Archive Result

00:00

Good morning and welcome everybody. Every Sunday morning I do a one-hour talk about Tibetan Buddhism. So we made this a part of the retreat and for those of you who are listening on line we are talking to you from Garrison Institute up the Hudson River Valley I believe.

The Tibetan Buddhism talk is very similar to what I have been teaching here too, I mean almost all similar. It is sort of geared towards really beginning and is also very meaningful for those who have been senior for a long time. I try to do it that way. When we talk about it we draw sort of conclusion about the Tibetan Buddhist practice. It begins with learning, then investigating and then meditating. These are the three way of entering or practicing Tibetan Buddhism.

Without learning it is probably very difficult to do anything.

When I was a kid back in Tibet there was a great teacher I had called Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche. He was very old even at that time. I didn’t know how old. Ever since I remember he had absolutely conch-shell white hair. Some people told me he was 80 years old, some said he was 90 and yet other, said he was 100. I left Tibet in 1959 at the age of 19. So I really don’t know how old Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche really was. He was giving teachings and now I understand he was dyslexic. I didn’t know it at that time. Normally he would give a quotation and twist the words around. Those of us who had been with him longer would tell the new incarnate lamas coming to the teachings that “Kyabje Rinpoche may say that – don’t laugh”. That was important because they were sitting in the front. But by telling them that they would only giggle more. So the quotation he gave that I wanted to use today was:

Töpa me pei sam pa de - Lag bum tra la seg pa dra

Investigating without learning is like a man without arms climbing a rock

But Kyabje Rimpoche would actually say: a man without rock climbing an arm. That’s his dyslexia. But that is the point I wanted to make here: Investigating without learning is like a man without arms climbing a rock. So you can’t, right? If you have only got your legs left, how are you going to climb on the rock? That’s difficult.

So learning is important. Likewise, without investigating, meditation is difficult. One depends on the other. Without learning you cannot investigate. Without investigating you cannot meditate. Sure, you can meditate and do nothing and do a lizard meditation or something. But that will not reach you that far. So you need to learn. You don’t need to be a scholar or expert, but you have to know what you are doing. Spiritual practice goes into uncharted territory for us. There are people who have experimented already, but spiritual development is such that it cannot be recorded like scientific experiments. It is the internal experience of individuals. Many people will also hide their attainments. No one would like to claim, “I am enlightened.” If someone does, it becomes questionable. If other people begin to say, “This person is enlightened” that is fine. But if the individual themselves says, “I am enlightened” that is blowing your own trumpet. That is not necessarily correct. Besides, there are tremendous amounts of fraud in this field. People can exploit and misuse and pretend to be what they are not. That is not only being a fraud, but is also misleading others. It is the worst thing you can do. It is worse than the blind leading the blind. You are purposely misleading and exploiting people’s wishes and their innocence. It is one of the immeasurable negativities, worse than killing and slaughtering human beings. One has to be really careful with this because it damages so many people. At least you have to know what you are doing. At least you need some reliable source of whatever your teaching is. If you have your personal experience it should tally with that of earlier teachers and lineage masters. Then it is worthwhile.

0:10

Sometimes people do get funny experiences too. Calling them “spiritual experiences” is probably not true. Many of them are not true. I have a funny joke: if you are hit hard on your head by a stick you are going to see a lot of starts, but you can’t call that a vision of the mandala. It is an experience, no doubt, but not a vision of a mandala. At least learning will prevent that.

Töpa te mong mö se dre mo ying - Kum bu la sang mi kyir nor je chog

There are so many qualities of learning. Learning is like the light in the darkness to show you the way. It is the best wealth that no thieves can take away from you. Not even a torture chamber can take away your qualities. It will remain with you. It is also one of your best friends that will not look down on you when you are going down. It is also the best weapon you can have to clear your doubts and ignorance. There are so many important qualities of learning. If you look into Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s lam rim chenmo, his big lam rim, at the beginning he talks about the qualities of learning. That book is available in English now. If you have time you can read. There are tremendous qualities of learning.

There are many ways of learning in Buddhism. We thought it is best to start the way Buddha taught himself. He began teaching with the Four Noble Truths. He have been talking about this for the last couple of months.

