt butter and that is the one when you put it together and the butter gets cold and freezes and then it becomes cake. So you may think, “This sounds horrible, with a lot of fat and this and that.” But when I was a kid that was delicious. Not only that, you add brown sugar, but not powdered sugar, but dry molasses and that breaks into pieces and is mixed together. And that becomes a really sumptuous treat. They can only give you limited amounts, because it takes a lot of effort and energy to make.

0:57:21.1 Even now they make it in Tibet and send it over sometimes and we get it here too. So the saying is this:

The richness and goodness of this cheese cake is due to the butter. The effectiveness and helpfulness of the compassion is due to the love.

So that’s it. I am going to conclude that Wit and Wisdom part of it. Now the subject of today is as I was told the Healing of Tara of the eight fears.

There will be Tara blessing too, but that is only for a short time. Then the official title is “Healing through the wit and wisdom of Tara”. (discussion with people). So the eight fears is not written anywhere. So I was told that is the subject of today.

0:59:50.5 Interestingly, yes we can do that. There are countless activities through Tara. You can see the picture of Tara over here. Is that White Tara or Green Tara? It is White Tara. These are the manifestations. I like to say this: Tibetan Buddhism is the Buddhism that comes through Tibet. The reason I am saying that is that somehow the Tibetans picked this language up, even in India, Dharamsala and everywhere. Even in the statement given by the Holiness about his reincarnation they use the expression “The Buddhism that has come through Tibet”. Originally, the Chinese were using that language. Pö jü nang de – Tibet Through Buddhism – meaning the Buddhism that has come through Tibet.

1:01:56.8 So it is not just a Buddhism that the Tibetans made. It is the very authentic tradition of Buddhism that Buddha, the Indian prince, brought, who gained his experience and shared it with us. This is the important point. He did not come down from the sky, declaring “I am the Buddha”. Nor is Buddha the son of God. Nor did God decide to put Buddha on the planet. Buddha was just like ourselves. He was a usual, normal human being, full of neuroses, ignorance and suffering. He happened to be the prince of one of the large kingdoms of India. That was the period when those little kingdoms were fighting among themselves. And he was going to be – as the Indians called it – a chakravartin raja, in Tibetan khor lo gyu-i gyal po, a universal king. All these kingdoms were little, some were weaker, some were richer and stronger, and one supported another. There were more like little principalities at that time. Their goal was to have one interesting universal king. So among their new princes they were looking for who could become a universal king. So did the Buddha’s Shakya kingdom, the kingdom of the Shakya caste. They were also looking for a universal king.

1:05:49.9 So when the queen was pregnant they were all going to sooth sayers. They talked to all of them, asking, “Is he going to be a universal king?” All sooth sayers said about him, “This is going to be a unique one.” Some of them said, “If you can keep him in the house.” Then the king said, “How could it be possible? I am a king who cannot keep my child home?” But the sooth sayers told him to take all possible precautions. What makes a child want to leave the house? He may leave if he is not happy. All right? What makes him happy? The answer was: let all the young people go and let them play day and night, let there be music day and night. Let them never see any suffering.

1:07:21.7 So they built a palace and tried to make it airtight. Anybody sick could not go in there. Anybody old could not be there. Only youthful and young, beautiful people could go. The palace was huge. When the Indians build a palace they do know how to do it. Look at the Taj Mahal. Look at the Red Fort. We will go there on the next pilgrimage.

1:08:11.1 remarks about who is coming on pilgrimage

1:08:19.3 They had a freshwater swimming pool inside the room. That’s how they made it and we are talking 1000 years ago. So they made Buddha’s palace kind of airtight so that he would not see any suffering and may not run away. But Buddha was always wondering what was outside of the boundaries of the palace. It almost reminds of Ginsberg’s poetry. Ginsberg said that when he was young they had a big tree in their courtyard in New Jersey. And he was somehow wondering what was beyond that tree. When he was ten or so he was able to walk across beyond the tree and see what was there and he found a glue factory. And it is very similar.

1:10:02.1 That little Buddha kid was wondering what was beyond the boundaries of the palace and when he finally was able to get across he found samsara. So it is glue, exactly and that’s exactly what he found and that made him leave the palace – without any questions. He went into the forest, cut his hair, throw off his princely dress and sent it back along with the horse to the parents with apologies. Then he sat in the midst of the forest. When we go to India we will see the place where Buddha meditated for six years. Normally they say that this is the wrong place and the actual place is somewhere else. So some people say this place is fake. Whether it is fake or not, honestly, one of the praises to Buddha, written in Tibet by one of the great Drikung tradition teachers called Drikung Kyab pa Jigten Gön po,

1:11:40.8

na rang da trin da nam lu dru tu

ka wa gyen tsu tsön dru tar chin ne

sam ten chö nyi dze la chag tsal lo (spelling???)

