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10

Summer retreat transcript SRO4

Good morning and welcome, everybody. Today is the 6th of July which is His Holiness’s birthday. We would like to celebrate His Holiness’s birthday today with a smoke offering outside and then we offer a mandala offering for the long life of his Holiness. We pray His Holiness will live long and will continue to benefit people even more. So that is what we will do and now we will continue with our work.

Today, I would like to start my talk with a quote from Shantideva. I don’t know which verse transmission it is. Let us look in the Bodhisattvacharyavatara and find the verse. I am a lazy person so I did not look it up. I think Ann may find it. It looks like Ann is about to find it. Anyway I will paraphrase. It is in Chapter 8 or 9. Whoever would like to exchange between self and others, those are the ones who would like to liberate quickly, and they should exchange. They should use the ultimate secrecy. Actually this particular verse is also quoted somewhere in the Liberation too. This is the exchange way of developing bodhimind. The exchange way of developing bodhimind is the other way. Remember, we introduced to you the seven stages and exchange stages. Even the exchange uses the seven stages. They are slightly different in remembering the kindness.

It is in the Liberation but in Shantideva the translation is a little different.

It is verse 120 in Shantideva? What does it say (inaudible)? (From Crosby and Skilton translation: “Whoever longs to rescue quickly himself and others should practice the supreme mystery: exchange of self and other.”) Right, so you got the quotation anyway. That is what we base on today. Although we have the seven stages and exchange way of presenting, they are slightly different. They cannot be taught together. Individual practitioners practiced them together after Je Tsung Lama Tsong Khapa.

Before Je Tsung Lama Tsong Khapa the seven stages was well known but the exchange stage was not widely known. Up to Chekawa, the exchange stages are completely secret. Checkawa starts to teach a little bit in public. Public means more than one or two individuals. After Je Tsung Lama Tsong Khapa combined them together they became an open teaching and they were taught openly for everybody. How do you exchange self and others? How do you utilize the ultimate secrecy of those great masters? How do we exchange? That is the question.

We went through the seven stages so you keep that intact with you. I was saying before that although they are similar, they are slightly different in the exchange. In the exchange, remembering the kindness has slightly different. That may be a very small difference, not so much. The love will also have a little difference. These are like a little hair difference, that much difference. For example, not only remembering the kindness of the mother, also when they are not mothers, how kind it is. However, it also has a lot of important points. Not only when they were our mother they were kind, but even when they were not our mother they are very kind. Yesterday I even quoted Shantideva who said that we are grateful to the Buddha for the kindness and help the Buddha has given to all sentient beings, but the people have been equally kind to us, even if they are not a mother. Why do we show respect to Buddha and not to people? I mentioned that yesterday.

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Truly, people have given us the opportunity even to meditate compassion. People have given us the opportunity for everything, to wear our dress. Not only the seamstresses. If you are wearing woolen or something, those animals provided the hair. Other people went through and made the wool into woolen cloth material. So remembering the kindness of people even beyond when they are not the mother. So I had better go into the exchange. Otherwise, we will be stuck at this level for a long time. You got the quotation anyway.

So the exchange has basically 5 points:

First, I and others are equal. Maybe I should follow Pabongka here. We are equal; think Lama Chopa, this is very important. We are at verse 55, so you are thinking, meditating and making requests all together. Normally when we say “me, self, and I” then we think it is very important, so precious. The moment our focus shifts from self to others, that undoubted importantness is relaxed. That is because we really don’t believe that I am equal to others and others are equally important. We don’t. We don’t have it, equanimity.

The traditional Tibetan example is this: if you are looking at that wall and if you somehow would like to have a mural painting on that wall, then the base of the wall has to be removed. If the wall is rough, like a few stones are coming out, a few stones are in, you can’t paint a mural on it because it is not smooth. Also for us our basic mind is not smooth enough between me and others. Because I have me being superior and others being inferior. It is engrained in our system completely. Particularly, we have it so much engrained in our mind, so strong, the superiority complex and the inferiority complex. It is so much engrained in our minds.

