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20130818GRGRETB24

00:00

Good morning everybody and welcome to today’s talk. As you have heard last Sunday, this is a continuation from there. Actually, we are really talking about how we live our life spiritually beneficial. It is not only spiritually, but even our usual, mundane everyday life. As you know two weeks ago we talked about enthusiasm. Then we talked about conscientiousness and also about shing jang. Today’s subject is very much linked with the shing jang. Actually, the label we have to have today is the tenth virtue [out of 11].

Last week we quoted Nagarjuna, “Conscientiousness is nectar”. Then we talked about the different types of nectar. So what does the nectar do, if there really is true amrita? In English nectar can be interpreted by anybody in a different way, particularly in the commercial world, where anything can be nectar. But here you are really talking about the extraordinary liquid or pill, which brings extraordinary effect to the individual. Here we are talking about virtuous effects, which make the individual remain in the virtues, always function as virtuous and this is what Buddha referred to as the “nectar of conscientiousness”. According to the Buddha, in order to increase your positive deeds and your good karma, always have a great deal of respect and interest and enthusiastically remain in the nectar of conscientiousness. That’s what we have talked earlier.

The continuation of conscientiousness is what this brings to the mental level. So today’s subject is equanimity or equality. This is very interesting. The word equanimity may or not make much sense to so many people, but equality is such a word that makes very much sense to everybody, particularly those of you who are educated in the west and liberal, open-minded people. You people have a great deal of interest in equality. You actually fight and live for equality, you really want to bring equality to everybody. That’s what you do. So many Tibetologists and Buddhologists use the term equanimity.

0:05

The true word in Tibetan is tang nyom. Last week we talked about shing jang, which means joy and all that. Today I am introducing you to tang nyom. This is an equally balanced mind. Why equality and equanimity? Because you look from different angles. From one angle it is equality and from another angle, certain points of equality you want to enjoy [is equanimity]. This is what people use as translation and it is not for me to say what is right and wrong. As I always say: my English is pidgin English, not that good. But it serves the purpose of what I have to do. I am able to communicate a little bit in my own way to many of you and some of you find some usefulness within that. That’s why, even though it it pidgin English, still I am putting in efforts and talk to you. It may help you and may help me and may help everybody. With that hope I am using my poor English.

The question rises: what is tang nyom? What is it equal about? That question was asked to Buddha and he replied, without attachment, without obsession, without hatred, without ignorance, remain enthusiastically and enjoy. What do you enjoy? The lack of interference and influence from afflictive emotions. In other words, have no influence of negative emotions and go against negative emotions and remain against negative emotions and remain equally balanced, calm and quiet. You are not pulled and pushed, you are not so much up and down, but level. It is not just simply relaxing. Unequal, emotional bumps should not happen, just remain level and remain calm.

0:10

Let it function naturally. Let it function by itself. You see, it is not so simple. Even Buddha, when he taught this said it: without attachment, hatred, ignorance, remain enthusiastically away from the negative, afflictive emotions and try to remain against negative emotions, try to keep the mind balanced. To be balanced means not to worry so much. Sometimes we make too quick decisions, suddenly. I always have that joke. Some people are in the habit of driving somewhere, on certain roads and suddenly you want to turn somewhere. You just turn the car around and you are off the road, somewhere else. Some people do that and that’s one of those things where mind is not remaining in balance.

I don’t mean you are becoming crazy. Sometimes we may refer to imbalanced people as crazy, but crazy is different. Although psychologists have different definitions of craziness, many people have a lot of different habits and ways of living life and ways of functioning. But you cannot go on saying that everybody is crazy. They are not. They may not be able to balance their emotions properly. Sometimes certain emotions pop up – like nervousness or some kind of worry. So then you get completely impatient. Sometimes we see that when driving in traffic. Some people would like to really honk all the time and turn around or try to get in the middle of a lane and go the other way around. They are not crazy, but the mind is not balanced properly. It is certainly not relaxed. But relaxing may not be the word I am looking for. There is no smoothness. Without smoothness there is no natural flow of the mind. Thoughts should flow naturally, rather than interruptedly, with nervousness and switching and all that. If you are guided in your purpose [it is easier]. People like me are very unorganized. When I want to go somewhere, I have to pick up everything last minute. One thing in this hand, another in that hand and then still you forget things, either a bag, or the keys or your mala or your phone, your watch and all that. It happens. That is being disorganized.

