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20130721GRPEETB20

00:00

Good morning everybody and welcome for today’s Sunday talk on Essence of Tibetan Buddhism. As we have been saying, the most important beginning level is the motivation and bodhimind and all of them. We already talked about that. We also said that there are two types of bodhimind, wishing – and action. Wishing bodhimind is simply wishing everybody to be free and liberated. The other is action bodhimind, trying to do something, with actions involved. What actions? We talked about the essence of Buddha’s teaching. If you just remember:

Avoid negativity, build positivity, as much as you can and tame your mind. This is Buddhism.

This is paraphrased, not a direct translation. I don’t claim to be a translator. I am trying to translate from my thoughts, but not as a word to word translation. I can’t claim to do that and I am not good at it. So I am paraphrasing. What is to be avoided? We talked about the 10 non-virtues, basically, the three by mind, four by speech and three by mind. The positive things to be done comes in the 11 virtues. Here we talked about faith and utilizing shame to protect ourselves from wrongdoing and utilizing embarrassment, thinking, “If I do such a thing like that, if anyone came to know, how embarrassing it will be.” And then you don’t engage. With shame you think, “How can I do that? If I do that, how can I face myself?” So we can utilize these two. In the Tibetan tradition they are called ngo tsa and tre yöl, which translates as ‘shame’ and ‘hesitation’. But we talked about what these mental faculties do and why they are virtue. They are, because they protect the individual from doing the wrong things, using yourself as reason and using others as reason.

Then of course we talked about non-attachment, non-hatred and non-ignorance last week. So I don’t have to repeat. However, it is very important. These three are the opposites of attachment/obsession, anger/hatred and ignorance, which are known as the three poisons in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

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That’s why when in the old Tibetan culture the whole existence is depicted, which we call ‘samsara’ you see that in almost all temples and monasteries. There are paintings made, framed by brocades, which we call ‘tangkas’. There are paintings, drawings, murals everywhere and you see that very often. The whole existence galaxy, samsara, is depicted there. There is a huge monster-person holding it in his mouth, and this circle or chakra has deep inside in the middle a peacock, a snake and a pig. They are representing the three poisons, attachment/obsession, hatred/anger and ignorance. That’s in the center, because they are at the root of the samsaric suffering world, which is depicted in the drawing. Also depicted around these three are the 3 higher realms of possible rebirth and the 3 lower realms. I am not talking about these today, because that’s not my subject today. But I wanted to point out the 3 poisons. These are very important negativities. Not having them becomes good virtue.

Last time I talked about not having attachment and not having hatred. We are sort of real experts on obsession and hatred. We have tremendous experience with hatred, especially after 9-11. It’s hatred along with fear and confusion and then all these terrible things happened for the last decade or so in our life. All this happened because of hatred. It is not necessarily our fault, but the fault of our hatred and their hatred. It becomes so much a struggle for survival for all of us. We try to survive and keep our way of life and just mind our business and we don’t want to have bombs going off and torturing. Similarly, they also. So hatred is a tremendous problem. But I don’t want to talk just this all the time.

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Then non-ignorance. This really means wisdom. It’s what we call sherab in Tibetan. Sometimes when we say ‘wisdom’ in Buddhist tradition we understand that talks about emptiness. But it is also knowledge and understanding combined with wisdom and that becomes non-ignorance. That means knowledge and that also has what we call ‘gifted’ knowledge, without putting much effort in, maybe no effort. Somehow knowledge is within you. We call that ‘gifted’, right? The tradition where I come from calls it get hob – you are born with it, you have brought it with you. You have not forgotten that when you changed lives. You brought it with you. With a few conditions and almost no effort the individual has the capacity and understanding and that is being born with knowledge or being gifted.

The other type of knowledge comes from putting in efforts, like learning. Particularly, where I come from the learning is divided into three categories: getting the information, analyzing it and meditating on it. So you get sort of three steps. Before you meditate or analyze anything you need to know something about the subject, like in this case wisdom. So you need to know something about wisdom. Without knowing anything about wisdom, you can just sit down alone and that is not really meditation.

