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20130526GRGRTB07 Saturday night

[Opening prayers to 2:26]

Welcome to this session. Basically this is questions and answers. So if you have ready-made questions, they'll be fine. And then, even you want to ask questions afterwards, individually, don't hesitate. Please ask. And I do have a lot of patience for questions. [Laughter]

Audience: Rimpoche, can you elaborate on the saying, "Whether you are god, human or ghost you have the same character"?

Rimpoche: There's a saying in Tibet: “Whether you are are god or human or ghost you have the same character.” Those who are not like them, they hate it. Those who are like them, they enjoy, they appreciate it. Basically they have the same ego. Basically they have the same self-grasping. Basically they have the same ego-grasping. So therefore, they have my and me, your and yours. So that's the way. It is the same thing. They function the same way. Also, they have similar problems as we do. They have very similar problems, whether they are gods or ghosts. I'm not talking about the capital "G" God, I'm talking about the small "g" god. So that's it. When I make the answer short, then I get the blame of not having the patience of entertaining questions. [Laughter]

Audience: The nature of mind is pure, but not primordial pure. And not like the sky with clouds. Could you explain or expand?

Rimpoche: I did not mean sky with the clouds. I didn't say it's not right. I did say some people explain the sky is permanent, the clouds are temporary. So they say the mind is permanent, afflictive emotions are temporary. And I don't think that way. I think mind is impermanent, although you really don't see the end of anything. Buddha himself made it very clear: there's no beginning, but there can be an end to samsara. So I don't see that the mind is like the sky in that the sky as permanent and afflictive emotions are temporary. I don't see it that way. But if you think the sky is pure, clouds are obstacles, I can live with that. But if you think sky is permanent, always there, clouds are temporary, I don't buy that. Did I explain that clearly or do you need more explanation? I think it's quite clear to me. And that's what I'm thinking. There's no mystery behind that.

Audience: Well, the first part is "nature of mind is pure."

Rimpoche: Nature of mind is pure because it is emptiness. Mind is emptiness so it is pure.

Audience: hat confused us, what we're asking about is the primordial or purity mind. But the word "primordial" is not primordially pure or something like that, I don't understand.

Rimpoche: Did I say I don't accept primordial? If it is something pure, which is the idea of originally it is pure and then the negatives come up, like pure silver that gets tarnished that I don't buy, because if you're pure, you should remain pure. Pure silver becomes tarnished. But I'm not talking about pure silver. I'm talking about the mind. And I don't buy the mind as pure and then getting tarnished by afflictive emotions. I do buy it from the point of being emptiness, the nature of the mind and mind naturally being pure that way. But I will not say like some people, "You're already Buddha, but your negative emotions have made you un-Buddha." That I don't buy. If you're once Buddha, you'll be Buddha forever. Otherwise, that liberation, that cessation, will have a fallback. And if there is one fallback, there's no guarantee that there are not two, three fallbacks. So we're simply playing monkey games then. Try to get pure once, fall back. Try to get pure again, fallback. So that will be just simply monkey games. So that's why I don't buy that. I'm glad you raised that question. I'm glad you clarified. Thank you.

Audience: Can you say something about collective karma?

Rimpoche: Collective karma is supposed to be common karma. So many people are involved. Perhaps, take an incident, like the Boston incident, just recently. A number of people got hurt together and that could have very well been collective karma. But some collective karmas are light for certain individuals. They got very little scratches here and there. And some collective karmas are quite heavy. A few lost limbs and this and that. And there's three deaths, right? So they probably had heavier negative karma. It is one collective karma, the result has happened, the incident took place.

But along with that one collective karma, individual different karmas are interconnected and also take place. So basically collective karma and individual karma I think can function together. Basically collective karma here I believe, refers to karmic results experienced together by all of us. If Buddha were here he would predict that all of them together were in such and such a place, and this is what happened, and this is what they did, and that's why this result has now taken place. Yet a certain individual has heavier karmic results, either because it's the same karma or different karma, this one did this and that, and that one did that much. So if Buddha were here he would have predicted. Since Buddha is not here none of us are qualified to be able to predict that. Did I answer the question or did you have something different in mind?

Audience: In our discussion group we were talking a lot about the Boston incident or 9-11 or the takeover of Tibet by the Chinese and trying to wrap our minds around how collective karma works in a way that's different from the way individual karma works. So if I heard you right, it's a lot of people having some kind of karma that's either similar or related to an incident, and they also have their own individual karma that's connected to that or that's ripening at the same time as that.

