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20130106GRAATB51

00:00

Welcome. Now it is 2013. Our years go, without us knowing. It is quicker than the sand going down the hour glass in “Days of Our Lives”. I had a friend who told me, “If you keeping so busy like this, then you may not know you are dead and still you are keeping busy.” That’s quite true. So 2012 is gone. It is very important to look back whether it has been worthwhile or worthless. We have to remind ourselves whether we achieved anything. I am sure we kept ourselves very busy, no doubt. That is almost our goal and on the other hand it is our culture to make ourselves as busy as possible. But what did we achieve?

When we raise that question we have to look at both, the level of the spiritual path and the level of the economic path. After all, we are living in this life, at this time, at this moment, in this place. If we were living 200 years ago we could have had a hermitage life. But we are not. We are not there yet. We don’t have the fortune to be in a hermitage. Some of you may, but most of us are not. So we have to live this life. That has to be the balance and combination of spiritual and material success together. If you lose one, you are losing one leg. Many of us struggle, not only in one path, but in both. At times like this, when the year is changing it is good to think about it.

In the United States we have so many festivals and holidays and all those remind us to look back and see what we have achieved in both paths. Of course, we will say that materials success means nothing and that is has to be totally spiritual. Some others will say that spirituality is hocus pocus and life has to be really materialistic. But I think the beauty of Tibetan Buddhism is the combination and balance of both. We have to live life. We are born here and particularly, we are educated in that way and our measurement of success in life unfortunately, in many people’s eyes, remains in the material world.

0:05

So we cannot be left out in either field. We must take both legs together so that we can walk. So let’s look back. What you have achieved materially, I cannot speculate about, nor is it any of my business. You know it yourself. But when we look back at our spiritual path at least we learnt one important trick: to be a good, kind person. We also learnt another trick. Somehow we are trying to correct our thoughts and make them beneficial to all living beings. Somehow we have learnt that. That itself really makes a huge difference in whatever we do in our life – materially or spiritually – unless the nature of the actions you undertook were non-virtuous. Other than that, every neutral thing we engage in becomes perfect. Maybe not perfect, but good virtue. Just because of that motivation. That’s one of the gifts Buddha gave and passed on. The earlier Buddhist masters continually passed that on. In a way it is very easy, particularly if you get into the habit of thinking that way. Then it is very easy. It is a matter of minutes or seconds. You take your breath in and out. In one breath you can make that motivation, through which every work you do becomes a little bit better, in the whole year, month, week and particularly that particular day.

When that builds up 360 times, then even though we haven’t done anything extraordinary [we benefit]. We may not have done a retreat or this and that, but that itself gives us really quite a lot. So we can look back and appreciate that. And every appreciation of good work builds double merit. So that’s a good thing and when we look back in that way we are not bad.

Then we also had a number of different teachings last year. I don’t want to go over all that. You know what you have done. Particularly after we had our meetings here we had Lochö Rinpoche’s teachings and then I went to India. I wasn’t sure whether I could go or not. Suddenly I decided to go. First the doctors didn’t agree and they said, “Your kidneys are as usual.” And they wanted this test done and that test and then the doctor went on holiday. So I took off! I went to India.

0:10

I was very happy that I could go, because the teaching took place in Drepung monastery, where I had been educated in my childhood. That was back in Tibet, but the continuation of the same monastery is in India and that’s where the teaching was.

It is very interesting. Drepung monastery really is in Tibet. That’s true. But there is a continuation of Drepung monastery in India. Not only Drepung, but also Sera, Ganden and so on. Why do I emphasize continuation? When we talk about reincarnation, about future lives, if we are expecting that we will continue the same way we exist today, that we will shift to the next life like we shift from today to tomorrow, then that doesn’t happen. We will leave our body and even all our plans, thoughts and everybody. Our thoughts and mind and the mental level becomes so subtle. There is no vivid anything. Yet it does not discontinue. It continues and takes a different shape. It may be similar-looking – to satisfy our rational mind. There may be a similar dress, a similar structure, similar role. Also I am thinking of the Olympic torch. The first one was in Greece. Then the fire continued. People carried it throughout and walked wherever the next Olympic Games were playing and the torch went there. That is continuation.

Looking at Drepung monastery today shows it is not the old Drepung monastery. Number one it’s not in Tibet. Number two the buildings are different and number three the people are different. Lastly even the discipline and character has slightly changed in order to adapt to today’s situation. But it is the continuation. People will say, “This is Drepung monastery” and I see it as Drepung monastery. I accept that and no one can contradict that. So it is very reliable and that is as reliable as you get it.