I was talking with somebody while driving two days ago and that person was telling me that in the beginning they used to sit down and just say OM, that usual chanting. OM as mantra is the beginning of the mantra as well as the essence of mantra and it is known as jewel mantra. From the mantra point of view it is great, but from the meditative mind point of view you are probably focusing on the sound – that much. Since it is mantra and you are producing the sound and meditating it may help a little bit. Otherwise it doesn’t really do much. There are many people who just sit down and think nothing and call that meditation. Really, you have to know the meditation, what you are going to meditate on, the subject you are going to meditate on. In this case it is wisdom. You have to learn something about wisdom. We call this knowledge the knowledge that follows learning. In Tibetan we say thö jung or thö pa. In other words what you gain by learning. That information is actually the first step. And then you have to analyze. That’s the second step. You have to be very familiar with the subject, even before you meditate. In one way this is part of meditation, but to really make it effective for the individual it is necessary to learn about it, then think about it and get familiar with it and then focus – these three steps.

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You learn, ponder on it and then meditate. Without subject, just sitting down will simply give you mental relaxation. Of course it will be very helpful, particularly if you have a physical condition, such as high blood pressure. If you give a little time for yourself, then it reduces. We all know that from our own experience. But that is not the purpose of meditation. The purpose is cutting down and eradicating negative emotions, such as anger, hatred, ignorance. That cannot be done by simply sitting or simply counting your breath, in and out through the nostril and focusing on the physical sensation and all that. I am not criticizing that, okay, they are good meditations. But when you are really looking spiritually, overcoming your negativities and negative emotions, you need to use methods a little better than that. The weapon you are using as tremendous capacity. It can do wonders. As a matter of fact it is the most powerful weapon. If you utilize it properly it is stronger than atomic bombs. It can destroy the negative emotions and their consequences and suffering – totally.

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But if you play with it then sometimes it can be dangerous, like a little child playing with dangerous toys. It can be dangerous. It can be. But you are not utilizing the full value. It is almost like me. I have toys like i-phones and i-pads and so on and even a computer, but I can’t use their full capacity. For me it is almost good enough to have the old-fashioned phone and just pick it up and dial the number and talk. That much I can utilize it. That’s my limitation, not that of the i-phone or i-pad. Just like that, when we are utilizing the powerful tool of meditation, simply thinking nothing and sitting, that’s almost like you don’t know how to use your gadgets and yet fooling around with them. That’s like me using my i-pad. That’s how I see it. So it is better to use it to capacity. We have only this one weapon against the negative emotions and their consequences and that is meditation.

I actually wanted to talk about wisdom, rather than meditation, but it is sort of interlinked. The wisdom is never gained properly within us without going through meditation. A stable, focusing mind that can focus on one point long enough to have an impact in the individual, that’s really meditation. That is concentrated meditation. But concentrated meditation alone will not do the job. You need analytical mediation. You need to use your intelligence within the meditation. That gets far beyond simply sitting. That’s why meditation is important and the subject on which you are meditating has to be wisdom.

That wisdom is not going to come easily without learning. Traditionally, Tibetan teachings will say, “without hearing.” That doesn’t mean hearing alone. You can learn through conversation, through lectures and teachings. You can learn through talks like this and you can learn by reading too. All of those, all different ways of learning are meant here. Learning is the light that will clear the darkness within our mind.

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This is very interesting. Learning has to many wonderful qualities. It is our best wealth. Traditional teachings call it the wealth that no one can steal from you, either by force or cheating or stealing. No one can take it away from you. My generation has come through so many communist effects. There are lots of forceful ways of taking everything from you, your house, land and everything, all your belongings are forcefully taken. The learning, the knowledge, is something they couldn’t take. I came as a penny-less refugee in 1959, but whatever I learnt as kid in the great monastery of Tibet or whatever gifted information or knowledge I had, no one took it. It is still with me here, even after all these years. There is one faith called forgetting and that may take it one day. Other than that no one can take it. That is one of the qualities of knowledge.

