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20120805GRAATB31

Welcome everybody. Good morning. I should say Welcome to the Tibetan Buddhism talk. As you are aware, we are still within the Four Noble Truths and particularly the Truth of the Path. We talked about the Buddhist path and that also the Theravada and Mahayana path. We did talk about the Theravada path already and now we are talking about the Mahayana path.

Last Sunday, if I remember correctly, we did talk about what is meant by being a Buddhist. We talked quite in detail about being Buddhist, whatever that means. How do I, the individual person, acknowledge that I am Buddhist? My case is slightly different than yours. I said many times that I was born into that culture and custom. There was no other choice or even a question. Circumstances brought me into that completely. But still I had to know and define that I am Buddhist. I talked that to you earlier, so you know. I am not going to spend time today talking about refuge. Many people think that by taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you become Buddhist. Commonly people do say that, but I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t think so. Every Buddhist doesn’t take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Buddha himself doesn’t take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and you can’t say that Buddha is not a Buddhist! That would be a problem. So truly, one who accepts – not just agrees, but is convinced with reasons, that Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are objects of refuge, may be becoming Buddhist.

Some will say that you are a Buddhist when you accept the four logos or slogans or statements. We talked that the other day too. These are: all created phenomena are impermanent. All contaminated things are suffering. All phenomena are in the nature of emptiness and nirvana is peace. When somebody thinks that way and accepts that and agrees with that, that individual really thinks like a Buddhist.

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That’s why to me there are many great Buddhists who don’t even know what they are, who don’t even claim to be Buddhists. I do remember one time we had a very well-known Tibetan teacher who had been left behind in Tibet. He became very sick and sometimes people don’t think. My brother in Tibet told him, “Well you can go to America and give teachings in the dharma centers. Particularly my brother will welcome you. So you should be giving teachings there and have medical treatment too.” He told me that and then this lama came. That was years ago. He arrived in Los Angeles. I sent Stephen Nose to receive him, because I couldn’t go. Then Stephen called me and said, “He arrived all right, but he is not in the position to move anywhere. He is really very sick and needs to get to hospital immediately.” Then Jewel Heart and me personally, had no money at all to give him treatment. But Philip Glass, who is the chairman of the Jewel Heart board, talked to some friend of his in Los Angeles. That guy said, “The hospital owes me a treatment because I am building a wing for them. So send him immediately.” So we were able to get him very good treatment in Los Angeles Hospital. Philip told me, “This guy is a bodhisattva by his own act and nature and thinking.” I said, “I agree” – not because he got Dunkar Rinpoche the treatment, but because he was so very generous and wonderful. So a person like that doesn’t even think of being a Buddhist, but has the Buddhist principles within him. So if you have that you are really a Buddhist, truly. Buddhism is not a card carrying member organization. It is not like American Express. There is no club. Who you are and what you are makes the individual.

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I am trying to claim Buddhism for other people. No, I am not. But this is exactly how I feel. A person becomes a Buddhist, because they accept Buddhist principles as their principle, or rather, the principles they accept for their lives tallies with Buddhist principles. It is not that they accept Buddhist principles. They just tally.

And I told you that the “ism” didn’t start with Buddha. Buddha-ism is a British invention by the British scholars when they were trying to deal with Buddhism and various religions. Then they started those “–isms”, because they needed that to function. Their idea, their mental level, functioned with categories. You create a category and a label and fit the person or whatever into that box, label them and then sit there, with your hands on your hips saying, “Ha, the situation is under control.”

But the British did better than the Chinese. The Chinese didn’t know what to do with Tibetan Buddhism. They were dealing with the different tradition. China was very close to Tibet and all the different Tibetan sects came in and they didn’t know what to do and who was who. So they started looking at what hats they were wearing and noticed that some hats were red, some multi-colored, some yellow and then they named them the “Red Hat sect”, “Yellow Hat sect” “Multi-colored hat sect” and “White hat sect”. That’s how the Chinese labeled. So all of them were truly labeled later. Buddhism goes that way. But I don’t want to go into that and miss the subject that I am really supposed to talk about today.

