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20130421GRAAETB07

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Good morning to you all and welcome to this talk today. I am talking to you from New York city and we have nice, beautiful weather today. We are talking about one of the main essence of Tibetan Buddhism and we are talking about the 101 motivation, the recommended motivation being the precious bodhimind, the mind that seeks total enlightenment for benefitting all others. We call that ‘precious bodhimind’ because that mind really cherishes the needs of others as more important than the individual, personal needs. It is really difficult to grow and once it develops it is tremendously beneficial, not only for yourself but for all living beings and particularly for those around you. It is difficult, that’s why it is precious and tremendous and it needs to be developed very slowly. It is one of the main secrets of Tibetan Buddhism too. It is secret in the sense that we don’t talk to anybody and it is also one of the major important points, and that’s why it is both, secret as well as sacred in the Tibetan Buddhist practice.

Such a mind needs to be trained and as a basis we need equality, equanimity and actually treat your and my needs as equal. We talked about that the last couple of Sundays. That’s like establishing the ground. When there is ground, then things can grow, like trees can grow and fruit can be obtained, the stems of the flowers can grow, the flowers can bloom. All of them depend on the ground, crops, fruit, everything. So equality or equanimity is like the ground. Now you need more on top of that.

One of the Tibetan prayers says,

Tam nyom sa zhi jam pel chu-i lä….equality is like the ground and now you need the moisture of love.

Love is the most important, because there can’t be equality without developing love. You are you and I am me. That’s a huge difference. Mine is mine is yours is yours. There is a huge difference.

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If there is love, then yours can be mine. That’s the couples are able to share. Husband and wife can share and then there is something called “ours” and “we”. Those terms begin to change from my and yours to ours and we, as we see. Who provides this base? Who else besides love. Love is the one, like moisture on the ground. It is moisture and heat, which are conditions enabling things to grow. All that is provided by love. Love also is not just ordinary love. You really need tremendous pure love. To begin with pure love will be a little difficult, but love is a must. Without love that equality will also not be stable. Even if you have made up in your mind that “I am going to treat everybody equal, but deep down in your mind you do see that self-interest is really popping up very strongly everywhere. Even the best of persons has self-cherishing, self-interest strongly. That is very difficult go get rid of. It is love that makes the individual or individuals able to share the good things, avoid difficulties. As we see love makes that. So develop love.

Love is very slow. It is always easier for us to develop love for loved ones. It is almost automatic, because we have addiction to attachment and to attraction and obsession. So we don’t have to put so much effort in. It’s there. But when you begin to share that love with not only the loved ones, but others, then the struggle begins. All kinds of struggles come: internal struggles, external struggles and looking in this direction there will be struggle and looking in that direction there will be struggle. There are all kinds of struggle. If you are focusing just on the loved ones it is fine, not so difficult. But when it begins to expand, then it becomes difficult. Unfortunately, what we call the “Precious Mind” has a lot of struggles, honestly. Even the love which everybody is happy with and everybody enjoys and is familiar and comfortable territory, but still we have difficulties and lots of struggles, even more than with equality and equanimity, which we talked about for weeks.

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If one has established some kind of equality in there, then love is easier to establish. That’s why equality is the ground. If we have not established the ground properly and just left it there, then more struggle with come at the level of love, because one build over the other. So this is the love. We don’t have to learn how love feels. When you are in love with somebody, how do you feel? This is known to you. You have enjoyed it, it is comfortable, and cozy and warm and secure and all that love provides and fulfills your needs and you have somebody to share your life with. All of that the love provides and makes comfortable. Taking that, and not only for loved ones, but even for people who you don’t care for that much, those who you don’t hate either, just sort of neutral persons, trying to see if you could develop that sort of love, if you try to focus on that, you begin to see huge rejection – from both sides.

From one side why should I care so much for that person? On the other side they will say, “But this is not my lover. Why should I care that much?” From both sides there will be rejection. I said earlier, this is when the struggle with be stronger. This will pop up. “These are not my children”, “These are not my in-laws”, “These are not my relations”. All of these “not my..” will come up, because that is “my” struggle. That’s what it is. We will encounter that problem. It depends on how deep you want to go. I do not recommend to go very deeply into this. Superficially you try to patch up. It is like bandaging. If you dig so much it will be a can of worms. So I don’t recommend to dig that much. Otherwise, every of your spiritual practices goes on that and even then you may not be able to handle it properly. Superficially, you have to leave it there. Very briefly, the same thing goes for the enemies. We just picked a neutral person. It is easiest to develop that for the loved ones. But it is very difficult to develop that for enemies, if you have. Even if you don’t have any, the neutral ones in the middle are there. The neutral ones are always easier, so I picked those up.

