Archive Result

20120325GRSFTB13

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Today I am talking to you from San Francisco, California. I was here yesterday to attend a beautiful symposium called “Being Human”. A number of distinguished scientists were there and we have a whole day’s conversation about what it means to be human being. There was a German gentleman called Peter Ballman who organized and Professor Richie Davidson was there, as well as Dr. Ramachandran and many other distinguished scientists, talking about being human based on their own studies.

Each of their presentations were great confirmations of what Buddha had told us and what Tibetan Buddhist philosophy accepts as reality. It was one confirmation after another. For example, an American professor who works in London at the British Museum called Bolatho presented the views on the difference between perception and reality. Both are not necessarily true. Perception is one thing and reality another. That reminds me of two things. Immediately my mind goes to Buddha’s teaching of the Two Truths: absolute and relative truth. He pointed out whatever you see is not reality, the reality is different – in terms of colors. He said that both are not true, perception or reality. That reminds me that appearance and reality don’t tally. This is a beautiful and important teaching of Buddha. The appearance could be misleading. I don’t want to say it is a lie. Likewise the reality we accept is misleading. So that’s both of them. I learnt as a kid from a teacher who repeated the traditional teachings in transmission style and conversational style. Then we had to think and debate that and try to draw our own conclusions. Now the scientists are showing us drawings and pictures and 3 – dimensional images and trying to prove that.

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They are not trying to prove that what Buddha said is correct, but they are trying to prove and present what they found. And that happens to tally with what Buddha found. So I appreciate that. Then Dr. Ramachandran talked about mirror images, showing the functions of limbs in a mirror, which can relieve patient’s pain and the swallowing thing in their hands (?). Then Dr. Thomas Metzinger had experiments with people’s hand on one side and a rubber hand on the other side and they were massaging and moving them and suddenly an ice pick comes and hits the rubber hand and the person gets a feeling and moves his hand out. Also Dr. Ramachandran said that between you and others is only the skin.

When I hear all of that it reminds me that at the perfection level of fully enlightened beings their way of understanding and total knowledge is different from our way of knowing. Our way of knowing is through knowledge, but their way of knowing is through becoming that.

Their body and mind function together at the same frequency at the enlightened level. Though body and mind are separate there is no separation of the body and mind functioning. Wherever their body is their mind is. Wherever their mind is their body is.

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So they are becoming that, with a pervasiveness of feeling, understanding and knowledge. Right now, it is just about an ice pick hitting a rubber hand and the real hand moving, but when you go beyond that – also with the mirror image – ultimately that will lead to that level. If it does that will be the union of body and mind functioning together, as well as total knowledge. If the functioning together of body and mind is proved by scientists then total knowledge will definitely be there. Knowledge is also not just “knowing” but totally becoming that. That will tell you who the individual can go way beyond what we can imagine today within the spiritual field of study or practice. No scientist is trying to prove that, certainly not. But their study and research is leading towards this.

This reminds when years ago I was attending another scientist conference, held by AOL in New York. I was talking then with Professor Ray Kurzweil, an expert in artificial intelligence, actually the founder of it. I was presenting my thoughts and he came out at the end saying, “This is exactly what the traditional Asian religions believe and told us for 2000 years. Scientists have departed from that idea and followed the truth. By chasing the truth we made a 180 degree turn and are now following them.” That was another confirmation for me.

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Whatever Buddha said 2600 years is absolutely the reality, not fancy thoughts, beliefs or ideas. Whatever Buddha presented was his own experience and it can be tested by any means, scientifically, logically, philosophically and such a system, if tested, can be standing. That made me appreciate the opportunity that I had to study, learn and practice this and even share a few words with you people. It is not only fortunate, but also the reality and it will contribute to the improvement of any individual who is spending time on it and is trying to improving life for themselves and others. I am not talking just about material improvement but uplifting ourselves. Most importantly, the goal of spiritual practice, which is obtaining Buddhahood, is the reality.

Some people may think, “Yes, the goal of Buddhahood is reality, but I am not going to be a Buddha, at least not in the next 60 years or so.” But if everything is done right and well, then even if you never think it could materialize, it will materialize. It has happened before. In one way enlightenment is very far away, almost like a dream or imagination. But on the other hand it is just the reality – next to ourselves. That’s what is happening and it has happened before. There are many true Buddhist stories on that.

