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20130609GRNYETB14

Good morning everyone and it is beautiful sunshine in New York City. I just wanted to wish everybody to have a nice weekend and Sunday. Today we are talking continuously from the same points we have talked about the last Sundays. Basically I would like to remind you that we are talking about the spiritual life of the individual, how to live, how to function, how to think - according to the Tibetan Buddhist practice.

First we begin with the motivation. Here we recommend the very special mind of ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion. This compels the individual to seek total knowledge, because your task and responsibility is so great that you need the best possible ways and means to help, to serve, to benefit – not only yourself, but along with yourself also others. That is what we call bodhimind.

I spent enough time introducing this and last week I talked to you that it is like being a traveler being on the road and also like a passenger who would like to travel. The one who would like to travel, who is not yet travelling is called wishing bodhimind. Everything is a wish; you are not doing anything. The traveler who is actually engaged in travelling activity is the action bodhimind. You are doing something, making you go towards total knowledge, total enlightenment. Those things I talked about already and there is no need to repeat. However, for the traveler to get to the destination of total enlightenment, you need action bodhimind. Unless you take action, simply wishing alone may be a very good though and idea but might not have much result. Now, from the motivation we have to move to action, which means what to do.

Yesterday I talked to Jewel Heart New York and there are really two most important things to do. These are avoiding negatives and building positives. I even quoted yesterday and I will repeat it here, because this is a different audience what Buddha said:

Avoid negativities, build positivities and tame your mind. This is Buddhism.

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This is bus stop Buddhism, in a nutshell, the bottom line. In other words, avoid negative karma and build positive karma. Most importantly, tame your mind. Actually, these two things are the activities you expect to do to live a worthwhile life, a meaningful life for yourself and for others.

When I talk about building positivities it doesn’t have to be like building in the sense of construction of a building. Every action, even thoughts, is building, either positive or negative. What makes the difference is the motivation and the action itself. We already recommended the motivation of ultimate love/compassion, which makes us very rich from the motivation point of view. Almost everything we are doing or even not doing becomes building positive karma – just because of the motivation power. That’s why we emphasize so much the motivation. That’s the reason why.

Since we have built that motivation in the morning, then during the day, if we are forgetting or losing the influence of it, then we rebuild and remind, re-engage and re-energize it. Then, even if you are not doing anything it becomes something a little positive. In other words, not doing anything also becomes good karma, because you are not engaging in any negativities. If you engage more in positivities, that not only becomes good karma, but strong, powerful, effective good karma. This is the advantage of human beings. This is the advantage of the experience of Buddha. Otherwise, then you talk about karma, it is huge, bigger than space, although it is the individual person’s deeds and habits.

Also our time is limited. Whatever you say or think doesn’t change that. You may live hundreds of years and even if you do, it is too short of a time. Our task, our goal, our destination, is a steep climb. You need powerful efforts. We have to produce these. That is done not only by not creating negative karma, but also through engaging in the building of positivity.

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There are very different ways of doing that according to the level of the individual. If you are an old person like me or not intelligent like me or if you are a little handicapped or challenged like me, there are also ways of doing it. If you are like you, very intelligent, wonderful, educated, bright, then there are ways of doing it for you. In other words, the teachings that have come from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition will provide so many ways, so that great, intelligent, brilliant persons can manage but also the slightly challenged people can also manage.

In other words, there is a suitable way for every individual. The main purpose is to achieve your goal. Let me talk about the goal a little bit. Why? If we don’t talk about it then we don’t have any target or purpose. We are simply sitting there, meditating or doing nothing and maybe we think we are doing something, but there is no way of measuring if you are doing something right or wrong. That’s why first and foremost you need a target or purpose of what you hope to get out of this.

Dear friends, listen here: don’t do something if you don’t know what you are doing it for. You must have a purpose for what you are doing. Otherwise, the old Tibetan saying applies: Although the individual is swept away by a powerful current, he still thinks, “I am swimming.” Gone miles down the river, the person still thinks, “I am swimming, I am swimming.” You are not swimming. You are carried away by the current and you still don’t know that but think that you are swimming. If you do this you waste your time and energy and you will have dire consequences. That’s why you need to know what you are doing, what for and how. It is important, particularly what you hope to gain out of this.

