Archive Result

77

20131103GRAAETB34

Good morning to you. Welcome to the Sunday morning talk, “Essence of Tibetan Buddhism”. We begin to talk to you about the real very essence of Buddha’s teaching, which has been practiced throughout Tibet before 1959.

0:01:01.2

You are hearing a talk that was recorded earlier. After 1959 it is still functioning in Tibet, but much less, because of the changes and also throughout the Northern Himalayas. Tibetans who have gone out of Tibet have reached India and from there also to many other countries.

0:02:28.9

This very Tibetan Buddhism has also been practiced in many parts of China, Mongolia and huge areas of the Northern Himalayan regions, such as Ladakh, Kinnaur and way back to the North-West region of the Indian Himalayas – not necessarily Indian Himalayas, but northern India, like the area of Bumdila, Pawang and all this what we traditionally call mö, the mön pa areas quite a lot.

0:03:55.8

Even in Bhutan Tibetan Buddhism is very much practiced. Of course there are also what’s now Indian territory such as Sikkhim, Darjeeling, etc, in short, from the total Eastern to South-West and North-West [of the Himalayas], from Ladakh to Tawang and the Mönpa areas there are the huge Himalayan areas where Tibetan Buddhism has been the daily life of every individual, families, households, as well as scholars and learned masters of various monasteries and universities and institutions.

0:05:16.9

All of them are traced to the four great traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, namely Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug. All of them, back in Tibet and in the other areas you can trace Tibetan Buddhism to them. They are all traced to the great Indian teaching institutions or universities, great learning centers, such as Nalanda and Vikramalashila. All of those will trace back to the traditional Buddha’s original teaching, from which came the Southern Indian teachings such as Theravada and the Northern Indian teachings such as Mahayana. Both of them reach back to Buddha. Buddha’s teachings, as you have heard a number of times, are Buddh-ism, when the information-oriented teaching, which will give understanding and a basis and the spiritual development through learning the information and thinking about it and meditating on it, until it becomes part of you and become your character and destiny.

0:07:41.6

That’s the spiritual aspect of Buddha’s teachings. All of them are traced to Buddha, coming from there. That’s what the real Buddha’s teaching is. Out of that we talk about the first important thing, which is the motivation. Recommended is bodhimind, the ultimate love-compassion-oriented motivation. With that motivation you begin to avoid negativities and build any positive karma as much as you can. Then tame your mind.

0:08:45.1

Mind is the one through which everything functions. It is doing everything. We talked very detailed, quite a lot, about the mind, as well as the mental faculties. Out of the mental faculties, last week I talked about the first group of five, known as the omnipresent mental faculties. “Omni” means that one must have it. If it is mind one must have it. Otherwise there are problems, not just simple problems, but one is unable to function properly.

0:09:43.5

When the mind is unable to function properly then you know what is meant. When we lose some kind of mind level of functioning, then we call that mind degeneration or a mind defect, mind has gone to something else. It is completely gone. All of those are because those mental faculties are not properly functioning.

0:10:29.5

As I said a number of times: mind is not tangible, has no color, no shape, no one can touch and no one can see it. No one can hear, taste or smell it. However, it is the most important functioning of ourselves. It is almost the same as “me”. I am based on my mind. My mind is almost me. I am my mind and all that. These mental faculties in the Buddhist tradition are counted as 52 or something. All these mental faculties are not separate from mind. There are no two minds. Otherwise you must think we are all schizophrenic, running and pulling in 52 different directions. That’s not the case. It is one mind.

0:12:03.9

I did mention last week the five points of oneness, such as time, focal point, what they are made of and all of them. We did talk a little bit – although I talked almost the whole hour on it – but it was a little bit – about the first mental faculty called “feeling.”

0:12:50.6

I don’t want to spend all my time talking about feeling alone. There is a lot more detail I can talk about it. I can divide feeling itself into different categories and see them and observe them and try to manage them. That information is all there. I not only have the information, but also the know-how is there. But I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about one little mental faculty functioning.