Today we continue talking about the Second Noble Truth. There are the karmic causes and the emotional causes. I already talked about the different views on that. We already talked about the karmic causes. Everything we do is either done through the mind, verbally or physically – body, mind and speech. Whatever action we are taking becomes karma, whether it is positive or negative. The sufferings are all consequences of negative karma. Most of us will accept that. But we don’t really investigate properly where that karma comes from.

0:15

How do I engage in karma? Whatever we do comes through our mind first. Even if you just want to get up, first comes the thought “I want to get up” followed by the action of getting up. Walking, sleeping, eating – for everything thought or mind comes first. That pushes action. Any karma we create physically or verbally, thought comes up first. So the real culprit is the mind activity. You hear a number of teaching everywhere saying: watch your mind, observe your mind. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean to see what your mind looks like. Mind doesn’t have a physical appearance. It has neither shape nor color. You just can’t look at it with your eye consciousness, unless you have extraordinary eyes. You can only perceive shape or color, physical forms. Mind doesn’t have form. So what does it mean to watch your mind? It means to check if your mind is pure or not. Pure means positive, good, virtuous thoughts occupy the mind. If instead negative thoughts about killing, killing, sexual misconduct, lying, etc, come up and your mind is entertaining them that’s impure or negative.

When you are watching your mind, as far as I know that’s what you are supposed to watch, rather than watching for something thoughtless or emotionless. Yesterday in our retreat and also two Sundays ago we talked about the form – and formless realms. Most of the four formless realms such as space-like, consciousness-like, nothingness and peak of samsara, have thoughtlessness and emotionlessness as their direct cause. Last night in the retreat somebody asked about unshakable karma and how to get rid of it. This is the unshakable karma and it is unshakable because you are unable to change it. Normally karma doesn’t change. But you can positive karma sometimes better or worse and also negative karma sometimes gives you something better or worse. That’s a little bit here and there, because of certain deeds that the individual can engage in, like purification or something like that. That can make a dent. But once you created unshakable karma it will only give you that result.

0:22

In Tibetan Buddhism, sitting for too long in thoughtless meditation may not be the ideal practice, because you are wasting a huge amount of time. It gives you mental relaxation and a little calm and quiet and will also reduce negative emotions. Not only that, it will also give you a little bit of clairvoyance. That will all come. But even then Tibetan Buddhism does not recommend that. Actually, all Mahayana and the true, genuine Theravada does not recommend that. The purpose of the Theravadan tradition is to liberate the individual from the suffering of samsara. Nirvana is the goal. Thoughtless sitting will not deliver the nirvana.

For Mahayana the purpose is to become a Buddha. They will only talk about that in Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism is or claims to be part of the Mahayana. Therefore the purpose of the practice is to become fully enlightened. When you are looking at the purpose and the method that’s why they don’t recommend [to go to the form – and formless realms]. There is nothing bad in it, and it is not looking down.

0:25

Meditation is both focusing as well as investigating. Investigating will find the result. That result you focus on. By focusing on that result it becomes part of your life, you adapt it and it becomes a part of you and that is how meditation works with the individual.

So that is why keeping your mind active sometimes seems to contradict focusing. Keeping the mind active and concentrating looks like contradicting each other at the beginning, but if you look carefully and engage carefully, they not only not contradict but they will compliment and strengthen each other.

Among the Tibetan Buddhist sects, Jamgon Tsong Khapa is the one who says that analyzing meditation is more important than focusing or concentration because whatever subject you are going to meditate, if you don’t understand the subject how are you going to focus? You may focus on something. If that does not happen to be the true subject you want if you try to adopt that as a part of you, your mind, your habit, then you are adopting something not right nd in the end that something will not work.

So Jamgon Tsong Khapa emphasized analyzing so much. Anyway, so whatever we are learning and analyzing here is the cause of negative karma. What do I do? So there are a number of emotions that cause suffering, particularly the six root negative emotions. That is root as in tree root. I am saying that because sometimes, not only sometimes, but all the time my pronunciation is not good and is full of all these funny accent I have, which makes it difficult for people to understand. Besides that, Tibetan Culture is such when you are learning English and you start moving your tongue people will make fun of you and then you say, “Eh, I don’t want to say it, I don’t want to repeat.” So that’s why everything becomes bugja bugja bu! It’s not French but you know, almost like…. But you don’t have to be like Germans with all that haschk ha, … but still you have to move.

