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Introduction by Dr. Tony King

I am extremely happy to introduce Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche to the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor community today, on the occasion of his 73rd Birthday! This is a great honor for me, and a wonderful opportunity for all of us. Rimpoche is a long-time friend of the University, and as I will briefly share, Rimpoche has a long and illustrious career which includes considerable scholastic achievements, as well as incredible spiritual development and tireless service to humanity.

Rimpoche was born in Lhasa, Tibet in 1939 as the eldest son of a highly respected Buddhist reincarnate Lama, Demo Rimpoche, nephew of His Holiness the Great 13th Dalai Lama. Rimpoche began his spiritual training literally at the age of 4, when he was officially recognized as a “TULKU” and the reincarnation of Khenpo Tashi Namgyal, former abbot of the Gyutö Tantric Monastery. Rimpoche has told us of his early experiences as a child literally meditating in a cave in the Himalayas outside of Lhasa, and his formal monastic training in Drepung Loseling Monastic University in Tibet. Even at a very young age Rimpoche’s intellect and remarkable memory became widely known in Tibet, and in his training Rimpoche has memorized about 10,000 pages of classical Buddhist scripture. Rimpoche excelled in his traditional monastic training, literally among the very last to have been trained in this ancient, thousand year old system of Old Tibet. He completed his academic training in a remarkably young age, and earned the degree of Geshe Lharampa, essentially the equivalent of a Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology, Literature, and Metaphysics, with highest honors, from the nation’s greatest university. And with His Holiness the Dalai Lama presiding at his formal Doctoral Defense. Imagine having the Dalai Lama on your dissertation committee?

In addition to His Holiness, Rimpoche studied under some of the greatest living masters of Tibet, and his teachers included Kyabje Ling Dorjechang, Kyabje Trijang Dorjechang, who were the gurus of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Song Rimpoche, Kyabje Gomo Rimpoche, Kyabje Ribur Rimpoche, Kyabje Denma Locho Rimpoche, and many other great masters.

In 1959, like hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, Rimpoche was forced into exile, and he fled on foot across the Himalayan mountains, literally with the machine guns of the People’s Liberation Army just behind him, to take refuge in India. There Rimpoche continued his spiritual training with great Buddhist masters, and also was instrumental in the work of preserving the ancient wisdom of Tibet from the wholesale destruction of the Cultural Revolution. There he met the late Tibetologist Gene Smith and worked with the US Library of Congress to preserve and publish over 170 precious manuscripts of Tibetan Buddhist scripture that otherwise would have been lost to Humanity.

At this time Rimpoche also gave up monastic life to better serve the lay community, or as Rimpoche often puts it, he had a “teenaged rebellion” in his mid-twenties: he married and had a career as director of Tibet House in Delhi, India and a radio host at All India Radio. In the late 1970’s Rimpoche was directed to teach Western students by his teachers, the Senior and Junior Masters to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since that time he has taught Buddhist practitioners around the world.

In the mid 1980s, Rimpoche worked as a scholar with the anthropologist Melvin Goldstein at Case Western University, and with him published a number of books on the modern history of Tibet and Tibetan culture. Rimpoche also worked as a faculty member here at the University of Michigan, as a lecturer in Tibetan language and culture.

Rimpoche has been instrumental in forming organizations that would share the great wisdom of Tibet with the outside world. In this and other ways, he has played a crucial role in the survival of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1988, Rimpoche founded Jewel Heart, a Tibetan Buddhist Center, with Dr Aura Glaser and Sandy Finkel, who invited him to Ann Arbor in the 1980s. Jewel Heart is now an international Buddhist organization, with chapters in Ann Arbor, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Lincoln Nebraska, Nijmegen in The Netherlands, and several centers in Malaysia and Singapore. Rimpoche also maintains a connection with Nyagre Khangtsen in Drepung Loseling monastery.

Rimpoche’s Collected Works now include over 40 transcripts of his teachings, numerous articles as well as the national bestseller Good Life, Good Death (Riverhead Books 2001) and the Tara Box: Rituals for Protection and Healing from the Female Buddha (New World Library 2004).

Rimpoche’s many friends and students in the West include some great scholars and artists of our time, including the late Allen Ginsberg, Phillip Glass, Richard Gere, Spalding Gray, Roshi Joan Halifax, Ram Dass, and many other wonderful people. The scholar and Je Tsongkhapa Chair Robert Thurman said of Rimpoche “I have probably had more fun with Gelek Rimpoche than any other Lama I know”.

Allen Ginsberg says of Rimpoche: Gelek Rimpoche is a heartfelt, tender teacher with a vast analytic mind.