It is also one of the best friends. Normally, many friends will let you down when you are going down, when you become poor, penny-less. Many friends will avoid you. Even very close friends will give you an interesting talk and let you go away – good bye to you. They will almost tell you, “If you leave town tomorrow, come and have dinner with me the day after tomorrow”, that’s the sort of thing they do. They avoid you, they try not to see you and not have contact with you. They almost want nothing to do with you. You become a danger for them, a liability, so the friendship is gone, because you are going down.

Learning and knowledge will never let you down. It always goes with you, no matter if you are going down or up or wherever you are, it’s there. It is only a matter for you to be able to utilize it. There is no point to put all your knowledge in a storage room and never look it up or put it on a brain chip and never look it up. Then it becomes useless. But if you utilize it, there are always suggestions, advice, information. So that’s why very well educated people, no matter how poor or weak they become, they always have a little better way of functioning in their life. That’s because of this learning.

This is also the best weapon you have, the weapon that destroys your enemies, like hatred or anger. The best weapon to cut them is your knowledge, your information, your understanding. Many of the delusions are fear-based, exaggerated things.

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You knowledge, your learning, will give you properly balanced adjustments of how much is exaggerated, how much is reality. That balance it can give you. That balance is the best weapon to protect yourself from those fears as well as cut hatred. Understanding, being able to balance, being able to clarify how much is exaggerated propaganda, etc, and how much is reality. Even if you don’t say anything you know where you are standing, how much it really is. That is cutting fear as well as hatred too. Understanding of love, of compassion, will begin to touch and challenge your hatred. These are the qualities of wisdom, of learning. That’s what I am talking about.

Then it is also your best friend. It is the friend who will not let you down, who always has good suggestions, who always has ways of doing it. That is learning. That is knowledge. In addition to that, the most important here is non-hatred, non-attachment and non-ignorance. That’s almost the essence of all the Buddha’s teachings. There is a tremendous amount of Buddha’s teachings. But barebones, bottom line, it will come to three. Some call it the three pitakas, and the Tibetans call it de nö sum, the three baskets. One basket talks about morality, another talks about wisdom and the last one about metaphysics and all this. The teachings and the meanings of these three baskets are the three functionings, the three efforts you put in, the effort of morality, of wisdom and of concentration or metaphysical knowledge. These are the three meanings of the three baskets of teaching.

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You can almost say that almost every teaching, every word that Buddha shared and left for us is somehow part of one of these three. There will be nothing that is not part of one of those three. The teachings of the Buddha are for the purpose of serving people like us. What they can serve is by cutting the things that cause us suffering, pain and misery. These are done by those three poisons, hatred, obsession and ignorance. All of them, every word that Buddha said, every gesture Buddha gave, every step Buddha has taken on the earth, are all against our poisons. That is supporting those three pitaka points, either morality, wisdom or concentration or metaphysical learning. That is the essence of what you can do, honestly.

Even if you can’t think of the 10 non-virtues to avoid, just think of the 3 poisons to avoid. And what to do is the essence of the three basket teachings and their essence message. If you have that then of what Buddha said: “avoid negativity, build positivity and tame your mind”, you get all three. Our life, whatever we spend, becomes worthwhile spiritually, honestly. Otherwise, we will be wasting a lot of our time, even doing things that are good. We think, “I should do this, it will be good for people.” That may be true, it’s great, no doubt about it. It’s good for people, good for this and good for that. It’s great, but to be even greater and more effective – that’s the question we should always raise. Does this action of mine challenge these three poisons or one of them or all of them or do they support one or all of them? If it is supporting them, then even if it seems to be very positive, it is questionable. It may look very positive, but it is questionable.

