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;;20120318GRAATB12

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Good morning everybody and better late than never, but Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I do have Irish family and there are a lot of Irish in Jewel Heart. And welcome to “Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche”. The last two Sundays we have been talking about the practice, in particular who, what and what for. We did talk about “what” and “what for” – the purpose of the spiritual practice.

Today I would like to emphasize one more important thing: we have been talking about the purpose and the result. Why are we doing this? We talked about that quite a lot, over two or three Sundays. For the time being I think that should be enough. But I would like to make it into a short statement, rather than the official, usual language and way of speaking. That actually has a lot of value. It is not just old-fashioned. It does serve a lot of purposes. We will officially say that there are two purposes for any spiritual practice. One is the ultimate and the other is the temporary purpose. The temporary purpose is to have a better future, a better tomorrow, not only in this life but also future lives. All of Buddhism is very importantly geared towards future lives. The immediate life after this should be nice, wonderful and comfortable and purposeful.

Purposeful means that we have to clearly define the mission of life and what we hope to gain and what we hope to achieve. Each and every one of us has a mission for our life. Some of us do know, but most of us don’t. We guess. When you don’t know the purpose will become to build a comfortable life or to accumulate a multi-billion dollars so that everything is okay. Or we try to build a huge name so that we can establish big institutions and companies and big everything. People take that as a challenge and mission. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s fine. But we are a little better than that. This is what the traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings say. Making money or building wealth is something that even insects and animals can do quite well.

There are very interesting stories, such as this one. There was one earlier Kadampa master who was meditating all the time. He had a mandala offering. For those of you who don’t know, a mandala offering is a universal offering. The individual does a practice. Actually it is a mental exercise to be very generous. You give everything, the best available in the whole universe, and that is a mandala offering. The Tibetans have nice little silver or gold plates and fill that up with all kinds of jewels and grains. Those who know what a mandala offering looks like are probably laughing in their mind. I am not describing it properly. But those who don’t know have probably some idea not what I am talking about. Then they mix jewels in it, such pieces of gold or silver, like coral, turquoise, pearls and so on.

So there was one nice piece of turquoise in this Kadampa lama’s mandala offering. I am not talking about an Iranian turquoise, but about an old Tibetan turquoise. The idea that the native Americans produced turquoise here, I don’t know how many thousand years ago it was, but they probably have the same thing – the same mental inclination of doing things. The Tibetans are not industrialized at all. They are not great at making things. But they are good at preserving and promoting natural things.

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So they have the natural turquoise, which is very good. So there was this very nice turquoise in the mandala offering and the mice would come and pick up a little grain and look around. They would look up at that piece of turquoise which was on the second or third layer. They would circle around and then go away. This meditator was meditating and watching them. Suddenly, one day five mice showed up. He watched what they were doing. One was lying down flat on the back. The others started climbing on top of it and pushed the turquoise down. It landed on the chest of that mouse and the four others picked it up from the hands and legs and carried it away.

When this teacher started teaching later he relayed this story and this is what really happened. While he was meditating he saw it. So the idea of accumulating wealth is a sort of natural inclination. It is some kind of very normal, usual addiction for all of us. The moment we are born we carry this. That does not make the human beings who have such a quality of life and such a quality of mind better than other life forms. This was the observation of this particular master.

This tells us that as human beings we can think and we can use our mental capacity, which truly speaking is unlimited. The sky is the limit of our mind capacity. All of you know. You are educated and went through with your education. You know how much you can learn. You know how much you can do. You know how much the human knowledge is and what they can do and how much difference we can make for our life and lives. And that is just the human capacity plus education.

So why do we engage in spiritual practice, simply to make the person better and happier?

There is often a misunderstanding. This last week I had the opportunity to talk with one of my old friends. I came to know that people are thinking that improving the person to make them a little better, kinder and gentler is considered a spiritual achievement. That particular person didn’t think so but I started to think that some people may be thinking that becoming a little kinder, gentler and better and more in tune is a spiritual practice result. Certainly not. That is what we call good human beings, good human nature. The Dalai Lama calls this “affection of the warm, human heart.” That’s not a spiritual thing. The spiritual thing should definitely do that, but should do more than that. This is just what good human beings could do. It is human nature. His Holiness talks about how mothers treat their small children, the way they physically deal with children. They hold their child by the hand, keep them close, touching them to the chest. He flesh is touching the child and give it warmth. That way a child learns happiness and learns how to rely on persons it can trust. It learns how to trust a person. This is human nature. For that you don’t need a spiritual path. A spiritual path should do that, but that is not it’s only purpose. It is good kindness, good heart, dealing with people nicely. It is human nature.

Traditionally, the old Tibetan culture had a saying lha chö ge wa chö – The gods’ dharma is the 10 virtues. So they refer to lha chö as the religion of the gods. That’s the word by word translation. Then they say mi chö tsang ma chö druk – the human being’s dharma are sixteen. These were known in the society in the good old times. The mother taking care of the child, bringing people up in society, plus avoiding the 10 non-virtues, and so on, become the 16 qualities of human good character. Humanitarian behavior is that you should always be gentle and kind, more compassionate than competing, not looking down on others.

