Archive Result

89

20120526GRGRHS04

00:00 Announcements

0:01 Protector Prayers Chants – Mahakala, Dharma King

0:06

Questions and Answers

Audience: Could you further elaborate on unshakeable karma? How does a person get into this type of karma and how can one get out of it?

Rimpoche: We talked about that last night. As I said yesterday, the problem is that if your motivation is not correct and if you do a lot of nice, good work with that, then the nature of the karma becomes something that the individual can get a good result for, but it will be within the samsara. As a matter of fact, if you look at the www.jewelheart.org on the Digital Dharma webcast site, you will see the chart that shows the different layers of rebirth, good and bad, all of them. There are 17 layers in that chart. That is the middle way of explaining. There is also an explanation with 52 layers. We made this chart 10 – 20 years ago. You will see that within the samsara alone there are six realms, three lower and three higher realms, plus the form – and formless realms. There are four form – and four formless realms. All the good efforts we put in will go to take rebirth in those areas. That way it is good karma, which is positive, no doubt about that, but it doesn’t help the individual to get out of the circle of suffering, which is samsara.

0:10

The best you can get is the form and formless realms. The four form realms are known as Samadhi stage 1, 2, 3, 4. That means meditative stage. Then the four formless ones are space-like, consciousness, nothingness and peak of samsara. (Tib: nam khar taye, nam she tha ye, che me, si pai tsin pa). All the good work you do will give you a good future rebirth, comfortable, and something even beyond comfortable, like the four form – and four formless realms and that is the unshakable karma. The way you get out of this is by having the motivation for obtaining enlightenment, for becoming free from samsara and dedication. You dedicate your virtues not just simply any benefit, but to becoming fully enlightened. These two important activities at the beginning and at the end are motivation and dedication. When you do this right, every virtue you accumulate will not only just be positive, but will go to liberating yourself from the suffering circle of samsara or if possible, to becoming a fully enlightened Buddha. That’s why bodhimind, ultimate love/compassion, unlimited and unconditioned, becomes so important.

Shantideva, the early Indian Buddhist teacher and master, said (Ch1, verse 10 bodhicaryavatara)

GSER 'GYUR RTZI YI RNAM PA MCHOG LTA BU,

MI GTZANG LUS 'DI BLANGS NAS RGYAL BA'I SKU,

RIN CHEN RING THANG MED PAR BSGYUR BAS NA,

BYANG CHUB SEMS ZHES BYA BA RAB BRTAN ZUNG,

Sing gyur tsi yi nam par cho ta bu

Mi tsang lu di lang ne gyal wai ku

Rin chen ring dang me par gyü wai na

Jang chub sem she gya wa rab ten sung

This means that bodhimind, the mind of compassion and love, is just like a gold solution. When you apply that onto any metal, they all become like gold or rather become gold. So the motivation changes the nature of the virtue itself.

The second part of the question: How do you get the heck out of it – so this is also how you get the heck out of it. If you have the right motivation and right dedication, that will get you the heck out of there.

0:15

Audience: You talked about merit merit and wisdom merit earlier. Can you give some example of wisdom merit that will result in accumulating such merit?

Rimpoche: Interesting question. Any positive thing you do, compassion, caring, love, dedication, all of them are creating merit. That will be merit-merit. Wisdom merit is the moment that very virtue or any virtue is involved with the wisdom nature, the understanding of wisdom that influences, then it is becomes wisdom merit. For example, let’s say a bodhisattva has just become a bodhisattva and has unquestionable, ultimate, unlimited compassion, but has no influence of wisdom at all, then every virtue that person creates will become merit-merit.

Everybody, whatever they are doing without influence of wisdom, any good effort – between wisdom and compassion – will fall under compassion aspect. Everything, even if it is not directly compassion, such as the appreciation of one’s life or understanding of suffering in samsara or the Four Noble Truths, knowing the Truth of Suffering, the Truth of the Cause of Suffering, etc. All of those, without influence of wisdom, whatever you do, will fall in the category of compassion. Some of them will have nothing to do with compassion, but fall under that category, because it is divided between wisdom and compassion. The technical Buddhist term is actually not compassion here, but method. So it is method and wisdom. It is called method because it is some way of handling. But when normal English speaking people hear “method and wisdom” they will wonder what this is talking about. But if you talk about wisdom and compassion, everybody will say, “I know what that is all about.” So sometimes you need to use the language that people can relate to. That’s why I am using the term compassion, rather than method.

If it has nothing to do with emptiness, the understanding of reality, nothing to do with the lack of inherent existence, nothing to do with nothingness and nothing, then it will be just pure merit-merit. The moment you have some idea of the lack of inherent existence then even subtle impermanence, which is not emptiness, but it helps the individual to understand emptiness better. It leads the individual to the real emptiness. Gross impermanence is not that much [helpful for this], but the subtle impermanence, which is the changing nature minute by minute, second by second pushes the individual to question whether there is really a substance in there or whether there is a lack of substance.