Myself being Tibetan from my own personal experience, the older generation of Tibetans, we thought we were not educated, illiterate and always thinking people will look down on you. I came in the United States for the first time in 1964 as a special student in Cornell. There were 8 of us. We always thought people were going to look down on us, so we made suits in India. That is when I began to wear suits.

We landed in JFK, and they said don’t show any surprise because any surprise you show, they will look down on you. The high buildings in New York, they are so high you can’t see the top. There was an older Tibetan, Mr. (?) who wrote the Tibetan history book. He was taking us around and was telling us the buildings are so high that if you look up to the top your head will fall off. And we said oh yes, yes and tried not to be surprised.

In 1964 there was some kind of expo or something, the World’s Fair. It was so great. They took us around and we tried to make sure no surprise whatsoever. That is the inferiority fear and that is somehow engrained

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in our mind and it’s true too.

We went to Cornell and there was a graduate student teaching us some economics, anthropology, politics, something like that. There was a reception arranged by the Anthropology Department in Ithaca and again we went in suit and tie. There was a doctor inside from the Anthropology Department and this guy expected us to wear all these old Tibetan skin clothes. Suddenly, when he saw us young kids in suit and ties he was so disappointed.

They began to teach us how to use the telephone—pick up the phone, listen to the dial tone and dial the number. We all knew that, so we thought they are looking down on us. That is very strong in us because self and I are so important that we don’t want anybody to look down on us.

One of my relations was visiting from Tibet here, and that guy went in the office and talked to Kathy and asked her to please do some things for him. So Kathy put them on the to do list. He came back and said they are looking down on me! This woman is looking down on me. I requested three times and she said yes, yes, yes and she is not doing anything! So the fear of looking down is really engrained. That is because the self is so important and others are not that important. That is the unsmoothness we have, and that is what we have to take care of.

That shows me and others are not equal. There is a huge difference. Truly, I want joy and happiness and they want joy and happiness. Who doesn’t want it? What we want is the same; what we like is the same; what we are seeking is the same; what we dislike is the same. Why do I consider myself so superior? Because I cherish myself so much. I cherish myself so much and that makes me miserable. I have to protect myself from everything.

Second: It is really a chronic disease that we are entertaining, the self-cherishing. This is the source of all our problems and misery. I have been insulted. I have been challenged, ignored, I have been looked down on, and all this I, I, I. Because they insult me so much I never will ever be able to bare it. I have to kill that person. That is because of self-cherishing. You insult the other person thinking I’m getting back at them and that is another self-cherishing.

Everything! From this nation to the small individual fights, wars, everything is caused by self-cherishing. Remember the famous George Bush, “If you are not with us you are against us.” Some things like that, there are many of them. I will bring justice to you, or you will be brought to justice, and all those languages are due to self-cherishing. Maybe it is patriotic, I am not sure, but it is self-cherishing for sure. So then see that this is the source of all our problems, and I must destroy this huge evil spirit within me that is self-cherishing. No wonder why earlier Kadampa Lama’s kept that secret. If you are hearing self-cherishing as your enemy, an evil spirit within us for the first time it is not easy. That is why they kept it secret. And consider, we are intelligent, open-minded.

So the second point is seeing all the faults of self-cherishing. Whatever suffering is in samsara it is caused by self-cherishing, something like that. And more: Shantideva also said whatever the harm and hurt, whatever suffering and fear are in the world it is all because of self-cherishing. It is such an evil spirit it has no use for me. That is what Shantideva concluded. Lojong itself says “All faults lie on the one: self-cherishing.” Anyway it is the fault of self-cherishing.

