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36

20130728GRGRETB21

00:00

Good morning, everybody and welcome to today’s talk. We have been talking about the essence of Tibetan Buddhism in the sense that it is not really what Tibetan Buddhism is, but in the sense of how does one individual – Buddhist or not, whatever you are – live their lives, karmically right and legally okay. I think that is what we are looking at. It is not so much emphasizing on what the philosophy is and what is the doctrine or dogma or even dharma. We are really thinking sort of bare bones what one should be doing, no matter whatever faith or tradition one comes from, just as a good human being, what should we do?

With that, again we don’t want to create a new one [religion or doctrine], because if you want to create a new one you are getting into a lot of problems. There will be no end of problems. But the existing method for me is based on Buddhism. I am not trying to run away from Buddhism. I can’t, because then I have nothing else left – honestly. So based on the Buddha and based on the earlier Tibetan masters and their experience, that’s how the Sunday talks this year are focused. So now almost have the year is already gone, with or without realizing. It goes so fast. That is reminding me, as the weather goes so fast and time goes so fast, our life also goes equally fast. In the good old times, in the beginning when I came to the United States, I used to watch “Days of Our Lives”, with the sand going down [in the hour glass]. That’s exactly what’s happening.

I am quite shocked and surprised at the weather. What happened to the summer? I have to get a shawl here today, because it is cold. I thought, maybe summer has also gone without realizing. Hopefully not, but time is going. The seasons are changing. Every time the season changes our time is changing, our life is changing. Originally we are supposed to live like 60, 70, 80, 90 or 100 years. It is supposed to be 100, but it might not be. It is always less than 100, more or less, with the exception of a few. More or less it’s less than 100. So whatever is there it is decreasing, it is going.

0:05

That means it goes and goes and when I go, so what? That’s how we think, but on the other hand going means departing from what? From this life. We don’t know our future and we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or even the next hour, however, we have the presumptuous guess of how it is going to be. But once you are gone to the future life you never know what’s waiting there. We don’t know until we get there. We are going to get there for sure. Yes we do get there. Nobody proved that you are not going to go there. So many people said that you do. A lot of people do remember their previous life and so forth as kids especially. Up to the age of 7 quite a lot of them do. It is blurry and you don’t know what it is, whether it is dreams or whether it actually happened or what’s been going on. But memories really pop up a lot from when you are infant up to the ages of 7 or 8. Then of course, gradually it goes down. That is quite a clear sign. Anyway, once we get there we will know. Buddha said that what’s going to happen in future depends on what is happening now. That could be very true. Again, no one can prove it is wrong. I have a funny way of thinking. Once you cannot prove it is wrong you have to consider that it could be right. If so, then what? That is really what it is. This is our life.

I don’t want to lose my ground. We have been talking here about the motivation, which is very important, because it makes the whole thing different. It is always like this. If the beginning of the day goes well, the whole day most probably goes well. If the beginning of the month goes wrong, most probably the whole month will go wrong. Hopefully not, but it looks like it happens that way. So the motivation is important. That’s why we begin with the motivation. What do you think when you wake up in the morning? That is motivation. Is your motivation, “How am I going to make myself win and others lose?” or “How can I cheat people?” or “How do I get profit out of people”? If that is so, it is wrong, very wrong. That doesn’t even have honesty in it. But people do that unfortunately – a lot of people. So that’s why we talk about the motivation and the recommended motivation is the bodhimind, ultimate, unconditional, unlimited love and compassion. That’s the best motivation. We did talk about what this is all about it. We talked about the two kinds of bodhimind.

0:11

One is simply wishing, “May all beings be happy, may they be this and may they be that”. The other is doing something, with action. Both are important. Without wishing there won’t be any action at all. The wishing becomes motivation, again, for the action. Whatever you have to do, what are you supposed to do? This is interesting. Many of us, particularly in the west, will say, “What do I do?” and immediately we are looking for sitting down and meditating or acting physically different. You know, today I am wearing this funny shawl and it has nothing to do with religion. Some people may think, “Oh, he is wearing a lama dress.” But it’s not. I am just so used to wearing some king of shawl. Yes, I was a monk for 23 or 24 years. I am used to wearing monks’ robes, but that I am wearing today is not monk’s robes. It is just a Bhutanese shawl. Luckily this one is made from raw cotton or raw silk or whatever it is and it is very warm and very light. But it is just simply a shawl.

Some people think that the moment you do something [spiritual] you have to wear different dresses or malas or sit different and make whatever gestures you want to make. Then you think you are doing something, but really it is the mind that determines whatever you are doing. So Buddha has given a very simple, little verse:

Avoid negativity. Build positive. Tame your mind. This is Buddhism.

If you need bus stop Buddhism, this is it. It is the best bus stop Buddhism, given by Buddha himself and has not been made up later. It is very simple. It doesn’t say to meditate. It doesn’t say to act differently, to wear different robes or malas or sit differently. On the contrary. Function like normal human beings. Whatever – many times, now looking back at 30 years in the United States, one thing I did not do is giving names to people who come around. Many asked me to give them a name and I answered, “Your good name is good enough.” What is the use of giving confusing names in Sanskrit or Tibetan? Your good name, given by your parents is good enough – unless you are called Mr. Butcher or something. Well, even then, as long as you don’t do butchering work, as long as your profession is not to be a butcher, your name is still good enough. Even being a butcher is fine, but if you slaughter animals that goes against avoiding negativities.

