Archive Result

20121216GRAATB50

00:00

Good morning to you and welcome to today’s talk “Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche”. As you know I am attending the teachings in South India, so this is pre-recorded. As we have been talking about the Four Noble Truths, this is the later concluding part of it. I did give you the definitions of each and every individual Noble Truth. The definition of the cessation is negativities that have been completely purified. When they are purified then the purity of it is something you gain. It is always like this. When the negativity is gone that doesn’t become empty, but that thing that is gone means some kind of positive, virtuous karmic gain. That gain that you have obtained is the purity aspect. Purity, positive gain, etc, are not necessarily the correct language. That’s the lack of my English preventing me from saying the right thing. Gog pa in Tibetan is the gain that one enjoys as the result of stopping or purifying negativities. That exhaustion, that cessation, is something you gain. If you gain nothing, if you just exhaust everything, that’s not right. Then we would have to accept that we have liberation right from the beginning and we are pure. Then the negatives are developed and drag us down. That is not correct. Many will say “I am pure and the impurities are picked up temporarily”. That’s also pure.

But for me, whether I am pure or not pure depends on whether I have been influenced by impure things or not. I cannot say that we are originally completely pure, because then we would have to have deteriorated from that. My understanding is this: there is no such time that we can recollect or think of as “we have been pure”. People do talk about primordial purity and so on. But really, truly, we are in the process of purifying ourselves from the impure nature. We are going through that. There will be a time that our impurities will be exhausted and finished. When they are finished, there is a gain. Every time impurity is going down there is a gain of purity. This total exhaustion or cessation of all obstacles is the cessation we are talking about here.

0:06

By that time the positivity you gain is the joy that has never known suffering. Then the joy is true joy. That true joy never knows suffering. It is not with suffering, but free. In case of Buddhahood, that’s a state of cessation, although technically speaking the Third Noble Truth is supposed to be so so tango, which is somehow permanent. However, to be able to understand it more easily we can say that Buddhahood is a state of exhaustion [of negativities]. This is the result of efforts we have put in, engaging ourselves in the Fourth Noble Truth, the Truth of the Path. The cessation then is the result, achievement or fruit level.

As we have been talking, when we define ourselves, we sometimes talk about the skandhas or aggregates. Sometimes we think there is someone called “self” within ourselves, beyond the aggregates. Or we think it is the combination of the aggregates and all sorts of things. But when you keep searching “Who is it and what is it?” then you get this idea of it being permanent and some gift, somebody’s thought had created it or somebody decided to make it that way. Or it is the manifestation of ideas or wishes of somebody. We get all those types of ideas. But truly, when you look back from the divided criteria point of view, there are some people who say that there is no such thing called cessation at all.

0:10

They say there is no time to be free and there is no such a thing called liberation. We are what we are. When we cease exist we are no longer existing. We are ceased. Therefore there is no such thing called liberation. These people do not accept reincarnation at all, because for them there is no room to reincarnate. Whatever you have, that’s what you have. Whatever you have you don’t have. That’s it. That’s how some people think.

Then there are certain who say “Yes, there is something called liberation” and they give the funny example of a white umbrella turned upside down. So the umbrella goes up and the spokes point down. We put the umbrella up to protect ourselves from either sun or rain. So these people say that liberation is like an umbrella turned upside down. And you are somehow put into some special level or status which is an upward status. Sometimes even we who claim to be Buddhists think that way. We don’t say it, but when we say “born out of a pure lotus”, that’s very similar to the idea that liberation is something like an umbrella turned upside down. It is sort of very similar to that.

So when they define liberation it is sometimes like a special place where the umbrella is turned upside down or something like that. Some people say there is no such thing called liberation which is uncontaminated. It is some good thing – what we call “samsaric goodies”. Within the samsara itself there are sometimes some beautiful, little picnic spots that we enjoy ourselves in here and there. Then we don’t want to leave, we can’t separate. It is like when you are cold here you want to try to go to a very warm place and try to enjoy that. That to me is a samsaric picnic spots. By some such samsaric picnic spots are considered liberation. That is a very interesting thing to say.

0:15

A number of good people say that “I don’t believe there is something called hell realm. The suffering we have on the human level is enough to be hell.” There are some people who say this openly and believe that. By saying “yes, there is no such thing called hell realm, because the suffering you are talking about is really here and that is true hell.” By saying that you are also saying there is no such thing called liberation and the joy we enjoy, the samsaric goodies, are real joy.

That is somehow a true, genuine statement that people make and they believe it. That’s because we don’t see beyond certain things. Our view are absolutely limited, because we will see only from birth to death. This is within our view. We don’t see anything beyond that. That is very much the reality within us. Earlier, some Indian schools thought that way too and that is considered to be wrong. It is easy to say it’s wrong, but a lot of people still think that way, although they don’t claim exactly the same thing, but it is the same thing.