Talking about stories. In yesterdays’ conference there was Professor Jon Kabbat-Zinn, who does the beautiful work of mindfulness. He did a good meditation too. He told a story of a sufi priest who went to the bank and tried to cash a huge check. The bank staff said, “That’s very fine, but how do I know who you are? I need some identification.” So he took out a big mirror from his pocket, looked in it and said, “That’s me okay.”

Last night I thought about that story. It is true, our eye consciousness is the reliable, direct confirmation of what is true. When he looked at the mirror and saw himself as whoever he was and said it was okay. And that is perfectly okay. However, there is a missing point. The missing link is that the criteria of being reliable is not only the confirmation of the direct mind. There should also not be a contradiction by another direct mind. Non-contradiction by another reliable mind that identifies – that is the portion missing in this particular example.

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Last night, when I was lying down the thought was going through my head about what was missing in this example. I realized it was the criteria of non-contradiction from other reliable minds. When you have the confirmation of a direct mind and no contradiction from any other reliable, direct mind, that confirms it is reliable and non-cheating.

This is one of the five most important subjects we study in the Tibetan monasteries. In Sanskrit it is called pramanavartika and in Tibetan tsema. We do carry our driver’s license or passport and consider that a reliable identification. However, there are many fake passports and drivers licenses throughout the world. So even our reliability is becoming questionable. It is not absolutely reliable, but it is relative truth. So it is important to accept relative truth as it is. If you don’t, you are not going to find the absolute truth. Absolute truth is one thing and reliable relative truth is another thing. We also have to know when to be satisfied and how to accept relative truth. If we can’t accept it and keep on saying, “I am going to go to the bottom of this” you are never going to find the bottom. You are never going to find the end of the Russian doll. You are not going to find something called “This is it.” That’s the reality.

All the scientists, whatever they are studying and finding, confirm that. Whether they themselves acknowledge that or not, but their findings confirm that. This confirmation gives us a source of comfort that whatever the Indian fellow called Buddha told us 2600 ago is true. If we look with today’s eyes, Buddha was just an Indian guy wearing chappals, running around in the dust. We see the Buddha images with the head a little taller, the ears a little longer and so on. But that’s not really Buddha’s photo. The earliest thing we see is images made by Buddha. They are not necessarily exact replica of Buddha himself. In reality he was just another Indian guy walking through the dust, wearing a sarong and sandals or even barefoot, and that fellow discovered these realities 2600 years ago and he relayed it to his followers. The reliable other people carried that message continuously, confirming the message for themselves in each and every individual case. Then the relayed the same message.

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Some are a little more detailed, more sophisticated, some others less sophisticated, more simple and straight forward. But it has been the same message relayed for 2600 years, even up to today. Whatever we practice and spend on in this practice we are not going to waste our time. Not only that, we are going to achieve the goal. If we have enough time we will achieve the union of body and mind. Union means one-ness. It doesn’t mean the body containing the mind, like a glass contains water. Here the glass itself is becoming water and the water itself is becoming the glass. This is unimaginable at our level. But that’s what the union of body and mind is. It is becoming of it. That gives the opportunity in both ways. The enlightened ones having done that gives us the opportunity to also become enlightened. It is a two way street. Ultimately, when we become buddhas, we do so in the nature of the Buddha’s mind. It is not a one way street, but a two way street. But whether or not we can access this depends on us.

I am not talking about luck, but about the fact that we have certain blocks that block us from getting to that level. We refer to them as negativities. Once you get rid of them the blocks are gone. It is like a partition between us being taken down. There is no partition left. Then we will merge together and become oneness. This is the idea when I say it is not a one way street but a two way street.

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If we don’t get to that level, let’s say our blocks are so strong and the imprints of our blocks are so hard to get rid of and we have been a little lazy or short of time and haven’t completely reached there yet, there are then other, different layers of goals.

For the last two sessions I talked to you about the goals of Tibetan Buddhist practice. I introduced you to three different goals. The absolute goal is to become fully enlightened. The number two goal is to be free from the suffering of all kinds. The third goal is to have at least a nice life. You can achieve the third goal quite easily. You don’t even have to be a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner. Every good human being can achieve this. You can be kind, gentle, without hatred. The good human nature can make this.