0:16

Hurting other beings is the same. For us to be honest, it is very true, hurting anyone, anybody with a mind, anyone who is a sentient being, is not right. However, our life is such that we really have to begin with not hurting other people. Start with people first. I am not putting down the animals, birds, or insects. But practically, begin with people, that’s really important. Then of course, other creatures as well that are nearby and around you. The physically bigger ones are more vivid and the smaller ones sometimes you can’t even see and you sometimes can’t avoid killing them.

Nowadays, if you drive your car on a dirt road, how many insects will you roll over? There are bound to be a lot of them. But you cannot live without driving. You cannot function without driving. It is really very practical to begin with people and then go to the bigger ones and then smaller and smaller ones. Finally you have to reach to all living beings or sentient beings as subjects of your compassion, or your love and everything. That is what we finally do. In the beginning you work with the person who is sitting right across from you – whoever is with you, your companion, your spouse, your family. It must begin there. The good old American saying goes, “Charity must begin at home.” So love/compassion must begin at your own home. If you think you are doing something great for everybody, but totally ignore your own family, that will not necessarily be great.

0:20

Those who like you may say, “Well, he or she is very compassionate to all living beings, so he can’t really pay attention to his family.” That’s a very polite way of putting it, but really it is right under your own nose where it really begins. Also some people can’t get along well with their family, but think they are great outside the family. That is a clear indication that this individual has a problem dealing with human beings. There is a problem with human relationship. That’s a message to yourself to think about it, “What did I do?” Many times you do something and you don’t even know what you did, until the other person reacts. Then you say, “I did nothing? Why is he or she so sensitive?” That’s how we say it, but in true reality, we did something. We don’t realize we did it, because our ego is so strong and overpowers other people. So others get hurt by your actions and you don’t even notice. That’s what happens. The feeling of “Me”, the ego grasping, is so strong, it doesn’t see anything else. It happens with so many people, including ourselves. So be aware of it. When we say, “Don’t hurt anybody”, that’s where alertness and awareness are really called for.

So, avoid negativities – we talked about negativities for quite a few Sundays. We counted, numbered and labeled them and introduced them and they are all within us. Now building positive virtues. We have been talking about what type and now many and what category. We talked about 11 different virtues. The first is faith and then knowing to be shameful and knowing to have hesitation and [the three: non attachment, non-hatred and non-ignorance]. Shame is thinking, “How can I live with myself if I do this?” Embarrassment is, “If anybody comes to know about this how can I show my face?” This is very different from our usual culture.

0:25

In our usual culture we don’t want to talk about it and think about it. Shame is such a horrible thing. We don’t want it. That’s very true. But if we do something wrong it will be there, no matter however much you try to deny. It will be there. So utilize these two mental faculties as a warning of not to engage in that. Now I don’t remember the next 3. [non-attachment, non-hatred, non-ignorance]. It was what I talked about the last two Sundays. In between that another mental faculty popped up that is called forgetting. That pops up and takes over. Then you can’t do much.

But I think today I should be talking about enthusiasm today. Enthusiasm, as you know, makes your life enjoyable. Enthusiasm has tremendous benefits. If you enjoy the work you are doing, if you are very enthusiastic about it, then your work is not only going to be accomplished, but is going to be successful and wonderful. It will benefit you and others and that’s all done by the enthusiasm. Without enthusiasm it will be a little difficult. Many of us Vajrayana Buddhist practitioners are doing daily commitments. If we do them with enthusiasm it will give us joy, harmony, and will uplift our spiritual development and it has a comprehensive practice that includes everything. It is not just a single thing. A single thing is great, but cannot overpower all negative emotions. There are so many varieties of negative emotions. You know we get up there. Just now I got the forgetfulness. Just like that there are so many mental faculties that are negative emotions. They have to be challenged. They have to be dealt with.

0:30

They have to be eradicated. So you need comprehensive antidote action. For example, you have compassion, and it is wonderful and great. It is helpful, no doubt about it and it will very well go against hatred. It will go very well against anger, but it will not go against ignorance. In order to get rid of ignorance you need wisdom. So one single practice alone is not good enough. You need something comprehensive. The vajrayana practices are completely comprehensive. Any little thing, like our Tara practice, is a simple, very small practice, yet it is completely comprehensive. If you do that enthusiastically, it is a perfect practice. If you don’t, then you have commitments and you do it like paying tax. It’s like tax time comes and you have pay, otherwise you go to jail. If you don’t pay tax you get into trouble. Willingly, nobody pays tax, but unwillingly you have to pay everything. If you become like that then your practice is not worth it. I mean, I can’t say it is not worth anything, because you have the commitment and by doing it you are not breaking it, so you are maintaining your vow and doing that is your moral aspect and all that and that way there is benefit, however, it is not good enough. So enthusiasm is really an important point. You know why? One of our major problems is laziness. Laziness comes in all different forms. I always say: there are two different types of laziness: eastern laziness and western laziness.

