Archive Result

77

20131020GRAAETB32

0:00:06.0

Welcome today for this Sunday. These Sunday talks are basic, important points of Buddha’s teachings or Buddhism, made into simple language that I can understand and that I can speak. That means you know my English is extremely limited. So whatever I am able to convey in this message will be very, very simple and easy. Perhaps that is helpful and necessary for a number of people who want to help themselves, either through Buddha’s or any other great master’s experience. In essence the most important point at the beginning is the motivation. So we really talked a lot and spent a lot of time on it.

0:02:24.0

If I start talking about motivation every Sunday only then I will be spending all the time on the motivation only. So I cannot spend a lot of time on the motivation, but still we need a little reminder for everybody, because it is the first thing to do. It also makes a huge difference. That’s why it is important. I am not going to go into detail, but to speak about this motivation, I would just like to mention – or rather Buddha recommends – something called bodhimind, which is the ultimate, unconditioned as well as unlimited love and compassion. The best of best love and compassion, whatever you can think and generate is what you should do. That’s recommended.

0:04:19.2

As you can clearly see, compassion and love both are caring, having concern for beings, for people. It is not only about yourself, but you should also not ignore yourself either. Many people think, “It is my compassion. I care nothing for me, but I want to make it right for everyone.” That’s not necessarily love or compassion. A thought just popped up in my head, something that Baba Ram Das used to say all the time, “Too much righteousness is not necessarily good.” I thought, “Yeah, yeah, it is true”, but I didn’t get deeply into it. But as I am talking and thinking, my talking is my thinking. I am thinking aloud, honestly. So as I was talking I thought about making it right. Then I thought that too much righteousness is not right. Yes, we got to do right, whatever it may be. I knew this, but these two points didn’t link together for me.

0:06:47.3

Many good Americans do say, “I don’t want to interfere in anybody’s affairs, but whatever may be, we got to do right. And if there is something wrong it has to be pointed out and corrected.” In a way this is good for society and people, but on the other hand, the idea of having to do right is accepted by American society. So sometimes people exploit that and sell wars to the public under this cover. So one of their covers is “We have got to do right, because they are killing each other. We have to go over there and stop the killing and we have to do right.”

People will agree with this because somehow the right thing is so important. You begin to see Ram Das’ point when he said, “Too much righteousness is not necessarily good.” I think that’s what I heard from Ram Das years ago, maybe decades ago.

0:08:34.3

Then you have to translate this for all these wars of the last decade. American people bought the war when they tried to sell it to them, because it was “the right thing to do.” That is interesting. It is the right thing to do, but you can’t do everything. You have to do your best. That’s difficult to balance. You have to do whatever the best you can, but you can’t interfere because if you do, then you make a mess out of it. Whoever interferes you make a mess out of it. That’s not necessarily the American’s fault, but whoever interferes mostly makes a mess out of it.

0:10:01.1

You have to balance and you have to contribute but don’t mess it up. Probably when we talk about love and compassion, that must be the limitation there, and somehow we have to draw a line there. If it becomes interfering, it is time to quit. As long as it is helpful you may go ahead and do it. The moment it becomes interference in their life and way of living, it is time – and we have to know – we have to quit. Perhaps it is the principle of compassion. Perhaps it is the principle of love.

0:11:13.3

Love and compassion are the essence of the Buddha’s teaching and particularly of Mahayana. It is very basic, absolutely necessary. It is throughout, at the preliminary level, the actual work and it is at the completion level. Everywhere it is needed. It is one of the legs that spiritual people stand on. The other leg is wisdom. This leg is compassion. We need compassion, love and wisdom. Somehow, traditional Tibetan Buddhism talks about this as wisdom and method. I don’t know why. Method is compassion and love. The reference is thab she, method and wisdom, rather than compassion and wisdom and wisdom and compassion. That’s the expression they use. I am always wondering why, but when you think about what method is, the major part is compassion and love.

0:13:20.4

That’s one important leg. It is important at the beginning, because if you don’t have this at the beginning, all positive activities are difficult to come and secondly, whenever they come they don’t become solid and important for us, but just something nice, admirable, a little fancy and good to use and talk about – rather than becoming a very major thing. That’s why at the motivation level compassion is important. And love is important. Again let me remind you: compassion without love is just very dry, sort of lip service – sympathy at the most. It really doesn’t become compassion. The caring aspect is a little weak. The caring aspect is a little weak because you don’t have love there. When love is strong the caring for that will be automatically strong. When that caring and concern and love come together, then compassion is almost automatic.