The meditation teacher Jack Kornfield said: Gelek Rimpoche is one of the wisest, most cheerful people I know. He is a beautiful and gracious spirit who carries the great wisdom of Tibet. We are fortunate to have him teaching in the West.

Jean Houston says: Gelek Rimpoche is one of the great originals alive today – luminous in his wisdom, compassionate in his unstinting care and support, and a very man to boot. He is the Buddha nature in a a warm and whimsical package.”

It is my great honor, and I am extremely delighted to introduce Rimpoche today.

Happy Birthday Rimpoche!

Rimpoche is a U.S. citizen and lives in Michigan.

Rimpoche is particularly distinguished for his thorough familiarity with modern culture, and special effectiveness as a teacher of Western practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. Recognizing the unique opportunity for the interface of spiritual and material concerns in today’s world, Rimpoche has also opened a dialogue with science, psychology, medicine, metaphysics, politics, and the arts.

00:00

Thank you so much Dr. King. The introduction was so rich and I am so poor, honestly. The qualities mentioned in the introduction I thought were about somebody else. Really, I don’t have all these qualities. I am just a simple, straightforward, fat Tibetan. That’s what I am. But I am really honored and it is my privilege to be in Ann Arbor. The university and local community has always been kind and also supported me and my work ever since I came here in the late 1980s. We had the opportunity to invite HH Dalai here twice, once in 1994 and then in 2008. You cannot find any community as kind, open and supportive as this one. I am very grateful. So I have to give to back something to this community.

I came out of of Tibet as a refugee, so I have nothing to give back financially. I am not a Warren Buffet or anyone of that sort. But I realized that I do have something to carry from Tibet. That is the treasure of the spiritual path. It is about the mind. And it is not just mind. It is about thousands of great scholars and adepts, persons who have fully developed spiritually over a thousand years. Their gift is what I think I carry – from that ancient civilization to us today.

And we do need it, as you all know. Everybody is really hungry for a spiritual path. Spirituality, religion, it does not matter. It is something that makes a difference in our life other than money or mechanical or electronic or chemical things. We have been searching for this since the ‘60s. What happened then was also people’s hunger to look for some alternative, something better and easier, whether it be part of physical or mental healing or the development of the individual. We know about this mostly since the 1960s. People have been looking for this way before that, no doubt, but it has become more obvious since the ‘60s. That’s what the old ancient Tibet has to offer to the world. I fortunately happen to be the instrument which carries this message.

0:05

Ann Arbor also facilitated my coming here. Two emissaries from here came to New Delhi to meet me and that was the then university students Dr. Aura Glaser and Sandy Finkel. They invited me and so I came here. And the rest you know. I am not going to go into detail.

0:06

So now let me talk about the subject rather than the history. The subject is Tibetan Buddhism. There are so many spiritual paths in the United States today. It is almost like a shopping center, at least a step more for the spiritual path. You can get anything you want, from east to west, everything is available.

I would like to talk about Tibetan Buddhism, which is part of Buddhism, no doubt about it. I am not going into the differences between Buddhism in general and Tibetan Buddhism. For those who are interested there are many ways to learn about that. But I would like to see what Tibetan Buddhism carries, what is it’s base and it’s characteristics. I would like to concentrate on three points:

1. What is the main philosophy or principle on which Tibetan Buddhism functions?

Normally, in technical Buddhist language they call that “view”. What does that mean? You see what you look at. Really, truly, it is the real, important basis of philosophy on which they function. And that is dependent origination. This tells you many things. Things don’t just happen. They do happen because causes and conditions are correct. In other words, anything that is happening is dependent origination. It depends on the causes we create and the conditions we provide. That makes things happen. Many times we have so many different views. Some think that things happen because somebody decided that they should happen. Or things happen, because they are supposed to happen, no other reason. Many times we say that we don’t have control, that things just happen. We say we have no control over the weather, over disease, etc.. It is going to happen. But when you say that things depend on causes and conditions that tells us one important point: we ourselves are responsible for anything we experience, anything that is happening in our life. We are responsible. It is not God or somebody else. It doesn’t happen because it is supposed to be happening. These views are not correct. In fact, I am responsible for what is happening to me today.

0:11

It is true. Personally speaking, I am so fat. That is a fact. Why? Because I didn’t control my diet. I really love food, particularly sweets. I used to have a friend who told me, “Don’t eat American twinkies.” The shop keeper answered, “What is wrong with good old American twinkies?” You see the result here in me. And the Dunkin donuts I used to eat all the time. The result is that I have become diabetic. Simply, it is not because somebody else decided before I was born that “he should be fat and diabetic.” It just happened because I did not look after my mouth. That’s the result. So is everything, every single thing that ever happens in the world. We create create the causes.