0:15

When I mentioned this continuation I thought this is an opportunity to introduce how the change is going to take place from one life to another. The looks are different. Maybe you will be male or female – the opposite from this life. Maybe you will be a hermaphrodite (hermaphrodizer). Who knows – it doesn’t matter. The person is continuing. You will have different friends, different motivations and even a different character. Some of the senior people in the FPMT, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s group, told me a number of times that the reincarnation of Lama Yeshe is totally different from the previous Lama Yeshe, character-wise and the way he is thinking and everything. That is very possible.

If you are looking at the same old thing, yes, there is continuation of the same old person, unless the person who gave the recognition made a mistake. And that is also very possible. But continuation is there, though the character may be totally different. The unspoken knowledge of the Tibetans therefore is to respect the reincarnation almost as the previous one. But we know quite well that it is not the previous one. This is how we draw the line. This is something people do not put in writing. Even if they do they cannot express it properly. It is some kind of knowledge. People see and you really like that reincarnation and appreciate them and you want to support them, but it is not the previous one. So you don’t rely on that 100%. That is how it was and that is how it will be. Perhaps I have to say this, because in the west not so many will say it. Unfortunately I am one of those seniors, not by rank or anything. We have a saying in Tibetan. There is a nomad who likes to sit at the end of the row. Then a dog comes and bites him and he moves up a little bit. Then the dog comes and bites again and he moves up a little bit again and so on. Then finally he comes to sit at the top of the line of where people are sitting. I have become like that and it is rather by age than by anything else. Maybe I have to say that. It might not be out of place.

0:19

What makes those teachers, like Rimpoches or Geshes or just usual ordinary monks or nuns or lay persons, good? The Tibetans do things for incarnate lamas because they presume that the continuation will carry the previous’ quality of development. Sometimes it looks true, because you can see that at the learning level they can learn much easier than many others. Human beings have different intellectual capacity, but many incarnate lamas may have to read something only once or just hear the words or something and it will affect something. But some incarnate lamas are not affected by anything. So that all happens. Other than that, everybody, even the incarnate lamas, must have their own spiritual development and all of us must have it.

How do you gain it? I have been saying it for the last one year: it comes out of learning, contemplating and meditating, these three. Learning is extremely important. That doesn’t mean you have to be a scholar, but you have to know what you are doing. If you don’t, then all kinds of problems will open up. There will be all kinds of problems that you don’t want. If you don’t know what you are doing then somebody will say something and everybody will think, “Oh, that may be a quicker way” or “that maybe the best way”.

When I was a kid there was a highly respected monk in the lower tantric college. He was not a geshe and had no title, but everybody knew who he was. He did not go through the educational monastic curriculum. So he didn’t become a geshe. But he was also very good at rituals. Then there are the learned geshes, those who had come out as Nr 1 and Nr 2 out of their year. They have to be the substitute vajra master in the tantric college. They must lead the rituals. Those geshes who have studied so much don’t pay attention to how the hand mudras are done or how to hold bell and damaru. If you just give it one of those outstanding geshes they probably don’t know what to do and may grab the bell with the right hand and shake the damaru with the left. You never know. They may do that. But yet, it is compulsory for them to lead the rituals. So they will ask one of the monks to show them.

So this monk was asked to help by a top geshe. He told him, “It’s okay. I will sit on the opposite side of the lane at the top. You will see me and then you follow me and do exactly what I do.” The geshe said, “Okay.” So they did all these hand mudras and all five hundred monks were singing and the vajra master is supposed to lead that. So the geshe was looking at this monk and followed him exactly. Finally, as a joke, that monk, at the end of the mudra put his finger in his mouth! The geshe followed and almost put his finger in his mouth too! Then he stopped. That shows: if you don’t know what you are doing that can happen.

0:25

If he had known what to do he could have stopped that wrong hand gesture way earlier. This story goes even beyond that. This was a very well know geshe. These tantric monks like to joke and so they took this geshe to an area in the garden and told him, “Now we are going to punish you. You didn’t do exactly what you were supposed to do.” So they did all kinds of mean things to the geshe.

So think about it. If you don’t have information and knowledge, then you think that putting a finger in your mouth is part of the ritual. You have no way of telling. So that’s why learning comes first. Learning is the light in the darkness of our mind. It is the biggest wealth that nobody can steal. It is the biggest friend who will never let you down. It is the best weapon you can have to protect yourself. So it is important.

For me this time it was very fortunate to be in Drepung monastery this time. There were over 20,000 monks who attended the teachings of His Holiness. Many of you may have listened on youtube. There were many incarnate lamas. I had the feeling that the teachings His Holiness planned to do could never be completed in that time frame. By the time I got to India he had changed his planning and decided to only teach Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s three lam rims, the big, the medium and the shorter one, the Lines of Experience. That was also done with great difficulty. His Holiness took so much hardship. He just finished everything, mostly by reading, but still very, very good information. The essence is really about how one individual – and let that be each one of us individually – get from this level to enlightenment.