Third: Now if you don’t do that, what am I supposed to do? (We come to) the quality, the benefits of cherishing others. Shantideva said, all the joy we have in samsara is all because of cherishing, appreciating others. In the Lama Chopa, what verse is it? 57. Lama Chopa says cherishing the people is the foundation of all qualities. We seek the blessings of the guru: that even if everybody turns out to be my enemy, may I cherish them more than my life. No wonder why it has to be secret. Then the root of the Lojong itself says: remembering the kindness of everybody. That is cherishing the others. Now you see the quality of self-cherishing, you see the faults of self-cherishing and the quality of cherishing the people.

Fourth: Now you have to watch your mind. What do I have? With all these words I may have changed a little. Still, we are really soaked with self-cherishing. Selfish is one thing. Self-cherishing is another. Every American like you people, you will give up selfish easily, but you won’t completely give up self-cherishing. I have to live my life. Someone will say if you don’t enjoy your life, then you can’t love others. It is true. But after seeing the quality and after seeing the faults, then you have to throw out that chronic disease. Replace the self-cherishing mind with cherishing everybody. Although the teaching tradition will say completely discard self-cherishing and embrace cherishing others. This is very true, it is needed. However, for us, we may not be able to do that much. But at least include the needs of self and others. Maybe you don’t change completely, but you change half way through. I’m teaching you that, honestly. But really our minds will go that far. We will be willing to entertain that much. We will be willing to go that much. To go that much actual exchange means replacing the so much solid self, the important self-cherishing self, relaxing that and equally considering others, cherishing the peoples and the people’s needs. That is really the fourth point.

Fifth: The fifth point is the actual meditation. In the actual meditation, in the root text of the Lojong it says, “Give and take.” So give and take. One gives, one takes turn by turn. Give and take. These two, give and take, let them ride on the air. Like people riding a horse or riding a motor scooter. Like you jump on and sit and then take it in and out. Take your ride on your air, the breath, in and out. In-take, out-give. If you are breathing and take it in, you have to let it out, right? Otherwise it goes in the wrong

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direction and everyone will say eeeew! You can’t hold it.

So what do you give? You give joy and happiness. Give it. Take suffering, problems, take it. And don’t be afraid. Fear is such a huge thing. When you try to meditate a room full of people you try to give all your virtues, positives, joy and happiness to a room of people. Share it; they are very happy. Take their problems, whatever and so forth, other things, other diseases, illnesses. Many of our friends have a number of illnesses. And those who passed away, their suffering. You know we recently lost Elizabeth out of our New York sangha member. It happened to be our sangha member. Take their sufferings. That also is a little easier because Elizabeth is not there. Maybe there is somebody who has cancer, like (?), and all that kind of thing. Taking it is a little scary. Hey, if I take that will I get that problem? Right? So there is fear.

I am not going to say don’t be afraid. In a way, that fear is okay. What you do is take that in and don’t throw it to yourself, but throw it to that evil spirit of self-cherishing within you. Throw it on that. Remember if you are teaching the Lojong it is like thunder, lightning and storm and all this. Remember we used to do that. All of those, what you are destroying is that evil spirit, ego cherishing, and ego selfishness. That is what you try to destroy, so don’t be afraid. It is going to help you and is not going to harm you. It is going to harm the ego and the evil within you. All of us pretend to be you. Whenever someone is hurt we say let me be you, you, you. This is the give and take, breathe in and breathe out. It is for that purpose. And that is the fifth point.

When you are taking, emphasize more on compassion. When you are giving, emphasize more love. It is not gone out of compassion and love. It is within the seven. It is within there and these five points are fitted in, love and compassion. That is how seven-eleven fits with us.

Think of that every often, if not possible, every day. I think very often, very often you should think and meditate on that. These are more important than sadanas and all that, honestly. Whether the sadanas are profound or not depends on this. Remember, while a certain practitioner from Northern Tibet was meditating Yamantaka, he died and was born as a ghost to look like Yamantaka because of lack of compassion. Everywhere people challenged ghosts, and vajrayana practitioners ended up dead because the ghosts win. And that is because instead of compassion it went into the wrathfulness of hung, phat, and all that, whatever you do. Without compassion and love it became that problem.