Rimpoche: Right. Also collectively, country-wise, group-wise we are committing karma together. For example, when G.W. Bush took us to war, all of us who are paying tax do engage a collective karma in that. But some simply paid the tax because it's a tax. Some were very eager to engage in that. Some did not like at all. So all of those people have created one karma together, however, there are individually different strengths of karma. That's how in the Boston incident, there were different results. Perhaps many of them have created one karma together. Similarly, 9-11, two thousand-some people might have created the same karma. The moment I use "similar" it looks like it's combined together. They could all have done one big terrible thing that could happen as a result. But individuals have different ways of creating that. Collectively you create, but individuals are contributing to it. Individuals support it. Isn't that interesting? Just like society. Society is nothing but the collection of individuals. Each and every person will make a difference, each and every person will contribute, each and every person will have something to put in together for one cause, but in different ways. So I think that's basically how the collective karma works.

Audience: Since everything is interdependent and dependently arising and therefore interconnected, is there any pure individual karma at all? There's nothing that stands alone as an individual, because it's part of an interdependent relationship with everything.

Rimpoche: That may be a little gone beyond a little bit. Yes, everything's dependent, everything's interconnected. Yet there's a very, very, very different individualized karma, very different individualized karmic result, very interconnected, but everybody has a very different way of thinking, and a very different way of contribution. So this is interesting, when you look at it, this is interconnected, interrelated, yet there is so much individualized, as you yourself can see very well. Yes, it is interconnected, yes it influences, yet there is individual contribution.

Audience: Yes, I understand there's individual. My question is can there ever be pure, 100% individual karma? Or is there always some element of collective connection?

Rimpoche: That's what I thought is going a little too far. I do really think there is personal responsibility of personal deeds; individual responsibility is very much there. Yes, it is interconnected yet there is individualization. The word "pure" here means that nothing is connected, just the single individual. I think we have to say yes, honestly. Otherwise we will become one-eyed yak. That is a Tibetan expression.

Audience: Rimpoche, I had this question about karma since we're discussing this. Karma seems to be, on the surface, a very simple or closed, reliable system. It's definite, fast-growing, I will always meet with the result of my past action, I will never have an experience that's not the result of my past action. It seems like a very non-random thing. If I do good I'll be happy. If I do bad, I'll suffer. But, until the karma meets with the condition I may not experience that result. So, I think you gave the example many years ago, like, if I had a stomach condition, if I didn't eat the hot spicy food I wouldn't have that stomach condition. And then once it materializes it's too late to purify it.

So the question is what causes the karma to meet with the conditions? That seems to be introducing a very random element into something that's otherwise non-random. Like we have a very simple, fixed, clear system, which is do good and you'll be happy. And do negative things and you'll suffer. So I do some action, let's say I kill a mosquito, I intend to kill a mosquito, I feel good about it afterwards, I have a perfect negative karma. And that may ripen into a terrible killing karma, let's say over thirty years or something.

Rimpoche: Thirty years! Are you dreaming? [Laughs}

Audience: But the point is, what causes the karma to meet with the conditions? That seems like we're introducing a completely random thing into this non-random system.

Rimpoche: It looks to me you're very much right. But thirty's a dream, that could take three hundred, three thousand or three million years, even. Or it can happen very quickly too. Particularly in the modern days and times it seems to be taking place quickly very much. When I was in Tibet, those oracles, the people that come into trance, different protectors or something, used to tell me that in modern times the karma circles the fingertip, whereas in the olden times it circled the universe. In modern times, it goes much quicker. I understand now what they mean. They always talk about something funny. But that's really what it is. The karmic thing seems to be very systematic, very systematic. The karma is just waiting to give result, and the conditions are waiting to happen. But somehow we did not create the immediate cause of connecting together. So if you go detailed into what a karmic cause it, there is not only the cause, and not only the condition, but also there are immediate conditions. [26:00 Tib]

There's such a thing called immediate connecting cause. So what happens, the so-called "miracles" or what we do through pujas and things like that does make a difference to the people. It does make a difference if you do the right puja for the right person. If it happens to get together correctly a simple thing can take care of something that is otherwise very hard to take care of. But if that doesn’t click together, no matter whatever you do, no matter how much you do, it really doesn't have that much effect. So all these methods are connecting the immediate conditional cause [with the original cause and and the conditions]. Pujas or the miracles are connecting that immediate cause in the right way. These are means that we can’t follow either scientifically or even logically. A clairvoyant will probably see it. So there's that too. So that's either an interruption or all those. And all purification also does take place under this category. It is an interruption to a very systematic system. Does that answer anything? Think about it. I'm glad to talk to you. I think that's the way it is. But we have to think about it. It is systematic. But systematic things can be interrupted.

