Archive Result

20131013GRAAETB31

0:00:03.5

Good morning everybody, and today this Sunday morning we have normally a 1 hour Sunday morning talk. A number of people are listening on the website. We have quite a large number listening in the United States, in Europe, in Asia, China and Brazil. So I would like to welcome everybody to this Sunday talk.

As you know, every Sunday morning my theme is “Essence of Tibetan Buddhism”. So the last couple of Sundays, including the Sunday before last Geshe Yeshe Thapke also spoke on the same theme. So it is really the essence of Buddhism based on the Buddha’s sutra teachings. One of them says to avoid negativities and build all positivities and tame your mind. This is Buddhism.

So we talked about avoiding negativities and that includes ten non-virtues and we are in Garrison here for the weekend and yesterday we talked about Green Tara, not White Tara and not Chittamani Tara, but the normal, usual green Tara and the green Tara prayers. While we were talking we talked about purification and at that level not only it included the 10 non-virtues, but also five limitless non-virtues. I did not count the five limitless non-virtues before in the Sunday talks.

0:03:05.2

This is more dogma, Buddhist dharma doctrine, yet also reality in life together. When you count the five they are:

Killing of father, killing of mother, killing of arhat……

Arhat is the Buddhist idea of those who have been able to liberate themselves from the suffering of samsara. They are named ‘arhat’. I believe it is a Sanskrit word. Basically it means one who has destroyed enemies. In this case enemies is meant in the sense of negative emotions.

0:04:14.6

That’s the enemy within us. And also, the ruler of enemies within us is ignorance. One who has been able to defeat all ignorance within us through wisdom, one who gains the positivity of losing ignorance, that’s what’s called arhat or ‘enemy destroyer’.

0:05:09.0

The fourth one is killing of a Buddha. You may not be able to kill a Buddha, that’s why it is called drawing blood from a Buddha’s body. That doesn’t refer to drawing blood from a blood check. I saw a number of people who said that drawing blood from my guru is the same as drawing blood from Buddha. Drawing blood from Buddha is referring to wanting to kill Buddha, making an attempt, doing that type of thing.

0:06:14.4

Creating a schism within the sangha community. Some of these are dogma – very Buddhist things. Actually, creating schisms within any community is not that great, especially for those of us who are seeking liberation creating schisms is very terrible. Why is that counted as one of the five limitless negativities? Because the harmony within the sangha is very important. Traditionally, Buddha said:

Gen dün tün pa de wa te

Tün pa nam gye ka dub te

The harmony within everybody is really joy and happiness.

Any disturbance is misery and disturbing.

So harmony is joy, especially harmony within a group of people who are traveling on one path, aiming at one path. So having unity is something very important and it is power. That’s why creating schisms, particularly within the sangha, is considered one of those five limitless negativities.

0:08:24.9

We do have positive four immeasurables. We pray and say those all the time. This is just the opposite of that, the five immeasurable negativities. I mentioned this today, because it was in the Tara ritual or practice. Many people do practice Tara and particularly, Tara being the feminine principle of Tibetan Buddhism and the female Buddha, a lot of people feel comfortable and associated with that. So people say those prayers. When you do say them, this is in there. That’s why I like to mention that.

The basic framework we have already covered. However, if you get something later, it is easy to plug in, because it just says “Avoid negativities”. So, that’s it and last time I emphasized not only the 10 non-virtues but also the 3 poisons, ignorance, obsession and hatred, as major poisons that will threaten the life of our liberation. This is not new terminology. I put it in and traditionally it is mentioned.

0:10:23.5

Not only mentioned, but traditionally very common. There are drawings of samsara in many monasteries back in Tibet and Northern India, Sikkhim, Bhutan, Ladakh and even Mongolia and lots of places in China and also Kinnaur and Spiti and all those Himalayan areas. Everywhere, in every monastery, near the front door, there is a depiction of samsara in accordance to the Buddhist description of samsara. That includes the 6 realms, according to Tibetan Buddhism. There are the three lower realms: hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. There are the 3 higher realms, samsaric gods, demi-gods and human society. The Chinese have 10 realms and others are still different. But that’s the basic idea of Buddhism. Since 2600 ago it travelled from culture to culture, so different cultures added certain things and withdrew certain things. I say very often that it is Tibetan culture and all these decorations, like thrones and umbrellas and banners and so on. They are coming from the Tibetan and Chinese cultures.