Anyway, so I’m sorry, the six root delusions, that’s what I am trying to say. What are those 6 root delusions?

Obsession is one. We don’t have to introduce obsession because we are all expert. Honestly. All of us are more expert than those earlier Tibetan teachers. They look at us and have to describe obsession because they don’t’ have that pinch, that hurt. They don’t have all this, we do.

So we are really sort of expert about obsession.

0:30

Obsession is not only one of those root delusions, it also, as I mentioned yesterday in the retreat, obsession is considered glue for samsara. Those of you who didn’t hear samsara before, it is the life after life continuation or circling. Not only does it continue in life after life without your own control.

That we know very well. We try to control everything. We try to organize everything. We try to schedule everything. We try to plan everything but something goes wrong, somewhere here, there, all the time and we scream, but that shows we don’t have complete control. So that’s one thing.

Two - we never plan to become sick, we always plan to be healthy. We eat the right, we drink wheat grass juice or fruit juice or whatever. We try to live like a rabbit. That is healthy and nice. I’m making jokes. But I am not criticizing, please don’t misunderstand that. Vegetarians are great. No doubt about that.

O:32

Not only is that great for your health, but also less negative karma because as non-vegetarian you are really eating somebody’s flesh. I did realize that but one day an Indian New York taxi driver reminded me. I was saying my prayers and he asked, “What are you?” He must have been pure Hindu. So I answered, “I’m Tibetan” and he said,” Oh, you people are the ones who kat kat ki kani wala – for those who don’t know Hindi that means : you are cutting and cutting and eating. So I felt bad, really bad and I lied!

Honestly, I lied and said, “I don’t eat meat.” I was so embarrassed. So to honor that, that evening I didn’t eat meat. Just to honor that. But, honestly, when they say kat kat ki kata he - it means you are cutting and cutting and eating and it sounds like you are cutting and eating someone who is alive. So that made me feel very embarrassed. So the vegetarians are definitely good and great, no doubt.

0:34

You know I am making a joke, saying that’s like being like a rabbit. I am saying that because I am surrounded with vegetarians (laughs).

So we are talking about obsession. So for example, when you are obsessed with meat, that is what happens. I shared my beef jerky story yesterday morning. So obsession does that. Not only obsession for food. Obsession for food probably brings obesity, too much eating all the time. Definitely that brings obesity. We like to blame some kind of disease and illness and all that, yes, but still, we have that in our control. They are not beyond our control. So it is our obsessions does that.

Then obsessions brings everything.

Each one of the six root negativities brings all six of them actually. All six of them. When you are obsessed and you are not getting what you want you get frustrated and angry and develop hatred and then doubt. All of them together. Each one of them is capable of bringing all six.

So really when you are looking at Tibetan Buddhism, the bottom line is looking at your mind, making sure your mind is not controlled or influenced by any one of those negative emotions.

Hatred is a terrible emotion. I don’t have to clarify. We went through with hatred for so many years. All 8 years of George Bush and Mr. Cheney . Plus 4 years of Obama. We went through with hatred we have now reduced that a little bit but still it is very much hatred. Either that hatred brought fear or fear brought hatred. These two combined together work very strongly within the individual.

Today many of us, me – all the time - travel by plane flying here and there. You have to take off everything - almost everything. Even after 9/11 began, you didn’t have to take off shoes at the airport - until the shoe bomber came in. From then on we had to take our shoes off and almost everything else off. Then the underwear bomber came in near Detroit and I presume we have to take the underwear off too! So far we don’t, but you have to go through this machine where everything is transparent.

0:41

Anyway, can you imagine that Americans will tolerate that? Can you imagine that Americans will tolerate the loss of their individuals rights/liberties – no way! It was no way Jose until 9/11. 9/11 came and created fear/hatred combined together – so we are happy to take off our shoes. Many, according to the news, true or not, say they are happy to take their shoes off, saying, “We are safer.” Safety is more important than this. So that is the fear right.