0:15

Disorganization comes because mind is not functioning smoothly. Again, that doesn’t mean you are crazy. From my point of view that is not the definition of being crazy or mentally ill. We all have that. We have different ways of coping with it. Some people get so nervous when they have to speak in a group or in public. They sweat and everything becomes wet. That is not craziness, but nervousness. That’s because mind is not functioning at the usual, natural level. Why? Because it has unequal desires and something unequal is going on in the mind and that interrupts the natural flow of thoughts within your mind. So if your mind is guided in the way Buddha taught us, away from obsession, from hatred and away from ignorance, with enthusiasm, joyfully and happily going away from negative emotions, then there is normal, smooth functioning. That will not give any opportunity to negativity or negative effects happening to us through engaging in them. That is equanimity, tang nyom. It is all about that. That’s what I mean by an equally balanced, naturally functioning mind. That is very important.

Mind is already inside, it is not engaged in any different activities. Try to remain within yourself, whatever you are focusing on. Get mind accustomed to whatever you want to focus on. It can be subject, it can be object. The subject can be something like faith or impermanence or the nature of reality, or the nature of human beings. An object can be something like an image of Buddha or something you are doing research on. It can be material or whatever. So this is one of the ways of bringing the mind to very much use. That is very important to have. You have to manage your mind by yourself. Many times we refer to that as “meditation”. I do have one little booklet, actually a transcript called GOM. In Tibetan that means meditation.

0:20

I didn’t want to call it “meditation” because there are too many things for meditation around. I just put the Tibetan name in there. Those who have an idea and are interested, maybe able to read it and understand. If you put the title “meditation”, more people may read it, but it can become more interruption than help. That’s why I called it GOM. On the basis of the GOM transcript various parts of Jewel Heart do workshops, like weekend – or weeklong workshops. These are totally about learning how to meditate. It helps to bring the mind to the great equality and particularly the shing jang I talked about last time. There is some kind of tremendous joy, happiness and relaxation through meditation. It is a pleasure, it becomes a mental and physical pleasure. That is only possible when you go through with the meditative states of GOM. There are nine different stages, which Buddha taught on. Some early Indian mahapandits described it.

Buddha taught another 8 steps which early Indian teachers, great mahasiddhas have described. There are also 6 powers and 4 ways of remembering and thinking. All this was taught by Buddha and practically transcribed and taught by the early Indian masters. All of them were combined together by the great Tibetan teachers over 500, 600, 700 years. Particularly Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa taught the shamata meditation. On that basis I did a teaching/workshop for about a year in New York City and those teachings have become a transcript and how you have that available. That’s very good and helpful. That will be able to bring you the power of concentration. Even if you are not interested in reducing negativities, even if you just want to make money and have business success, these things will help you to achieve whatever your goal is – although it is part of the 11 virtues. But still it is applicable to both ways. You can apply this to your mundane activities and spiritual activities and your business activities. Particularly if you are in the legal profession, this is very much applicable.

0:25

The way your mind works will be way different. So this is not just one of the virtues, but it is great. Briefly speaking, when we talk about the nine stages, at the first 3 you have a lot of interruptions. You can’t focus. You are always interrupted, either by wandering mind or by sinking mind. It happens to me all the time. The moment you sit down and thinking of doing your commitment practices, very soon you realize that either you are not focusing or you are even falling asleep. There is a little heaviness at your heart so that you even physically fall asleep and are shaking and jerking. That falling asleep is referred to as sinking. And if you have no idea what you are thinking and your words are going like a parrot talking, if your mind is totally somewhere else, that is wandering mind. These are the two interruptions: wandering and sinking. These are your challenge.

If you want to stabilize your focusing power you have to challenge these two. In the beginning we have no way of challenging. There is always the need to watch your mind. Some people even turn on an alarm clock and make it ring every two minutes. Then you can try every three minutes or every five minutes or every ten minutes. That’s improvement. It is not easy, but it is improvement. You are watching and you realize you remain on the focusing point. And how much and how long you can focus without interruption is captured in the 9 stages. They show less and less interruption and measure how much continuation you can do.