But ultimately you have to pick that up on your enemies too. So when you pick that up on your enemies, then it is really a struggle. “Why should I worry about him? He hurt me, he disgraced me, he tried to hurt me the best he could, but I was intelligent enough and witty enough, so I managed myself.” Then we laugh a little bit. All our mind will totally reject to give a good treatment to our enemies. We label them as enemies.

There is a prescribed meditation on that. Maybe I should talk to you about that briefly. Don’t dig so much.

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It will be like opening a can of worms. So don’t dig so much at this moment. Ultimately, you have to overcome and you will overcome. But right now, don’t dig so much. Begin to look in your own mind and think, “Why do I hate my enemy so much?” The mind will give you so many reasons, “He did this, he did that, he disgraced me, he slapped me, he cursed me in public and said embarrassing things” and all that. There are zillions of reasons. But we have forgotten that this person might have helped us before. There won’t be any enemies if you don’t have any dealings. Enemies come out of friendships. You have a friend or partner or whatever and some kind of strong “me” and “my wish was not fulfilled” and “I was hurt so many times, repeatedly”. That is built up one, two, three, four and a dozen times and two dozen times and then it becomes unbearable and the closeness of the partner begins to become distance, distance, distance and then everything that person does you feel it is directed against you and your interest and wishes and well-being and you are totally ignoring his wishes and his well-being and our mind makes this so much so that a person who has been very close to you, sharing your life, whether in business or even among couples, it becomes so far away, so much so that you don’t even want to talk about it, you don’t even want to think about it and go to that level. If you go to that level you are establishing your enemy.

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It is the mind, my mind, which has made this. And if you look from his window, he will have the same reasons that I do, maybe even more. He also thinks, “I have been hurt” and this and that and he has also two, three dozen reasons. He will say, “I tolerated this and I bore it and then I couldn’t take it any more” and he will have the same reasons and you will have the same reasons and when you look at it, there is no truth in that. Honestly. Both are exaggerated. Yes, there will be a little bit, but not untolerable. But we tremendously exaggerate this. Then you forget all the good things that your enemy did for you, all the kindness they showed you, how they took care of you, helped you and did all that and we forget all that. Oh, maybe you haven’t forgotten. You remember, but you don’t want to think about it. That’s how mind is capable of blocking that kindness has been shown by that person.

Mind is capable of exaggerating the dislike of the actions taken by that person and made it huge. It becomes bigger and bigger day by day, hour by hour and it becomes huge, like a mountain-like monster. It is almost like Mt. Meru has been put in front of you. This is totally mental exaggerations. In reality there is some help done and some harm done – both together. But our mind chose to look at the disliked actions rather than the good actions. That’s why the enemy becomes so strong, so dark, so powerful, so vivid, due to my mind, because I let it happen. I helped and I built, I exaggerated and made a mountain of an enemy. Now recognize that, realize that and begin to look at the good things that person did. You are going to change your mind. Your mind is changeable. Your mind is not fixed. It is not permanent. It is afflicted. That’s why these are called “afflictive emotions”. It is changeable. It is a matter from what angle we look.

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One of the reasons we tell you why the enemy is so dark is because of the harm he put on me is very real, the help he might have given years ago, that is years ago. We think that today matters, not what happened years ago. So that is not right. That shows how ungrateful persons we are. I am talking to myself. That is what meditation is all about. So you talk to yourself. I don’t want to be an ungrateful person. Over the years the kindness, greatness, whatever the person has shown me, I should be really grateful. Otherwise, I am something else, not a good person, ungrateful.

Do you want to be an ungrateful person? Do you want to put yourself in the category of ungrateful people? You think: no, I am better than that. I don’t want to do that. So if you don’t want to be an ungrateful person you realize that your enemy might have helped you before – a number of times. Think about it. Don’t draw a conclusion so quickly. Give yourself time and think. When you are thinking you will remember something. That person did something that was helpful for me. You remember, one, two, three, four, a dozen and more. So it is the time that makes you feel different. The present makes you feel different, but in reality it is not that bad. Time makes everything different. Time heals the individual or time hurts the individual. Particularly when it hurts and you give it time, the feeling of the hurt, that sharp point of hurting will go down, because of the time. We all say: time will heal, time will tell. These are the expressions we use and it is true.