So it is quite clear how all these negative emotions influence our life. Buddha has been telling us this for 2600 years. We heard it, but it goes over our head in our ear very often. Even today we do that. We hear it and most of it will pass. That’s what happens. So we are talking about these emotions. The bottom line where we control our life is by controlling our negative emotions. And this is the controlling of our mind.

And when you avoid engaging in negative emotions, not only have you avoided engaging the mind in negativity but you also build tremendous positivity. That positivity is coming out of stopping that negativity. When you stop that negativity you gain something within you. That is your positive deeds.

It is so important. We need to know what are positive deeds. The word in Tibetan is tra wa - the separation from negative emotions and then the positivity you gain is the result of that. That is how practitioners engage in practice. It doesn’t remain outside of you. It’s not in temples or churches or synagogues. It is within you, within your own body, within your own mind. It doesn’t depend on how you dress, how you function. I mean it does function a little bit but it is within you.

So recognize. Today we talk about obsession, recognize the obsession, acknowledge it. In other words, remember, this is obsession. Obsession looks like this, sounds like this, feels like this. So it is obsession. So I will avoid it. I will avoid obsession under any circumstances. And that is how you make up your mind.

0:45

Similarly, hatred. Hatred you should always avoid. Hatred does not prevent violence. Hatred does not prevent that, although we try to prevent violence by hatred. It is the human culture. Human beings think, “ I have to get you before you get me”.

That’s what George Bush used to say, though George Bush is supposed to be a good person according to His Holiness. He may be a very good person, no doubt about it, but his policy said that. So that’s hatred and obsession. Then there is jealousy. And then, pride. The Tibetans call it pride. The word in Tibetan is na gyal. However I think it is more or less narcissism. It is self admiration. Oneself is great. I am the one. “I am still the King”, as in the movie “Dark Crystal”.

It is that sort of pride. It is so much egoistic and so much really - true narcissism. You think, “I am untouchable, nothing can near by. It is all me, and me, and me. And that’s how.

Then there is ignorance. That is of course not knowing and also wrong knowing both. Ignorance is a little more complicated, so I will engage it on another day, rather than combining all of them today.

0:49

Maybe there are questions.

Audience: These afflictive emotions I feel all the time, particularly anger, whenever I open a newspaper in this political season. These negative emotions get provoked for good reason. What antidotes can we apply? What do I do when I hear that a drone strike paid for by our tax dollars has just killed men, women and children in Pakistan? I feel so much rage and shame . What antidote can I apply? Is tong len breath enough?

Rimpoche: Thank you for the question. Tong len is give and take. It is giving your virtues and joys to others and taking their sufferings and pain on yourself. This question is very important. Give and take is great, however, it is not enough. What you really need is powerful compassion. Without compassion it is very difficult.

A lot of people think that to purify our negativities we have to say the Vajrasattva recitation. A lot of American Buddhists think that way. Yes, it is true. The Vajrasattva recitation is meant for purification. However, compassion and bodhimind is much more powerful than that. Shantideva himself said,

Dik pa tob chen shin tu mi se pa

De ne dzok pai jang chub sem min pe

De zhin kang gi se kyen mi par gyur

Such a powerful negativity as this

Who else can destroy it except bodhimind?

The question here is: what is bodhimind? It is ultimate, unconditional love-compassion combined together. That is the answer to your question. You had another point about the political season and that one has to get upset about it rightly for the right reasons. Very true. But there is a trick to learn how to do this. The trick is this: you can participate and be engaged in the argument, take the opposite view and all of this. When the majority is supporting Obama you can take the side of Mitt Romney or vice versa and engage in it. That is playing theater. In the theater you are playing. You fully participate and your face is getting red, you can shout and scream, yet your pure mind is neither influenced by anger, nor by [other negative emotions]. This is a great opportunity for us to play on that playground. That is how people should look at it. Fully participate and shout and scream and do whatever but do not waver in your mind.

