Archive Result

20130331GRCHETB04

00:00

Good morning and happy Easter. I would like to say that I am talking to you from Chicago. Chicago Jewel Heart has its own space now. It is very nice and wonderful and I am very proud and happy to be talking to you from Chicago. We have been talking about the motivation and we need a good motivation. It is not good enough to have a good motivation. So we have been talking about the precious bodhimind. That is referring to a mind that not only appreciates and cherishes all beings but also considers that other beings’ needs are more important than one’s own.

However, such a mind is really difficult to comprehend with our own thoughts, ideas and usual habitual patterns of thinking. It is called dag pei zhen gye pei jang chub kyi sem rin po che. That means to consider the needs of others more than one’s own. That is beautiful to say and wonderful to think and almost impossible to manage. However, moving towards it is as much as we can do. We did talk about focusing our mind towards compassion and love and caring – as least equally as much as we care for ourselves. We talked about equanimity and equality, which is really the basis of the usual American society and actually any democratic society is built on the principle of equality and what we call equanimity.

It is not only that all humans are equal, but their needs are also equal. In other words, your needs and my needs are equal and equally important. What I want and what you want is equally important. Your needs are important for you and my needs are important for me. But our precious mind thinks that your and my needs are both important for you and for me.

0:05

So this will not come automatically. This needs effort. When you talk about compassion and love everybody is very much in acceptance of that and happy to be joining the ‘compassion club’ or ‘love club’. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a compassion club or love club, however, that is the sort of thing we are looking for. When we talk about compassion and love, this is what Buddha’s idea of ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion is. It is the ultimate love and compassion. The Buddha’s idea as presented in the Mahayana teachings is the major goal and purpose for those of us who are interested in the spiritual path. The spiritual path really is that. Without compassion and love it will be very difficult to have a good spiritual path. If there is a spiritual path that does not emphasize compassion, caring and love, then that will be questionable for this person, me. For me, it is a big question how much a spiritual path that doesn’t have love and compassion is worth. Really, truly, if the spiritual path is right or wrong depends if it based on love, care and compassion. If you don’t care for yourself, it is almost impossible for you to care for others. The person becomes careless. That person could handle [end up doing almost ] anything. Look in the history at all the dictators that came. In my own life time there was the Chinese Chairman Mao. He was a careless person, totally. That’s why there was a tremendous amount of destruction suffered by so many people. The destruction of so much of the old, wonderful culture and cultural heritage was done because the person didn’t care.

The same goes for Hitler who caused tremendous destruction because he was careless. So if person doesn’t care for others, then even though they care for themselves, there is not much effect and a tremendous amount of destruction comes in. So any spiritual path in which care, love and compassion are not emphasized, will have tremendous destruction. Destruction does not contradict the path they follow.

0:10

I am speaking for myself: if any spiritual path that has no love, care and compassion, I will not follow it. That’s one little distinction at least that even a stupid person like me can make. It doesn’t help me and doesn’t help others. So therefore that is not right. All of us like to be right and have a good path and help me and help at least my family, my loved ones. Buddha says that every living – not just every human being – should be treated like your own, closest, nearest, dearest person who gave you your life, i.e your mother. So Buddha tells us: look at every living being as your mother, like your mother. Buddha didn’t say that for no reasons. He said that for the purpose of bringing yourself closer to the beings. Some people hate their mother, particularly these days, and even if you don’t your mother, you definitely don’t like your mother-in-law. That is our trend. However, for Buddha there is no difference between mother and mother-in-law. The mother-in-law is also a mother, just like your mother and as a matter of fact every being is mother.

If you look from the point of view of life after life, you can see that every being has been a mother. But at today’s level, it is a little foreign to us to look at every being as a mother. However, the idea is that we should see everybody as close as we do our own mother. That’s because not only do we need love and compassion, but we need them equally and need to look out with both eyes rather than closing one eye and looking only with the other eye. You may be wondering what I am talking about. The idea comes from the old Tibetan saying: if you are a one-eyed yak then you only eat one side of the grass. You leave the other side of the grass uneaten, because you don’t see it. So that’s why Buddha doesn’t want you to have one –eyed love and one-eyed compassion. The idea is seeing mother and mother-in-law as equal, in the same way, so that you will have equal love and equal affection and equal care for all living beings.