0:15:35.7

That is one thing very important to remember. But at the same time love and attachment or attraction are also very close to each other. I have read some old Tibetan teachings and textbooks as saying that the difference between love and attachment sometimes is as thin as a hair. So sometimes it is very thin. When it is attachment it becomes negative. When it is love then it becomes positive. The difference is hairline-thin. One has to be very aware of it. It is easy for me to say that if it is sticky stuff then it is attachment and if it is pure then it is love. That’s easy for me to say. However, if you think in your own mind – or if you meditate (that sounds a little more mystical) – actually meditation is nothing but thinking. Some people will say it is not thinking. It is true. You know what I am talking about.

0:17:56.2

When you meditate, try to distinguish whether it is sticky or not. You won’t be able to figure it out, because you won’t see yourself when it is sticky. When it becomes pure then it is not so easy. So you don’t really see it that well. But if you look carefully, when there is selfish reasons or selfishness influencing that, then ultimately it is me and my rather than you and yours.

It is hard to see but that’s where you draw the line. You will be kind and nice and gentle and sweet to someone because you want something. Deep down, you want something. That is selfish-oriented. When you really don’t have concerns about your needs, when you genuinely think about the other person, then probably it is not selfish, but pure. Again, your mind will trick yourself very much. Sometimes you may say, “I know the best for you and I know it and I am doing it.” But on the other hand you may not have direct appearance of self-interest, but indirectly the appearance of self-interest is there. All these are very difficult in how we maintain our life.

0:21:37.9

Again, going back, the last couple of months, we have gone between compassion and love and the mind that utilizes the compassion and the love. It is also the mind that is obstructing the compassion and love. That is what we really what we have been talking about all these months. So the mind is very tricky. I tried to make it as clear as possible, but mind is not tangible. It doesn’t have color or form at all. So you cannot really see from your eyes that “this is mind” or you cannot hear or feel or smell mind. One of our sharpest sustaining objects of recognition doesn’t work on the mind. Mind, although not memory, almost looks like memory.

0:23:50.0

They are very similar. There is one mental faculty called mind and then you have the principal mind. Then you have a mental faculty called memory and then you have mind. They are all very similar. Recognition is another one. There are quite a number of them together. Actually, to function proper mentally, the principal mind that receives has five ascertaining mental faculties to focus. There are another additional five mental faculties that are always part of mind. If one is missing the mind is not a hundred per cent. Perhaps I may extend a little bit to those five plus five to make the mind more clear to you – for the next couple of Sundays. I may do that. We can talk about dharma a lot, but who receives the dharma? This mind. Whether you know your mind or not, if you throw the information in your mind and if you let the information in, then you are receiving it. You are getting it. However, it will be nice to know how you are getting it.

0:26:14.4

On the one hand. On the other hand I am thinking, whether you know how you are getting it or not, the “getting” is more important than knowing how you are getting it. So I am in between that. The basic idea of avoiding negativities and building positivities and taming your mind – this is Buddhism I almost covered. When people hear this they have something to think. The moment you hear: avoid negativities, you know there are the three poisons. These are the negativities to be avoided. When you think about building positivities you think about the 11 virtues or all these virtues. You begin to think that virtues bring joy and negativities bring suffering, because that’s why all the spiritual leaders like Buddha and Jesus, everybody, all emphasize that because of that reasons. That is the principle of karma. The whole life of me and everybody else somehow is functioning with the principal structure of karma.

0:28:19.3

That’s why this is important. You are going to think that even if you pay no attention and have not given yourself time to think, but we said it so many times that if you have been listening, by now you at least have that within you.

0:28:55.0

Then on top of that the last words: This is Buddhism. Buddhism is nothing but telling us to avoid negativities, which is the morality aspects. Building all positivities – that is the wisdom aspects. Knowing, engaging, becoming part of the character of the person – that is called spiritual development. That’s not the information aspect, but the development aspect. That’s when it becomes your character. Two of them together is the essence of Buddhism.