This is because something just now happens, so you are hurting. And then people don’t help you. People harm you, by saying something. Either they try to butter you, by saying something negative about the person you don’t like, or they try to help, by saying, “pay no attention”. That sometimes hurts and sometimes helps. When people talk so much, many try to butter you. They try to find something bad to say about that other person. If it is not that bad they try to exaggerate it, so that’s buttering. Some people are very good at that. Many are not so good at that. Many pay no attention, but talk a lot all the time.

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So all that contributes. Either love or hate, that’s why many of those spiritual practitioners – not like in our time today, but the earlier ones – chose to have solitude, tried to be single and maintain silence. They went into monasteries and maintained silence. While being silent, now they get on the computer and the internet and all kinds of things. That’s a joke. That’s how people contribute their hate and their love and attachment. Many people, most people, will try to butter you, whether you have any possessions or capacities or not. They like to butter you, simply because you are in their presence. They find it convenient to butter you by saying something bad about someone or something that you don’t like and something very good about your loved ones and yourself. That’s what we call “worldly dharma”, actually it is the human dharma, the human beings’ behavior. Sometimes it is helpful and sometimes it is very harmful. Either way, it is not true. Some may be, but most are exaggerated a little bit. There may be truth in it – it is not lying. There is a little truth, but they make it bigger, just to please you – both, in the good way and the bad way.

That’s how you perceive hatred and anger, dislike. Then people will contribute. Then remember, for 8 years of the last presidential administration, the whole media was there to develop your fear, your hatred in all kinds of ways, backwards and forwards and every way. Even today the wars, the fear, just very recently, remember what had happened in Boston. How much fear people can pick up! Of course it is a horrible deed, no doubt about it. They were not concerned with the lives of people, just wanting to register their own dislike, whatever it is. The consequence are so terrible, so miserable. And the wonderful life those two [terrorists] had in front of them – all wasted. They turned the whole nation against them, because of these deeds and all that is anger and hatred and dissatisfaction. That contributed to the social lives of those people. And also the social life they had contributed to their hatred and anger. So vice versa – it builds up.

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You don’t associate, because you have some kind of fear, doubt and hatred within you. So you are not going to trust anybody. You don’t socialize and even if you do, it will be just high and by, rather than showing your heart and sharing things from the bottom of your heart. Like that you withdraw from society, so then you don’t have any friends and everybody is your enemy. We have a name for this: every appearance, every existence is your enemy. You put yourself in that position. Then anyone you can hurt, you are getting satisfaction from hurting them. That’s not only what happened to those two kids. Normally, that’s what hatred does. So the nation’s politicians use that to mobilize the addictions of the individuals. They utilize hatred to achieve their political goals. That’s rather unfortunate, but that’s what people do. They use fear and hatred and obsession. We are already tormented by these negative emotions, so on top of that people use that, politicians use that. Economic exploitation uses that – everybody uses that to mobilize everything.

We are really the subjects of all that, left and right, hitting you up there, dragging you down there, everywhere, without realizing. That’s what we are. That’s the truth. Recognize that. Recognize that it’s not as bad as you had imagined and not so lovely as you had imagined. So move in the middle, move to the center. Reduce hatred a little bit. Reduce obsession a little bit. Try to be in the center, try to appreciate the great deeds and do not reduce your love for your loved ones. Do not build your hatred for your enemies. Try to reduce that and build your love. Your mind is telling you things because of the time of what’s happening just now, but in reality someone who helped you last year and someone who helped you this year are actually the same. Likewise, someone who slapped you in your face last year and someone who slapped you this year are the same. But you will feel so strongly about what happened this year, because of the time factor. In reality there is not that much difference. So recognize that and reduce the strong emotions and build the love up, not only for the loved ones, but try to expand that to the neutral people.

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So that much I would like to talk to you today and I will be going to Holland Jewel Heart next week, so probably I will be talking to you from Jewel Heart Holland next week. Thank you so much and have a great week, weekend and day. Thank you. 0:41