Yesterdays’ conference was about “being human”. What does that mean? We didn’t talk about being “good” human beings. I presume that being human means it is better than being an animal. The traditional Tibetan teachings say that when are human beings we have to make a difference from being animals. The difference here is this. Otherwise, even animals know how to make themselves happy. That’s their goal. They know how to get warmth, coolness, how to get rich and how to accumulate wealth. I told you the story about the mouse lying down near the mandala offering and four other mice pulling the turquoise out of the mandala build up and putting it on the chest of the mouse that was lying down and then the four other mice carrying that one mouse away.

Yesterday the scientists tried to show how monkeys are able to do business and make a profit. They were even able to use currency, like coins. So even animals can do that. So being human has to be a little better than that.

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It means being good. That is very important, if you accept goodness and badness. It is a big question actually what is good and what is bad. From the point of view of a bad person badness can be good too. From the point of view of a murderer the massive, powerful weapons are good, because they can kill more people. But from my point of view they are not good, because they are much more harmful. So goodness is debatable.

Where do you draw the line? For me, being good is being able to not harm or hurt anyone. Then it is good. If you are hurting others, all this violence, is not good. It hurts people, including yourself. Otherwise, if you throw good and bad into the open it is very difficult to distinguish. But when you look from the point of view of what hurts then it is different. Again, we are coming to the question of reliability. It has to be confirmed by a direct mind and not be contradicted by other direct minds.

In this case, crooks may argue that massive weapons are good because they are very efficient. That is a direct contradiction to what I say: it is not good. That becomes a subject of discussion. We cannot say that one direct mind is better than another direct mind. If you go into detail, you can say that. But in one hour here we can’t do that. We would be wasting all our time. But there is a point to think about and discuss. Reliability is important, especially with regard to the subject we are going to spend a lot of time on and that is our practice, trying to improve ourselves.

Whatever you follow and practice, try to find a reliable one. Unreliable ones there are so many today. In ancient times Buddha’s teachings were very rare and difficult to get. Tibetans sacrificed so much to get the true Buddhist teaching. I mentioned to you how even a Tibetan ruler sacrificed his own life for the sake of bringing Buddha’s teachings to Tibet. The same thing happened in China. Tangsai Lama spend his life traveling from China to India to bring the Buddha dharma to China. Bodhidharma also travelled a tremendous amount of distance to bring Buddhism to China. Look at every one of their stories and you will see how much they have sacrificed, how much hardship they took.

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Today you have it available in the Yellow Pages and everywhere. So the reliability question is much more relevant today than even 20 or 50 years ago or 100 years ago. Whatever you, follow a reliable path. If it is not reliable, what happens? You could waste all of your time and your life. If you are lucky, while you will not get the ultimate achievement, you can get some improvement at least. That is also okay. The reduction of anger, hatred, jealousy and so on are important.

Yesterday in the conference one of the scientists, Paul Ekland, says that there is no word in Tibetan language for emotions. That could be true. For a moment I went blank. I couldn’t think of one word describing all emotions, without a two sentence explanation. But we do deal with the emotions tremendously. We have a word for negative emotions, nyong mong wa. We do have a word for positive emotions. But there may not just be emotions. If you use a general word in Tibetan it may become mind. The mind has a very strong relationship with the emotions and the mental faculties. Mind and mental faculties have a tremendous relationship. Even the identity of positive and negative mental faculties are probably based on the emotions. But I couldn’t think of one word describing all emotions.

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Maybe there is no such word in Tibetan. But my knowledge is also very limited. I am sure there is much more beyond me. But I know there are negative and positive emotions. The negative emotions are the source of negative deeds. Negative deeds are the blocks I was talking about earlier, that block you from the union of body and mind. Getting rid of those blocks and removing the effects of negative emotions and actions is the core practice we do. I told you a couple of Sundays ago that there are two most important things. One is to try to clear and purify the negative deeds and their effects we carry. Two, we try to build up more positive deeds and emotions. These two are the contemplations of Tibetan Buddhist practice: clearing the negative deeds and their influences and building positive deeds and emotions. When you have this done, then the result of enlightenment and total knowledge is automatic. We don’t work for that, we work on this. It is what I said earlier, when the blocks are removed, the curtain comes down and you will merge with that. That’s exactly what Tibetan Buddhist practice is all about. The goal is to achieve total knowledge. Who does it? We ourselves, with total efforts. How do we do it? We clear the obstacles and build the positives. That’s how we will reach there. That’s all I would like to say today and thank you so much. 0:45:02