When I wrote the book “Good Life Good Death” it came out around 9-11. I was sent by the publisher to talk about the book throughout the country. Just a little after 9-11 the questions I faced from people were mostly two things: “Why did God turn his face the other way around and didn’t bother? Why did he let this happen?” And when I tried to explain another question was, “Why are you blaming the victims?” If I said that it is their karma and they are responsible they read it as victim-bashing. The truth is that neither of them is right. Nor is it God’s fault and nor is it victim-bashing. Somehow the person had created the karma and as the result happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is how almost everything happens in our life. That is one of the basic Tibetan Buddhist principal philosophies. That gives tremendous room for scientists to open up. As you know, Dr. King is one of the examples. Also biochemists and physicists are no so much open and are having a dialogue with Tibetan Buddhism and particularly with His Holiness, everywhere, every time, whenever he is around. They go to India too 3, 4 times a year to have a conference with His Holiness. You know this, this is a university town. So, Tibetan Buddhism really has that openness in it.

Not only that. The Dalai Lama personally said many times that if scientific proof shows that the individual is not responsible for any of their individual deeds, Buddhism will be happy to surrender and admit that it has been wrong – since Buddha. So this opening up has been possible because of the basic view of dependent origination. Everything is a dependent arising. That’s one important philosophical base, the core thinking. There is nothing prefabricated. There is room for everything. It depends on causes and conditions. If you do good things you get a good result. If you do bad things you experience bad results. They all lead to this basic point.

0:16

In my belief, because of this Buddha could become Buddha. And each and every one of us could become what we are today. It is because of dependent origination. Because of that change can take place. It is not a prefabricated or fixed situation. If you are not well today you can be better tomorrow. If you are very well today you can get sick tomorrow. All of this can change. It can happen because of dependent origination.

2. Behavior and Functioning in Life with Non-violence

You know that violence does not do any good anywhere. We have learnt that now over the last 12 years, where we had very, very strong violence and we went through and the result are not better after 12 years, 8 years of Bush and 4 of Obama. Nothing is better, honestly, economically or otherwise. The economy was supposed to be the main goal. But it is not better. Terrorism, I don’t know, is it better? Maybe not. Unless and until people change their mind, terrorism is not going to change. Honestly. In the year 2003 in January I went to India. The moment I landed there, a friend of mine who is a great Rinpoche and was at that time the prime minister of the Dalai Lama, called me at 6 in the morning and said, “I heard you came in last night.” I had come in at 2 in the morning. So he said, “We have a conference today, if you like to come over.” So I said, “Ok, I will come.” So I just washed my face and went. The conference was named “Compassion as Antidote for Terrorism.” Mind you, I had just come from the United States. Remember, in those days how much propaganda for bombardment was going on. This was the time where they were saying “We get you before you get us” and “If you are not with us, you are against us” and that was the conservative compassion period. So at first it felt a bit funny even for me. Compassion as antidote of terrorism?

So I went in and those old Indians who worked with Gandhi, his secretary and personal assistant and all of them were saying that without change in the individual’s mind you cannot change their acts. That is absolutely true. We went out there and threw all our dollars and all our bullets and everything else. It was almost like we were going with gun in one hand and dollars in the other, saying, “Are you going to change your mind and support us or not?” It was almost in that manner. But that didn’t change people’s mind. Mind is something internal and that has to be changed willingly. The mind is something you cannot take over by force. Physically you can do anything. I have been under Communist control in Tibet. Physically they can do whatever they want to, but whatever they do, the mind they cannot change. That is something that belongs to the individual human being and it is up to the individual person, him – or herself, nobody else. We can suggest, but they have the power to reject or accept and we have the power to accept and reject. You cannot force that. We know that. The mind is something that responds to if you sit down and relax – or if you like it a little more romantic, meditate and analyze. Then you make up your mind.

0:23

Mind is more important than matter. I struggled with this in my childhood. On the one hand traditional Buddhist teachings would say that mind is more important than matter. That is what I learnt in the monasteries and that is what I read and what my friends talked and that is what my teachers said. Then the communist Chinese had built up loudspeakers throughout the city. They kept on talking from morning to evening that matter is more important than mind. The communist party of China was run by a bunch of old technocrats. They were all saying that all the time. From age 14 to age 19 – for 6 years, I kept on thinking, “What is it really?”