At the banks of the river Niranjana……and they now say in India that this place is face, but that was really on the banks of that river. That must have been swamp area 2,600 years ago. Now the water has done down. In the world the water is going down everywhere. One of the elements that we will face shortages and difficulties with will be water. You know that. So water is going down everywhere. Now this area is a little dry land. Now you can almost walk to the river. In those days it must have been swamps. That’s where Buddha meditated for six years and he didn’t even eat much food, just very little, to be able to survive. That’s why Buddhist food prayers even say

Ka sa me na dra wa reg pa yi

Dö chag she dang me pa te je ne

Da chir ma la nyi me chi ma la

Tsa chir mala nü ne ma zhin chen (spelling???)

1:13:51.4 We use food as medicine, not to make us fat. I did the opposite. And I have the consequence of it, diabetes and so forth. Nor do we take it to look better, nor is it to save up. It is simply food for survival, so eat to live, not live to eat. That is the Buddha’s teaching for us 2,600 years ago. Eat just only to survive. Eat to live, not live to eat.

1:15:13.3 That example Buddha gave for six years. There is supposed to be a grain from that time. But you know it is 2,600 years ago and one grain doesn’t survive that long. Anyway, finally he developed and became totally enlightened, through practice, through meditation. What did Buddha meditate? The buddha dharma. He didn’t sit there waiting for the air to flow through his throat. He used his mind and meditated. What did he meditate on?

1:16:26.3 The Dharma we have today is all what Buddha meditated on for six years. The result he got is Buddhahood, the teaching of Buddhism. The teaching of Buddhism actually – Buddh-ism was not called that at the time of the Buddha. The name Buddh-ism was given by western scholars, Buddhologists many years and centuries later. Earlier, it was known as Buddha’s way and Buddhism, whether it is part of Hinduism or not or whatever it is, that the scholars’ and philosophers’ argument. Honestly, truly speaking, as practitioners, we don’t even have to worry about that. If it is part of Hinduism, so what?

1:18:01.4 If it is not part of Hinduism, so what? Honestly. But the scholars, philosophers, they will argue. So let them argue. Doesn’t matter. The fact is that at that time Buddha taught. The way he taught was by sharing his own experience. He said, “I encountered that problem and I did this and that and this and that and I overcame. So you who like to follow me also do this and that and you will overcome.” Buddhism is really the very practical personal experience of Buddha. It’s not so much mystical. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have mystical things. It is not so much philosophical, although it has a lot of philosophy, tremendous treatises and it has its viewpoints and so on, but Buddhism is not philosophy. This is how Buddha taught.

1:19:47.6 Buddha did not do like we do. I came here and I talk and you people have study groups and they didn’t do that. At Buddha’s time, incidents took place. Somebody did something and then went to Buddha and told him, “So and So did this, is that right or wrong?” I give you a funny example. Buddha says that obsession is not great. Attachment is bad. Sexual misconduct is wrong. Then suddenly you notice that somebody is having sex with a cow. People went to Buddha and said, “So and so is having sex with a cow. Is that okay?” So then Buddha said yes or no or whatever. That is how Buddha’s teaching came.

1:21:09.7 Buddha told his celibate disciples not to eat in the afternoon because it would make them fat. Some monks today still don’t eat after mid-day. Whether it is 12 or 1 depend on the country. That’s where that comes from. Then there was another disciple who had some funny illness and every time he ate it was like with a monkey. It didn’t go into his stomach, but somehow collected here [at the throat] and then one or two hours later it popped up into his mouth and he would chew and swallow it and then it would go down. Then they said, “This guy is eating in the afternoon. Is that okay?” So Buddha said, “Yes, it’s ok for him, because he can’t eat straight. He has to store it and whenever it comes he has to eat.” He was naturally born that way and that is just like some monkeys do.

1:22:45.0 So Buddha’s teaching is like that. All the rules came out in that manner. That’s how compassion was taught. That’s how wisdom was taught. Each one of those. That’s how Buddhism came in and it is really the very practical, personal experience of Buddha. And similarly, those things that Buddha talked about with direct, personal experience are known as the Three Pitakas. That’s the collected works that Buddha did. We Tibetans call that denö sum.

In English it is the Three Baskets. They are morality, concentration and wisdom.

1:24:29.8 All the teachings regarding concentration are collected in one basket. All the teachings on morality are collected into one basket. We call it tsültrim gyi la ba in Tibetan, the concentration basket is ting ngen dzin gi la ba and the last is the basket of wisdom, in Tibetan sherab gi la ba. The three baskets are the meanings of the words put together called the Tripitaka teachings. This is totally the personal experience of the Buddha based on incidents, here and there. Morality came about like that. Concentration and wisdom were taught based on his personal development.

