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20120708GRAATB28

Good morning and welcome to Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche. As we have been talking here the question is what the practice of Tibetan Buddhism means. We found that it means learning, examining and meditating and practicing. Before meditation practice here means that it is becoming part of your character. In order to become that way you need to meditate and repeatedly do it. In order to do that you have to have the right, perfect path. That has to be found. In order to make sure it is the right path you have to examine all your paths. In order to examine you have to learn a little bit about it. That’s the reason why learning comes first. Let me repeat again.

The moment people hear “learning” they think it is something that has to be the scholar-type of learning. But that’s not the learning we are talking about. Just know what you need to do. You don’t do anything without knowing. So you need a little bit of learning. With the learning we follow exactly how Buddha first taught. We had the Four Noble Truths. Out of these we covered the First Noble Truth and the Second Noble Truth is almost completed. We will leave the Third Noble Truth for later and we are the Fourth Noble Truth: the Truth of the Path.

The first two truths are the samsaric result as well as the cause of samsara. The last two truths are the cessation and the cause of cessation. How does one get liberated? That’s the path. From the Buddhist tradition it is the Mahayana path and Theravadan path. These are not two separate paths. The theravadan path is the fundamental basis on top of that comes the Mahayana path. Some people think that Mahayana has nothing to do with Theravada and Theravada has nothing to do with Mahayana. That’s absolutely a mistake. Without the basis of Theravada Mahayana does not really function properly. In order to function properly you need the Theravadan foundation.

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They are very much interrelated. The Theravada path is the base and the Mahayana path will be like the icing on the cake. We briefly talked about the Theravadan path on the last two Sundays. Today we are in the middle of a retreat on the Mahayana path, talking about one of the outstanding early Indian Buddhist master’s text which tells us how the children of Buddha behave, their way of thinking and functioning. That’s why I am talking to you this Sunday and next Sunday about the Mahayana path. We can’t even talk about the Mahayana path without understanding the basic karmic system or the questions such as “Is karma real?” “Does karma work?” and “How long does karma last and what are the consequences?” These are very basic Buddhism. We do know that karma works. We see it in our life. Whether you are interested in any spiritual path or very specifically in the Buddhist path or not, even if you are not interested in any spiritual path, you do know that karma makes a difference. People even say “It is my karma – it is your karma” and this and that. I am not going to go into detail on this. I will revisit it later.

Even questions such as “What makes you a Buddhist?” Is there some kind of membership card you can carry, just like American Express or is it accepted by everybody else, not only throughout the world but throughout existence, because you will be travelling there anyway? There is no question, we will travel to all kinds of different existences. We have been travelling, we came from there and we are going to go to all these different areas. Whether you have that membership card and whether they will accept that or not – I don’t think there is such a thing called membership card. Whether they accept you or not is governed by all our lives. And they are all governed by our karma. Then some people think, “if it is all governed by karma, why should I worry about it? I please my karma and that will work”, you know like you butter the politicians or bosses and you think that will work.

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But the funny thing is this. Whether you butter the karma or try to put salt on karma or whatever you do it will make no difference. When karma functions it functions. When it refuses to function it refuses to function. It is so hard-headed. We had a Tibetan lady visiting here who used the expression, “He is so hard-headed, even if he cracks his skull he will still insist.” Karma is like that. No matter whatever you do, it is so stubborn. It functions exactly the way it should function. No one can change it, no one can do anything. Even Buddha can do nothing with the karma. It is such an important governing mechanism. It is not a person, but a mechanism. It is very, very powerful and interesting.

Also, we call ourselves – and I call myself – Buddhist. What makes me be called Buddhist? Because I see Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as true refuge. If some of you are new this is the terminology in Buddhism for the objects of refuge. There are a number of reasons why Buddha. Who is Buddha? What is dharma? What is sangha? Why sangha? All of them are not the subject of what I need to talk today, but taking refuge in them, accepting them as objects of refuge, is what we call Buddhist. That is sort of the doorway. This is not Buddha’s rule. This is something that came much later than Buddha. People framed that and as you know, even Buddhism was not a label given by Buddha, not even by early Indian masters. The label “Buddhism” came from the British. They needed certain divisions to fit certain things in boxes to be able to then say, “The situation is under control.” All these –isms are later inventions of British scholars. I don’t think the British government did it.

0:15

The labeling came in much later. I don’t know when calling somebody a Buddhist by taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha came in. No idea. But it was not at Buddha’s time, that’s for sure, but much later. I am not sure if that was a British invention or not – probably not.

