Archive Result

20120813GRAATB32

00:00

Good morning and welcome to Tibetan Buddhism. My name is Gelek Rimpoche. We have been talking here on the basis of the Four Noble Truths. If I recall a little bit, the question began with thinking how one engages in Tibetan Buddhism. What does Tibetan Buddhist practice mean? We have the very traditional – which is also absolutely practical – way that begins with learning. If you don’t learn anything it will be very difficult to do anything, because you don’t know what you are doing. You are learning and then contemplating and then you try to have it become your character. That is how one engages in Tibetan Buddhism. Traditionally it is called learning, analyzing, meditating. But that’s what it really is.

Learning is huge, because Buddha’s teaching is so huge. For anyone it will be completely impossible to comprehensively learn about Buddha’s teaching. Even those who claim to be Buddhist masters and those who claim to be Buddhist professor – no one will be able to comprehend Buddha’s teaching. It is very difficult. Then people like us are very busy in our daily life, just to pay our bills and live our lives. We don’t have much extra time. So for us it is even more difficult. However, we need to learn what we have to do. And it is important not to do anything if you don’t know what you are doing. Particularly, on the spiritual path. It is an unknown road, uncharted territory, scientifically not really established properly. Anything can go wrong and many times, many places, things do go wrong. It is common and we know that even in this country. There are true mistakes and there are purposely made up stories – not stories, but things happen. All that is there. So it is very important to learn whatever you are doing. Even if you want to sit down for a minute and do some “meditation”, first learn something about what you are meditating, what that means, how does one meditate, what do you hope to gain.

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These are the big questions. How, what and what for. This is necessary to figure out before you do anything, honestly. For you people this is how the spiritual path is. For me the usual western educational path is like that. I will hesitate before I do anything and first learn a little bit about it. Even the medical treatment and the alternative medical treatment I will not subject myself to without learning a little bit about. Even if a doctor tells me to take a pill I like to learn what that pill consists of and what does that do to me and what are the side effects. I try to learn that before I take the pill. At my doctor’s visit three months later they will ask me, “Did you take the pill?” – “Not yet” – “what are you waiting for?” (laughs). That’s what happens to me and that’s what I am encouraging you people to do. Just like I am traveling with your culture and customs you should do the same thing with what we call the spiritual path. So learning is important. But only learn what you need to know, not all details. If you are a scholar, you are great, but everybody is not going to be a scholar. Neither can you, nor it is even necessary.

0:07 What you really need to know is the basic Four Noble Truths of Buddha. That’s why are talking about the Four Noble Truths. The first, the Truth of Suffering, we already talked about. Then the cause: where does the suffering come from? We already talked about that. Then the question is: Is there an end to this? Can we end it? Yes, there is cessation and we just talked about it, that’s it. Then how do you get to the cessation? That is the Fourth Noble Truth, the Path.

There are a number of ways to talk about that and we chose a very practical way. That is Buddha’s way of dealing with our life. Sometimes, when you watch it, this thought comes up. Many people talk about religion in terms of praying and worshipping. I am not saying that is wrong. That’s how many people take it. But what Buddha shared with us is not simply praying to somebody or worshipping somebody or pleasing someone and hoping for good returns. I don’t think Buddha taught that way. Whether you call it Buddhism or religion, it was not Buddha who labeled Buddhism, but the British. That was way, way after Buddha. Anyway, Buddha shared whatever the way he did it himself. Here it only matters what you do yourself and that is not just praying and worshipping alone. Work with your own mind. Actually we as human beings, what do we have? The outer physical body and the inner, the mind aspects. We don’t have anything other than that. Nothing. Either it is the mental or physical aspects. There is nothing else. Emotions can be grouped under mind. So there are only these two. As for dealing with the physical level you people know much better than I do.

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If I were as good as you are I wouldn’t be so fat. That shows you can do better than I do. The mind, however, makes much difference. I told you earlier that in my young age I struggled. Back in old Tibet, when I was 10 years old, it was the beginning of the present Chinese government and their soldiers, education and all coming to Tibet. They told us that matter is more important than mind. It is all matter. As you know, almost every Chinese leader today is a technocrat. For them it is a technical thing. In a way it is true. That will make a difference in our life directly. So they said that this is more important than mind. My traditional Buddhist teaching tells me that mind is more important than matter. This is the struggle I go through. Every day I hear from the public loudspeakers in the city everywhere “blab la bla”, which was all about that matter is more important and also political education and news. That “blab la bla” was always there. Then I heard from my teachers and debated and read that mind is more important than matter. That was the struggle. I became totally convinced that mind is more important than matter after I left Tibet and after I left India – in the United States. And I am supposed to be convinced, but I think it really is.