Ann Arbor, Michigan taught me that mind is more important than matter. By being with you and talking to you and seeing things, what is happening, I finally learnt that mind is more important than matter. I learnt that in this place here, not back in old Tibet. There I heard and read that and it stuck to me, but it didn’t convince me, because there was another message that kept yelling from the loudspeakers for 24 hours a day.

It is simple. I have been stupid. If I don’t’ want to do it, no one can tell me to do it. Mind goes first, then the actions follow. If mind is violent, then actions will be violent. Violence brings violence and that is horrible. We all saw it. So the principle in Tibetan Buddhism particularly is non-violence. In my opinion non-violence includes violence oneself as well. That is me personally talking. So non-violence is the second-most important point.

3. Meditation

It is very nice that we can openly about meditation. I came to Ann Arbor first as a visitor in 1985-86 as a visitor. Then I moved here in 1987. I was hesitating to talk about meditation, thinking that people won’t know. The first time when I talked about meditation was in the “Friends Meeting House” near here somewhere and when I said “meditation” people started moving and adjusting their posture. So I thought, “Oh, I suppose I can say it.” But the only thing is that the only thing people knew about meditation was the gesture. Meditation has been known now for many years. Now it is completely open, just like yoga is. Meditation is also used now in health care. I am very happy about the efforts that Jon Kabat Zinn put in. Whatever it has become it is very helpful.

What is different in Tibetan Buddhism? Meditation must be an antidote to negative emotions. I am referring to anger/hatred, obsession and jealousy, etc. that type of emotions. The purpose of mediation is not only to bring calm and quiet, as in calm abiding to yourself, but also your mind will be directed against hatred, anger, obsession, jealousy. These are the emotions that make our life misery in the present as well as in the future. These are the problems we face within ourselves.

0:30

We are cherishing and sheltering those problems. So meditation must be the antidote of that. In order to make it the antidote it is first important to bring calmness and quietness within your mind. If you don’t, you can’t utilize anything. So you have to gain calm abiding at first. Then utilize that mind power, that concentration power and your analyzing power against hatred, obsession, and where that hatred and obsession comes from. Many call it ignorance, many call it ego. Many call it “the mysterious boss inside”. I used to call it the “precious me inside” or the “queen bee” or “queen ant”. It seems to be some mysterious person hiding inside. That is called ‘ignorance’ in the Tibetan tradition. It means wrong knowing, being misinformed.

So these are the three targets we have to use our mind power against. We need focus, concentration and sharp analysis. These are the three major principal differences between Tibetan Buddhism and whatever you compare them against. These are the three characteristics.

Do I have to become Tibetan Buddhist in order to utilize those advantages? The answer is: certainly not.

I in particular and the folks in Jewel Heart, we are not missionaries – although I admire the Jehovah’s witnesses. They are really good old friends. When I was not busy they would always come and talk to me for a while. Then they would go back and come again to talk to me. Then they would say, “I will get your answer later.” Then they would come back and give an answer. They are very nice and very dedicated. Actually, they wanted to save me and help me. Great, honestly, that is wonderful. That is good motivation and they are kind and devoted and everything is great.

But we are not missionaries. We are not here to convert people. Neither are we trying to make you Buddhist nor are we trying to make you Tibetans! Certainly not. No matter whatever you are. But if you pick up this information and learn a little bit and try to see whether it works for you or not you can see if you like it and if it helps you take it. If you don’t like it and it doesn’t help you, don’t waste your time, throw it in the garbage. That is how Buddha began his own teaching. He said, “Never buy this because I, the Buddha, said so. Feel it yourself, experience it yourself and if you like it, take it. If not, throw it away.”

So that’s why we are here and if it helps you ease your pain a little bit better, then what’s wrong with it? Honestly. The information we brought has really a tremendous way of handling mental and emotional pains. Particularly fear, the fear of death, the fear of loneliness. It is not that we are going to change death or loneliness. But it makes a difference. It becomes easy to handle. It becomes a natural way and you can almost have control over it and almost manage by yourself. That is how it is. It is not going to change death and loneliness, but it is going to change how you feel and how you take it. Your understanding and your adoption of a certain way of thinking, that’s really what it is.

0:37

I was talking with a friend of mine who had a tremendous amount of problems with anger. He is the brother of a very famous musician. They both talked to me. After six months the anger was completely way down, disappeared. So it was helpful. The person appreciated it and his friends did too. Now two weeks ago I met both of them in New York for dinner. Now his problem is loneliness, no longer anger. So I said, “Loneliness is a delusion.” He got a big shock and said, “If you had not helped me with this anger, I would have walked away now.” So things like that, whether loneliness is a delusion or not, there are ways and means of handling that.