0:14

There will be no separation between enemies and loved ones. These are a little too strong bullets to dodge. However, there are all of us today who think that is impossible. But it will become possible. It will become important and we will be able to handle and manage that. That’s what love and compassion is all about. Love and compassion alone is not enough. Love is appreciation and compassion is a wishing mind. Also, both love and compassion are one mind with two aspects. One aspect really wishes happiness, joy and no misery, the other appreciates, admires and wants to be…If we think of one person, a person whom you love and you look in your mind you have both love and compassion. It is possible and easier. It may still not be very easy, because our addiction is such that self-cherishing is so important and so tight that it will try to completely overpower anything you do. Fulfilling the wishes of anybody else will be a little difficult, because we are so addicted to self-cherishing. The self is so important with us. We know that. We don’t want to admit that we are self-cherishing or selfish. You may accept self-cherishing, but if someone tells you, “You are a selfish person”, you will say, “Oh no, I am not.” We will definitely say that because we somehow know that is not the best. I associate myself with goodness. No one can stand if they are not good, if someone tells them they are not good. We will not accept that. We may accept it sarcastically, but in reality we will not. Yet, we will not say it. We will hide that. Self-cherishing is so important for us that it is actually visible, and when someone points it out it will hide and say, “I am not a selfish person, but……” The self is so important, selfishness is so much in our addiction that cherishing others and equanimity and love, compassion, etc, are very difficult to come up with us. Yet we are very much in love with compassion. We are very much in love with love. We want to be loving, we pretend to be and accept to be. If you want to meditate that’s what you should meditate on. Whether you sit cross-legged and count your breath or not, you have to put your thoughts on your own mind and observe it. Observe your own mind and see what it is engaged in. If you look very carefully you will see that your mind is really engaging in self-benefit, no matter how much you deny.

0:21

I myself and those of us who are committed to being followers of Buddha and the Mahayana Buddhism and particularly Vajrayana Buddhism and especially the perfect path of Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa, in my mind, no matter how much I say “For the benefit of all beings I do this and that” I find myself always self-cherishing, cherishing me, my needs. That’s because of the life-long practice. I am good at hiding it. The moment I open my eyes in the morning I will say, “For the sake of all beings I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. All my deeds may become goodness for all living beings.” It automatically comes out of my mouth. Will my mind follow that? Sometimes yes – as a wish. Many times no. The words will go like a parrot speaks who repeats after somebody else.

(sorry, I need to drink water. I need to copy Marco Rubio)

When I am looking in my mind that’s what I see. When you look in your mind there will be interesting things to you. That is only exposed to you and you only. You don’t have to announce it to the world. But that probably is the beginning of meditating by watching your own mind. People try to sit straight, like “sit and the ground and if the ground is not there, sit on a chair”, as Allen Ginsberg used to sing. The first thing is focusing on your mind. Whether you sit cross-legged and sit on a chair or whether you sit somewhere else, it doesn’t matter.

It is interesting, we all build certain habits. We all sit on the throne every morning anyway but you have to make sure you sit in the right direction. So if you are sitting there you can build the habit of watching your mind, because you are going to spend time anyway. So it will be a little useful and you will see all these interesting things. You don’t look outside, but within yourself, in your own mind. That is very helpful. Maybe you begin your meditation over there, whether you call it meditation or not. This is very unconventional and very radical. The conventional thing is to have a pure mind, be holy and think all kinds of things. But the purpose is the same. The purpose of meditation is to stabilize your mind, to gain control of your mind. Why? Because your mind really makes the total difference to you, not so much your body. The body makes a difference too. That’s why we look after our body and make ourselves look nice. That’s why we look in the mirror. We want to look good. We want to have the colors coordinated. We would like to have no cracks in our face. If we find cracks we would like to fill them up with mud and cover them up with lotions and powder and who knows what. All that we do because we care and like to have a little control over it. But the most important thing is to control our mind. That is a spiritual need as well as a material need as well as an economic need, as well as for being able to be disciplined and organized.

We do need a little control over our mind. If we don’t have any control over our mind, then what does it become? Of course we like to do whatever we want to do. We like to touch whatever we want to touch. That reminds me of Allen’s Ginsberg’s poem. If you want to touch chocolate toes you touch them and so forth. It is true, but also you want it and then you do it, but with control.

Even if you say, “I do whatever I want to do”, you do need control. If you don’t, then what is the difference between crazy and not crazy? There is actually only a very thin line between these two.

0:30

Yet, everybody follows some sort of path that makes a distinction between crazy persons and those of us who claim not to be crazy, although we may be really crazy, crazier than the crazy ones. The crazy ones are totally transparent. We would like to have transparence, but total transparence is another issue. I don’t want to go into that now, but while you may not want to call it “control” we do need a little management, a little organization, just to live our life normally. Therefore the mind is so important. It manages everything. When it manages properly it becomes very nice and respectable and wonderful and a person that you value. But if you just….I better not say what I am about to say, you know, otherwise I become transparent too! That’s reality.