So in short this is the absolute quality of the dharma and the

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absolute quality of the practitioner. Everything else is something else, tools and all that. Without this if you say a million Yamarahjas, OM, Om, Om’s, or OM Tara’s, whatever you do it will not be helpful. This is something very, very important. First, it will be artificial level, second, something a little more than artificial, and finally a strong bodhimind. This is only gained through meditation, purification and accumulation of merit altogether.

Now after the break we will celebrate His Holiness’s birthday. Then we will continue our teachings and then absolute bodhimind.

Thank you. (Break)

We talked about doing an incense offering as a traditional birthday offering/

We will not do a Lama Chopa Tsog offering at this time. Nothing wrong with doing it. Later we have this incense burner, the big one, and we have do the smoke offering and Tsog offering. We will combine them together on the last day. Normally in the Tibetan culture we make the mandala offering and the long life prayer. If you have a little more elaborate, then include sweet tea. Then if you go further elaborate, cookies or even more elaborate, then lunch together.

The most important is to develop our strong respect and admiration His Holiness and his activities and the wish that he will live long. The most important way to wish for His Holiness’s longevity, as Tsong Khapa said, is to have a worthwhile life. The worthwhile life is following the Buddha’s teachings. And the most important activity of the Buddha is the Buddha’s activity of speech, and that of bodhimind and that of the very special way of developing bodhimind, the combination of the traditional seven stages and Shantideva’s secret teachings of exchange stages, both combined into the 11 stages.

Those of you who have Pabongka’s Liberation in Palm of Your Hand, you should read it. At one point it says in developing bodhimind, there are two

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ways of developing bodhimind. Combine them together. So you will see this particular text somewhere in there. Did anybody see it? Did you find it? No one says anything. It is after the advises. Anyway, I am going to paraphrase and go. There are eleven stages. It says how the 11 stages should follow: the first is equanimity, then recognizing as a mother being, remembering the kindness, and special kindness, and repaying the kindness. Then self and others equal, seeing the fault of self-cherishing, seeing the quality of cherishing people and their qualities, then actual mind of exchanging. For that, emphasizing the compassion and taking the suffering away, emphasizing love, and giving them joy, whatever they desire. Then followed by tong-lin practice and that is how the eleven stages works.

You are thinking that is what I am wishing and what I am doing. This is my wish, but in actual reality it did not happen yet. Then take to yourself the total responsibility, the resolution that I am going to do it. I need to become Buddha for that. The reason to become a Buddha is simply for that. So that makes seven stage development and exchange combined together. That is the most important, combination of these two together and developing bodhimind as described on this page. This particular page is the most important to developing bodhimind.

Once you have developed bodhimind, as I said the other day, like when you are travelling, whether you would like to travel and actual travelling are different. Wishes to travel, wishing bodhimind is just the wish to become a fully enlightened Buddha for the benefit of all. We can all easily do that. It is easy, but don’t look down on it. It is important. Then you do need action. Action like an actual traveler engaging in travelling. When you begin to get into actual travelling you are moving toward your target. Any virtue, you should dedicate every virtue for total enlightenment. You should have motivation for enlightenment, and you should have enthusiasm for bodhimind. Then it becomes action.

Particularly a subject like not killing. When we are sitting here and we are

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not killing. Do we have the not killing karma? No, we don’t because we don’t have the opportunity to kill. If you have the opportunity to kill and you decide not to kill, you get the positive karma of not killing. But if you have bodhimind, or even refuge, some of those commitments, even if you don’t have the opportunity, you get the positive karma of not killing. So the bodhimind says whether you are sleeping or not paying any attention, even then you are accumulating merit, even then you are purifying because of the bodhimind. We are sitting here not killing, not lying or engaging in sexual misconduct and you are getting all these positive karmas on you, like a shower.