I just wanted to bring you these important points that Tibetan Buddhism can contribute. One doesn’t have to be Tibetan Buddhist in order to get benefit. We have this Jewel Heart organization. With your help it is still there and our doors are open. Every Sunday we give a talk like this and it is also available on line. I just would like to invite you with open arms and say welcome. I hope it will be of a little help and you have something to take home. Our negative emotions are the source of our problems. Our positive emotions are the source of our joy and happiness, because they are dependent origination. Every single thing that is happening in our life is dependent origination. Who provides the causes and conditions? We ourselves. In other words we are responsible for ourselves. We are our own boss, nobody else. With that I would like to say thank you and it has been a little short, but it supposed to be only one hour.

0:41

Thank you

Sandy: Thank you Rimpoche, that was marvelous. Do you want to take questions? You are free to take questions.

Audience: This dependent origination, is that more or less parallel to the western concept of interdependence, that everything is connected to everything else?

Rimpoche: Thank you so much. You make it much more clear. Honestly. Everything is connected with everything else and that makes things happen. Nothing is happening independently, actually. Thank you. That was a great help, thank you. It makes a difference. You are a professor in university and you know how to talk about this. It makes it easier for people to understand. Thank you.

Audience: I read a saying by a wise Buddhist master: Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise. Could you comment with a few words on that?

Rimpoche: Thank you for the question. I think I already did. You know why? I said that loneliness is a delusion. Things are not as they appear – and not the other way round either. Loneliness may be a delusion but it is also true. That’s my understanding. That’s what I mean: I already did that.

0:44

Audience: What is your understanding of rape and incest and how that tends to shape a lot of negative emotions in a child that is just developing their mind and also messes up a woman’s thinking.

Rimpoche: Did I get your question straight: did you ask what makes a child have negative emotions?

Audience: my question was in regard to incest

Rimpoche: insects?

Audience: Yes, you talked about mind over matter. What is your understanding of how to help that child to deal with incest. When you talked about 9/11 and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, what is our understanding of how that child or a person who is raped can deal with that kind of trauma?

Rimpoche: Some children are in the habit of always hurting insects. Some don’t, they always protect and help. I don’t seem to get your question straight.

(Sandy is translating for Rimpoche in his ear……) I am sorry, okay. Obsession is something that many people carry very deeply inside. Truly speaking, everybody does have something inside. If you don’t check and don’t care, if you let it do whatever, people may have that imprint in their consciousness. Once that starts acting, it not only becomes horrible violence, but it has tremendous force. Sometimes the individual can’t help it and uses it against anybody, whoever they can, particularly children. That is one of the horrible things in our society. The rest you know. The question is I think what can you do to help this sort of people. To me, first of all, that person’s mind has to be brought to a neutral state. Neutral state means that it is not positive and virtuous, but also not engaged with negative, even thinking differently. Friends take them for a walk near the bank of a river, on the hill side, to beautiful places, changing their minds from the extreme emotion to a neutral level. When it reaches the neutral level you first have to stabilize the neutral level, otherwise it goes back immediately. Stabilize it for a while and then suggest a little bit of pain and a personal experience of pain. Aggressions are all consequences of personal experiences of pain. Remind them a little bit of a personal experience of pain and then twist that, make them realize you can’t do it the way you have been handling it, because that will create more violence, more trouble and it will continue. You have to end it here and this causes pain. If you give it up it causes joy and happiness.

Somehow I will say this is information and the adoption of the information and stabilizing that in mind. Whatever you are thinking and talking that informs your character, your personality. A lot of people will say that “if I keep saying peace, peace, peace” that doesn’t make any difference. But the reality is that if you are thinking about kindness and compassion, then kindness and compassion will become the character of the person. There is one nice thing in the movie about Margret Thatcher with Meryl Streep. There is a verse in there that says that your thoughts become reality and that reality will become your character. That is how mediation works for you. What I really talked to you just now is a sort of meditation. It is not really meditation but a type of meditation that changes the individual. But the person must always bring compassion and love and caring. Somehow you have to inject that into it and when it gets there it will change the person. Until then it is very difficult to change.

Thank you for the question. It was difficult for me to understand. Sorry. I guess that’s it. Thank you.

Sandy: Thank you Rimpoche and on behalf of everybody here I would like to with you a very happy birthday and a heartfelt request that you continue to share your wisdom with us for many, many more healthy and happy years to come.

0:53

(Announcements of forthcoming events) Thank you Rimpoche, happy birthday and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

Rimpoche: Thank you - 0:56