0:29:54.5

This particular four line verse we have covered as best as we could, the easy way. Now we have to go beyond that. There is so much. That’s why I am debating within myself whether we should go into more detail about how to sustain or should we throw more information and build it up. But the basic principle you have got. Now you have it. Now it is a matter of differentiating it. Even for Buddhism there are 3 types of Buddhism. It is not completely separately, they are completely interlocked. That is the Theravada or Hinayana. People don’t like the term Hinayana. So my apologies for saying that. But the reason why earlier in Buddhism it was called Hinayana, it was not translated as “lower”, but as “smaller”. It covers and thinks about oneself and the principal idea is if you don’t help yourself, who else is going help you? With that mind the major emphasis is on helping yourself,

0:32:09.7

That is your main concern. That is the smaller scope, the Hinayana aspect. That will tell you exactly about the Four Noble Truths. You are suffering. Not only you suffer as in suffering, but when you ask what is suffering, it is me. Really, not the pain, not the hurt, the cuts, the wounds, but me is the real suffering. The cause of suffering is what I did that made me suffer. Cessation is how can I get out of it – is there an end to this? Yes. Then the next point is How? That is the path to the cessation. That is again compassion, love and wisdom. They may call it the eight-fold path and the 10 bhumis and so on, but the bare bones, bottom line is compassion-love and wisdom combined. That is the dharma. That is the path.

0:34:06.4

That is the cause of cessation. The result it total freedom. So here the emphasis on the one individual, me, and it is for me and for my purposes and I think and meditate about me getting through with this. That is called the “Small Scope”. The bigger scope is the Mahayana. Maha in Sanskrit means big. Some people translate yana as vehicle. So then it is the smaller vehicle and the bigger vehicle. But really, it is not only you, but everybody. The more you can think the more you are concerned that it is ultimately, truly much more helpful to yourself, much more helpful, honestly. If you are concerned with one person only plus you, then you are very narrow. If you are concerned about two, it is more difficult, but better than one.

0:35:42.0

It is just like that. The bigger the number of beings you are concerned about is the more beneficial it is. That is the word I like to use here. Generally I don’t like the word “beneficial”. It is overused by many people. They use it again and again and people are satisfied or not, but they keep quiet and happy. That’s why I don’t like that word much. Truly, how and when does it benefit? We have to see it in order to say that it is beneficial. But the larger the number of the objects of compassion, that much benefits the individual really gets.

0:37:12.7

At this level that means purifying their wrong deeds and building positive deeds. That’s what I mean by “beneficial”. Some people think, “So and So said that this is beneficial.” It is that somebody I trust and believe said so. Some great teacher said so. Some Rimpoche said so, some Geshe said so. So I believe and trust. That idea is a little close to blind faith. You have no reasons why you believe except that So and So said so. But the more people you are concerned about and wish to help, that much help you will receive and that much benefit you will receive. That is very logical. It is much harder the bigger the number of people is, much harder. But still, as hardship goes, that much the benefit goes. That is also logical. You can see this. You can do this.

0:39:08.7

That is the bigger vehicle, the bigger scope, called Mahayana. Between Theravada or Hinayana and the Mahayana the goal of the practitioner changes. Truly speaking, without the principles of the Theravada or Hinayana you cannot become Mahayana. A lot of basic things are at this level. You cannot reach to the higher scopes without going through the lower scopes. You don’t have to go through the lower scopes from A to Z, but you need to go through them. They are a must. There are many points like karma, the negative karma creation, which causes suffering. There are lot of them. These are basic principles.

0:40:38.7

Then on top of that you become like the Mahayana, with compassion and love. It becomes richer, better, stronger. Plus then you go into vajrayana, which is like the icing on the cake. Then you become very solid, wonderful and complete. You can manage yourself, if you have the basic principles of these three yanas. If you have the non-vajrayana aspects and the vajrayana aspects then one individual can manage by oneself, without help of others. That is really what it is.

0:41:55.9

As long as you don’t have all, you can’t manage all. As long as you have one, you can manage that level. When you have two, you can manage that level and when you have all three, you manage and you can make it. It may or may not be right from the point of the great treatises, but what’s normally known as the three yanas, that’s what it is.