No one is using this term “substance”, because it can create more misunderstanding than help, but with what you have already heard in the afternoon, I can use that term here. Actually the lack of inherent existence is a lack of substance. There is nothing there. But you can’t say “nothing” because there is something there. It is dependent originated something there. That solidness is not there. When you have that understanding then it is a whole different ball game. That’s why then it becomes wisdom-merit. The result will not just be a luxurious, comfortable life, but it will be something beyond samsara. It is the ignorance, ma rig pa, losing its control. That brings your own reality. That is what the wisdom aspect does. Any virtue you get out of that doesn’t just give you comfort within samsara, but beyond samsara.

0:26

As I said earlier, this verse by Nagarjuna

Ge wa di yi kye bo kün

So nam ye she tsog dzog shing

So nam ye she lä jung wä

Dam pa ku nyi tob par shok

By this virtue, may all beings

Complete the collection of wisdom and merit,

And attain the two holy bodies

Arisen from wisdom and merit.

Tells you about what the ultimate goal is that we as practitioners want to get. We want to become Buddha. What is Buddha? There are physical and mental aspects of Buddha. All the physical aspects of Buddha are the result of merit-merit, which somehow went to create enlightenment, because of the motivation. So you get the result of the physical aspects of the Buddha. Then the wisdom merit will give you the mental aspects of Buddha. The result then is known as the two kayas. Kaya is the Sanskrit word for body. So there is the physical aspect and the mental aspect. You need both, otherwise you have a Buddha without mind, or the Buddha mind without physical body. That would be a formless Buddha and that won’t work. So you need both. That’s why merit and wisdom merit are needed. I hope that’s enough explanation. Many of our friends are shaking their heads. For you [the ones who have been practicing for longer] it is easy. You get it before I even say it. But those who are here for the first time, I am not sure if they get it or not.

Audience: There seemed to be some confusion with the Three Higher Trainings, the Three Principles and the Three Baskets.

Rimpoche: Doesn’t matter, they are all three anyway.

Audience: That’s the problem! Can you elaborate on those? The Three Higher Trainings are discipline, concentration and wisdom. The Three Principles are renunciation, compassion and wisdom. The Three Baskets are discipline under the vinaya rules, then the sutras, the Buddha’s discourses and then the abhidharma. So wisdom shows up in all and discipline possibly in all three. So what’s the story?

Rimpoche: You forgot another set of three: the Three Jewels! (laughs)

Somehow there is some kind of coordination there, right? The Three Principles are traditionally called renunciation, ultimate compassion or bodhimind and wisdom. These are the real essence of Buddha’s practice and teaching. Renunciation cuts the obsession or attachment a little forcefully. Why is it important to cut attachment and obsession? Because attachment and desire is samsara’s glue. It sticks us to samsara. Cutting that becomes a priority. That’s why renouncing forcefully is necessary. If you don’t know how to handle the samsaric goodies and picnic spots, then better avoid them. Avoiding them becomes necessary if you don’t know how to handle yourself. If you know how to handle yourself you don’t have to avoid, you don’t have to renounce forcefully.

Not only that, sometimes you can even use them to help, but that’s really tricky and has a lot of funny consequences, unless you really know what you are doing. Crazy wisdom is like that – supposed to be like that. You are supposed to know how to handle it. But if you can’t, the crazy wisdom goes wrong, this way and that way. It is very easy to go wrong.

0:35

So the majority of the people, especially if you cannot protect yourself, then better not get involved. That’s why a lot of discipline comes in. There is a link there. But it is not the same thing. The discipline is imposed because you are protecting yourself. If you cannot protect yourself from getting into trouble then you better not deal with it. You will be better off. A lot of people will think, “I can deal with it. I can manage that”. But it is becoming difficult. John Edward’s case and President Clinton’s issues show that. I am sure they thought, “I can handle that. I know I can handle that.” With that mind they got in deeper and deeper. So to avoid that sort of consequences discipline is applied. There is a link but the renunciation is not the Higher Training of morality. Nor is the Higher Training of Morality renunciation. Morality application is applied presuming that people have difficulty to handle it. If you look at Christian monks you see how much discipline they have. They really have a tremendous amount of discipline on everything. You don’t want to take the risk of losing the individual. You really fight this particular battle once in a blue moon. You don’t get to do this very often. It is very rare, so you can’t afford to lose. That’s why discipline is applied.

Within the Buddhist order, if you look at it, the tradition that comes from Zen has very strong discipline. When they sit, they sit like a mountain. We, the Tibetans, will sit but look and smile a little bit. When the Zen people sit, they sit like a solid rock or mountain. And sometimes, if you don’t you get hit on the back with a bamboo stick.