Audience: I would like to continue on the same lines here a little further and ask you, maybe you answered it but I didn't hear it, if it's systematic and it can be interrupted, but the karma is definite, but it can be interrupted, does that mean it may never mature or come to being? It could just be stored somewhere in this definite form, but not actually manifest on the physical level?

Rimpoche: I think they put it in the cloud, and unless you put the right number in it won't pop up. That's one thing. And also, the materialization of its result can be postponed, without further date or postponed forever. But you gave the point of karma being definite, and I think I have been talking that last night and yesterday and even today. Karmic being definite means that when it begins to give the result no more interruption is possible until it is complete. The result comes for this period, "A" to "Z."

Audience: I wanted to ask for some clarification about the Power of the White Seed that you talked. And I wanted to ask you, in terms of primordial mind.

Rimpoche: I told you I don't believe in the primordial mind.

Audience: I know, but I'm going to push it just to ask you more. [Laughs] Couldn't primordial mind be translated into imprint? Could the two be considered one and the same, when we talk about imprints that we carry from life to life, when we talk about primordial mind?

Rimpoche: I don't think so. No. The imprint is when the individual has engaged in certain actions, positive, neutral or negative. The direct function of that becomes indirect and that becomes like a seed level and that is called imprint.

Audience: What do you mean by "indirect"?

Rimpoche: "Indirect" here means not functioning, not visible. It is gone, it is gone on the back stove.

Audience: In other words, when someone dies, what they carry in their mind would be "imprint." That continuation of consciousness, would that be "imprint?"

Rimpoche: The continuation of consciousness is the base on which the imprints are left. It's like a piece of paper on which you write, "IOU" and sign it. The continuation of the consciousness is that paper. And the signature is the imprint. Maybe I'm wrong. When I'm trying to make it more clear that way, sometimes it becomes confusion but that's how we understand the imprint and consciousness.

Audience: So I was going to just make it a more confusing, and ask you a little more of that on that basis and ask you in regard to the power of the white seed and death and bardo? What happens there? What would be the way the imprint or the negative part that you carry with you…

Rimpoche: One of them will materialize. One of them. Actually, it is one karma that gives you rebirth. And that's called throwing karma or life-causing karma. [34:50 Tib]. There are like four or five different things here involved. One is the life-causing karma. Whether it is the positive one or negative one or whatever, one of them will be the life-causing karma. That karma will materialize and give you the next life, whether with horns on your head or without horns, whatever it is. So one of those imprints becomes invisible, then it hits or becomes open or effective and that gives you the result. The life is given by that one particular karma, yet, during that lifetime there's a tremendous amount of different running karmas, from time to time. From the moment you get that life, constantly, continuously different karmic result will start functioning. These are the completing karmas.[36:35Tib]. They make life complete. So there can be so many of them. And they will come. Once one result is finished another will come - continuously. So we have good times, bad times, bad experiences, good experiences, times when you quarrel with people, times when you don't quarrel, each one of them are individual karmas functioning. That is what's happening.

Audience: And during the forty-nine day bardo…

Rimpoche: I'm not talking about the forty-nine days. I'm talking about the moment one karma finishes, another karma continues. So different ones will take place. I'm not very specifically talking about the forty-nine days.

Audience: I guess what my question was that, during the bardo, you do have the opportunity to purify some of that negative karma?

Rimpoche: Well, it depends what type of bardo it is. If it is a bardo where you are maybe just a piece of burning log or slab of eyes or something, probably you can’t do very much. If it's a bardo with understanding, with the management capability, then you can make a difference. But perhaps this is what a good and bad bardo is all about.

Audience: I was wondering about the purification practice itself. When we do the practice we're purifying and as I understand it, we're supposing to believe at a certain point that we have purified. Yet, we have karma that we don't even know about, that we've taken from lifetimes, and etc. What gets purified? I mean, I'm not quite sure if I know the question that I'm asking. Clearly we continue for our lives and we ripen karma that we've carried for lifetimes, etc. What exactly are we purifying?

Rimpoche: Good question. But I have a question to you before I answer. And I forgot, when you were asking the question… at a certain point, we believe to be purified. But what point, how? Because I don't see where we believe to be purified. I'm not clear on that. Maybe you say 21 hundred-syllable mantras and then maybe you're purified? Maybe not. If that's the case, it's maybe not. But that's what we do with the application of the Four Powers including antidote, either the hundred syllable mantra or meditation or compassion or wisdom or any positive virtuous thing, like building an image of Buddha or building a hospital to the needy, building a children's school or hostel or something. Any of those will be a positive action. However, where we believe it is purified is a mystery to me. To come back to your question, what you purified is the negative karmas that you have stored. The negative karma is in storage. It has not ripened yet, that's what we're supposed to be purifying.