So within that basic taking refuge and functioning on the basis of the Four Noble Truths is the principle of the Theravadan path. That has a lot of love and compassion, no doubt about it, but on top of that the Mahayana path is very much specialized on extraordinary love and compassion. I always try to say, if you notice, love and compassion, rather than compassion and love. That’s because love is the most important to make compassion the right compassion. Honestly speaking, the bare bones bottom line is that compassion without love is sympathy, not really that much caring. Without caring there won’t be any compassion. Truly speaking, we really want to have compassion. But we look at the people who are suffering and then we see ourselves as saviors who are helping them and that’s what we love to do. But how much can we really do with that attitude? Probably not very much. Even your relationship itself is not that close. It is always me and my needs that are more important than really the concern with the suffering. Yes, people are suffering. You see it and you can’t bear it and you see it’s really difficult. Feelings are there. I am not denying you have those feelings. But if there is no love, the feeling will be simply just feeling. It is not from your guts, not from the bottom of your heart. That’s why I call it sympathy. In the worst case it is just lip service. Nothing more. I do know some Tibetan elder ladies who will say to everything “poor thing, poor thing”. But that becomes really a lip service. It doesn’t come from the guts.

0:20

From the guts you feel real compassion if it is a very deep, personal matter and only love can bring that, nothing else. So without love compassion can be just bare – I don’t want to say academic compassion, because this is a university town, so you can’t say that – but that is really what it becomes. So love is the most important. Look at the individual. If you love someone you are willing to do anything for them. If you don’t have love you will do something, a little bit, because you are committed, or you want to do something, but there are always limitations. Most importantly, we noticed that a number of people say, “I am burnt out” or ”So and so has burn out.” And a number of people accept that as right thing. So if you really care for living beings, not just one or two people, if you care for humanity, if you really care for the environment, how can you possibly accept that you are burnt out? Because your commitment is weak. If you have a weak commitment, yes, you get burnt out, you accept that. Sometimes you can’t help it, without accepting it, however, you can’t justify the burn out, because the purpose is not done. So maybe I am throwing up a very controversial issue here, however my feeling is that until your purpose is fulfilled, if your commitment is strong, if there is strong love, the love will not allow you to burn out. So anyway, compassion without love is not strong enough. Compassion with love is fantastic.

I did give a number of examples, even in previous Sundays talks, so I am not going to repeat. However, remember, compassion without love is not the right compassion. Let say you have European cheese without butter of fat in it, that will not work. It will not be good cheese at all. Just like that. Why is the cheese good? Because there is butter in it. I don’t want to say that it is because there is fat in it, but that’s what it really is. The goodness of the cheese is coming out of the fat. The goodness of the compassion is coming out of love. Without love that compassion will become dry powder or cracked pieces or whatever.

0:25

It is like water-cheese. So it is really the love and compassion and the best example is yourself, no matter whatever you do. Yes I am not a fool, yes, I know that some people hate themselves. Some people are angry with themselves. I was talking to one of my very dear friends yesterday morning and that person said, “I am angry. Mostly I am angry with myself.” That is very true, really true. People do that. Even that anger of getting angry with yourself is also out of your love to yourself, because what you should have done, what you could have done, what you would have done has not been done. That’s why you get angry – if you trace that. Or the wishes you had didn’t come true, so you get mad. So truly, it is the love for yourself. I am not saying we should be narcissists, however, we care for ourselves, we do. So look at yourself as example. How much do I care for myself? And that much care you should be able to give to all other beings, equally. The moment I use the word “equal” there is some uneasiness with certain people.

You may say, “What about my loved ones?” That is a question. I don’t know whether people think on those lines or not, but it is true. I am not saying not to love them. Do love them. Do care for them, but don’t have an obsession, don’t have attachment and if the love becomes attachment it is a problem. If love remains pure love it is an advantage. Pure love wishes well. Obsession and attachment demand ego needs. The moment someone says, “I love you”, you have to think twice and scratch your head, “what does that mean?” I don’t think we Americans think that way at all. When someone says, “I love you”, we say “I love you too” straight away, whether you mean it or not.

If you really think carefully, if they appreciate you and admire you and they wish you happiness and joy, that love is welcome love. If someone wants to control you and change you, make you the way they want you to function rather than how you want to function, that’s not welcome love. That is attachment and a control issue rather than pure love.