0:42:40.2

The other day I mentioned to you that in a meeting I attended in Dehli what the official guide in Bodhgaya told hundreds of tourists together, when asked about the difference between the three yanas. But I must have mispronounced, because some people didn’t understand. I mispronounced “meal” – as in food as “mile” somehow. So the tourist guide, who was a minister in the Malaysian government, said this in the meeting where there were a number of ministers from different countries:

One meal in one day – that is theravada. Two meals in one day – that is Mahayana. Vajrayana is all meals all day.

So this tour guide knew that the Theravada monks only eat one meal a day. He also observed that Mahayana monks eat in the afternoon and then saying that vajrayana people eat all meals is because vajrayana practitioners eat meat. A lot of Mahayana people don’t eat meat.

So I wanted to clarify that from the last time. A lot of you are laughing, because you know better than that.

0:46:03.0

What is your scope, where are you going to go and how are you going to get in – it is my job to lead and guide you through that and it is your job to see and think about it. My recommendation is the traditional recommendation, which is the Mahayana path. This is because ultimately you have to go through the Mahayana path to become totally enlightened. That’s why at the Theravadan level the goal is to be free from suffering only and that is the end of it. That path is capable of delivering that. Let’s not talk about the time or anything. But it capable and it is possible and you can reach there. That’s why this is the goal. But you neither complete your own purposes nor those of the others.

0:47:46.5

The Mahayana goes beyond that and now the goal is to become total knowledge. Nothing is hidden, nothing unknown, total knowledge. In other words, that’s the Buddha level. When you say you can become Buddha it doesn’t mean you become that Buddha, but it is to attain Buddhahood as a stage, as a level, as a position. You get that level, that position. We call that to become Buddha. So the Mahayana goal is different. The way and how you move will also be different.

0:48:51.1

Vajrayana doesn’t have a different goal than the Mahayana. More or less it tries to function right from the beginning as though you have reached to the resultant level or fruit level. Even when the seed is sown and things are growing you try to function as though the fruit is already there. That’s why sometimes vajrayana is referred to as the result yana. The non-vajrayana Mahayana is called causal Mahayana. The cause of the causal Mahayana is the Theravada or Hinayana principles. That pushes you to that level and then level is enhanced by vajrayana.

0:50:03.4

So it is really two layers. The lam rim talks to you about the three scopes, but the first two scopes are within the hinayana level. The three yanas are commonly known this way. I am not objecting but accepting it, but vajryana is not separate from Mahayana. That’s it. We like to go through that path and briefly lead you to the ultimate level of total knowledge.

Whatever the easiest way, whatever simple way, with less interference of dogma, with less interference of ritual, I am trying to do on Sundays.

0:51:39.2

That’s what I wanted to say today and also it is wonderful that HH Dalai Lama is giving teachings in New York. Many of you are listening. Maybe I am interfering with that. I hope not. Many of you are listening and that’s great. As far as I am concerned a number of Jewel Heart people and I are going to Ladakh on pilgrimage. Ladakh was formerly part of Tibet, Tibetan territory, Tibetan language, very Buddhist culture and all that. I maybe giving you the wrong information because I don’t know the exact decade in which things changed, but sometime in the 1800s [1834]it became part of Kashmir. Then in 1947 it became part of India. It is geographically where the Muslim religion was coming from Persia and Buddhism from Tibet and this was the meeting place. The population is now more or less 50% Buddhist and 50% Muslism. There are monasteries, lot’s of them, very ancient, with ancient art and there are temples and also huge majids.

0:55:04.0

Politically, they have one seat in the Indian Parliament and they fight about it terribly. Sometimes the Buddhists get it, sometimes the Muslims get it. I think 6 years is the term limit. It is interesting. It is part of the Kashmir government, which is a state government, a special state government within India. Kashmir is at issue. Pakistan says that Kashmir is part of Pakistan. There is large Kashmiri territory in Pakistan. India says that it is part of India. There is Srinagar itself as part of Indian territory. There are some people too who are fighting for Kashmiri independence. They don’t have territory like us, the Tibetans, but they are fighting. So there is this three way trouble in Kashmir itself.

0:56:45.8

So we are looking forward to going there and seeing it and those of you cannot come, we will bring photos and slides and whatever and try to share that with you. We will also pray and dedicate our virtues for the benefit of all of us and especially everybody who is connected with Jewel Heart.

0:57:21.8 end of recording