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Then in Buddhism traditionally, there is the Theravada path and Mahayana path. That is tradition. Many Buddhologists and Tibetologists say today that the Mahayana was a later invention, not really Buddha who labeled that. True, Buddha might not have labeled this as “Mahayana” and “Theravada”. But the principles do come out different. The Theravada emphasizes very much the individual liberation or self-liberation. That’s the major focus. When you get to the Mahayana the major focus is everybody, not a single individual. So they call it “bigger” – in the sense that it is really bigger.

That reminds me of a crazy Citi Bank credit card commercial I saw the other day. There was a group of people who was supposed to work for a day on the sea, but it became 12 days. People could buy a change of clothes by using Citi Bank. There was a crazy-looking architect or producer and he had that big ship that he had set on fire and he didn’t like it and said, “Bigger, bigger.” So everybody thought, “Oh, now we have to sit here another week or ten days.” So when I said, “bigger” that reminded me of that commercial. But the idea of the Mahayana is really bigger. It’s not just individual, but everybody. It is not greater, but people started translating it as “greater”. It is not necessarily greater, but definitely bigger, because the object you are concerned with is bigger than one person. Taking responsibility for just one person then becomes smaller in comparison. It is not a question of being superior and inferior. It is smaller and bigger in that sense.

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It is true – if I don’t take care of myself, who else will take care of me? Not only that, Buddha’s teaching is such that it really builds one on top of the other. In the Theravadan principle they tell you how to help yourself. This is the major focus. How to help oneself is taught within the Theravadan teaching. It is the principle of the Theravada teaching. Its purpose is to liberate yourself. It doesn’t say not to worry about others, but the emphasis is on liberating yourself. The teaching and practice style will be different. The goal is introduced and the method of applying is fit to the goal.

The Mahayana has a different goal, so the methods of practice will be different. The work that you do has to be capable of delivering the result you want. The Mahayana is looking at the result of becoming a Buddha, so every work has to match with that goal. Otherwise the purpose is defeated. So when you are talking about everybody becoming a Buddha you are definitely talking also about yourself becoming a Buddha. The Mahayana never says, “Everybody except me should become a Buddha.”

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I am included, but the purpose is much bigger than liberating myself. Liberating yourself is easier than liberating everybody. You know that. Liberating yourself will be strictly disciplining yourself. That is much simpler. Just discipline. Any negativities, such as anger, hatred, obsession, plus wandering mind and sinking mind – all of them, just cut them out and do not entertain them. Have yourself totally geared strictly to this and bring that awareness everywhere. Be aware that “I am sitting”, “I am talking” , “I am thinking about it”. These are all geared to the strict application of discipline. If you discipline yourself completely you won’t do the wrong thing. When you don’t do the wrong thing you won’t have wrong results. When you don’t have wrong results you are only left with good results. I am putting it in a very simple way. It is not the way the Theravadan tradition tells you. But the bottom line is that: when you don’t do the wrong thing there is no wrong result and you are only left with right things so you always have right results.

Then somehow you get over with the source of all wrong doings. When you get rid of that source, the deepest source of all difficulties you can manage yourself and only pacified things prevail. That’s what we call nirvana. That’s how it works.

Mahayana is a little more complex than that. Right from the beginning, their goal is different. The goal is to become a Buddha. That is a big struggle. Everybody will struggle. Why should I become a Buddha? What is the need? What I really want is not to have suffering. What I want is joy and happiness. Why should I have to be Buddha? That is the true question. People will have that in mind and it is worthwhile. Think about it. When I say “Buddha” I am talking strictly about the Buddhist point of view. But I am talking about that level. You may be thinking, “Everybody has to be converted to Buddhism and Mahayana and then you sell them the idea of becoming Buddha”. Certainly not. Absolutely not. This goal means Buddha equivalent. Don’t label it. Labeling is throwing us off. The moment we label this “Buddha” it becomes completely strict, like some box in some corner and you have to completely fit in that. Our mind is conditioned by the Buddhologists and Tibetologists of the 19th century, those British scholars.

