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Good afternoon, though I should say good morning, but I am talking to you from Holland and it is afternoon here. So good afternoon and welcome to today’s talk. We have been discussing here about the essence of Tibetan Buddhism and the essence is the real, most important thing Tibetan Buddhism says we should do.

The first thing is the beginning activities, not necessarily the beginning of a session and not necessarily the beginning of some segment of work, but of every activity we engage in. The first important point is the motivation. The recommended motivation in Tibetan Buddhism is as we said, the motivation of bodhimind. That’s a technical term. It really means the mind that seeks to be at the state of Buddha. In other words, it is the desire to become a Buddha – for specific reasons, not for helping oneself alone, but for helping everybody else too. When your task is so big, to deliver every being, that includes of course all human beings and all other living beings to the state of a Buddha. In other words it is to make them Buddha, which is a huge task. And that needs the best tools every possible. The best tool is total knowledge. That means knowing everything. There is nothing not known to you. Total knowledge, truly speaking, is Buddha. Becoming Buddha doesn’t mean doing little mystical things in some kind of holy state.

It is also not a very specific Buddhist goal. It is known as total enlightenment, total knowledge. I said quite often, we can see that when we learn something more that we are capable of learning and we can learn and improve. So there is still something more to learn. But at total knowledge there is no more to go. It is total perfection, from the quality point of view, from the knowledge point of view. Total information is maintained. You not only have all the information, all the information is current information, not outdated. That is what Buddhahood is all about. So if you want to make Buddhahood into a mystical thing, then yes, you could, but if you de-mystify that, then it is not only reserved for Buddhists but for everybody. That’s very simple and interesting.

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Can we ever reach such a state? They keep on saying that you can and that all the past buddhas have done so and all the bodhisattvas, those who are committed to be buddhas, are going to be. The bodhisattvas are sort of like the Prince of Wales who will one day become king – or maybe not in his case. But he is supposed to become king. Technically, those who are to become buddhas are called bodhisattvas, those who are on the way, and confirmed to become buddhas. In reality they are those who are going to totally improve themselves. So it is such an important thing. It really needs the best ever possible motivation, which is unlimited, unconditional, ultimate love and compassion. Again that is called in Sanskrit bodhicitta. Citta means heart or mind. In English many people call it bodhimind, in other words a mind that seeks Buddhahood with the commitment of helping all beings, not for one’s self purpose, but the purpose for all. That is A-L-L. That means all beings. The most difficult here, is what in Tibetan is called pak pei zhen je pa, considering others’ needs more superior to my own personal needs. Such a state of mind is what we can simply talk about, but if we really try to practice and have it, it is almost impossible, because our addiction to self and our self-cherishing is so severe. Others’ needs being more important than mine is unimaginable, unless you are in love, in very deep love. Then we may be able to think or talk about it.

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Other than that, “my” is total priority. Not only that, we say that “if I don’t take of myself, who else will?” That is true, however, what we need is not it. Having my needs as lesser priority and lesser importance than the needs of others is not easy. You really need strong love. Love will do the trick. So that’s why I said the other day that equality is like the ground. Love is like moisture. If you want to grow food you need the proper ground, which has enough earth energy and moisture. If there is no moisture, then no matter what seed you put down in the middle of the dust will never grow. If the ground is not good it will not grow. Even if it grows it will be very weak. Good ground is the equality. If you want to consider others’ needs as more important then at least there should be the understanding of equality. My needs, your needs are equal.

Equality is not difficult to understand in the west, because we are supposed to be based on the principle of democracy. Equality today is also almost lip service today for us, rather than a true consideration. But people do accept it easily in principle, because we believe in it and it is our democratic principle.

Then the moisture will be the love. Without love there will never be such care or concern, forget your needs being more important than mine. At least caring for you and having respect. We talk about human rights and human respect. We are very good at talking and at pointing the finger at someone making a mistake on that. But if we look at our own attitude with dealing with other people, how much human rights do we consider? That’s very questionable. I am not saying we don’t have it. Many of us do and many of us don’t. But it is important for us to look. Without respect there could never be appreciation. Without appreciation there can never be admiration. Without admiration there can never be the desire to become or be like the person. Love is not only appreciation, but the appreciation is so much that you will also like to be that. You will like to be that.

