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20120226GRAATB9

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Good morning everybody and welcome to today’s Sunday talk: Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche. Today we are in Ann Arbor, Michigan, beginning our winter retreat. This retreat is about the yoga of the guru. The basis of this guru yoga is the great Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa. Actually, we began last night and we will have a good week, ending next Sunday. When I will be talking to you next Sunday our retreat will be done. So then we will tell you whether it has been good or bad. We can report to you at that time. In Tibetan Buddhism the guru is very important. Perhaps many of you are aware of it: when we take refuge we take the four – round refuge. Normally, it is the three – round refuge: taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This is commonly known in every part of Buddhist practice, particularly the Buddhism that developed in the Southern tradition. It went to the South of India and from there to Sri Lanka and Burma, which is now Myanmar. I am an old man now and I am using old names. But I am happy I used Sri Lanka rather than Ceylon. The Southern tradition of Buddhism further went to Laos and Cambodia and all of that area. These are the teachings of Buddha that went from south to south after Buddha passed away.

The other main tradition is the one that traveled from north to north. It is the Mahayana Buddhism that is very well developed in China and Tibet, Mongolia and northern Indian regions, like Ladakh, Arunchal Pradesh and so on, the Himalayan regions of India and Tibet. That’s the northern Buddhism. The Southern tradition went to a lot of the hot countries. That’s they Buddha’s followers, the monks and nuns, wear yellow robes. That gives you a cooling effect. The northern tradition went to the Himalayas and northern cold areas. That’s why the monks and nuns wear darker colors, like maroon. It is not because Buddhism is different, but because how it journeyed to different areas.

All the northern Buddhist traditions have the four – round refuge: to the Guru, to Buddha, to Dharma and to Sangha. This is particularly true for the Tibetan tradition that developed in Tibet, Mongolia and the northern Himalayan areas.

You may think, “What and who is the guru?” The most important guru in Tibetan Buddhism is Guru Buddha Shakyamuni. In other words, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is the most important guru. It is Buddhism and Buddha was not only the founder but also the teacher of Buddhism. Buddhism is based on the experience of Buddha. The – ism of course developed much later. The Buddha’s personal experience of his development is the basis of Buddhism. Personal experience can be good and bad experiences. We all know that. We all have experience of something or other. Sometimes we have a very profound experience of faith or doubt or delusion – all of them we have. So using the word ‘experience’ alone is not necessarily great. People experience all kinds of things. The Buddha’s experience I am talking about is the reduction of negative emotions, the negative activities and negativities. That is a good experience. Traditionally, Tibetan teachings tell us tö dang zhi shing tu wa – gom dang nyong mong chung wa - the spiritual practice and work and development is actually divided into three activities. The first is learning, the second is practice and the third is meditation. That is tö (learning) sam (thinking) and gom (meditating).The meditation is the one that will really make a difference to the individual.

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What do you meditate on? You have to contemplate and practice and analyze and understand. The point you gain is what you meditate on. The meditation follows the studying and analyzing. Analyzing for me means internal analyzing, not external, materialist analyzing, like what the scientists do. We do exactly the same thing, but dealing with the internal mind, not external material things. That’s what I mean by analyzing, not trying to mix this and that and bring that from here and this from there. That may be a western style of analyzing. I don’t know. All of the new age is born out of that anyway.

In order to practice and analyze, you have to first learn it. So the learning comes first, then practicing and analyzing and finally meditating or focusing. When you know what to focus on then you focus. When you don’t know what to focus on you cannot focus.

How do you know you are learning? It is not about the numbers of books you have read, nor the numbers of things you have heard and read. The sign of learning is that the individual becomes peaceful, pacified and humane and very humble. You are learning that anger is horrible. It disturbs your mind and also the mind of your companions, your family. When you learn that you will try to avoid anger. When you reduce anger you become more pacified, more peaceful. By becoming more peaceful you become kinder, kind to yourself and kind to others. This is the sign of Buddhism 101. I am using anger as an example, but the same applies to obsession and hatred and also particularly to pride.

A lot of our people are getting spoiled by pride. There is not so much disturbance from anger and certainly not from obsession, but there is from pride. It is more or less a complex. Pride can often mean self-esteem and that is fine. There is nothing wrong with self-esteem. That is perfect and should be there. But the problem is the superiority complex that thinks, “I am somebody, better than all you stupid people. Follow me.” They won’t say it, but that’s in their deep mind. That is our biggest problem. I have been working with people such as yourselves for 20-30 years. I did not have difficulty to deal with anger. As a matter of fact, let me say that by the gift of God, people who come along with me, their anger somehow leaves them behind. That has happened to me since the mid -1960s and even back in Tibet before 1959. Even personally, for me anger is not a big issue at all and that an effect on others – very much. I may say this: Allen Ginsberg is a good example. Read “Howl” and see the personality and then read “Do the Meditation” [Meditation Rock] and see the personality. So people who deal with me do have that effect. Anger is not a problem. Obsession is also not a problem. I am failing on the pride – honestly, that superiority complex. The traditional Tibetan teachings call it “pride”. Even identifying it becomes a problem. I really is a superiority complex coming out in different forms. None of them will be racially motivated and nobody feels superior in terms of race, whether they are black or white or green or yellow or blue or pink. They don’t feel that way. However, there is something that holds them inside thinking, “I am better.” Maybe it has been bended a little bit, but when you are comparing yourself with others, then zoom it goes up – zoom it goes up – zoom it goes up. It is in the individual dealings and that is our biggest problem right now.