0:29

That is divided into three steps: common with the lower scope, common with the medium scope and the Mahayana path. I am trying to remember a quote and I remember the last three lines, but I don’t remember the first. It goes:

…….

Dam pa kyi bu sum gyi lam gyi ne

Ka dam rin chen sar che tri wang de

Dro wa gang gi drang yang dön yö gyur

The essence of all Buddha’s teachings is streamlined into three categories. Such a golden rosary, whoever uses it, that person’s life becomes absolutely worthwhile. I am paraphrasing. I don’t remember the first line. I saw the quote recently in a new, two-volume biography of Lochö Rinpoche. This morning I tried to look it up again but can’t find it. In any case it says that the way to become a fully enlightened Buddha goes through the “three malas” and that makes a golden mala and whoever uses that, their life becomes worthwhile.

Now we are a little more serious than before with regard to Tibetan Buddhism in the west and particularly in the United States. Earlier it was just an introduction. You look at it and invoke blessing and you have those categories. I think that period is slightly getting over. People are now much more aware and they are getting educated and becomes “worthy vessels.” So now it is the question for the individual of what to do. If you look at previous guidance it was a lot about purification and accumulation of merit alone. It was about mandala offerings, prostrations, vajrasattva recitations and so on. I think we are a little step higher now. Now we know that we are responsible for ourselves. We know that liberation is in our own hands and not with somebody else. No one gives it to you. It is something that you have to do. I think we Tibetan refugees learnt this the hard way. We have been refugees for close to 60 years. The first 20 years we went round the world, begging for our freedom back. The last 40 years we have been begging the Chinese government to give us our freedom back. But it is not something that anyone can give you. You have got to take it. Just like that, our spiritual path is something that buddhas cannot give you.

0:35

As we often say: to nam dig pa chu yi mi tru chen…..our negativities cannot be washed away by buddhas. That’s although the inner initiation is very much like baptizing. But that doesn’t wash our negativities away. Nor can the buddhas remove the suffering of the people by hand, like surgeons can cut a disease out of your body. Nor can buddhas transfer their spiritual development to us. It is like American Express. It is not transferable. They can only help by showing the way. We carry on and develop. Their showing the way means learning for us. And it is learning and practicing together. This is so important. Do not ignore that, honestly. I even mentioned that at the incarnate lamas’ gathering. They told me to advise them. There is nothing more to give as advice than learn and practice together. That is true particularly in the Kadampa tradition and particularly in Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition. Some traditions have a place for practice (drub ta) and some place for learning (she dra) but in the Gelugpa tradition it comes together. Whatever you learn you do it. It doesn’t just become knowledge, like some traditional arts professors in India have some knowledge. They put their information in a file and then they put the file away, dust collects for a whole year and next year when the same course come up, they dust off the file and open it up and teach the same thing. In between the professor doesn’t know anything about it. You can’t do that here. Whatever you learn you practice – together. That’s how you make progress on the path.

You have to have a good motivation. Do it from today onwards. Pick that up as your character. Avoid hurting or harming any creature. You have that in your blood anyway. In addition to that, your spiritual knowledge reinforces that. So practice that every day. That is what I mean by learning and practicing together. You heard about compassion, you know about it and you apply that as much as you can. If you can’t, pick up a little more and try this and try that and try to get it. It works the same with wisdom. When you do that, that’s the way to make our life worthwhile. Honestly. That’s why the golden mala becomes worthwhile to whoever uses it. It is in your hands and we do that continuously and we did it last year and we will do it this year.

0:40

I would also like to say that tomorrow is the Heruka Yab Yum festival. Actually it is tomorrow. I was hoping it was on Sunday so that we could have a little more leisure, but it is tomorrow. Those of you who have any vajrayana practice, we are meeting here at 7 pm. We will do the usual thing in Kyabje Gomo Rinpoche’s style. We do the self-initiation and sadhana together. If you didn’t have a vajrayana practice before you can’t come. If you have a vajrayana practice, even if it is not Vajrayogini, it’s fine. You are welcome. Then those who have not done the retreat, they will step aside for half an hour or so and then will take the self-initiation. After that those who have not done the retreat will come back and I will do the Vajrayogini blessing initiation. That’s how we will celebrate the Heruka Yab Yum festival tomorrow.

Then we will have the winter retreat on Lama Chöpa and that’s going to be the fundamental basis of both, sutra aspects and tantra aspects. We are looking forward to that. And then after that, many things are lined up by our program people. They and others are working on some nice programs. Our goal is to achieve enlightenment this year. If you don’t get it, get up to the Path of Seeing and the First Bhumi. If not, enter into the path. You have to achieve one of these three goals. Then next year when you look back you can say, “I didn’t do so bad.” That’s what we are looking for.

Thank you so much

0:43 Four Immeasurables chant 0:45 end