A similar question was asked by one of the disciples in the lineage stories somewhere. It was slightly different than yours. The guy was a practitioner of one of those vajrayana yidams. He asked, "When I'm in the Yamantaka form, when I'm totally pure, what am I purifying?" His teacher said, "Yamantaka may not have anything to purify. But you and I have a lot to purify." That was his answer.

Audience: I have a question just about the use of the word "imprint" that's used both for karmic imprint that continues with the consciousness in whatever way until it ripens. But there's another word that's a different TIbetan word that's also translated as "imprint" and that's when you talk about the nyön drup and she drup. Nyön drup are the negativities which are the afflictive emotions. She drup are the obstructions to omniscience that you often translate as imprints of afflictive emotions. And it just seems like it has to be a different thing than the other.

Rimpoche: It is a totally different thing, yeah. The word in Tibetan, what we're using is bak chak. Nyön drup and she drup may be a type of bak chak. But still shedrup is its own identity and its own identification and its own thing. True. Yes. But when you go from one language to another this confusion will come. Even from one translator to another, that same confusion will come. Also from one text to another text you can get the very same confusion.

Audience: When developing love and closeness to others, how do we avoid attachment on our own side and how do we deal with attachment from others?

Rimpoche: [Laughs] I think really we are the experts on that. That happens all the time, all the time. Also when it happens it is miserable as well as comfortable, together. And I don't have an answer for that, except earlier, in the afternoon we have mentioned how the different times, incidents, and events take place. What you do is make sure you don't get sucked in and try to watch it, observe it, and recognized and see. Either you welcome or reject it - whatever you do. We all have the total right for it. So the most important thing is making sure we don't get sucked in. If you get sucked in, then that little fun and enjoyment will also become total suffering. And then it becomes miserable. [Laughs] Yeah it is. Allen used to have a poem y by William Blake

Audience:

He that doth to himself bind joy, doth the winged life destroy.

But he that kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.

Rimpoche: There you go. That is how we can handle it the easy way.

Audience: How can a society devoted to compassion and wisdom maintain a feudal society for five hundred plus years?

Rimpoche: Throughout the world at one time or another, the feudal society was maintained. So that's it. The more educated and intelligent you are, the more you reject the feudal society. That is life. That's what happens. Isn't it? The more the people becomes educated, more aware of life, more organized, the more they reject the feudal system, a system they don't like it. And some people, although individually concerned, don't want to bother about it unless it's totally unbearable. Tolerance sometimes comes the other way around. That also helps feudal society to remain. And today we say there is no feudal system, which may be true. But similarly functioning societies are even available today in the name of, I don't know, all kinds of things; in the name of religion, in the name of whatever. Even Saddam Hussein used to get elected, remember? So all of those are there. In the disguised manner the feudal society is even available today. And when you notice that, don't be surprised it is with us too.

Audience: I know you explained it here earlier, but it seemed a number of questions came up: Can you explain the difference between dharani and mantra?

Rimpoche: Mantras mostly begin with "om." Dharanis mostly begin with "tayatha." "Tayatha" blah blah blah is probably a dharani. "Om" blah blah blah is probably a mantra. But then when somebody says "Tayatha om" blah blah blah, then it's a mixture. [Laughs]

Audience: And do they serve different purposes, these two different things?

Rimpoche: Well, depends on the yidam. Certain yidams don't have mantra, only dharani. Certain yidams have only mantra, no dharani. Some have both. So it's a really very specific ritualistic system of individual yidams that made it. It’s not something we are making new. Mantra is something that we're not creating new. We can make fake mantras but not real mantras.

I made once a fake mantra in Southeast Asia in Singapore. A group of young bankers kept on visiting me and they asked me, "Is there a mantra to make more money?" And I said, "Sure, 'Om money money come quick soha." [Laughter] That is a fake mantra. That's it, right?

Okay. Well, thank you so much. We do have some interesting events tonight. I think Yang drola has made arrangements. She wanted to show a Tibetan dance and music. And so we're going to back to the Dining Hall. This is not compulsory, only if you want to. If it's too noisy and bothers you then tell them, "Shut up." Or if you don't want to say "shut up," just say "Thank you, thank you." [56:30 inaud] That will give the message.