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If we don’t have that problem we will be wonderful. People don’t have to worry about it. But this is a problem. This only doesn’t help that individual but also everybody who comes into contact with that person will have the same old stain. They will pick that up.

That’s why the subject of the guru is very important. Whatever the character or feeling, understanding and personality of the guru or teacher is, that is going to affect other people. I have been telling you that people who have been dealing with me – not necessarily learning from me – but even just having a cup of coffee or arguing or debating in my presence, like saying, “You said yes and I say no, bla bla bla” for half an hour or 40 minutes over a glass of wine - is great. It does have an effect on the individual. But this complex is a problem. Number one there is a huge denial. They will say, “I am the most humble and accommodating person”. That becomes a huge denial of that pride. Then, because of that pride there certain superior needs will come. But I don’t want to go into that detail. So this is the problem. The sign of learning is the reduction of those issues, until they gradually disappear completely. That shows that people have learnt something. It is not that you can yap out of the books. Everybody, people such as yourself, is educated. Many of you are great readers, so you can read. You can have all the information on the blackboard, but not in your mind. Nowadays you can have all the information on your I pad. If the information remains on your I pad and you just pour it out of there, it is not that great.

Traditional teachings tell you, “Don’t follow a parrot” – like that parrot named Simon. A parrot will be able to repeat whatever you teach it. But the parrot has no quality. Some have good qualities, but some or most of them will bite you. There is no quality in what they are saying. If that happens to you then you have not learnt. The first step has not been taken. You may have huge information. A few years ago, in one of our retreats they played a skit. I remember Mark Magill playing the superior student, sitting on his cushion. His thoughts were read out by somebody else through a microphone. When somebody came to sit next to him he would look at them and think, “Who is this guy anyway?” And he thought he knew everything. Then somebody else would come and he would think the same thing. I enjoyed that skit very much.

I think it helped a lot of people to No 1 laugh and No 2 reflect their own feelings and No 3 recognize that as a problem and No 4 avoiding that and No 5 the positivity gained out of discarding that. So this skit served a tremendous purpose. On the one hand it is entertainment and play but on the other hand it serves tremendously. So things like that make a difference. So the sign of learning traditionally is called “being peaceful or pacified”. What does that mean? It means less anger, less hatred, less obsession and less jealousy. And fear is another one. Fear and confusion. Any one of those negativities creates a tremendous amount of fear and confusion within the individual. That fear and confusion will block everything else. It will not let it come in. It will almost form a shield that has two purposes: one is to hide yourself and the other is to protect yourself from the things coming from outside, particularly the things that are anti-anger, anti-pride- and anti-obsession. That’s why it is called ignorance in the traditional Tibetan teachings.

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You think you are doing great to protect yourself, but what you are protecting yourself from is things that help you. You are not letting them come in and what you are protecting in there is your hatred, your anger, your obsession, your jealousy. We are protecting the wrong thing and guarding against the wrong thing. Anything that could come in and make a difference is blocked and sealed off. That’s why confusion-ignorance is the very base, shelter and home that all negativities and negative thoughts enjoy. So learn that first and don’t protect the wrong thing. Protect yourself. You need to protect yourself, your pure being. You have to peel off the false schemes of anger, hatred, obsession, jealousy and superior – or inferior complex. That complex goes both ways. These are the things you have to remove. Then your pure being will appear. That is what learning does. That’s why the sign of learning is not how much you can say or quote or how much you have read, but how you function. Traditional Tibetan Buddhism tells us: Don’t look at the mouth of the person – although if a learned person does open their mouth you know after one or two sentences that this person is learned. But you are not supposed to look at their mouth. Look at the individual themselves, how they function and live and behave. So the first step in Tibetan Buddhism is learning and the sign of learning is the reduction of those negative activities and things.

When you reduce negative emotions, that will reduce negative activities and that will reduce negative karma and that makes the individual build positivity. It’s very simple in one way.

When I talked to you from Holland and quoted from the movie “Iron Lady”.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become your character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

What we think we become.