It is also good entertainment and a good subject of talk. Maybe I am being a little silly goat, but that is how you can play with this. If you do that, you will learn how to handle your anger, your hatred and jealousy and all of them. There is great opportunity to learn that by participating. It is not going to change anything. I am not going to change your mind. You are not going to change my mind. But you can argue and play around. But remember, while you are doing that you are playing. You have to remember that very often, otherwise you can get completely stuck in there and that’s not right. But then also do whatever you think is best. So the political season gives us this type of opportunity to learn how to play with the negative emotions.

It is supposed to be about positive emotions. According to my understanding the forefathers, when they held elections, it was about positive emotions and good deeds and so forth. Today it has changed into negative emotions. It is also easy to see – not so much the presidential elections, but other things. Many of them will be decided by the public based on 30 second- sound bytes. So you can really see how human mind works, how human beings pursue this. It is a beautiful thing, honestly. The political season is a beautiful opportunity for us to exercise the handling of our negative emotions. That’s how I always like to take the side of whoever is losing. So my candidates never get elected. (laughs). I think that’s how we handle this. Thanks for the question.

0:57

Audience: I can understand taking the political season as theatre and it seems very appropriate and fun. But when we think of what’s happening in Tibet with the Chinese and the self-immolations, not letting anyone into Tibet and also looking at genocide in other places, especially in Africa, like Sudan, it is a little bit difficult to take that as theater. I am wondering how we can process that?

Rimpoche: That’s absolutely true. I was talking about the political season as theater. But these things are genuine sufferings that happen everywhere in the world. That’s because of negative emotions of various individuals that influence the situation in various stages and different policies are coming out of negative emotions. That affects the real life and real events of people and it is suffering, no doubt about it. Here again, acknowledging, knowing it and whatever we can contribute towards preventing any suffering, that’s how we should engage in that.

1:00

Audience: The consequences of political theater, whether in this country or in any other place, are at the root of many decisions that are made which cause tremendous suffering for people. Although we can play in the political theater the consequences are huge.

Rimpoche: True, but whatever side you take, that doesn’t really change that much. Whatever the public decided, it will go on that and remain the same thing. True, the consequences are huge. But that doesn’t mean you cannot play with that. Playing doesn’t mean you ignore what’s going on. But you can do everything you want to do, with no stone unturned, but without getting yourself emotionally engaged with hatred, anger or obsession. That’s what I mean by ‘play’, not making yourself the subject of negative emotions.

1:02

Audience: How do you deal with the idea of self-love, self-compassion, benefitting yourself and make sure that this doesn’t switch over to some kind of narcissism?

Rimpoche: Good question. Self-love and self-appreciation and even self-esteem are very different from narcissism. Narcissism is so much about “I am the best” of whatever it is, beauty, handsomeness, looks, quality, quality of mind, wisdom, understanding, making yourself as the example and comparing everything else to you. But self-respect, self-love, is something absolutely necessary, without which you will be looking down on yourself. Many people do that. They get the idea that “all others are important, I am not important. Let me suffer, let me be a doormat.”

About compassion they will say, “If you get slapped on your right cheek, turn your left cheek, and if you get slapped on your left cheek, turn your right cheek.” As a training that is okay, but how many times can you actually take it? There is the danger of your ego getting hit and anger developing. It is really important not to shake that. So self-love and self-respect is a must. As a matter of fact, the first of the Three Principles is renunciation. But the bottom line of the First Principle is self-love and self-respect.

One of the earlier Indian teachers, Atisha, said

Rang// de wai pung she/ dug ngal gi ngar wai nag tsun sam pa la/ pag pu yong gu sem me pa la/ sem je zhen/ dug ngal gi ngar wa la me sö pai/ nying gye wong su me la

When you think about yourself suffering from pain and lacking joy and your hair pores don’t even move, such a person, how can you expect to have unbearable compassion for the suffering of others?

So then compassion doesn’t come. The basis of bringing compassion for others is self-respect and self-love, without which you cannot. This is one very important point in Tibetan Buddhism, in my opinion.

I am sorry I went a little over the time – for those who are watching still and now we have the dedication and next week I will be talking to you from Ann Arbor. Thank you

1:07 (chanting four immeasurables)

1:09:22 end