That is because of mind. That is why we say motivation is important. The recommended motivation is bodhimind. To us to get that benefit you should have it. But don’t forget, once you develop bodhimind, the influence of the bodhimind must be maintained. The vows do the same thing. The refuge vows do the same thing. The refuge vows are not as powerful as the bodhimind, but Mahayana refuge is because it is connected with compassion. Mahayana refuge adds compassion on top of that. Not simply recognizing the object of refuge and rely on, but at the causal level you add compassion. That makes the Mahayana refuge. Because of the love and compassion, Bodhimind’s root, what you are really getting, is from the love and compassion. So how great the love really is and how great the compassion really is. It is not only just lip service and truly it makes a huge difference. I should mention all these positive activities in general and very specifically, generosity, morality, patience, enthusiasm, concentration and wisdom.

And also not simple concentration, if possible, Shamata. Shamata is necessary. Don’t look down on Shamata. It is really important and Shamata is not only a Buddhist thing. It is common to Buddhists and non-Buddhists. Sometimes even the non-Buddhists are much stronger in Shamata than Buddhists. Some of them really sit with strong meditation for a long period of time. When I say “long periods of time” I am not talking two or three hundred years. I am talking about centuries or eons almost. We used to have a funny chart of the development stages, the General Motors look like chart. They are all coming out of concentration.

Buddha recommended not to go to that detail into focusing concentration, that far into deep concentration. Very strong, very stable Shamata. Shamata really has 8 different stages of development—the deep concentration form: Samadhi 1,2,3,4 stages, plus formless 1,2,3, 4, all that, eight different stages. Each one of them has 3 stages after that, so really eight multiplied by 3 times becomes 24 stages. These are the stages they have. Buddha recommended the first stage, pre-first Samadhi. One cannot do without it. That is what we called Shamata, the first Shamata. Our GOM, the workshop we do sometimes, is supposed to lead you up to that level, the first Shamata. Remember yesterday we read you may have huge meditation power, so much so that even if there is a huge drum beat in your ear you will not hear it? Buddha recommended the first. One cannot do without it, the pre-level of first Samadhi, then switch to wisdom. That is the difference between Hindus and Buddhists. Hindu will continuously go; Buddha recommended go to first meditation stage and then switch to wisdom.

One of the earliest Hindu great masters challenged the Buddhist teachers. They had a very tough time to argue with him. The thing is this, in those days it is not like our debates today. In those days if you lost the debate you had to give up your tradition and follow the other person’s tradition,

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including everyone in your group and your disciples and your temple. That is the traditional Indian culture. You surrender completely and give up your practice if you are defeated and you have to follow the others. Like when you lose the war in old times and that is what they did in India and Tibet. So one of them is challenging the great Buddhist center. I think it was Nalanda Center. Everyone was so afraid of challenging this Hindu guy. He took all the monks and practitioners as hostages and locked them in. They did prayers and pujas to Mahakala for Nagarjuna to come back. He had gone to South India. They prayed to Mahakala, to send a message to Nagarjuna to come back from South India. They didn‘t have good communication in those days.

Nagarjuna said I have to go and challenge him. His disciple Ariyadeva said please don’t worry, I will go. You relax. I am good enough for that. So Nagarjuna said let’s find out. Ariyadeva said I can’t debate with you. Let’s debate between each other behind a curtain so I don’t see you. You sit inside and I will sit outside. Nagarjuna accepted the exact viewpoint of that particular teacher. Nagarjuna took the Hindu Guy’s viewpoint and Ariyadeva said what is wrong with my teacher? He has changed completely, so he opened the curtain and it was Nagarjuna. By that time Nagarjuna said you can go but you will have a problem because you developed doubt on me. You are going to have some problems.

