Archive Result

20121104GRNBTB44

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Good morning, welcome everybody today to “Tibetan Buddhism” with me, Gelek Rimpoche. Today we are speaking to you from Nebraska Jewel Heart. That has been here for a long time. Earlier, a woman, the late Ananda, had a couple of friends and they got together and invited me here and since then they have been studying here as a little chapter of Jewel Heart. As you know towards the end of the subject of Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche and that ran for the whole year. Now it is November and there are only a couple of Sundays left. We focused this whole year on the teachings of the Buddha from the point of view of the Four Noble Truths.

Why did we do this? How does one take the wisdom and ways of helping ourselves. We started talking about how do we enter, how do we begin and we drew the conclusion that from the Buddha’s teaching’s point of view there are three steps: one is learning, two is contemplating and three is practicing or meditating.

Step one is learning. That is important, because without learning you won’t be able to do anything. Whatever we have to do at least we have to know something about it. If we don’t know what we are doing that’s not so great. Although the learning is not to become a scholar or expert, but at least you know what you are doing. And if you don’t, you will be mimicking or copying somebody. Then it doesn’t make much sense. Well, it may make sense but it doesn’t benefit much.

One of our friends has a parrot named Simon and Simon will exactly say whatever you tell him. Especially if you have good nuts to give him. So he will say whatever you want him to say. But I don’t know if Simon has any understanding of it. Maybe there is a benefit if he says OM MANI PADME HUM. Other than that there can’t be much benefit. We don’t want to do that. We are human beings with human intelligence. There is a beautiful path that earlier human beings such as Buddha have shared with us. The path has been left left alive. There are continuously people who are practicing. It is very much a living tradition, rather than something that happened in the 16th century or something. It is very much a living tradition today. There are practitioners, there are people who are benefiting and developing and through that benefiting others all are there. It is a living tradition. Such a living tradition should use the benefit of knowing at least what you are doing. That’s why learning comes first. Learning is also focused. The purpose of this spiritual path, what is really the focus? There are two:

Long term goal and short term goal.

The long term goal is to achieve total knowledge, to achieve the ultimate best you can. The short term goal is to liberate, to free ourselves from the sufferings and pains. This is the purpose. So following the path should be contributing to that, bringing us close to our goal. Otherwise, it doesn’t serve much purpose. It is beautiful if you go and see things in a museum and acknowledge, remember and appreciate them. But spiritual practice is not like visiting the Smithsonian Institute. It is within the individual, changing inside, making our thoughts and ideas and ways of thinking and living and functioning and our character and personality able to change within ourselves. That also means changing from negative into positive. It means changing negative emotions such as anger into compassion and caring. You can’t make anger flip flop into compassion. That’s very difficult. There is a process from the heated atmosphere by reducing it and cooling it down a little bit, coming down a little more, becoming a little more relaxed and gentle, to a neutral state that is neither positive nor negative and from that neutral state you change into the positive way to be a little bit concerned, to having a little sympathy.

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Maybe it leads to comparing the pain and suffering that you experienced yourself when you went through the consequences of hatred. Something will gradually change and then you are able to transform that into love, caring and compassion. This gradual process you have to go through. I am using anger and compassion as example. It is not only that. You also have to use stinginess and generosity or hatred and compassion, or obsession which can become pure love. These are the transitions you have to take. These transitions can’t come externally to the inside. The change must be done within ourselves. There is no way that it can change from outside. It is very strange and I very often say it.

A year after 9-11, maybe 2002 or in January of 2003, I went to India. When I reached Delhi there was a conference organized under the instructions of HH Dalai Lama. I was asked to attend that on that very morning by a phone call. So when I walked in, the banners outside the hall said, “Compassion As Antidote to Terrorism”. My mind did not buy that, I must admit. I thought it was funny. We were so used it for over a year to hear about terrorism and that the way to get rid of terrorism is through attacks and war. So to see compassion as antidote seemed a little funny to me. Anyway, I went in and sat down. People on the stage were those traditional Gandhi followers, the ones who used to work for Gandhi and for his secretary. The chairman of the Gandhi ashram was there and all these Gandhi people. One after another they tried to present their point. It was really something very different from what I used to hear for a whole year.

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They also pointed out something that I had the knowledge of, but it didn’t click. They said that you will not be able to change the minds of people either by dollars or by weapons. That is very true. You can pretend to change and collect your dollars or you can get shot. But you won’t change your mind. The changing of the mind has to come through an internal process. That internal process must see the fault of negative emotions. It must see the benefit of positive emotions.

For example, internally the individual should see the consequences of violence. What does violence do? It brings more violence. I hit you, you hit me back. Honestly. Even if you as an individual don’t hit me back the karma of hitting the other person will get me sooner or later. So it is really a vicious circle. Negative actions such as violence bring the result of violence. It is always the case. Sometimes some of us short-tempered persons lose our temper. We try to fight, even with those that we care for and love, such as our children. We try to tell them something and they don’t listen – because they are children. Some of us don’t realize they are children and try to give them consequences. Yes, certain consequences such as grounding and this and that are very good. But some people will hit them and pinch them and slap them and cause them the biggest pain they could. As a consequence, if you are lucky enough it doesn’t cause any more damage. But the way of treating them that way will continue. So any violent action that anybody takes, instead of ending the violence, will extend its life. We see that all the time. People see it and pick it up and then continue to act that way with other people. That is just a little example and that goes for small things in individual families and also for bigger groups and nations, societies, religious sects and so on. It happens all the time.