Let me introduce a couple of goals here. The recommended goal by Buddha and great Buddhist masters, both from the early Indian tradition such as Nalanda and Vikramalashila, and also the Tibetan masters from any of the Tibetan traditions, is to become totally enlightened. I explained that to you earlier, so I am not going to repeat. It is total knowledge. Technically it is called ‘buddhahood’. The real thing is knowing all. That looks almost impossible for human beings.

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But it is possible. Not only Buddha, but many great spiritual masters, including Jesus and so forth, should have obtained total knowledge and they did. If you don’t have total knowledge you don’t know what you are doing. And then how can you tell someone else what to do? If you don’t know yourself, you can’t tell the others. If you try to tell something you are either guessing or you may do a disservice or you are cheating and letting the people down. That is a very severe negativity. So all the great masters of eastern and western traditions have had total knowledge. They may not have used that terminology, but that’s what it is. To me, God is nothing but total knowledge. Whether it is a monotheistic God or a multiple God, that is something the philosophers and theologians have to worry about. But for practical purposes, for me, it is total knowledge in either case. For me total knowledge is total knowledge. Some people call it ‘higher soul’. I do remember George W Bush said he didn’t consult his father over the Iraq war, but the greater father. To me all those references point to total knowledge.

For me total knowledge is not a result for Buddhists only. It is for everybody who is working in the spiritual field. That is our first and recommended and best goal. Can you achieve that goal? Is is do-able? Sure, a number of people already have achieved it. What is wrong with you and me? Why can’t we do it? So it is possible. It is not “Mission Impossible”, and even “Mission Impossible” sometimes gets it done, right? So, this is not even “Mission Impossible”. It is possible. Is it a steep goal? Yes. Is it a long shot? Yes. It is a shot, but a slightly long shot.

Then we will raise the thought, “If I don’t get there in this life and I have put so much of my life’s energy in there, what am I going to get?”

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If I don’t get total knowledge before my time is over, I will get somewhere. It is not an instantaneous development. Mind you, total knowledge is not instantaneous. It is not like a flip flop hamburger. It is gradual development, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year and with my background I will say, “Life by life” as well. So it is not instantaneous. There are varieties of ways and it is a slow, steady process. Each and every level has certain positivities. Each level discards certain negativities. By that much the individual becomes richer and more profound and pure.

When I mentioned earlier the motivations of wishing and action, here I am talking about action. The action in principle, as I said earlier is avoiding negativities and building positive karma. I use the term “karma” that has been used in eastern traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism a lot. However, karma is not only a result for Hindus and Buddhists or other easterners. It is for everybody. Everybody has their own karma. Our life is governed by our karma. You may be thinking, “This guy is totally soaked in Buddhist information and that’s why he is talking that way.” I hope I am soaked in Buddhist thought, but karma means that good deeds bring good and bad deeds brings bad. That is the truth for spiritual people, and it is true for scientists and for everybody, every man and woman who ever existed in this world or other places. It is not only for Buddhists, Hindus or easterners or even religious persons. Even a totally atheist person is living within his or her karma, truly and many of them even acknowledge, though they don’t give any thoughts about it, that if they do something good they are happy and enjoy. If they do something bad you are sad and regretful. That is not only a result for spiritual people only, but for everybody.

Scientists, atheists, men, women and children, everybody has their own little capacity and do that. Life experience is totally karma. If you are happy it is because you have done something good. It is the result of that. Sadness is something you have done bad and that’s the result. You know it, I know it and we all know it. You don’t accept karma or even think about it, but if you think what happens in your life that’s what it is. That tells us that karma is not just a result for religious or spiritual people, but for everybody. As a matter of fact, every life, every minute that we enjoy or suffer is a karmic consequence.

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Knowing that, seeing that clearly in this life, just now, today, you can guess what will happen tomorrow. That is really true. If you want to know what will be tomorrow you look at today. Yesterday someone asks, “Is what happening tomorrow linearly repeating what happened today?” No, that’s not happening, but it will be very similar, because of the way our mind functions, the way our physical body functions. It can’t be that much different, unless something else happens too. So the good deeds bring good results and the bad deeds bring bad results. Good thoughts bring further good thinking. Bad thoughts lead to bad thinking. Good or bad thoughts become our character. That character becomes our reality. If you watch it, that is true. Because of that we have the power in our own hands to do right or to do wrong.