Eastern laziness is what I have. If I get a nice cup – or nowadays thermos – of tea and it is beautiful sunshine and I can sit somewhere quietly in a corner I will sit there for days, honestly. That is eastern laziness. You don’t want to do anything, whatever is happening around you. Maybe the roof is catching on fire, but you are not going to move. The phones may be ringing or whatever is happening you let it happen. You don’t want to move. If physically you can’t move, that’s different from the laziness where you don’t want to move. So the combination of that is not great.

0:35

Western laziness is when you just can’t sit down. You just got to be running and doing something and keep yourself absolutely busy, I don’t know, busy for something or busy for nothing, but keeping yourself busy and that is being lazy too, because that way you are trying to avoid what you really have to do. Sort of going in that direction you find that you have got to do this and you got to do that. You provide many preconditions, so actually you are avoiding what you really need to do, spiritually or even materially. Why are you working? Because you need to make money. But if you are not doing money making things, but doing something for the money making to make it easier, then by the time your actual money making comes then death will be there. That’s what is happening with a lot of people. I see it. People make up something that gets’ them ready for it to make it easier and when is going to be ready? Never. But still you are preparing for that, working your butt off, so much. But you are not doing what you really need to do. You are not applying your wisdom, your enthusiasm. You try to make it easy, but easy for what? Easy for nothing. So that’s why I said: it’s making yourself busy for nothing. And that is laziness.

There is no enthusiasm at all for many people. So a lack of enthusiasm is one of our biggest problems in whatever we are trying to do and because of that we don’t accomplish it. Nothing really gets done. Everything is something that is left over, something incomplete. That is not only one person or two persons, but everybody does that. What you do is not really complete. Also the mind is such that when the major thing is done you say, “It’s completed.” But there is some little minor things you have to do too. There are so many of them and sometimes it is even more than the major work. We have a saying in Tibetan, “If you are building a house, that’s easy, but completing it is very difficult.” That’s what the Tibetans used to say. The minor detail-work in a house is terrible. Unless the person has enthusiasm they will never complete it. Lots of things will be left undone, because the major work is done and in our mind we will say, “Its done”, but there is still a lot left over. This is an example of everyday life.

In reality, spiritually with regard to avoiding negativity, we leave so many things out. With regard to building positivity we leave so many things out. The major things we just go over yep, yep, yep and the very detailed minor things are left out. What makes it beautiful and good is the minor detail work. That makes it good and perfect and wonderful. You know it, we know it. You are building a house and say, “The structure is good” and then you go in and see that this corner was left out and that portion was left and this portion is left and this thing is not done and that thing is not done. Yes, there is a floor, a roof and the walls and windows and doors, but that’s it. The minor details are not done. So it’s not a beautiful house, it is just a structure.

0:40

It is not a beautiful house at all. So when the structure is there you think it is done. But the major work is still left. And then it is time to pay the bill. That happens because of a lack of enthusiasm. Even our mundane everyday works are like that. Then spiritually we definitely have a lot of problems with this. Whatever you do, it will not become good. Whatever you do, it needs to become perfect and wonderful and helpful. If it doesn’t, it’s because the lack of enthusiasm.

I am not done with enthusiasm at all, so next Sunday I will be here and perhaps that is the last Sunday I will be here before I go to Asia. So I will still be talking about enthusiasm then – if my mind is not taken over by the mental factor called forgetfulness! Forgetting is called a thief in traditional Tibetan Buddhist culture. It is the thief that steals your learning, your knowledge. When the thief comes and steals it, it is gone. It’s no longer yours. We say, “I know it, but I have forgotten.” When you have forgotten you don’t know it. So the best thing is to say: I don’t know, honestly.

So I like to talk to you more about enthusiasm. It is not complete today and I will continue with it next Sunday. With this I would like to say thank you.

What you are going to take home is avoiding negativity and that also begins with oneself, at home and then bigger ones, human beings and then goes to the others. This will be very acceptable to our mind too, though the traditional teachings will tell you to look at every sentient being as a mother. That’s a great idea, no doubt, but very hard for us to work with at the beginning level. So, begin with not hurting the other individuals who are living with you, who are depending on you and then your loved ones, children and then expand that. It is a really good way of going and you are not going to have a conflict with your mind. The mind has a mind of it’s own too. It has good knowledge and very good information and has its own mind. You cannot dictate everything to your own mind, just as you cannot dictate everything to other people. So you cannot dictate anything to yourself, although your mind is present with you and can’t hide anything from you. You have total knowledge of your mind, yet your mind can reject you.

0:45

It can really force you. So it is important to go gentle, even with yourself. It is easier to start with family, develop love and compassion with family first and then expand that. Avoid hurting family first and then expand that. This will go in the nature of our character. It works well. That doesn’t mean you can hurt anybody else. I don’t mean that, but to get our mind comfortable with that, begin here and then expand.

Thank you. 0:46 Chanting Four Immeasurables – 0:47:59