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None of them can externally change people. We only can change internally by ourselves by seeing the faults such as those we just talked about. On the other hand we see the benefits of non-violence. How much non-violence helps! We can look in our recent history. Look at the people who are engaged in violence, like Hitler and those types of dictators, up to Gaddhafi. What happened to them? How do people see them? What is their legacy? How much people have suffered during that time because of their deeds. On the other hand look at Mother Theresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, HH Dalai Lama and most importantly, Gandhi. Look what happened during their life time, what is still happening, see their legacy and see the effect to the people.

When you see these as historical events and also individually within yourself, within our own family, when you begin to see that, you can gain an internal understanding how people can improve. If you think you can improve anything by rough actions, when you realize that, somehow you gain the understanding that they don’t like it.

Our pets, like our dogs, are great examples. If you are kind and gentle and treat your dog well, the dog will receive you with wagging tail and shaking body, when you come in. But if you keep on beating them, then when you come they will run away. If you have a little apartment and they know you are coming, then instead of running to the door and wagging their tail and receiving you they will run away and hide under the bed or wherever they can and won’t come out. They don’t like it.

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That itself simply gives us a clear picture. No one would like to be treated rough. Everybody appreciates gentleness and kindness, caring and love. At least that sort of understanding, beginning from there, then to a larger scale, more people can be involved, society can be involved, the counties, the countries and the whole world. If you think that way there will be improvement.

When the United Nations were expected to bring world peace, I was always wondering how. Pease must start within ourselves. The good old American saying is: Charity begins at home. So peace must start in the home, and then expand. Then it becomes a genuine, good peace.

The root of that peace is the internal change of the individual, from using hatred, anger and violence as a way to improve something into love, compassion, care and kindness. That change must take place internally within each and every individual. That means it must take place within me. Then I can improve. That change is what I have to do internally. No one can do it for me. The other day I mentioned that mind is more important than matter.

When I was growing up I had this huge struggle in the 1950s. On the one hand I had the great opportunity to learn in the greatest institutions from great masters how mind is more important than matter. Then the Communist Chinese came to Tibet in the early 50s and put loudspeakers at every corner of every house in town and for 24 hours a day they shouted that matter is more important than mind. They say that matter makes a difference and mind makes no difference. On the one hand I learnt that mind is more important and tried to think and meditate and try to pick this up and on the other hand I heard for 24 hours a day that matter is more important. That huge struggle was going on in my teenage years. That really only settled for me when I came to America. Both sides are there and I was looking at both of them. It is so simple, but you can get caught. Actually, without the mind nothing happens. You make up your mind and then you do things.

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If I don’t think I have to get up and walk to the bathroom I won’t get up and walk there. Everything is mind first and then actions follow. It’s as simple as that. But that hard – headed heard didn’t want to pick it up. A variety of different reasons will show you. Technology and electronics will have all kinds of things that you can literally see. It is all there. The cars move, the planes fly, the trains go and you don’t see the mind going, but the mind is going. We can’t see it. We don’t get inside the mind and sit in a comfortable compartment and reach our destination a hundred miles away. We don’t. So there is the struggle between mind and matter. But in reality, it is all made by mind.

So those changes we are talking about have to be made internally. When you do that you don’t need guns, war. It is something that money and weapons can’t do. But the mind can. That is really how powerful the mind is. That mind is within us. It is ours, it is yours, it is mine. No one controls it. You control yours, I control mine. This is really your own. Here it is you who will manage your mind. Otherwise events will manage you.

The spiritual path – this is what we are learning – is managing that mind, by your and for you. That’s really what it is. In order to make the change you need to know where you are changing to, where you are and what you want to change and how. That’s why learning comes first. If you don’t know that, then that’s it.

When President Obama was running for office four year ago everybody was saying “Change, change, change”, but no one said from where to what the change was going to be. The word “change” alone was there. That’s what some people say. Change is great and necessary, but we must know from what to what and where to where. That’s important, otherwise instead of going to an improvement it can also go down.

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So instead of changing anger into compassion you can also change compassion into anger. It is very much possible. It is not impossible. People who are engaged in love and compassion can get irritated easily. Some people think that if you are practicing compassion, how come you get irritated and angry? The simple answer in my case: I am a Buddhist, not a Buddha. I am looking to become a Buddha, but haven’t reached there yet. So it is easy to say, but difficult to do. So learning is necessary. At least I have to know what I am doing, on what I am spending my energy, how I am trying to influence my powerful tool of my mind. Your mind is very capable. Some people can think and cut through any material problem, whether is business or legal and all of those. I was talking with a friend yesterday morning. Our mind is such that it can cut through anything, if you have the know-how. But on the spiritual path you can’t get it as fast as you can get it for your business or legal matters or whatever. That’s because the mind is not used to it. You don’t have the information. It is not part of your character, or the smartness of the mind. So learning is making that possible.