By the time you reach the 9th level your mind will begin to function effortlessly. That is the natural flow and more than natural flow. You don’t need any effort. Your mind goes automatically on the focusing point, on whatever you are focusing on. You can be focusing on words, like when you say prayers. A lot of Tibetan Buddhist practices are really made easy for us in the form or words. You keep on either reading or saying the words, either loudly or quietly. When you can hear it yourself, your thinking follows that. And that becomes truly good practice. Until then it needs a little force. That’s what it is. When it becomes true, good practice, then it becomes effortless. Focusing or concentrating becomes effortless. Analyzing also becomes effortless.

0:30

When that happens things are much easier. If you continue with that then that is followed by harmony, by mental and physical joy feelings. That’s what the shing jang is that I talked about last week. That joy is called shing jang. I said last week that I don’t want to use words like “mental equipoise” and so on. There are all kinds of words used by different people at different levels. When I don’t know exactly what they really mean I try to avoid using them. If it helps you, great, but if it doesn’t help you, if it becomes a disservice, then I have done more harm than help. That’s the reason why I stick with shing jang. If I use ‘mental equipoise’ some people may have a definition of that which is different from what I think it is. So it is better to use the same word. Some people use the Sanskrit word shamata. Then some people may have different definitions than others. However, the word shamata is generally covering the Asian and particularly early Indian traditions. A great translation for shamata in Tibetan is zhi ne. zhi is peace and ne means ‘remain’. So it means: remaining in peace, without interruptions, no disturbance, very clearly and conveniently remaining. That is zhi ne. That cannot really be interpreted differently, because the words have their own meaning and that is completely established and everybody accepts what that means.

But when you use English, sometimes there are those difficulties. So we have to know what the interruptions are, how to recognize them and how we can overcome them. All of that is quite detailedly explained in my GOM transcript. I did this for over a year, maybe once or twice a month, mostly in New York. So this GOM is very useful.

Incidentally, while I am recording this in Ann Arbor on a Sunday they are having a GOM weekend right here in the center. It is a GOM practice workshop going on next door here. So I thought I would share that here with you. Truly, the great level of mind brought to that joy state, calm and quiet and everything you do becomes enjoyable and wonderful. This is within you and you can reach it and luckily we are human beings and we have the human capacity which can do everything and this doesn’t depend on chemicals or mechanical systems. It doesn’t become a material thing. It is very much done by mind. So you can do it. You are capable of doing it and you should do it. That is bringing the level of mind and body, both to the joy level.

When you bring the mind to that level there is never any opportunity for negative emotions to rob your mind. Your mind cannot be used by fear, by war and all of those, by hatred and by obsession. That’s because of your stabilized mind. This is really important and very, very helpful.

When you reach to the 9th level, that actually takes away the direct effect of the negative emotions. It becomes very easy for the individual to improve. This is an extraordinary achievement you can get, giving no chance to the interruptions of wandering mind and sinking mind. Your mind comes completely under your own control. That’s that part of it.

Now to equanimity itself. There are a number of things. When you talk about equality from the Buddhist teaching’s point of view, sometimes the equanimity becomes the pre-development of bodhimind, the ultimate love and compassion. The way to develop bodhimind I talked about so many times. There is the 7 stage development of bodhimind and there is the 5 exchange stage-way of developing the bodhimind, as well as the great way to combine these two in the 11 stage development of bodhimind. If you go through with the 7 stages only, yes, you develop bodhimind. If you go through with the exchange way of developing bodhimind only, yes, you will develop bodhimind. If you go with the combination, yes, you will reach to the bodhimind. However, to some people the 7 stages will be easier, to some it will be more difficult than the exchange system. To some people the exchange system is more difficult than the 7 stages and to some people the 11 stages are more difficult than the 7 stages. That’s not because it is more in number, but it has to do with how one’s mind adapts. But the 11 stages are really great.

0:40

In any case, in all these three equanimity comes first as a base. Compassion is the seed and love is the moisture. Then bodhimind, the ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion is the fruit. So equanimity is the base of the 7 stages and the exchange stages. In both system it has the same name tang nyom. Even in the Four Immeasurables there is equanimity when we say: may all beings remain in equanimity. Though it is the same words the meaning slightly differs.