0:40

Do you still do that?

Audience: Yes, that is called keisaku.

Rimpoche: I think nowadays you ask them, right? and then they give you. So if you are not focusing, then wack, there you go. That’s what it is. So it is important. It is to avoid problems. So that’s the difference between discipline and renunciation. Then compassion and concentration – yes, you develop compassion by concentration. There is a link there, but concentration is not necessarily compassion and compassion is not necessarily concentration. Then the metaphysics and wisdom are almost two different things. That is the Three Higher Trainings and the Three Principles. Then the Tripitaka and the Three Higher Trainings are almost the same. One is said from the subject point of the view and one is labeled by the practice and the individual development.

That’s what we said this morning by quoting Gunthang’s praise:

lung chö de nö sum gyi che nyen dang

tok pe ten pa lab sum nyam len te

ke shin drub pe nam tar me du jung

lo sang gyel we ten pa gye gyur chik

What a marvelous account this life of a scholar-yogi!

How he heard and taught thescripturalDharma of the three baskets

And how he practiced the three trainings to gain the Dharma of realizations.

May the teachings of Victorious Losang last forever.

A great Tibetan scholar of the 1600s from Amdo, called Gunthang Jambelyang, was really great and a great poet too. We study many of his works here and there, a little bit. And one of them is the praise to the longevity of Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings. When you ask “What is Buddhism”, the answer given by the early Indian Buddhist teacher Vasubandhu in his metaphysical text is:

Dön pä tam che nam nyi de

Lung la tö pai nam nyi du

Buddha dharma is two: the information aspects

and the spiritual development aspects.

Studying and learning about the Three Baskets are the informational aspects and by studying that you develop within you one after another or all three together the Three Higher Trainings. That is the spiritual development and Gunthang Jambelyang made this quite clear to us. The Tripitaka is the learning aspect and the Three Higher Trainings is the development aspect. The subject is almost the same. So that is the difference. The Three Higher Training means training yourself and gaining development within you. When you talk about the Three Basket teachings it is learning about it. Thus it fulfills the Buddha Dharma’s information and spiritual development aspects. Both are fulfilled because of that. Maybe that much to that question.

Audience: Does the Theravadan practitioner relate to wisdom differently than the Mahayana practitioner?

Rimpoche: No difference. The Sravakayana, Pratyekayana and Buddhayana, all three, have the same wisdom. The wisdom of emptiness that is presented in all these yanas, including the vajrayana, is all one emptiness, no different. Within emptiness you may make divisions such as the emptiness of person, the emptiness of phenomena. You can divide more and get 16 divisions of emptiness, including the emptiness of emptiness. You can count that way, but it is one emptiness. Not only one emptiness, but if you understand one at any level emptiness you have understood all.

Somebody, maybe Shantideva, said,

Gang gi ngö ji de shi nyi tong wa

De yi ngö drub de zhin nyi to pong…..

If you see the emptiness on one subject that will help you the emptiness on any other subject. So the emptiness is one, not different. That’s my understanding.

Audience: But do Vajrayana and Mahayana practitioners relate differently to that same emptiness?

Rimpoche: I don’t know. I really don’t think it relates differently to the individual. Honestly speaking, when you talk about the Five Paths, the Path of Accumulation, the Path of Action, the Path of Seeing, the Path of Meditation and the Path of No More Learning you do have the Sravaka Five Paths, the Pratyeka Five Paths and the Mahayana Five Paths, but at the wisdom path, the Third Path, the Path of Seeing, it is really one wisdom. So I don’t know what you mean by how it relates differently. I don’t think it relates any differently. If you see that emptiness within any tradition it is good enough for the individual to cut the ignorance. The whole purpose of seeing emptiness is to refute the ego grasping or self- grasping, not necessarily selfishness, but the ego.

0:53

So all these emptinesses do the same job. It is the same thing. It is revealing the nature of reality, sorting out the confusion that confuses the dualistic perception, bringing us face to face with oneness, the reality. I think they all do the same thing. We also know that they all cut the samsara out. They really cut the heck out of samsara. Whether it is Theravada or Mahayana or Vajrayana, it is all the same thing. The quality of Vajrayana and Mahayana is made by the wisdom aspect. It is made by the aspect of compassion and bodhimind. That is why Mahayhana claims to be superior than others, rather than from the wisdom point of view. Vajrayana claims to be superior not because of wisdom and not because of compassion, but because the individual perceiver’s mind becomes joy nature. That gives the upper edge. Surgeon have the edge over the physicians because they can cut and surgically remove the problem. Vajrayana is the joy nature mind. Vajrayana, non-vajrayana Mahayana and hinayana have no different weapons, but who uses the weapons and how they are utilized that makes a difference. So from the vajrayana point of view it is the mind in the nature of joy which can focus and concentrate, which gives you the edge over just perceiving emptiness alone. When the mind is not in joy nature and you perceive emptiness you can’t perceive it for very long and you can’t perceive it clearly. The joy nature mind can do it better. You can concentrate more, see it more, perceive it better. That is how it is supposed to be between the three yanas. Maybe I am talking too much.