0:12:53.7

Traditional Indian culture has a simple platform on which Buddha or whichever teacher thereafter would sit. It is a platform that is a little lifted so that people can see you and hear you. That then became thrones with decorations later in different cultures.

My main point is that when you have these 6 realms, within those realms one more circle goes round with people travelling through the white path, as it is called. That is going to a better future. The black or dirty path is going to lower realms. So that refers to where you are going after you have died.

0:14:11.7

Within that, deep inside you will find three creatures. One is a pig, representing ignorance. The other is a snake, representing hatred and the third is a bird, a rooster, representing obsession. That’s deep inside and all the other things are around. So these are the three poisons which cover all six realms and the result is that you are going down. One who can overcome the 3 poisons is going up through the white path. You can also call it the liberation path. “Three poisons” is not new terminology, it is used very traditionally. So when we say, “avoid negativities” we really mean all negativities in general and very specifically the 10 non-virtues or 5 limitless negativities.

0:16:31.0

Very specifically it is the 3 poisons. They also completely boil down to ignorance. Truly not knowing what’s happening, confusion, fear and misunderstanding, all of them combined together creates this little monster called ignorance. It is the source of almost all negativity. The two other poisons, hatred and obsession are born out of that ignorance. All other negative emotions are really coming out of that. Wisdom is nothing but clearing that. When that is really completely cleared, like no more there, then there is no more confusion. There is no more ignorance. That means knowing the reality – what it is. That’s really the bottom line.

0:18:13.4

As long as we have this confusion we have a problem. As soon as we can clear the confusion we have cleared our problems. The clarity depends on the internal activities, not external activities. That’s why the third word here says:

Tame your mind

As long as our mind is not tamed it is influenced by ignorance. Sometimes some teachings refer to ignorance as intoxication, because when people get drunk or high they do all kinds of things and sometimes they don’t even know. So intoxication is that. You don’t know what you are doing. You don’t even know what you are thinking. You lose completely control. We can’t control ourselves, because our control is in the hands of negative addictions. We try to gain the positive addictions. That is the purpose of our struggle: taking the control away from the negative addictions and try to get addicted to positive things.

0:20:17.6

Why? Because karma-wise, if you are under negative control you create negative karma all the time and if you create positive karma you get positive results, like joy, happiness, peace and harmony. The results of negative karma are suffering, misery and all this. Sometimes it is so much violence. Before I went to Asia I talked about violence. Fortunately, or whatever, when this was broadcast, it was the time of the Syria issue, whether we were going to be involved or not. It happened to be during that period. I had recorded this 3 weeks before. All this violence is cause of suffering and result of suffering, both. It is result of ignorance. This is exactly what’s happening. This is how we are. That’s what’s happening.

0:21:59.0

When we talk about avoiding negativities that’s what it is. Then tame your mind. I did talk quite in detail about the mind. I even gave you the definition of the mind being clear and lucid. I also gave you what “clear” means and what “lucid” means. We already did that, so I am not going to repeat. We spend about four Sundays on that. But I like to emphasize that mind is such a thing, honestly, it is very strange. It is not tangible. It has no physical form, nor has it color or shape. You cannot physically touch and identify it. You all know that. I am sure most of you have heard that the nature of mind is luminous or lucid or whatever and all negativities are temporary.

sem kyi rang zhin ö sel war/ dri ma nam nal lu bor wa

This is not actually the Prasangika viewpoint, but the Mind Only (Skt: Chittamatra) viewpoint. The Prasangika is the highest philosophical tenet in the traditional Indian Buddhist philosophy. Sorry, this slipped my tongue. I am not supposed to be talking about Prasangika and Chittamatra and all that. But this is not the highest tenet’s view. However, the Mind Only thoughts will think that way. But whatever they think, for us mind has no shape, no color, nothing. But it’s there. It is very much there. Not only very much there, but it controls us.

0:24:56.3

Sometimes we can control it. But we are in the habit of letting the mind control us. It is interesting. When you get well educated, as much education as you get, that much your mind becomes richer. Education becomes part of your mind and you have better sense, better judgment and education. Similar, if you are not so educate you get less. Your mind is not rich enough yet. You are not educated. I am sorry. But that’s really what it is.

So what’s going on? I explained earlier that clarity doesn’t mean it is like turning the light on in a dark room and the darkness goes and it becomes clear. Here clarity means that the mind, when it accepts information, it picks up the information and then how does it keep it? Mind is different from memory. Memory, according to Tibetan Buddhism, is a mental faculty. It is not mind. I had a very strong, long teaching on mind and mental faculties. Even a transcript is available now. You can read it. There are recordings that you can understand. There are 52 mental faculties and the principal mind. They are very much interconnected, particularly there are 5 plus 5 mental faculties that always accompany the mind. If something goes wrong with anyone of those 10 mental faculties our mind is not properly balanced. That’s what call “having a screw loose.”