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So that is the situation. So we are learning the Four Noble Truths and particularly the fourth, the truth of the path. From the practical point of view what Buddha shared are basically two separately known paths, the Theravada or self-liberation vehicle or, as it is traditionally called, the hinayana, which means smaller vehicle. Then the Mahayana is the bigger vehicle. Vehicle is the vessel that delivers the individual. You can use a car, boat or plane for example. I emphasize all the time that one is not superior to the other. As a matter of fact, one is the basic principle and the other is like the icing on the cake. One is like the cake, the other is the icing on the cake. We already talked briefly about the Theravada path. Now we are at the Mahayana path.

The other day we came to the question: what makes you a person on the Mahayana path? Earlier, for the last couple of weeks, we talked about what makes you a Buddhist. Last time I told you that I would tell you about that next time. I don’t mean to play it like a commercial, but it came out that way.

So what makes it Mahayana? Why is it big? When these vehicles change there is a shift in your way of handling. Why is there a shift? Because your goal changes. The purpose for which you want to do this will change. For example, while you are engaging in the Theravada or Hinayana path your goal never is to become a Buddha. It is not even necessary. Our goal at that time is to get freedom from suffering and the causes of suffering. That is our purpose and our goal. When you shift to the Mahayana the goal changes. Why? Because your purpose is changed. Your purpose is not just to simply liberate yourself. The purpose is to liberate everybody, to help everybody. Why? What is your concern? Why everybody? Because we have some kind of resolution that is sometimes referred to as “special mind”. It is sort of giving a commitment. The individual becomes so excited and so looking forward, so much so that you make the commitment, “I will not rest, unless and until I deliver all living beings to the state of the Buddha and that will be my job, my task, my responsibility.”

I am talking this to you very briefly. Many of you have gone through our summer retreat and we read about this. I don’t know how much you understood or not, but if you keep on reading you can get much more information on this. Very briefly, you have that special resolution. Why did you resolve that way? Are you crazy to go that way? It almost looks like it. Why are you resolving that much? Because of your compassion, your care. Your compassion is not just compassion that cares. It is a compassion that commits you and not only commits you to liberate one, but liberate all – A-L-L. Why? Because you have unbiased or unlimited, unconditional compassion.

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Why do you have such unlimited, unconditional compassion? Because you have love. Again it is a love that makes you to commit, that brings you care, that brings you compassion. The subject is not limited. To whom you commit, the object of your compassion, is not limited. That si because of live. Why such a love? Because we care. Not only we care, but it is “I owe you.” Every one everywhere, at all different times, has gone something for me and not just something, but almost everything. In short, I cannot look to anybody and say, “This one has done nothing for me.” My knowledge, my remembrance, my acknowledgment, might be limited. Otherwise, I am connected with everybody. There is not a single person in this existence that never had a connection with me. We all have. Everybody, all of us, we do have connections, even in our previous lives. If we don’t have a connection, you won’t be here today. I won’t be here. We will not be doing this together at all. That totally indicates that we have a connection, whether you are physically here or not. You may be listening or watching the webcast. So we do have a connection. If you are looking from that angle there is not a single person we could leave out and about whom you could say, “I have nothing to do with that person.”

0:27

We make make up our mind and decide, “I will have nothing to do with that person”, but that doesn’t become “I will have nothing to do with that person”. That person has something to do with me, too. It goes the other way around too. The whole world is interconnected, right? We are connected, we are concerned, there is something. That’s why we care, that’s why we have love and compassion. That’s how the special resolution makes us feel responsible. If you are going beyond, if I bring a little bit of Buddhist theoretical points here:

There are two ways to develop this particular, wonderful, precious bodhimind, which is seeking the Buddha stage. You can say it is seeking Bodhi. And it is the desire to be a Buddha. A lot of people think that desire is bad, so one should not have any desire. But the desire to be perfect is some desire that you want to have. The desire to be imperfect is a desire you don’t want to have. Every desire is not necessarily bad, because it is called desire.

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Otherwise every thought will be bad, so better be thoughtless. Thoughtless will get you nowhere. You know that. Some people sit, without thinking, and call that meditation. They sit with open mouth and open eyes. I call that “lizard meditation”. If you are in the Rocky Mountains area – not in Colorado, but Tibet – where it is very rocky and dry you can see the lizards sitting on the rocks, because the rock is hot with sun shine. The lizard sits there with open mouth and some people say that the lizard is swallowing air. But that is lizard meditation, sitting, thinking nothing, with open mouth.

If you sit too long without thinking anything, what will be the result of that? It is not going to be the hell realms, hungry ghost realm or animal realm, not even a human being’s, demi god or desire god realm. We are talking here about the six realms of existence within cyclic existence itself. Above that there are the four form – and four formless realms. Within the four formless realms you have space-like, consciousness-like, nothingness and peak of samsara. So sitting like that will give you a rebirth either in the realm of nothingness or consciousness like or space like. It does not deliver enlightenment. It does not deliver wisdom. Some people may think it is wisdom because you see nothing. I don’t want to too far into that. This sort of slipped out.

You have to know what you are doing, even if you are meditating. Just sitting and thinking nothing may help at the beginning to stabilize your mind a little bit, because our mind is so busy jumping, but in the long run it doesn’t do that good. And people like you, who are educated and intelligent, should not submit to thinking nothing and labeling that as meditation.