Mind is so important in every way for everybody and everything needs a little management of the mind. If you want to make a reasonably good living, you need management of your mind. If you want to make a good living you will need management of your mind. On the spiritual path you absolutely need management of your mind. If you want a good future you need management of your mind. You do whatever you want to do, say whatever you want to say, touch whatever you want to touch, but you need a little thinking management. That is the need of everybody, everywhere, and on the spiritual path certainly and also in the material world. Otherwise you will mismanage, which we consider not to be that great.

On the spiritual path mental management is needed because we are so addicted to negativities. We are addicted to anger. We don’t much effort to get angry. We are very much addicted to hatred. We don’t have to go to school and get a degree in how to develop hatred. It is automatically there. We are so much addicted to obsession. We don’t need any training. We don’t need any special PhD. We already have it. Obsession and hatred easily manage our life, because our mind is addicted to them.

0:35

When we take the spiritual path we want to make ourselves better. Those of us who want to make themselves better have to manage that, otherwise all our efforts to into making ourselves worse. The spiritual path is called “dharma” by Buddhists. Dharma means correction. The direct translation is not correction but that is what it really means. I am correcting my thoughts in my mind, which I am addicted and I am changing that to a different addiction. Honestly, truly speaking. Now I am addicted to negative emotions, such as anger, hatred, jealousy, obsession, etc. So I am changing that into something positive such as faith, love, compassion, caring. Changing that is true dharma. To me dharma doesn’t mean to change your dress, shave your head, wear malas round your neck. That doesn’t become dharma at all. Changing the color of your dress from gray-blue into red-yell doesn’t become dharma. That may be a dharma color, but it doesn’t become dharma at all. Really, truly dharma means changing. The word in Tibetan for dharma is chö (d). That is the past tense of chö (s) which means ‘corrected’. What is being corrected? Our own mind, which has terrible addictions. We want to change the addiction. Can we become addiction-free? Probably not. Being addiction-free is not that nice. In other words, it doesn’t become something that is automatically following. Right now we have a tremendous automatic following of the negative thoughts and emotions. That’s why we don’t have to learn how to get angry. That’s how we don’t have to learn how to develop hatred. It is not easy for us to develop patience. It is not easy for us to develop love, but it is easy for us to develop attachment. We don’t have to put any effort in. Attraction brings attachment.

We think attraction brings love. I wish it would. Many times it happens to be attachment, rather than love. As I said earlier, love is simply the wish for happiness. All of us very often say, “I love you”. We say that all the time, especially to our spouse or companion, to make sure that person hears us. We say it three times a day and three times a night. That’s the six session yoga of “I love you”.

0:40

People do that. If you truly say, “I love you as you are, whatever you are” then there is a chance of it being true love. When you say, “I love you but I want you to be this way or that way” then you know it is not true love. It has something else in there. That’s a little hint for you when you watch yourself. That’s not for the others, but for you. Why do you say “I love you?” If you think, “If I don’t say it he will not be happy” or “She will not be relaxed”, then it is questionable. If you simply wish that person to be happy and appreciate them then it can be real love. I must tell you that: love is based on appreciation. If you do not appreciate a person then there is no love for them. When you say, “I love you, but I want you to be….” Then it means you are not fully appreciating that person. “I want your hair a little shorter or longer”, “I want your hair up”, “I want your hair down” and so on shows two things. One is aiming at improvement and the other is a little dissatisfaction. If there is a little dissatisfaction then there is no love, because you don’t totally admire, you basically admire, but not totally. Love must be total admiration and total appreciation. Wishing of being within that will almost be automatic then, because you admire and like and appreciate the person. That is really love. But still, whether it is attachment or love, that is another question. Both attachment and love are love. That is your own challenge. When you watch your mind, watch that.

From the point of view of Buddha’s experience, attachment is not to be encouraged. Love is to be encouraged. Attachment is based on narrow, selfish thoughts and ideas. Love is not based on selfishness. Attachments wants “me” to be happy. I want this and I want that – for me to be happy. Love is simply appreciation and admiration and wishing that person to be happy. That is quite a difference. It is interesting. When you are running through your own mind you begin to see that. When you very specifically talk and present love and compassion, those ideas sometimes don’t show up. Very often, it sort of becomes gray between love and attachment. Particularly, a lot of people like attachment as love and enjoy that. It is a cozy, comfortable corner, where you can sit and enjoy. When you are touching that it is a little sensitive and interesting.