Looking down on people, the superior and inferior complex is what is put under “pride” in the Tibetan culture.

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They use the term “pride” but it doesn’t necessarily include self-esteem, as people in the west do. We do refer to self-esteem as pride. But when Tibetans say “pride” they are not talking about self-esteem at all. They are talking about superiority/inferiority complexes. I learnt this the hard way. The translations of all the Tibetologists and Buddhologists will also translate nga gyal as pride. Then when you talk to people on that basis it doesn’t work. Then we have to add up one more sentence: it doesn’t mean self-esteem. Self-esteem must be maintained. That’s true.

If I talk to people and say “pride is not good”, the thought comes in my head, “Did I disturb their self-esteem? I must tone it down and add that sentence that yes, it is true, but you don’t want to lose your self-esteem.” The translation of nga gyal to “pride” must be correct, because everybody who knows both languages says that. But they really mean superiority/inferiority complexes. We learn that this is not right and doesn’t help us. On the contrary it harms us. Those things are a clear indication that these are human qualities. They are not spiritual results. A spiritual result means not only to reduce anger, hatred, etc, those negative emotions. Here the purpose of spiritual practice is to eradicate that completely, to have no more anger, hatred, obsession, jealousy. The result of spiritual development is an ideal society. That is very hard to build, almost impossible. That is the purpose. The way to do this is one by one, not in a public mass. A public mass may be done, but that is very difficult. That means each and every one of us has the responsibility of total eradication of hatred, obsession, etc., at least the six root negative emotions and if possible, also the 20 secondary negative emotions. The purpose is not to eradicate them from all over the world, but to eradicate them within ourselves first.

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Our target is ourselves. At least if we can’t make ourselves better, but at least we want to make sure we don’t suffer, because of our own deeds and negativities. We need not only a reduction, but total eradication. That’s the purpose of spiritual practice. You can do it. Yes, you can. Why? People have done it. Buddhas have done it, bodhisattvas have done it, arhats have done it and many earlier masters both in the west and east have done it. So why not you? Why not me? What’s wrong? Nothing. We have a sound mind. That is important. If you are crazy you can’t do it. But to have a little screw loose is okay. I think we all have that anyway. But if you are mentally challenged it deprives you of the opportunity. But most of us are not. And even if we are, we would like to say “no, I am not mentally challenged at all.” That is again human nature. We human beings have that addiction. We don’t want to be associated with bad things, only with good things. So we like winners. We don’t like losers. That’s simple. That’s what it is.

But the spiritual developed people will have the opposite outlook. Honestly. They like losers. You know why? Because they think, “Poor thing, he or she is a human being, a kind, good human being, just like me and just like the next door neighbor or the neighbor’s wife. So why does everybody beat that person up?” That’s how you think. That’s the effect of compassion, caring.

It could be idiot compassion too, because you feel for that person being beaten up by everybody. The person may look like the neighbor’s wife, nothing more, nothing less, nothing special or unusual – a usual, good old American housewife. I am thinking of someone like Sarah Palin, not well educated, could be a little naïve, but just a good old American wife, like the next door neighbor’s wife. What’s wrong with that? When everybody beats her up you feel, “Why is everybody beating her up?” So you feel like supporting her, right? A lot of us will do that. Again, that is also human nature. When everybody is wearing their baseball cap to the front, then some people like to wear it the other way round to register something. That’s human nature. Human beings have that capability. They can do it. They can register the other way, as well as becoming a better person and improve themselves, become kinder, gentler, more settled, less nervous and so on. That’s all human nature. The spiritual path should do more than that. The spiritual result should eradicate all the sources of that completely.

Buddhism officially tells you that there are two purposes, temporary and permanent. The temporary purpose will be that there is no more suffering in this life and the next life. That’s because you are eradicating the negative emotions. The permanent is divided into two: big and small. That’s why they Mahayana and hinayana comes in. The big purpose is to liberate all living beings, because all living beings are connected and that’s why need love and compassion for all living beings and you are working for total freedom for all. If that is too much, then at least take care of yourself totally. These are the spiritual purposes.

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Who can do that? Of course you, nobody else. I can do that, you can do that. I am eligible to do that and you are eligible to do it, because of your physical and mental condition. You may be challenged physically, with your legs or hands or something, that doesn’t matter, as long as your head is not completely smashed. If that happens your mind cannot function. As long as the mind can function it is okay. So we can do it. There are several reasons. One is that people have already done it. There are examples. The second reason is that the ways and means how to achieve that are available. The third reason is that you see that other people now are achieving it right and left and in front and at your back. So why not you? That’s the purpose of spiritual practice. That’s what I wanted to emphasize. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of real, true spirituality. Spiritual results are not physical, they are totally mental. Mentally, whether you have improved or not, there are signs.

Let me put it this way. What does spiritual practice mean? I told you about the three ways: learning, analyzing and meditating. When you listen to the teachings and read the books, they have to tell you one by one, because two words cannot come together. But I, who received this information, am supposed to do the learning and practicing all together. Learning is not simply learning the words, taking notes, studying and reading other books and adding up the knowledge. That is educated learning. That knowledge is educational knowledge. That is not quality knowledge. It is not quality. Is that spiritual practice – not matter what the subject? No. The answer is no, it is not.