0:30

It is interesting. If you keep on thinking and talking things come out more clearly. A few years ago I had difficulty to express the difference between the love we want and the love we don’t want, which is the attachment-obsession oriented love. The love you want is pure love. When you keep on talking and thinking it comes out much more clearly. I don’t think that anybody can say that attachment is a great virtue. I don’t think so. Love is a great virtue, a wonderful thing. The difference is only whether it is for you or for me. If it is for me, to satisfy me ego, then it is not the beautiful love we are talking about. When it is left at that level it is a perfect, wonderful thing for you, but not for me. You are the most important and appreciating that way is becoming real love. I guess that is where the difference is beginning to show. It’s not the end, but it is beginning to show. That’s the difference. That love will give you a tremendous amount of sense of responsibility to make sure you don’t suffer. If you see a person suffering then it is truly unbearable. When it is truly unbearable it doesn’t mean that you have to close your eyes or turn around and go back or get out. That’s not the way of a functioning compassion. Compassion doesn’t turn the back. It doesn’t get burnt out. It sees suffering as unbearable, however it is working within that.

If you look at volunteers who are working in very difficult situations in refugee camps in Africa or in the middle east or anywhere you see the situation is unbearable. Many of us will sympathize and walk away. That means we tune out. We may do something at the back but that’s different. Some will, some won’t. But many volunteers will knowingly take the hardship there, trying to do something to help, something to solve the problem and ease people’s pain. That’s how compassion should make you do that, either physically or mentally or both – preferably both. Particularly mentally you have to.

As I said a number of times, I had one huge struggle, whether matter is important or mind is important. When I grew up learning Buddhism in my teenage years, Buddhism told me that mind is more important than matter. That was the time when the Communist Chinese took over Tibet. They came and said, “Matter is more important than mind.” Not only they told me, but in Lhasa they had loudspeakers throughout the city and every morning and every evening the loudspeakers will make noise. Tibetans were not familiar with radio. Only few people had one. For most people it didn’t exist. So the communication was very difficult. We did have newspapers. When I was a kid I was an editorial board member of a daily newspaper. But I never did anything. I got my salary okay, but never did anything. So there was a newspaper, but still there was no way of communication. So the Chinese forcefully put those wires up and hung up loudspeakers everywhere and then kept on saying that matter is much more important than mind and that this is how the world functioned and so on. Without us knowing China at that time was run by a bunch of technocrats, honestly. They kept on telling us that.

My struggle was that my studies and my teachers were telling me that mind is important and the loudspeakers were telling me day and night that matter is more important than mind, that mind can do nothing. Without realizing, though, matter can do nothing. Look at any scientific achievement. There is man behind any achievement, behind scientific knowledge. Behind any equipment there is a man operating it. It is actually man who is functioning, not as man, but in the sense of mind. That’s what it is. The mind really is the most important. I had that struggle for a long time and it took me to the United States to finally realize that.

40:00

I did not know that Einstein was a man then. I am not thinking on the lines whether he was a man or woman. So mind is most important. Finally I hope I am settled with that issue, unless something funny happens. It is the mind and especially the mind of helping. The Mahayana path of Buddha which we are so proud of and talk so much about, which we regard as so precious, as something that has never happened before, and it will never be again, that is not just simply helping, but helping with the total responsibility taken by me, the one person. That love, that compassion, is the mahayana’s special way. If you look at other traditions among the Buddhist traditions, yes, there is love, there is commitment, there is compassion, yet there is not that special mind that takes the responsibility, saying, “I will do that.” That’s not there and that makes it special.

Yes, it is easy to say “I will do it” and extremely to fulfill. So you need to fulfill that and that’s why one would like to obtain the best possible position – which we call total enlightenment. With the commitment of not only serving a being, but all living beings. Not only serving and helping, but doing it all by myself, taking personal responsibility. That combination of commitment and dedication together makes us seek the best possible position which is Buddha’s position and that is called bodhimind. So until yesterday we have been talking about the huge benefits of that mind. From today onwards we are talking about how to develop that. This is the particular mind we are talking about. It is not just love, not just compassion, not just ultimate love, not just ultimate compassion, not just unconditional love and unconditional commitment, but their combination plus seeking the best ever possible way to handle it. That is called bodhimind and that is the theme of our retreat.

0:45

I guess that’s where I have to say thank you so much. Normally I do open for questions, but today I may not be able to. If you have any questions please e mail it to Jewel Heart and we will be able to answer it as usually within the next couple of Sundays that I will be in Ann Arbor.

As usual we chant the Four Immeasurables and when this is completed we will begin our next retreat session together. 0:46 Chanting Four Immeasurables 0.47 3 end