Okay I will shut up. Anything more? Anybody?

There was one question left. It makes sense there is no self and nothing to hold and that’s fine. But what about responsibility? And that is very important. I tried to answer that question earlier by saying that you cannot ignore the relative when thinking about the absolute.

1:00

Just saying that one sentence may not be making sense. Yes, that is the nature, that is the reality. But then the responsibility, the commitment, the whole of virtue and non-virtue is still there. Karma still functions. Some people think that when you encounter with emptiness you have gone beyond karma. I was told that no, you are not. You are subject to karmic consequences, both positive and negative. Not only it doesn’t change. It doesn’t change the responsibility, but it gives you more encouragement and more responsibility, because you know. I just give you what I understand – the bottom line. You know there is nothing solid coming from that side. It is all made from here, with terms and conditions, immediate cause and all that we made and therefore we now almost begin to see clearly that we are responsible not only for our own deeds, but we are also responsible for the whole existence. Therefore you have more responsibility. You have to do more rather than less. But you do less is that nagging from the obsession, from the hatred and when you really know deeply there is nothing to protect. There is nothing to really lose. However, conditions are such that not only me, but everybody else has to live within this web of activities. Everything, samsara and nirvana, the good part of the rebirth and the bad part of rebirth, everything is within the one web, the one circle.

Where does this circle function and move to? Everything depends on the individual. Clearly there is no one who is directing it, no one who is imposing it. There is no permanent nature coming. So it all depends on me, my aspects, my point of view, as well as yours and your point of view. But my part I have to do exactly right. Why? Because I have become responsible. So the understanding of emptiness contributes more to reality, rather than letting it go. Remember, there was a time, at least so I was told, when a couple of crazy people laid out a couple of pebbles on an airline ticket office and tried to buy air tickets to India paying with pebbles, saying that at the bottom line it is all the same, whether they give you gold or pebbles. That’s what happened. But the reality is that pebbles remain pebbles and gold remains gold. Brass remains brass. Gold has its value, brass has its value and pebbles have their own value. So they are not the same. That’s the reality and that reality cannot be leveled.

Therefore, understanding reality makes the individual not only not relieving from their responsibility, but more responsibility comes in. That’s my understanding.

1:07

Audience: You were earlier talking about a bodhisattva who has bodhimind and compassion but lacks wisdom. That confuses me. Whenever I have lacked compassion it is directly related to my ego and so I don’t understand how you develop bodhicitta without wisdom.

Rimpoche:

jam tso mo man gye me chir - shin tu nye pa tsar chö min

Love, compassion, etc, are not the direct opposites of ego grasping.

They may be the direct opposite of selfishness and all that, but not of self-grasping. Actually, compassion, love and bodhimind cannot refute ego grasping, because they are not focused on one subject. The antidotes are normally focused on one subject, carrying the opposite aspects. For example, hatred and patience or compassion. It is focused on one person, one mind and carrying two aspects that contradict and refute each other. Compassion/love does not contradict ego at all. Sometimes if you are not lucky enough it will build the ego a little bit too. “It’s for me”, “They are looking at me” – where does that come from? “That’s all fine, people are suffering, but what about me?” So it doesn’t directly contradict at all.

So they are two different things. But your experience is your experience. I am not here to deny that. But if you really look these two minds are holding the opposite viewpoint at all. You can think about and we can talk more.

I presume there are no more questions and I am going to say good night.

Audience: What is the source of emptiness?

Rimpoche: Yourself. The understanding of emptiness is normally developed by reasoning as well as through meditation. The Heart Sutra says something like Avalokitesvara was analyzing or investigating, right? So you investigate the subject of emptiness itself, either on yourself or on other things. That is the source. The way and how you investigate is mostly through reasoning, very systematic logic reasoning, through which you trace your acceptance. For example, we use a subject like a grain, like barley or rice. We say that the grain is not truly existent, because it is dependent arising. (Tib: ten drel yin be chir) Since it is dependent arising it depends and is not truly existent. Investigating in that manner is not the only reason. On top of that you need purification plus blessings of the lama-yidam. When all of them are combined together, then the understanding of emptiness comes out. Even if you have very strong logic, but if there is no blessing and no purification then the obstacles are too strong and you won’t be able to pick through. You won’t be able to see it. So even though your reasoning can be perfect even then….So the combination of all these together is supposed to help to pick up the emptiness.

I am going now – good night. Let’s have dedication and chant one migtsema.

1:17 migtsema chant 1:18 end of file