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The language will play along with that. And that makes it exactly how we think. That’s the basic framework of our thinking. Again, it is the discipline in our thoughts. Our mind is disciplined. If it is not disciplined, we will be thinking hay wire and that is not good. You have to have discipline. But when I am saying “Buddha” I am not looking at the best result of a Buddhist – labeled person. To me there can be buddhas without having to be Buddhist. Definitely. The equivalent level of achievement by anybody, whoever, wherever they may get it, to me that is Buddha. Buddha does not have to be an Indian prince. A Buddha doesn’t have to be an Asian guy.

Actually the pictures we have today are coming through generations. If you look at the Buddha images, the ears are extremely long, there is an extra lump on top of the head and the fingers of the hands are supposed to be joined together below the middle joint, like a web, similar to birds. That is called duck web, right? The color of the nails is supposed to be copper-red. If we saw someone looking like that today we would run away for sure, rather than bowing down with folded hands. But that is how they described Buddha afterwards. Then each culture made it more different. The images from Thailand show the ushnisha tall and sharp and the Indo/Tibetan images show the ushnisha as a flat lump. And what is really was nobody knows. There were no pictures at that time and no dimensions recorded. There was supposed to be a drawing of Buddha. But then drawings became immeasurable. They are actually supposed to be. That’s attributed to Buddha as a quality, because you cannot measure. It is true from the quality point of view – you can’t measure.

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There are tremendous qualities within the Buddha. I am not talking physically, but from the mental level. Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa says,

Ka den wang po ka la drö dö ne

Nam she rang drub trü pei dor jur chig

Nam kha se be top par ming gyur da

Chö kyi yön ten chö pa de tar la

The biggest bird in the world will keep on flying in the air

After a while the bird gets tired and has to land on the ground.

The bird is not landing because there is no more space to fly in.

So with that he says that, talking about the qualities of the Buddha, because of our level of understanding, there is a limit. It is not the exhaustion of Buddha’s qualities. From the qualities point of view they are immeasurable. So when they tried to translate that into physical immeasurable [attributes] they put a little extra here and a little extra there. Not only that, it is so difficult to achieve these. How many hundred thousand triple time of some of the virtues you need in order to achieve the ushnisha! The hair curl on the forehead, which in vajrayana becomes the Third Eye, is also very difficult to achieve and costs so much virtue. I think one doubles the other. I don’t remember exactly. From the quality point of view that is true. If you try to measure that on the physical body it becomes difficult. Particularly for us it is difficult. We live in the law of physics. So there is a limitation. Buddha’s body might not be within the law of physics. But that is a different story altogether. But we live within the law of physics and thus have limitations. When you try to mix these two together then this little thing happens. That happened over 2600 years and so there is a little extra here, a little extra there, maybe a little exaggeration here and a little exaggeration there. Who knows – you can’t say it’s not true.

Earlier scholars praised so much that sometimes it is not even reality. It looks like that to me. I as a Buddhist teacher shouldn’t say that, but it may be the case.

Anyway, that is quality, truly immeasurable compassion, truly immeasurable love, truly immeasurable care, kindness, knowledge and power. That is called Buddha. A person who has obtained that is a Buddha, whoever it might be and whatever tradition they may belong to.

That is truly a Buddha; the knowledge, including wisdom, the power, the compassion. It is immeasurable, beyond the usual capacity. When I say “usual” I mean those great sages, not the usual people like ourselves. Beyond our level of “usual” there will be a lot of them. But this is even beyond those sages and adepts, if you really get to that level, no matter whoever the person may be and whatever tradition they may belong to.

Belonging is a big question. To me, it is never easy. I will not say that I belong to Buddhists or Buddhism. I will certainly not say that “I belong to Jewel Heart.” None of you would say that. The Dutch have an interesting way of saying that. They use the word “from”. They have a lot of Mariannes there. When you don’t know someone called Marianne you ask: which Marianne and they will say, “Marianne from …” and then the husband’s name comes. I don’t know whether that’s right or wrong, but it’s a little better than saying “she belongs to….” And it’s not only the wife belonging to the husband but the husband belongs to the wife too. They use the same words the other way round too. They will say, “Carel from Barbara”. Carel is the husband and Barbara the wife. They very much say that both ways. Yes, so you may be associated with Jewel Heart or even be a member, and you may be doing this and that practice and work, and that’s fine, but I don’t think you really belong to anyone. No one wants to belong to anybody, honestly.