Even if you don’t want to be like that you will be able to tolerate that. It is not bugging you all the time. It is not irritating you all the time. If you are looking at it, acceptable becomes appreciation and that becomes admirable and that becomes the desire to be. This is our mental improvement from the love and compassion point of view. Yes, we need to talk about compassion, but compassion without love will be very, very dry academic. You can talk about it but you don’t have the proper moisture that somehow merges within our mind.

We have some old Tibetan sweet called tü. It is actually cheese cake made out of dry cheese, semi-powdery cheese, made into a cake, mixed with all kinds of sweet and dry things. When you think about it, everything is dry. It is true, the altitude is 11,500 feet and above, plus the air is really tremendously dry, which probably makes everything dry, that’s why we have dry cheese and dry honey. The honey becomes solid pieces and bits and all of those put together is made into a cake. That becomes good because of the butter. The richness and goodness of the cake is due to the butter. Likewise here, compassion becomes useful and helpful because of the love. If there is no love it is just dry pieces of anything. My friends over here, when they see my Tibetan cheese they call it “stinky Tibetan dry cheese.” It is really dry. So when you want to make this cake you need great moisture. There is no better way than liquid butter. That’s what it is. That will soak the dry cheese and hold it together. Then whatever you put in, sugar, dry honey, rock sugar or whatever, is able to moisturize and bring it to life. Love does that. We appreciate and enjoy love. The moment we talk about love we become happier. We welcome and look forward to it. Some spiritual practitioners will tell you that it is attachment and desire and not good. Maybe. But there is great usefulness, there is great helpfulness in that love. Don’t be so quick to reject love and call it desire and attachment and obsession. Every love is not obsession. We know that.

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People who can appreciate and who can handle love, for them love will remain love and not become obsession. When you cannot handle the truth then it becomes obsession. We all know that. There is great usefulness. I am not saying that love is not attachment. I am not saying that attachment is not love. There may be an attachment part of love, but there may be a non-attachment part of love as well. Whatever it is, for us love is useful as love. It brings joy, happiness and appreciation. It brings respect to other people. It also brings respect to yourself. A number of people do reject themselves. They pretend, “For me it is nothing” and they may try to be humble. But sometimes that becomes a little too humble. Maybe that’s a cultural thing. A lot of Asian cultures bring in that looking down on oneself. I do receive sometimes communication and it is also our own Tibetan culture as well to refer to oneself as the “poorest and weakest in faith and devotion” or the “last row disciple” and things like that. These are funny references. They actually try to maintain humbleness and humility. However, sometimes it becomes too much and you lose your self-esteem. Yes, it is absolutely necessary to maintain humility and be very humble, but it is absolutely not necessary to be self-defeating and losing self-esteem and pride. That’s not necessary.

Losing your self-esteem is not even a virtue, according to the Buddha. Yes, we don’t want to boost our ego and we don’t want to be a person that wears the sky on you head and the clouds as a belt that keeps your hat on your head. But you should have self-esteem and self-respect. Being humble doesn’t have to defeat self-esteem. You really have to be in between that. It is an art to be able to go like that. If you lose self-respect you lose your basic foundation terribly. People very easily make that mistake.

It is indeed taught that pride is not great. The teachings give you examples like the highest peaks don’t maintain water. Because of their sharp peaks they can’t maintain water. Then they don’t become green during the spring. They are the last places to become green, if at all. Similarly, the best quality of crops like barley and wheat will not stand up straight but bending down because of the weight of the grains. If there is not much wheat or barley in the stalks they will be standing straight and tall. That’s because there is nothing in it. These examples are given and we are told not to have such pride. But that is referring to ego. When we praise and increase our ego is very harmful to us and others, including those around you. But if you defeat your self-esteem that is equally harmful. So you have to draw the line in between.

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When Tibetan Buddhism talks about ego pride it is na gyal. Most translators do translate that as pride. But when you really look carefully, it is not necessarily talking about pride but about a superiority – and inferiority complex. You certainly don’t need a superiority-inferiority complex. But self-esteem is very definitely needed. Otherwise you need your self-respect and then you lose respect for others as well. Then you become careless, a person who doesn’t care, whether good or bad. People like that will say, “I am straight forward, I don’t care.” Yes, that has a quality, but at the same time it has terrible disqualification too. You don’t care if it is good or if it is bad. Some people will hide their lack of understanding in the name of being straight forward and honest. When you begin to look at the human mind, it is so complex, tremendously complex. When you look at what’s good and bad it is equally complicated. However, some of you do know that compassion is good and love is good; self-cherishing or selfishness is bad. A superiority complex is terrible. We all know that. At least that much principle we should keep and move forward.