0:28:24.5

When five or six or seven of them are gone it goes completely beyond and you have to be institutionalized and so on. This is not new, it is traditional. It is Vasubandhu’s presentation from the 5th or 6th century A.D. He wrote the abidharmakosha, the metaphysical points.

0:29:39.7

This mind is different than the mental faculties. How does mind keep its information? It becomes part of the mind. Memory is separate. People may say the information is put in the memory. That’s the easy way to say. Mind maintains its own database. But it doesn’t have files or spaces to put the information is. It just becomes part of it. That’s why the nature of people changes according to the information.

0:30:48.0

It is not a Buddhist secret. It is nothing mystical or mysterious. If you think it is common knowledge. That’s what I always think Margret Thatcher once said. A lot of people don’t like her, because she is so conservative. But if you look in her words, she says that if you talk it becomes your thoughts. If you keep on entertaining your thoughts that becomes your goal. When you entertain your goal it becomes your character. When you use your character it becomes your destiny. And she is not a Buddhist scholar.

0:32:02.6

As a matter of fact she was a very conservative politician. That’s just how mind works. It becomes your destiny. That’s how mind keeps its database. It becomes part of it. When the positive things become part of it you become positive. When you keep engaging in the negatives then your mind becomes negative. That’s why violence brings violence. The people become part of violence and then they engage in it and create more and you think you can do nothing in the world except through violence and control it. That is how a person becomes that. And that’s because of the mind and that’s why taming the mind becomes extremely important. It is only the mind that is functioning and controlling and jumping.

0:33:24.9

Traditional Tibetan teachers give the example of the mind as a wild monkey in the temple. If you let a monkey loose in the temple what will it do? It will jump from one image to another, knock down the water offering and drink it and throw over the butter lamps so they catch fire. They will eat the offerings. That’s what a wild monkey will do in the temple. It is exactly the same thing with the untamed mind. When it is like a wild monkey it goes the same thing, entertaining all the negative emotions and addictions and making them more effective and putting you under the control of the negative emotions.

0:34:24.4

I have seen some people so angry that they literally, physically shake – because of the anger. That’s how negative emotions control people. We are not directly entertaining anger, but mind is becoming part of it. It really does all these things. That’s why negative emotions create negativity. And that brings suffering not only for you but for everybody else. The more powerful and high you are, that much misery and suffering you bring. Remember the 8 years of Bush. That’s how it is.

0:35:52.9

Each one of us has their own level of influence. That’s why Buddha said,

Gen dün tün pa de wa te

Tün pa nam gye ka dub te

The harmony within everybody is really joy and happiness.

Any disturbance is misery and disturbing.

Joy is the harmony and that brings harmony to the community and success everywhere. And that is the difference between violence and non-violence. Who has the control? You so, your mind does. Each and every one of us has that. Our political leaders give us a statement, saying, “You will make a difference”, you as one one individual can make a difference. It is true, because we live in a society. What is a society? Nothing but the collection of individuals. Each and every individual is part of a society and the society is a collection of that. When that makes a difference, society makes a difference.

0:37:27.9

That is how our democracy is set up. Every individual has rights and can influence their community, their locality, their state, their government - everything. Really, deep down it is you who can make the difference. When you want to change, that should take place at your own level. I never believe that world peace is going to be established by the United Nations somewhere. It can never happen. They keep on quarreling within themselves. That’s what they will do. They are the world body, no doubt about it, but still, they are not going to impose world peace anywhere. If there is such a thing called word peace it will come through individuals like us. Each one of us. The society then will bring it. The people will bring it. It is not going to be some leaders making it. That’s not going to happen. Don’t forget the good old American saying: Charity begins at home.

0:39:10.8

Peace begins at your own heart and in your own community, family, society and so forth. That’s why taming the mind is important. Not only is it important to liberate yourself, but also to bring peace and harmony within the community, the society, with everybody.

0:39:56.4

What I wanted to add up for today is how to tame your mind.

This is very much interconnected with what Buddhism is. Honestly. Taming your mind has basically three most important points. According to Buddhism it is called the Three Higher Trainings. Number one of that is morality.