Thereby you will become very smart, as smart as you are in your own particular professional field. You should be just as smart in the spiritual field. What difference does that make? If you are smart, you will work smart. You don’t necessarily work that hard, but you work smart. So you get good results. If you are not smart you can work very hard but you get very little. You can see that. Most people work very hard, but make very little. Some intelligent people work smart and make much more. I am talking about money. Right? It is the same thing, the same characteristics in the spiritual path, the field of business, your work and everything works the same way. The goal is different, the method is different, but other than that it all works the same way. That’s why learning comes first.

The learning in this series of talks I have been giving is based on the first teaching of the Buddha, known as the Four Noble Truths. These are also very interesting.

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They are not something where Buddha sat down and thought about it and figured out how to present it and then came up with these four steps. No. He actually looked at the reality of his own life, past and present, the lives of other people around him. What he noticed and felt came as a shock to the little Indian prince. He saw suffering, illness, death, ageing. You don’t know what suffering ageing is until you get old. When you become 73 you will know what it is. Until then you don’t. So ageing is suffering. Illness is suffering. Death is suffering. Some people say that death is beautiful. Maybe. I don’t know, it could be or it could be miserable too. I don’t want to take some people’s wonderful relaxed mind away.

I recall an incident, when quite a long time ago, one of my friends, a great teacher called Sogyal Rinpoche, wrote the book “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”. It was very good and very popular. The American Institute of Buddhist Studies by Professor Robert Thurman, had a conference in New York. It was a huge seminar actually. Sogyal Rinpoche was supposed to come there and give an address to the gathering and take questions. Last minute he couldn’t come from England. So Professor Thurman asked me to be the substitute or second choice. So I accepted and went. And there was a bunch of angry ladies. Many of them told me, “I came with big anger and talk to him, but he didn’t show up, so now you are here”. They complained that they had such a beautiful image of a comfortable death and dying and his book took their peace of mind away. It was a big loss for them.

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Then the funny point is that at that time I had not read that book! Basically I was presuming that he was talking about basic Buddhist principles and ideas and I talked about that. Later, when I read it, he literally expanded on the well-known Tibetan Book of the Dead. There they will say that when you die you will suddenly encounter this ghost and that ghost, wearing this mask and so on. So no wonder they got so upset. That’s what happened. So I don’t want to take your peace of mind away if you have settled on death being beautiful. But on the other hand that is not guaranteed. So I wrote the book “Good Life Good Death”. The reason is that if you want a good death you have to have a good life. A good life is your normal living and functioning, how you think and act every day. Your death will follow that. If you have a good life every day, good thoughts every day, good compassionate action every day, then your death will be good, compassionate and wonderful. It really follows. Whatever you do today will shape your tomorrow. We do that, we work, because we want a better tomorrow. Whether you look from the material point of view or the spiritual point of view, the compassion/love point of view, whatever you do today makes a different tomorrow. Whatever you do in life makes a difference in death. Whatever death you have will make your next life different. That’s how the circle works. I don’t want to take your peace away, but if you really want a good death you should have a good life. A good life brings a good death.

A good life doesn’t necessarily mean a fancy, rich, luxurious life. A good life here is to be comfortable, mentally, emotionally, physically for yourself and your immediate family. Thereafter with everybody else. That comfort should be expanded from you to your family, to the neighbors, the city, county, the state, country and the world. If you manage that, that’s what a good life is about. Death is something we don’t control. The key has been given to the new driver. The new driver will drive and you become a passenger. It is the natural process. You can be the back seat driver and tell the driver to turn right, turn left, go straight and do all that. But you really can’t drive yourself. If you want to be a good back seat driver you have to know where you are going, which is the shortest, easiest, happiest road. Then you can tell where to go. I forgot, now we have GPS. I am talking about the old times.

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So again, you need knowledge and information. But that alone will not do. They can remain in tapes, in your computer and in the old days it would remain in somebody’s file. Then the file is put on the shelf, covered with dust and the next the course is coming up you dust off your file and bring it to class. That won’t do. That is knowledge remaining on a piece of paper. That’s now good enough. It must be within our mind. The principle of love and compassion must be in our mind every day. When you carry that it is hitting on the Second Noble Truth, the Cause of Suffering. And when you know where the suffering is coming from, the cause is nothing but our own deeds. These are nothing but our negative emotions influencing and forcing us to do wrong things and that creates suffering. Reversing that you cut the causes and stop the causes. Then there will no longer be suffering. That’s how you end your suffering. That’s how the Four Noble Truths are going forward and backward. Backward means reversing, by stopping the causes of suffering. Then the resultant suffering will end.

I guess that much for today and thank you so much for coming. I was expecting almost no one to be here.

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