0.46

It is important to make the distinction. We all enjoy love and compassion and need to know what love is really all about it, particularly the difference between love and attachment. Attachment is what we don’t want, because the result of attachment is not good. The result of love is perfect. Why do people get so much difficulty? Why do we see so many divorces in this country? It’s because people build their relationship on attachment, not love. Attachment is built of attraction. The subject of attraction changes to the mind of the people and then you lose the love. That is the reason. So it is important for us, even for our material life, even for the unity of a couple, love is important. For the spiritual development it is absolutely important. It is the fundamental basis. For a proper motivation this is a most important point. Therefore, let us all get together and develop pure love. Love must begin with the family. The mother’s love to the kid, the parents’ love to the children, is unquestionable pure love. There may be a little attachment in there, but that’s okay. That’s like a little spice in the food. It is okay. Nothing is wrong in that, as long as the spice doesn’t become self-cherishing and the self becomes more important than the loved ones.

Love for “all sentient beings” is great, but it must begin in one place and that is fist yourself and then your family. If you cannot manage that one person, then managing all living beings is a little bit out of touch.

0:50

So let us begin to develop love and compassion with our own family and then move. This will be a good Easter commitment. Thank you so much.

0:50

Rimpoche: Sorry about it. I couldn’t even look at you people because you are all on this side somewhere.

Audience: I am a little confused how you use the word “admire”. For me admiration seems to be very conditional. I admire somebody because of certain qualities they have. Some people I don’t even know enough to admire and sometimes I can perhaps admire somebody and then get to know them better, but if I don’t admire then, then I won’t. To me admiring somebody and really caring for them is not the same thing at all. I can admire somebody because they are a great artist or a great scientist and that maybe somebody I have nothing to do with, but that doesn’t create a heart connection that makes me want to do something for them. So I am wondering whether you really need that sort of admiration?

Rimpoche: Good question, but on the other hand, if you do not admire a person I don’t think you can develop love for that person. You have to make a distinction between the love that satisfies “me” and the love that has admiration, appreciation.

Audience: A parent’s love for their child, is that admiration?

Rimpoche: I am sure parents will admire their child.

Audience: It’s just a little baby, what can you admire them for? On what basis?

Rimpoche: for the parent the baby is a jewel. It is really something great. It is not only cute and wonderful, it is the best.

Audience: isn’t it like the child is almost part of the parent? So if they look at the child, isn’t it almost as if they are looking at themselves?

Rimpoche: I don’t know whether it is part of the parents or not. I have never been a parent.

Audience: Neither have I.

Rimpoche: Those who have been parents and particularly those with young children, yes, of course, they feel it is part of them as well as real, tremendous appreciation and tremendous liking. They really like and love the baby and think it’s great. Anything the baby does they will appreciate and think it is great and wonderful. I think that is admiration.

Audience: Maybe the word “cherish” would be a good word to use here? My kids are adopted, so they are not part of me, they were little guys that we adopted, but we still really cherish them. Maybe “admire” is a word that in our English language is more used for mentors and people we respect, like their work and stuff, but we don’t necessarily cherish them.

0:56

Rimpoche: Excuse me, I am going to contradict you. When you adopted your kids you adopted them to be part of you. I have two adopted kids. You have to adopt them as part of you. I don’t mean that the sense of legally adopting them. That’s another thing. But when you truly adopt them they will become part of you. There is no separation, no difference. Whether it is within me or outside of me, that’s the only difference.

Audience: I think a useful working definition of the admiration in the sense that Rimpoche is using it is: an admiration that appreciates the positive qualities in acceptance of the negative aspects at the same time.

Rimpoche: Maybe you are right. But they also appreciate the negative qualities. If you look at love, the negative qualities are sometimes also appreciated.

When two people are in love – this is not recorded, right? When two people are in love and one person passes gas even the gas smells good.

Audience: No! (general laughter)

Rimpoche: So sometimes the negative is not accepted but appreciated. (laughs) Even when they hit you on the head and you go “ouch” even then you enjoy it.

Anyway, these are very good thoughts. That’s how I look. My English is not that great, and not only not that great, but I never learnt it. It is street language. But there is a step there for sure, when you look at that. The distinction between attachment and love is really hard. It is razor-thin, thinner than the hair on a horse’s tail.

Anyway, it is a little bit too early for our brunch….

Audience: It will take us a few minutes to set up – maybe 20 minutes to figure it out.

Rimpoche: You can take 40 minutes. But on the other hand, when there are so many people with so many hands it can go very fast, you have no idea. People’s hands are gold, people’s mouth are poison (general laughter).

Anyway, it is wonderful here, really beautiful, thank you. Thank you to those who really put efforts into making this happen and even being here on the Easter holiday is really kind of you. Thank you.

1.01 Four Immeasurables - 1:03 End