MAHAYANA

Now comes the Mahayana. Based on these three baskets add up rich compassion. Compassion, care and love, dedication, altruism, all combined together becomes Mahayana.

1:26:34.6 Within Mahayana itself, only compassion, altruism-principled practice becomes the object, the purpose of practice. When you are in Theravada or Hinayana, with three baskets as principle, the goal of the practitioner is to free yourself from samsara. They become what we call arhats in Sanskrit. In English it is called the path of no more learning – of the Theravadan tradition.

1:27:34.0 The goal is that. Freeing yourself from samsara and when you get out from samsara you become an arhat. That’s how it is. Arhat in Tibetan is dra chom pa, not sang gye. Although it is the path of no more learning. So Buddha is not only at the level of no more learning, he is not only a dra chom pa, but a dra chom pa chen po. That’s why when you say the mantra of Buddha you have MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNIYE SOHA. Victory, Victory, Greater Victory, or Conqueror, Conqueror, Greater Conqueror, - whatever you way you translate. What you have conquered first is the direct strong delusions, such as hatred, anger, obsession, etc, The second victory is the victory over self-cherishing and ego-grasping. The third victory is the victory over even the imprints of that. That becomes MAHA MUNI, the greatest achievement. So the goal of the Mahayana is to gain the fullest achievement of an enlightened Buddha. The question of becoming a Buddha is never raised in the Theravadan tradition.

1:29:29.7 There the purpose of the practice is to free ourselves from the delusions and samsara. The purpose of the Mahayana practice is to become Buddha, because of compassion, the compassion for all beings, which makes you take responsibility for liberating all beings from all the suffering into the Buddha level. How can I do it? I can’t do it, unless I become Buddha. Therefore I need to become Buddha. So the need for becoming Buddha rises because of compassion. Compassion with love will go all out. It won’t get burn-out. That’s because of love. If there is no love you get burn-out.

VARJAYANA IN GENERAL

1:30:48.4 That’s how Buddhism in general is structured. Now, within the Mahayana, comes Vajrayana. All right, you need to become a Buddha, but how long will that take? I am just what I am today, so for me to become Buddha, how long will it take? That question was raised to Buddha. Buddha looked at every one of them and said, “All of you will take three eons.” Not centuries, but eons. So what is the use? But there is a quicker way to do it. How quick? Within a life or two or three or at the most 16 life times. And that is called Vajrayana.

1:32:16.2 What do we do in Vajrayana? Don’t forget, on the basis of the three baskets, morality, concentration and wisdom you build compassion. On top of that you build the deity practice. That’s how it is. What is a deity? A Buddha manifested, not manufactured, but manifested. Each different deity appears to suit the individual emotions as well as karmic connections you have to each deity. Some are wrathful, some are peaceful, some are semi-wrathful, semi-peaceful. Some are with company, with consorts, some are without. That is what we call sometimes deity yoga. Right or wrong, I don’t know. Some people call it that. It is within the Mahayana. The division is not Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana. That’s how we count in the west. But traditionally, in Tibet, it is Hinayana and Mahayana. Mahayana is divided into two: with or without Vajrayana.

1:34:48.4 So what is deity yoga? A deity is a being, a person, which Buddha manifested, along with his or her mandala or universe. Each one of these deities has his or her own universe. When we take initiation, we are introduced to the deity, trying to enter his or her universe or mandala. The word mandala means center, the center of the universe. How does that universe exist? When I was a kid, when I was taught, I always thought it is not going to fit here. How long do I have to go there, how far do I have to go? These questions always popped up on my head. You know all these questions can be answered by a computer. In a computer you can see yourself now how much space is required to store information. You don’t need much. A little chip the size of a thumb can carry hundreds and thousands of names, numbers, email addresses and so on. We can put them all into our cell phone [on a SIM card] and take that out. It is thin like paper. That tells us how such a universe fits within each universe. I am not just saying that. There is a verse in the “King of Prayers”

Dü chi de na dü ni sang gye nam

Sang gye se kyi ö ne zhung wa tar

In one atom sit hundreds and thousands of buddhas

That didn’t mean anything for this Tibetan mind 50 years ago. You said, “Okay, I don’t want to argue, that’s it.” And sometimes when you argue, you get scolded. The question is: how does that fit? They said it is a mental thing, a mental image or structure. But if it is only mental, then that is a buddha without body. Is that right? Then they would say: no, it is different. Why? Because they have different frequencies at buddha level. Body and mind go into union, so wherever their mind goes their body goes. That’s the answer they give you. Then I said, “So where is the mind?” They said, “Mind is knowledge, whatever you know.” Then I said, “All right, when I go to the bathroom, Buddha’s mind is there, his knowledge is there, so if his body is also there, am I shitting on top of the Buddha?” Then I got scolded.

1:40:13.6 But that’s it. Your curious mind can take that much but nothing more. At the end you get scolded. But now, if you look at the computers you can understand.