So Ariyadeva travelled. While travelling, someone asked him please give me your eyeball. He said, “What?” I want your right eyeball please. He gave him his right eyeball, because that is what those bodhisattva’s did. Then he wondered what he was doing with his eyeball so he looked back. The moment he looked back the guy put the eyeball between two stones and smashed it. He regretted and the moment he regretted the guy changed into a Hindu/Buddhist traditional deity type of thing, like a biblical creature. He said because of your regret, though you were going to develop a wisdom eye, but now for the rest of your life you will remain the one eye guy.

So anyway, Ariyadeva appeared there. What they do, he got all these monks together in the assembly hall and the Hindu guy counted them with a stick on the head. The Hindu guy took the monks and counted them by hitting them on the head with a stick: one bald headed guy, two bald headed guys... And then put them back and counted them: one bald headed guy, two bald headed guys… He found he had one more. He said, “Where did this new guy come from?” Ariyadeva said, “I came from the lake.” The Hindu guy said, “Oh you are the challenger, okay.”

Let’s not go in that detail today. So the subject of wisdom is the argument point and that is what we will be talking. We will start that tomorrow, so it makes no sense for me to get into it today. That is absolute bodhimind. Relative bodhimind is true bodhimind, and then you add wisdom on that and it is labeled as wisdom or absolute bodhimind because of the wisdom.

That’s it.

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I have something else to talk. We are going to Ladakh, those who would like to go to Ladakh. We debated between Mongolia and Ladakh. They are doing something special for the 10th anniversary of the passing of Pogala Rinpoche. Pogala Rinpoche came to Jewel Heart and he came to give the Yamantaka initiation. He came twice to Cleveland and Chicago. So Tsonam, his secretary told me we are going to have a 10th anniversary of his passing away. We are going for the 10th anniversary. There are beautiful monasteries in Ladakh, really like good old Tibetan, where we are going. Many of them are pre-old Tibet, really quite old. So are the images. There are very, very early monasteries.

This has been the Buddhist culture, the end of Buddhist culture, tracing to where (it intersected) the other cultures, particularly Muslim cultures. Ladakh is the area where the Buddhists and Muslims meet. It is unfortunate what is happening in Burma today and what had happened in many times in Ladakh. Now in Ladakh the Muslim is valued. Now in Burma it is not good. They must have harmony. They are talking about love and compassion, cherishing others. We all agree, but what to do? Even to the extent of killing people, really, really bad. Some things we don’t accept out of Buddhism, but still it happens. During the Vietnam War there was a lot of violence and the monks start burning themselves. That happened. Somehow it is contrary to Buddha’s teachings.

Anyway the Ladakh cultural area is totally dominated by the Muslims and the lay area is Buddhist dominated. This is the monastery, and they are going day by day. There is particularly a huge tourist development in the summer, so it is really very crazy they said. I was in Ladakh very early as a guest of (?) Rinpoche. Earlier there was not even a car. Now you go through by car and truck and the road is the highest in the world. It goes up to 18,000 feet high. When I went, I got a military lift. It was on a military plane to Ladakh and no other planes were going. Now later, the tourist development is there and it is going down quite bad. Before they all go down, we will see them.

We are planning to visit monasteries, right? Mostly with the celebration of the Pokala’s anniversary and also emphasizing the environmental issues, particularly the Himalayan environmental issues. We will try to pay attention and also very specifically Jonathon Rose and Diana have arranged a scholarship for the monks to be able study environmental issues at universities such as Harvard or other universities in the name of Pokala Rinpoche.

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Also I will tell you Ladakh is really cold. This is going to be in November so you have to have a double or triple layer North Face jacket! When I went there was no heat in the house. Now there is a huge tourist development so they must have it. No heat and no hot water when I went. I probably went in October sometime. When I was coming back I do remember the plane didn’t come because it started to snow somewhere the plane couldn’t land. I was delayed 3 or 4 days. Now with the tourists they probably have it.

Thank you.