You have to be careful what you say because that becomes your character. Your character becomes your personality. This is true Buddhism. When I saw the movie I thought, “This is really Buddhism”. What you think you say and what you say becomes part of you. That becomes your character, yourself. That is how we can make ourselves better persons. Dharma means nothing but correcting ourselves from doing the wrong things into right things. Dharma does not really apply to Buddhism either. It happens to be a Sanskrit word. Hindus use it do. They call it “dharam”. It can also apply to Judeo-Christian practice. Whoever is teaching the right thing you can apply dharma or dharam to that. The word “dharma” can mean ‘phenomena’ but it can also mean ‘correction’ – correcting from wrong to right. Change the wrong into right.

Now we have an election coming . Remember, last time, Obama was running to bring “change”. He said, “You and I are going to turn the page and change history” – but change to what? He never said. Even in those days I pointed that out and some people got a little annoyed with me.

Here, when the Buddha talks about change he means change from negative to positive, from wrong to right. Otherwise, change comes about anyway. It is impermanence. Change takes place every minute even if you don’t do anything. You may sit still or lie down in bed, but you still change 365 times every second. The next morning you get up and find you have a couple more wrinkles and a bit more loose or dry skin. If you are a snake your skin will peel off. So that kind of change takes place all the time even if you do nothing. Here the dharma changes means changing from negative into positive, from wrong into right. That’s what dharma is. It is not something exclusive to Buddhism or Tibetan Buddhism or anything particular.

Then the second step is thinking or practicing. The sign of the practice is that anger is reduced. Not only do you behave better, but your anger and obsession, etc, is actually reduced. All the afflictive emotions are weakened. That is the sign of practice. The sign of learning is the reduction of wrong behavior. The sign of practice is when your actual negative emotions are shrinking. That is a huge change of personality. These are the signs we look for. Sometimes people go the opposite way. They try to behave better, because they are more educated. But their negative emotions are much stronger. Their spiritual education did not become an antidote to the negative emotions, but they use the information to reinforce the negative emotions. If that happens you are failing on this second step of practice.

You can watch people who have been practicing for 30-40 years. You will see their negative emotions pop up right and left and that happens when the conditions are right. When the conditions are not right they won’t pop up. Then you will know that this devil is there and that demon is there. Then the important thing is that not only that we see that with other persons - that is not the point, but with ourselves. We ourselves have to see it in ourselves. When you see it you should be able to correct it. Then it becomes perfect. So learning, practicing and lastly meditating.

What does meditation do? It customizes your practice. You get used to it and become comfortable with it. Make yourself very comfortable in your own skin.

These are the three simple signs of the three simple A B C practices of Tibetan Buddhism. That is how you observe yourself. I am not telling you to observe others. Everybody has their eyes looking outward. Nobody looks in. The dharma practice is looking in. Some traditions even call that “insight meditation”. It means looking inside. These are the points you are looking for. Where is there negativities? Where are the negative emotions? What is the relationship between, the pure being, and that negative emotion? Seeing alone is not enough. You have to correct it. When you correct it, one correction is not enough. You have to keep on correcting, until it becomes a habit, until you become addicted. That is a good addiction. When you are addicted you miss it if you don’t do it. You like to do it. An alcohol-addicted person would like to have a glass of wine in the evening. If it’s not there, you are going to miss it, right? Likewise, here is you get addicted to positive deeds and don’t have them, you miss them. That becomes a good practitioner. I have to say today: that becomes a good, true Tibetan Buddhist practitioner – because we are talking about “Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche”.

0:43 I guess that’s all I have to say today. We have a few minutes for questions. If you are listening on the webcast, you can send your question to Jewel Heart with attention to Hartmut, it will be answered at the next Sunday talk.

Audience: I was wondering whether there is a way to work with the positive aspects of pride without getting stuck in the negativity? My impression is that if we want to attain enlightenment for every being without exception, we have to be proud and think that the teaching we are trying to practice is magnificent.

Rimpoche: There is no such positive practice as Tibetan Buddhism. It is so positive. We call it vajrayana. That is the result vehicle, not the causal vehicle. The result level here means that you are functioning literally as Buddha this or Buddha that. You have a different name, identity and physical description and visualization. You think, “I am fully enlightened” and you are functioning as though you are already fully enlightened. As far as I know there is no other tradition that is so positive and so well built for individual accomplishment as Tibetan Buddhism. However, here I have used the word “pride” in terms of the traditional usage of the language. The bottom line of its meaning is a superiority complex and inferiority complex. These two are the subjects we have to negate. The positive of being Tara or this and that yidam and budhda is not to be discarded but to be built. I don’t know about other traditions, but there can be nothing that is more positive than this. What else more positive is there than thinking, “I am a fully enlightened Buddha” and functioning like that?

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That’s what the result – yana is all about. “yana” means vehicle in Sanskrit. You are functioning as though you are a Buddha today. What more positive is there than that? Nothing.

Thank you and let’s say the dedication of the Four Immeasurables. 0:52 (Chanting of Four Immeasurables ) 0:53