0:35

You have a great intellectual capacity. You have to use it. Otherwise what is your intelligence for? It does not only help you to make money. It should help you to cut your negativities, your unhappiness, discomfort and – if you can think beyond that – all suffering. Anything which causes that you should be able to challenge and overpower and it should give you the right thing to build your intelligence more. And build your compassion more and build your capability more. This should be the job of your intelligence. That should be the purpose of your meditation. That should be the purpose of your contemplation. It always has to be rebuilding your sharp wisdom, your care, your compassion, rebuilding your capability, rather than decreasing it. If it is decreasing it then it is harming you. If it is increasing it, then it is helping you. These are the basic things you look for.

Some of us have some commitments. Sometimes, if you can do it well it is wonderful. Sometimes, if you can’t do it well it is still the commitment. But it doesn’t harm you. Even if it doesn’t help you, at least it doesn’t harm you. But it is a good thing. If you decrease your intelligence and your wisdom, your love, your compassion, your care, then it is harming you. That’s why we say the first thing is learning. And the first thing you learn is what to do. The second thing is find out if what you do is helping or harming you. It is necessary to know. But then people say, “I enjoy this. I feel happy.” That’s not a valid reason. That is not a correct reason. Addicted people will enjoy alcohol. That’s because they are addicted. It doesn’t mean something is helping you just because you enjoy it. That reasoning is an invalid reason because alcohol-addicted persons enjoy alcohol. That doesn’t help them. Cigarettes and other substances are all the same.

Many of us say, “This is right, because I enjoy it.” We consider that a valid reason. So here is your proof. “I enjoy” is not valid, because persons addicted to alcohol enjoy alcohol. That doesn’t mean it is good. You see that, right? Now I destroyed this reasoning. Then what? What are you going to substitute that with? You substitute that with checking whether something is helping you or hurting you. That is becoming a little more complicated than feeling good or not feeling good.

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It is a little superior to your earlier judgment. And the more it becomes a little superior it becomes a little complicated. A little. People who are addicted to let’s say killing, they enjoy killing. They look for opportunities to create a killing. When they are able to kill they are happy. But that hurts them. It not only hurts others who get killed, but it hurts themselves. And they know it. They know it and because of that they often kill themselves. That’s exactly what happened in Wisconsin at the Sikh temple. The guy who did that knew it wasn’t good for him and he didn’t want to hand over his life to the law. So he killed himself. So killing others hurts yourself, not only indirectly, from the karmic point of view, but even directly, so much so that a person like that commits suicide. When it hurts others and yourself you know it is not good, unless you are a fool or crazy, just like the guy in Colorado who shot people in the movie theater. He has no idea. He thinks it is part of the movie. So has gone absolutely crazy. Everybody is a little crazy anyway, but unless you are really crazy that is how it is.

So when it hurts yourself and others it is not good. Hurting others hurts you. That also means that helping others helps you. It works the same way. If you are hurting somebody you may think that you punished that person or whatever. But it really hurts you. Likewise, when you help it it is the cause of you getting help. If you are able to save a life, if you are in the position to save some life and you could do it, how happy you will be! Actually you helped another person. But it also helped you, because it made you happy. That is the direct point of view. From the indirect point of view, through karma, that is a different story, but it is very helpful.

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So helping others is the key to help yourself. When you make someone happy and you see that this person is becoming happier that makes you happy. This is no secret, no mystery. It is simple, direct knowledge, which we see in our life. We don’t have to pray for happiness. We don’t have to do pujas for happiness. But directly you can make yourself happy. That is what Buddha’s teaching is all about. That’s why at the beginning I said that it is not so much about worship and prayers. They are all welcome and fine. But the main thing is you make a difference in your own life by making a difference in others’ lives.

The difference between Hinayana and Mahayana is that the small vehicle directly tells you how you make yourself better. The Mahayana tells you how to make yourself better and happier by making other people happier and better.

As I said earlier, the seven stages of developing that bodhimind is common Mahayana teaching. There is another method called the exchange stages. You heard that during the teaching on the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. One thing I would like to say is there is no shortage of information on this type of path, particularly in Jewel Heart. There are so many materials now available. Thank you to a number of people who are involved in making transcripts and each one of them has a tremendous amount of materials. Unlike 30, 40 years ago, there are also many other materials available in English language. 30-40 years there were only a few books available. Maybe the Tibetan Book of the Dead and a couple of others. Very limited. Now there is a huge amount. If the first step of engaging in Tibetan Buddhism is learning then you have a lot of opportunity.

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Also I would like to say that I will be visiting Malaysia and Singapore. So for the next 3, 4 weeks, your Sunday talks are recorded. Every one of them is smooth and there won’t be any problem with not being able to see them. I just wanted to say thank you and I will be back here talking live in Ann Arbor on Sept 16. That’s it and meanwhile have a nice summer. 0:51 end