They become progressively deeper. The meaning is almost the same, but the depth is different, particularly the exchange stage development and the 11 stages have the extraordinary mahanaya equality. That is quite different from the equanimity in the Four Immeasurables “may all beings have happiness, may they be free from suffering, may they never by separate from the joy that has never known suffering, may they have the equanimity free from attachment and hatred.” That equanimity is simply because you don’t want suffering, they don’t want suffering and there is no difference between you and them.

The other uses of equanimity are a little deeper. I don’t want to talk much about the depth, but just mention this. Looking back, this is all coming out of that little verse Buddha said:

Avoid negativity, build positive deeds, tame your mind – this is Buddhism.

Under avoiding negativities, we talked about the 10 non-virtues as well as the 3 root poisons and very specifically hatred, obsession and ignorance. That’s the real essence of negativities. Particularly our mind gets poisoned, that’s why they are called the three poisons. We have covered that as much as I can say and you can take.

Then we talked about building positivity. We talked about 11 virtues, including faith and then maintaining shame and hesitation and then we talked about conscientiousness, shin jang, equanimity and up to here we have reached the 10th. We have covered these very nicely.

045

Up to here, those of you who really want to practice in your life, begin to think by watching your motivation, make the motivation the best you can. When you do that whatever you do will become very profitable. You have a better chance of doing much better than you used to do every day. We put in efforts all the time anyway, everywhere. We are running non-stop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 364 days of the year. So whatever we are doing, can we make it useful for us? That’s very little. We get something temporary, driving from event to event. We are driven from incident to incident. That’s what we do. It is like struggling to take care of whatever the incident we are going through at any given time. We spend all our time in emergency management. There may be no emergency, but we spend our time that way. That’s because we haven’t through properly. So give yourself time and opportunity. Get your mind to breathe. Get your body to breathe in and out and relax a little bit. Get your mind the opportunity to function naturally, smoothly. Take it away from obsession, from hatred and from ignorance. Let it be natural, let it be normal, think about it. When you are able to think, breathe a little bit and you will be able to see how your days and nights becomes worthwhile, worthwhile for yourself and others. They become worthwhile for yourself emotionally, spiritually, materially, financially and all of that needs time to think.

I am going to tell you spiritually. I don’t know how to make money. So those who can tell you how to make money and those of you who know how to make money, try to have a relaxed mind and a mind that is free of fireworks – we see the fireworks when they go off and some look like flowers and some look like light. Our mind is thrown in there and functions like fireworks. We shoot up there and come down and all these things are happening till it comes back down here. Mind is functioning like that just now. So try to change that.

0:50

The way you change that is by giving yourself a little time to breathe. Give a little time to your mind to become natural and get in touch with its own nature. I am not talking about the nature of wisdom of emptiness, but just the natural state, not influenced by those emotions, the natural touch and be able to think something. Then you will realize that motivation is one of the most important keys. Try to utilize the motivation. Every Sundy I talk about the motivation in the beginning. Today I didn’t, because I thought it will be good to do it here. So try to use the motivation, the motivation of love, of compassion, of ultimate love and compassion, the bodhimind. So that will be the perfect way to shape your day, your week, your month, your year. If you want a new year’s resolution, here you are. You can adopt this. If you want a birthday gift for yourself, here you are. This is what you can use.

All the purpose of what I am doing, is to have a little improvement for your life, not only this life, but future lives also. But when I am talking to you, when I am pushing it, it is automatically doing it. You are not purposely engaging to make a better [future] life, but while you are doing it you are making it better materially or spiritually and automatically you also make your future life better. That is making this life a good way and make the future life into a good way also. Whether you accept a future life or not is a different issue. I don’t want to bother here right now. Right now, we talk about how do we do it here and that’s how it is and this should also automatically help in the future. If not, whatever Buddha told us might not have been true. So that’s not possible. It is true. So that’s what happens.

Next Sunday, I will be talking to you about non-violence. So that’s about mental happiness and peace. I will go over that a little later in the series also when I talk about mind and its functioning. But next will be non-violence.

Thank you

0:53:51