Then what is the difference between spiritual learning and educational learning? The purpose of educational learning is to gather information. The spiritual practice learning is for improving the individual. What does it mean to do them together? Whatever you have learnt here, even if it is only one thing, do it yourself. The moment you learn, when you know it is right, you do it yourself. I gave you the example last week. There was this old practitioner who was reading Buddha’s work. He came to a point where the text said you cannot use animal skins to sit on. This particular person right then was sitting on an animal skin. So he removed the skin from underneath him. Then he read on and a couple of pages later it said that if you are a sick person you are exempt from that. He was told by his doctor to sit on a bear skin. So now he had removed that. But when he read that when you are sick you are exempt he picked the skin back out of the garbage and re-used it. That is the example of learning and using the knowledge together for the purpose of eradicating or at least reducing the negative emotions. That is spiritual learning and that has a result. If it is only informational knowledge it is academic learning.

I do know some old time professors in India who are very well versed in the subject they teach in class. Everything they teach they write down on a piece of paper and that they put in a file and stick that on the shelf and nothing happens. Next year the same class is starting, so they pick up the old file, dust it off and take it to the class and teach from it. They do the same thing every year. That is knowledge, no doubt about it, but the knowledge doesn’t remain with the individual, nor does it influence much.

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There is a little bit of influence of course, because you are saying it every day. Remember, the other day we noticed that the words you say do matter, because they become your character, your personality. If you keep on repeating them they will become your personality. They will become part of your life and your character. That’s why words matter. That’s why knowledge does matter. However, if you don’t think about it, but simply go bla, bla, bla, it may not do that much good.

So when I talk about learning here I mean spiritual learning. If you cannot practice what you have learnt you cannot preach. We have the good old saying: Practice what you preach. You have to. If not, it doesn’t work. So learning and practicing has to go together and learning and meditation has to go together. When it says: learning, analyzing and meditating it looks like one is following the other. That is also true. If you don’t learn a little bit before you do something it is not right. The old Tibetan teachers had a good example. If somebody is trying to climb rocks but doesn’t use their arms at all, it will be very difficult. You can only hit the rocks with your bald-headed head. There is nothing else you can do. That doesn’t mean you have to be scholar, but you have to know what you are doing. So don’t know something if you don’t know what you are doing. This is really important. With that, out of the three: learning, analyzing and meditating, the meditation part is covered now. I don’t want to revisit that all the time here.

We haven’t done much on analyzing and meditating. We have just mentioned it, but not done it yet.

But learning must go together with analyzing and meditating. At the beginning level you don’t really know what’s right or wrong, so you have to spend a little time to see whether it is right or wrong. How do you check? You can’t wait till the result comes in. You have to check with authentic, acceptable information given by reliable persons.

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This gives you a lot of room for funny things. What does “reliable “mean? It means someone who never lets you down - tsen ma lun me chen zhe pa. That is the definition of reliable. When you are looking for that it is a little difficult to find. The Buddha dharma and the great early Indian masters and the great Tibetan masters, their experience and their purposes and their developments are supposed to be reliable. They have proved to be reliable for at least 2600 years. That is something that is reliable.

Before Buddha died he have a short teaching to everybody. He took off his clothes and told every disciple, “Look at the body of the Buddha. It is very difficult to see a Buddha’s body again.” He showed his body and gave one advice. He said, “I have said many things during my life, things you can and cannot do. So as for new things that come up, if something goes well with what I have said that can be done and if it doesn’t go well with what I said cannot be done, then you should understand that this is something to be done and follow it. If however, it matches with what I said cannot be done and goes against what I said can be done, then take this is something that cannot be done.”

So Buddha left all decisions thereafter to the sangha – not the Buddha’s regents and substitutes, but to the sangha. It is the majority of the sangha who will say yes or no, not anybody in particular. So Buddha said what you can do on the basis of these two sentences: if it is close to what I said can be done and against what I said not to do, then consider it can be done – and vice versa. So you see the authenticity is extremely important. What is at stake is the individual’s life and benefit, and not a life, but lives. That’s why it is important.

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I would like to conclude today’s talk by looking at what did we do today? We talked about what is spiritual practice – which we haven’t done yet, who can do it and what is the purpose. I mean I can’t say we didn’t do it, because everything is attributed to that. Then we talked about learning, analyzing and meditating. These are the three ways of doing the practice. Methods other than that are questionable. Learning also is not information learning but spiritual learning and has to go together with practicing. You learn and think and meditate together. If you can do that right you can get the result of all three, which is teaching, composing and debating. I am not going to touch that in detail. The emphasis is on spiritual practice being three things and these must go together. Learning is not just informational, but practical.

0:51 Thank you so much for today. If there are questions here in the room you can raise your hands. If there questions on line please send them to www.jewelheart.org, to the program department, attention to the program department. Since I don’t see any hands here I say thank you.

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