We have the power to guide ourselves in a positive or in a negative way, the right way or the wrong way. We do it, nobody else, because thoughts become habits and they become the character, which becomes our reality. That is the principle of vajrayana too. Tantra is totally built on positive imagination. A few years ago I was talking with a dear friend and asked, “What is all this “positive thinking” about?” And that person said, “What more positive than the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism is there? There you imagine that you are a totally enlightened one. You function as a totally enlightened one.” When you look very carefully, here too thoughts translate into reality.

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We also see that today’s science fiction becomes tomorrow’s reality. Today’s most efficient and difficult gadgets of James Bond become tomorrow’s public reality. We live our life in that way. I am sure the GPS some time ago was James Bond material and today everybody uses it. Sometimes we even wonder how we could manage before GPS. It’s the same with cell phones. They were science fiction some time ago. Today it is reality. Whatever we see as science fiction today will be reality 25 years or so down the road. We see that externally. Internally, thoughts translate into reality. That’s why mind is so important. Matter is supposed to be more real than mind. Mind is just simply wondering and imagining and matter is really, directly there. But what we don’t know is that thoughts do become reality. That’s why positive motivation and positive action is so important in our life, so that it will translate into actual reality. Really true.

Today we talk about mandalas, these vajrayana things. In reality, mandala is the center of a universe. We see some kind of old, oriental style building with a few figures inside, with its own little security and all this and we call that mandala. It is actually an imaginative pure land and pure, easy to use comfortable building – exactly the way you want it and how you can enjoy it.

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You can modify it here and there, because it is only a mental state at this moment. In one way it is looks like dreaming. Very true, it is dreaming. Yet that dreaming becomes part of your thoughts and that will translate into reality. You may think it is impossible, but it is possible. Very recently, they produced plastic guns through 3 D printing. If I had talked about that a few years ago everybody would have said it is impossible, but if you do it now it becomes reality. They did produce a plastic gun by 3 D printing. Similarly, the mandala; it will become reality. Not only that, it will become your own pure land. There is no shortage of space. Today we worry that space is filled up, there is no more vacant land and so on. But there is tremendous space. Just look into a computer and how much storage space is in there. Some of these computers now are just as big as your palm or even as small as your glasses. But how much information can you store there!

That tells you that in one atom a zillion different atoms can be established. That’s reality. That’s why the imagination, those thoughts, can and will become reality. This is not only something spiritual people talk about, but even conservative politicians like Margret Thatcher. If it is reality for them, what’s wrong with us, the liberal spiritualists? Why should we be handicapped? It is reality. That’s why mind is so important. It is the basis of our future. The future of our life is produced by our own mind. You yourself are the person who is shaping your own future. That future is shaped by you, beginning with your thoughts, with your mind.

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Somebody may argue that thoughts is the same as mind. Others say mind is separate from thoughts. There are two things and terms that describe them separately, right? But whatever it is, mind is associated with thoughts. Mind perceives thoughts. Thoughts are provided and mind perceives. That is probably building your own character, your own reality and that will be translated physically everywhere. That’s how our life has been going and that is how it will function. That’s why this present moment today is so important. It is shaping your tomorrow. And our thoughts, our ideas are shaping our tomorrow. Buddhists always have names and they call this ‘collective karma’. But really, it is our future. Individually or in a society, that’s how it becomes. The greatness of the United States in the western world today is because of the kindness of the people earlier than us, whatever they have done. That result is what we enjoy today, including our own continuation of previous lives. We should be really thankful to them for that. At the same time we are responsible for tomorrow. We should warn ourselves: Don’t let us down and don’t let our future generations down. That is including yourself. When you say: take action, avoid negativity, build positivity, along with that comes tremendous amount of power in your hands and along with that comes tremendous responsibility.

We are grateful to the previous people and our own previous continuation and we take responsibility for the future. It comes together. That is what we can do today and recognize and remember and enjoy our life. Thank you

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