Each and every one of us has to really look in our own mind when we are alone and watching ourselves. Do we have any discipline? Do we respect the issue of morality or not? It is very easy to accuse other people of not having good morality. I never forget, during the Clinton administration there was the Lewinsky period. Every night, every time you turn the radio or TV on, they were talking about morality, nothing else. There was some news commentator, Bill Bennett, who wrote “American morality”. He wrote that book in a week. This is very, very strange morality. So you have to really know what morality is. It is not an issue of sexual orientation. That’s not morality to me, honestly. It is beyond that. It is more the principle of human beings, how they think, function, deal and work and contribute – or what they damage, not only yourself, but also society.

0:43:34.4

That is the big moral issue. So really, you yourself, as an individual, maintain your proper morality, you need discipline. Unfortunately yes, you need discipline, otherwise you will begin to lose your morality. Particularly you need mental discipline. Otherwise your mind can be influenced by any addiction. Mostly we are rich with negative addictions and poor with positive addictions. So you know where your mind is going to go. That’s why we need discipline and then morality. That’s number one.

0:44:48.7

Then even to maintain that morality you need concentration. You need to focus a little bit, you can’t be driven from events to events. We create external conditions and then we drive ourselves within them. Our mind is always that way. Mind needs a little more focusing and relaxing. Mind needs to know what’s going on, what’s happening. I am trying to make it into a very easy way to relate in our life and when I am trying to make it so easy, I hope I am not doing a disservice to Buddhism. I have to be aware of it.

0:46:32.9

You have to think about it. We are good at thinking of our own subject, whatever we are trained for. But we are not good at thinking about morality, about negative emotions, about positive emotions. We are good at thinking, because we are educated. We specialize, so we are trained. But you have to pay a little more attention to the right points, like concentration.

0:47:31.4

And then you need to know what you are doing. That’s wisdom. So taming your mind needs these three. This is basically the kindergarten level. If you go bigger, then the whole Buddhism is involved in this. This is what Buddhism is all about. I said earlier that Buddhism or dharma has two:

Tön pa dam chö nam kyi du/ lung dang tok pai da nyi du

That’s the informational aspect and the spiritual development aspects of Buddhism. The informational aspects are mostly these three:

Lung chho de no sum gyi chha nyan dang

Tog pai tan pa lab sum nyam len te

Kha shing drub pai nam thar ma du Jung

Lo zang gyal wai tan pa gya gyur chig

Listening to explanations of the three pitakas,

Realized teachings, practice of the three trainings -

His skilled and accomplished life story is amazing.

May the conqueror Losang’s teachings flourish!

The informational aspects are the three higher trainings. Don’t look at the three higher trainings as something way up there. Look at them as within ourselves. Mental discipline, physical discipline, concentration, relaxation, understanding wisdom.

0:49:37.9

If you look from this level, then it is so simple, not some mystical mystery up there somewhere, flying in the air. But it is just within ourselves. When you say, “I practice” or “I tame my mind” it is trying to see if you can engage on these three points: morality, concentration and know how, or wisdom. “know how” makes wisdom sound cheaper or less important, but it is no mystery: know how, knowledge.

Even Buddhahood means total knowledge. Remember, Buddhism tells you that. Here knowledge is know how. You get your level of know how and the next level of know how and so on and so on and that’s called wisdom. So take it simple, at our everyday level. It is not necessary to be ‘holy’ or to be worshipping. But it is your life, your self, how you live, how you function, how you conduct your life. That’s what it is all about. So if you begin with this that’s the beginning of taming your mind.

0:51:43.7

If you engage in jealousy, recognize that. You should be a little embarrassed of yourself, noticing “I am engaging in jealousy. How am I going to show my face if the other person knows that I am jealous?” So then put jealousy out and bring up a little more helping attitude. Some people are so good in hiding jealousy, bringing it at a very long level. Some people are so obvious. You know yourself, at what level you are. When you have to be aware of your jealousy, you have to look at the sophisticated level or deeper level or the surface level, wherever it is. Then correct it. Try to avoid it. You don’t have to embarrass yourself but change it, correct it and move through. That is how you tame your mind. The very simple way. That begins here. It is not the end of taming the mind, but the beginning.

0:53:35.4

I guess that much I have to say this morning. As usual we pray with the Four Immeasurables. What you are taking home today is the additional five limitless negativities and taming your mind, not sophisticated like the Three Higher Trainings and the Three Basket teachings, but the simple way way of morality, focusing and a little know how. Thank you and see you next Sunday

0:54:42.7

Four Immeasurables 0:56:19.8