Then certain schools will say that satisfaction is liberation. Some will say that temporarily we are liberated, but we are going to go back. Liberation is something not permanent and that it can go up and down. These thoughts are sometimes really true. When you do concentrated meditation you sit down and meditate and if you have the power of concentration to sit for a long time, you see that the power of concentration reduces our negative emotions. But that is not purified or eradicated, but just reduced and put on the back burner for a while. Some yogis can stay like that for eons, not a couple of hours, weeks or months. They are being satisfied with not experiencing any negative emotions directly. That means they are not getting angry, don’t develop hatred, jealousy and so on. There is no direct perception of those negative emotions. Then they think that they are liberated and they enjoy their “liberation”.

0:22

There is a funny example. Such a yogi stays in meditation for such a long time that his or her hair grows so long, beyond his or her body. Then suddenly mice come in and get caught in your hair and bite and make their home in there. You see that and develop a dislike for that. When that happens you say, “What? I have been liberated, however, dislike comes back. So I am sure, anger, irritation, hatred and so on will all be back. There is no such thing called permanent liberation.”

By misunderstanding that they think that liberation doesn’t have permanent status and is just temporary. That misunderstanding creates negative karma and also creates the same old suffering all over again. That happens. One of the early great Indian teachers and scholars said that too. He was defeated in debate and began to understand the difference between Buddha’s thoughts and his own school. He praised Buddha, “Your followers, though you don’t reach great levels of Samadhi, yet, you are able to cut the root of samsara, like the crow takes the eyeball from another crow.”

0:25

This is what we are talking about here. So that’s how these people think that liberation is not something permanent and you can be liberated temporarily but it returns to the old suffering itself. These are four wrong thoughts. And for that Buddha says: there is a time for the absolute exhaustion of all suffering. That is called “cessation” because you cease to have all suffering. It is gone, no more available. It is also great peace, because it has already avoided and purified all negativities and it is the cessation, the purification of all negativities. It is the true satisfaction, because it is not only the purification of suffering, but all sufferings have ceased, plus it is also free of all afflictive emotions and negative karma. It is always great, always joy and it is always pure. That is satisfying and satisfactory. It is also renunciation, because you have renounced all the negative paths, such as suffering and the causes of suffering. You have renounced it in such a way that they are gone once and for all and cannot revive. Therefore, they are gone once and for all.

0:30

So the four criteria here are:

Renunciation

Satisfaction

Peace

Cessation

It is cessation, because it is the cessation of suffering.

It is peace because it is free from the causes of suffering.

It is satisfaction because it is totally pure and good. Suffering is completely gone. It is good temporarily and permanently.

It is renunciation because you have renounced all negativities, not only temporality, but so that they never grow again.

These are the four criteria of cessation.

Thus you have the definition of cessation and I told you what liberation is all about. Some people think it never exists. Some think it is a temporary thing and you go back to the same old thing and then some people go to the extent of eons of enjoying the state of a peaceful state, free from the direct experience of afflictive emotions or even their influences. Yet, the imprints are not completely over so they can come back. That doesn’t mean that liberation has a fall back. That person is not liberated, but only temporarily reduced or subdued or rejected all suffering. Remember the meditator who sat for eons and grew his hair long and the mice came, irritated him and so on. So they think there is no permanent liberation and you get back to suffering. But according to Buddha that person is not liberated and just thought they were liberated. It is a misdiagnosis or wrong recognition of cessation. So that’s why these four criteria are very important.

0:36

They are very important for us as practitioners, because that will make a difference and provide the fundamental basis for our understanding whether we should put efforts into this or not. If there is no point at the end or if the point is wrong, then why should we put life-long efforts in? It is not easy and if we want something easy there are lots of other things. If you want enjoyment, there are also lots of other things. So why do all this? So this is quite important. We are now at the concluding part. I don’t want to go and talk about the Four Noble Truths again next year, though one or two I may have to do at the beginning of the new year, but other than that I don’t want to go back into this. I will end this particular series and start something else. Otherwise, there will be no end to it. But that doesn’t mean that your knowledge, your understanding is ending here. No, it will be there in different forms. When you talk about wisdom you talk about the self. You talk about what is the self and where is it. All that will come in. That’s really what it is.

This is just the beginning, not an ending. I think that should be about it. So I think since there have been 3 sessions recorded together I would like to say thank you so much and then probably next week I will be here on Sunday, December 23, but that is just before Christmas. So maybe I will be back the Sunday after New Year.

Thank you so much and in the meanwhile I wish you very happy holidays and if I don’t talk to you before the new year, have a very, very good and prosperous, joyful, love-compassion-oriented new year, which is enjoyable with love and compassion. Thank you

0:40 Four Immeasurables played by John Madison - 0.41 end of file