Many wives will claim, “you belong to me” but I would probably say, “Excuse me!” And the same thing can be done the other way round. There are traditions and cultures where when something goes wrong in a relationship they will punish the woman. You only had to listen to NPR this morning. They reported an “honor killing”. The daughter didn’t behave properly, so the relatives killed her. Some groups of people do accept that, but it’s not right. Honestly, no one belongs to anybody. I belong to myself, and so you do and all of us. That’s really true.

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I really didn’t talk about how one becomes a Mahayana practitioner. Sorry that was on the schedule for today, but the clock is ticking. So I didn’t do that job. I am going to do that next week. Anyway, the difference between Hinayana and Mahayana – that’s Sanskrit language – is that one is small and the other big. But that doesn’t mean that one is of inferior and the other superior quality. Particularly in dharma you have to be a little more careful. If you start looking down on certain traditions as inferior it is a problem. That does not only apply to the Buddha dharma, but all spiritual traditions. If you start looking down it is a huge negativity, according to the Buddha.

Ka sa gang gi dzam bu ling pa

Chö den tam che zhi gye pa

Gang gi do de pong dze pa

Dig pa de ni she gyir pa

If you destroyed all religions’ relics in the world, but looking down on dharma is more negative than that. Whether that is exaggerated or not, that is an open statement. Looking down on any other traditions, making your tradition superior, is very negative. But if you have difficulty with that you can. You can say: I don’t like this and I won’t have anything to do with that. There are people who say, “I don’t like corruption” or “I don’t like the control of Rome” or “I don’t like this and that.” You can say that, but that doesn’t mean you are looking down on Christianity. It is not looking down on Roman Catholicism or Judaism or Nyingmas, Sakyas, Kagyus and all that. But if you let it be you do have it. If we let our mind go freely, we do that.

I myself personally used to look down on Theravada and also on other Tibetan traditions. Sometimes I even used to think, “What a waste of life”. That is looking down. That was when I was young. I told you about that Indian professor who said that Mt. Everest is high, no doubt, but how high it is has to be measured from the ground. Where is the ground? That is the Theravada. Really I felt so embarrassed. Probably I got red flushes at that time. That is helpful and nice criticism. Constructive criticism is helpful and that type of criticism is always welcome. But just because you want to say something bad, throwing some bad words against any tradition or religion is not good. It creates that negativity.

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So you get a lot of advantage and beautiful benefits from the religious traditions, but you can also get a lot of negativities. It is easy to get, particularly if you are not careful.

Now the Mahayana path. I mentioned what maha is all about. I still have a few minutes, so I am going to briefly say it. The Mahayana is so big because it is concerned with everybody, every creature in the world, not only human beings, everybody whoever breathes, in the air, in the water, on the ground, under the ground, above the ground. So it is really concerned with everything. It is a huge, gigantic thing that one does. When you are so much concerned with that, how can you do it? At the present situation, at the present level of capacity, at the present power we have, with the present knowledge we have, with the present compassion we have, it is not enough. We need better and bigger. So we need whatever best we could get in the mental development. That’s what you need. Seeking that, committing yourself to getting that level because you need it, not because you want it, but because it is necessary for you to fulfill your commitment, that means seeking total enlightenment. Not for me. For me alone freedom alone is good enough. What more do you want? It is like people saying, “We all would like to have enough life, get the kids educated, get health care and what else do you want?” That’s what it is.

But there is this huge thing. This is necessary because you have the commitment. If you don’t have the huge thing you neither completed your own purpose nor that of others. You are neither here nor there. You may think it is not necessary. Then you are going to fall between the cracks and that’s what you don’t want. That’s the reason why ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion are necessary and they are what we want. We tell you how to gain that next Sunday.

Sorry it looks like a commercial that is fooling you a little bit, but it’s not.

Okay, thank you and we will chant the Four Immeasurables 0:51 ……0:52 end