1:40:28.3 Then that really shows how the universe is so small and so big and each universe can contain how many universes overlapping each other. All of them are possible. Scientific development is not a joke. It is really helpful, tremendously helpful, not only in its own way, but to understand the spiritual path. So that’s how each one of those deities have their own mandala. And that mandala overlaps other mandalas but functions and works. Now the wisdom of the Buddha is this: When it works and functions, that’s called dependent origination. Things, parts, parcels, whatever parts, when they fit together and when it works, then it exists. That is dependent origination.

There is a commercial on Television. There is a lady who has a plate with beautiful fruit hanging, but a little blue piece is missing. A sophisticated-looking conservative lady comes in, looks to the other side and there is a plate which has a perfectly fit blue piece. She gets a hammer and smashes that plate, picks up that blue piece and puts it on the other plate and it fits. Did you see it? it’s on CNN as well as Fox News. I watch both. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes Fox gives you better news, honestly, as far as news is concerned. CNN gives you limited, though they did nice work showing the Gadaffi thing. Normally they would not show it, but they are showing it.

1:43:53.8 That means it is dependent origination. The part and parcel, whatever is missing, take it out and plug it in and it becomes perfect profile for her. That is how the dependent origination really is. So the whole universe of each deity has its own profile. In the case of Tara today, she has her own universe. How does that universe look? What is it? Normally I don’t talk about that. I do talk about the mandala and the shields, but what I don’t talk about is that the shields are the basis of the universe.

1:45:12.2 When you look at a universe, particularly Tara’s, it looks like a little ball. When you look from far away, from the distance, you will see a floating ball, like a golf ball. It has a rusty color, sort of tuned down. It is a universe that is not drawing the attention of everybody. It doesn’t say: Hey I am here. It is toned down with a rusty, khaki type of color. If you were a khaki uniform you don’t have very strong colors, it sort of merges with the mud. So many places like India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, etc, they wear khaki uniform, the military police and all of them. This is so as not to draw attention, but to merge. That is not an Indian or Pakistani or Afghani idea, they are a British idea, those snobbish Brits. They knew exactly what they were doing, fortunately or unfortunately.

1:47:33.6 Likewise, Tara also has the khaki uniform. It is really a rusty-colored shield and that’s the outer look of this particular universe. Every universe in the Buddhist tradition – as a Buddhist I will say it is reality – as open-minded western people we will see that every universe does exist on the basis of the elements. The basis of all is the air. How does air build up? You know the western idea of the big bang and then the air got together? Here the Buddhists may say we have the karma of each and every individual which brings all the air together. In Tibetan we call it wö shi lung gi khyil khor. The air is the strongest things to hold everything together. So the basis is the air mandala.

1:50:48.0 (Tibetan side remarks)

1:51:15.9 Above that is fire, above that, water, above that, earth. So those elements get together and hold the basic foundation of the air. Air holds fire together. Fire holds water together. Water holds earth together. That’s how basically the universe holds together. Where does that come from? The collective karma of the individuals who are going to utilize that particular universe. How do you represent them? There are certain seed syllables which then become this and that. I do explain that, because someone asked me last night, “I like to know how the universe exists. Who made it? As far as I know nobody made it, but how come it is there?” She was in a dialogue with a Christian missionary Chinese woman who has been telling her that God made it. She was arguing with her that God did not make it, but wanted to know how it came to be. There was a big, long conversation about it, so she asked me how that works. So that’s why I wanted to talk about that today. It is important to know, otherwise you may think that Buddhism doesn’t have any evolution. Buddhism also does accept the end of the universe, but only the end of one universe, not all of them. Some go, some come, that’s how it goes. The multi-galaxy universe is accepted.

1:54:30.3 That’s what Buddha knew and saw and that’s what he told us. Within each galaxy they give you six different lives. For example, there are hell realms, hot and cold. There is the hungry ghost realm, animal realms, human realm, demi-god realm, samsaric god realm. That makes six, but the four form realms and four formless realms. The top of that is called “peak of samsara”. Altogether there are fourteen within samsara and beyond that, two. Sort of half-half business. Anyway, sixteen or seventeen come in. That is happening in each and every universe, even in Tara’s universe. So when you practice and visualize you don’t all these things. You yourself are in the center and then you creating it all. When you talk about one individual person and what we see we do not go beyond that. That is how the whole universe exists.

We are supposed to stop at 12 for lunch. Any questions?

Audience: What about space?

Rimpoche: Space is there always, otherwise all the others are stuck to each other. Space is the basis of all. Because of space everything is possible. Because of how it works, space has no limitations. I was told it is already 12.15 and we have to stop, because some people have arrangements and they have to go. We are coming back at 2 pm, or 2.15 at the latest. Then we come back and do the eight fears. That’s it.

1:58:21.2 end of file