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We should move forward to self-respect and respect for others and appreciation for oneself and others. We should move on love and towards compassion and you are driving yourself towards bodhimind, if you can maintain that properly. Driving on love is almost natural. However, we have such a habit that always drives us to just the opposite. We want love but we drive ourselves away from love. That’s somehow very much in our addiction. Some people say it is natural, but that is not human nature. That’s not the nature of a good person, but just an addiction we carry. It is our task that wherever addiction is blocking our movement forward to push that addiction out. It is a block to moving forward.

Our target today is love. Whether love to one individual or to all beings it is love. Obsession is wrong. Attachment may not be that good, but love is good and one should enjoy that. One should have great fun with it rather than reject it. You must begin love with the person you feel close to. Some people will force it and say, “Buddha says that you must have equal love for all”. That’s true, but don’t immediately try to have that love towards your enemy. I am telling you: don’t. You are going to harm yourself. Begin love with yourself or your loved ones. Again: charity begins at home. That is a good old western saying. So love must begin at home.

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Love is something that you maintain. Jealousy is something that you don’t want. For me every desire is not necessarily bad. Those who are seeking the Buddha quality have the desire to become Buddha. I am not going to say that this is wrong, because it is desire. Some people may say that. But I don’t. Every desire is not necessarily bad. Attachment is a problem. Obsession is a big problem. That’s where we draw the line. We move forward to love and away from attachment and obsession. You know why? Obsession will definitely destroy your love. It is against love. Even love in the ordinary sense, even then obsession will destroy it. Obsession will drive you away from your loved ones. You know that. We all know that. Obsession is not what you want. You want love with appreciation. That’s what we look for. Yes, we should have love not only for a single individual but a little more than that. We are capable of sharing our love with our family. We are capable of sharing our love with our loved ones. We have the capacity, the capability to extend that love beyond the family and beyond the near and dear ones. Acknowledge that capability. But first move on the love and appreciate it with your loved ones and maintain that.

Then you can think of expanding it. Don’t try to force right from the beginning a love to all. Yes, we try to develop love for all. We even pray all the time, “may all beings have the joy that has never known suffering”, but we have to move gradually. That may be our goal. But it has to come gradually. It is a simple, straight forward gradual expansion. It can expand so much that we can love everyone. Why? If you look at anyone, you are not going to find someone who has not been kind, who didn’t share their love and their kindness and compassion with you. Today someone may be my enemy. But years ago and lives ago that enemy was my dearest and nearest friend too. Today our delusional mind is telling us, “this is my enemy”. That is wrong information. I tell you why.

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Someone who was kind to you last year and someone who has been kind to you this year are both equal, the same. But our delusional mind will consider those who are currently kind more vivid and more recent – which is not a delusion and straight forward – however, that is a little important than those who have been equally kind to you for years. That is a delusional mind. In reality, those who have been kind to you last year and those who have been kind to you this year are the same. But our delusional mind has different appreciation. That is how our mind perceives enemies and friends. We are close to friends and distant from enemies. We are pulled towards loved ones and pushed away from enemies. This pull and push game will play in our mind and that is due to the delusional mind.

Not only that: there are so many points like that. That is the reason why I said earlier: even the expansion of love should go slow and careful. If once the mind has lost its track of love then we have a big problem. So it is very important not to lose the track. Try to maintain appreciation. Those who I think have done harm or ill to me, even if don’t develop love for them immediately I don’t want to push or force myself. That is a wise way of moving. If you can leave it in the middle, with not so much concern, that will be fine. But make sure that you don’t go to extreme hatred. Leave it right in the middle. Don’t mention or talk about it. That’s wise. Some people don’t like certain things and then say, “I don’t want to talk about it.” That’s the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong with that. You don’t want to talk about it today. That’s fine. You don’t want to deal with it today. Whatever you do, please be careful when you are handling your own mind. If you are not careful you will get into difficulty. We don’t want difficulties at the beginning while we are looking into the motivation.

Have a very good weekend

Thank you. 0:45