But if it is not supporting them, it is definitely great and if it goes against them, then it will be virtuous.

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The last advice Buddha gave to us, his followers, before passing away, was,

I have given a lot of guidance. Now I am going. Now, any action you want to take, compare it to those that I have objected to and if the action you want to take, fits with the things I have objected to, then avoid it. If the action you want to take goes against the things I have objected to, then do it.

That’s the advice Buddha gave to his disciples, like us, throughout the years and generations to come this has been the advice. So now what we have done is built some basis for you to avoid negativities. We know what the negativities are and what is their root, what is their source, where they come from. We have talked about the source and the root, but we have not reached to how to eradicate the root yet. We got to the point of how to avoid it and what not to do and what to do. However, we have not talked about how to get rid of the root.

The root of all problems and sufferings, as we said, is ignorance. That’s the direct opposite of knowledge. And the knowledge I am talking about is spiritual knowledge. Every knowledge is knowledge. Every knowing is wisdom, no doubt about it. But I am talking about spiritual knowledge. Every spiritual knowledge somehow protects the individual from some wrong doing. Particularly, the root of all suffering, ignorance, is a mixture of fear, confusion and ego grasping at ”me”. We have to be able to recognize that “me” which dictates to us, using the true “me” as slave. It is an imposter calling itself “me” or “I”. This is the ego, which causes us suffering not only in the near future, but for the continuation throughout our future. It also controls us completely, dictating to us. Today, people freak out, saying, “That’s not me. I am this, I am that.” All this freaking out is actually that ego. It is not only freaking out but utilizing me as slave. The true “me” becomes a slave. That ego is such a thing and it makes up such a big “I”, wherever it is. When you start searching for it you are not going to find it, either inside or outside or in parts and parcels or the combination, anywhere. You are not going to find it, because it is a false “I”. Grasping at that, everything has to protect that “I” and anything that is coming against that “I” I think I have to eliminate before it gets to me. Remember, the famous speech by George Bush where he said, “If you are not with us, you are against us”? All of that is ego talk.

0:46

No matter what speech is given, but what does that do to us? Each one of us are concerned about “me”? What does that do to me? All this usual, old, grumbling person, is made by that ego. If you really see the person, it is kind, sweet, gentle, compassionate and caring, but we don’t project that. We project ourselves as funny persons, someone who is grumbling, doesn’t really want to talk about it and all that. That’s not even so bad. Some people have to go go to extremes and cry and worry. This mental agony, going through sometimes very bad depression, all of that is brought by that ego within us. It is torturing us. Not only it is bringing the continuation of suffering for all our future, but also at the present it is torturing us. That is the ego-ignorance, which we are protecting and hiding. If you can eliminate that, then that is the real source of total eradication of suffering once and for all, in our life and lives. That is what we can do. We have the opportunity. We have the capability. We have the information. We have friends and we have support. We are in the best period where we can handle this – now. If we don’t , when we get too late, then it becomes a big, huge problem.

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In your life, if you look back, since the days where you were a kid, a teenager of 13, 14 till today, how much is each and every one of us actually searching for this? We don’t even know where to look. We don’t even have any directions. We don’t even know whether to look east, west, south or north or in or out. Now, today we have the opportunity. We have better understanding. We know it is not outside. We are searching inside, in between, outside, everywhere and finally we have to prove it to ourselves: it is not there. When you get that, that is the wisdom of emptiness. That will totally eliminate every negative emotion, every suffering and that is the gift that Buddha has left for us.

I am quite sure we can all manage. But anyway, what you are taking home is non-attachment, no obsession, no hatred and no ignorance. Attachment/obsession and ignorance and hatred are the 3 poisons and the antidotes to them are morality, concentration/metaphysical knowledge and wisdom. Then you have to see what you have, what you don’t have, how you handle your life and that’s what you take home today.

Thank you and I will see you next week from Ann Arbor 0:52:55 end