0:13:44.9

Today I must move to the second mental faculty called “discrimination”. The word in Tibetan is du she. If you really want to know the Tibetan spelling, it is ‘du འདུ་ Sometimes you see it with “s” ས like in ‘dus’ འདུས. When you explain the Tibetan spelling changes. I was not reading properly. Mostly I am talking on the basis of my knowledge. Occasionally I look in a little text book. ‘du འདུ་ means to collect. When it is already collected then the sound changes from ‘du འདུ་into ‘dü་འདུས་. That adds the “s” ས་ So, when you first call something a name – I am trying to remember the English, but I don’t, but just labeling is called ‘du འདུ་. She – that indicates understanding. It also indicates the mind that has understood. I am not trying to describe what discrimination is all about; I am trying to describe this little piece of mind that we label ‘discrimination’.

0:16:29.6

I am not trying to re-write the English translation again, but the Tibetan word is du she. Since du means collection, what is being collected? Whatever you are looking at, whatever you are observing or focusing on – any subject or object – whatever you see or hear or whatever you are understanding, all those three or any way of getting the message out, whatever comes, getting them together.

0:18:01.1

The word in Tibetan is yul wang nam she sum. The object you are looking at, understanding or the mind with which you are seeing and that message, like I saw or I am seeing – that seeing message is translated into the principal mind to get understanding. All these three together functioning. When you see it first, without any thoughts, you will see it and it appears to you and then you see the significant, special of this very particular thing you are seeing.

0:19:38.0

Now that very seeing will become with thoughts. Thoughts acknowledge whatever you are seeing, whatever you are finding, and then it is the special, extraordinary quality, whatever they may have. That is somehow getting clear understanding, clear acknowledgment, clearly saying: this is this.

0:20:28.7

That sort of understanding is gained by the collection of the subject, like what you see and the object or the medium through which you see, like the eye consciousness and the mind through which you get the understanding. All three join together and then understanding comes.

0:21:17.3

That is what du is – collecting and then understanding. Following some earlier translations we call this discrimination. In one way it may be discriminating the point on the subject or object itself. Or maybe the translation as ‘discrimination’ may not be right. Those are the scholars, those who like to think and talk about it, but I am giving you information on the basis of the original Tibetan is. Not Sanskrit, because I don’t know that. But I can talk about what the words du and she means together.

0:22:32.5

Basically, it is what you see, what you hear and also separate, not mumble-jumble together, of the nature of whatever, maybe you have both seeing as well as hearing as well as smelling as well as tasting, as well as feeling, you may have all there together. Some of them may not. But here the du or collection is the subject and object and understanding all together. That is gaining understanding out of those.

0:23:49.4

When I say “seeing” I mean direct encounter, like I see you and you see me. I mean that direct seeing. When I say ‘hearing’ I am not talking about general hearing. General hearing means that you heard and understood something. But here I am talking about reliable hearing. Reliable hearing

0:24:39.8

Because you heard that you acknowledge and label it. It is reliable in the sense that it is the correct information and correct label, the correct sound. I don’t mean it is the absolute truth. I don’t mean absolutely true in the sense of emptiness, but in the relative truth it is true. What you heard is correct.

0:25:22.3

For example, nowadays sometimes I am losing my hearing a little bit. I have half a word. They may be talking about discrimination and I am hearing something else, like maybe disc or crim. And then I don’t know what it is and it is doesn’t become reliable. When I hear the whole word ‘discrimination’ I heard it reliably. When we use ‘reliability’ here I am talking about that reliability. I am not talking about whether what I heard is correct or not. I only heard what they are telling me and that particular word I heard correctly.

0:26:29.6

The third point of understanding is “I didn’t hear”, “I didn’t receive, but I look at it and I can understand, I can get it.” Whether I use logic as my instrument or experience or anything I use, but something conveying the true message besides seeing, hearing or something else. Then I can label it. That is the third aspect of discrimination. That is the step there.

0:27:43.6

Then, whatever you have understood, whatever you get, you know it. You have direct knowledge. Then when you know that, you can label it, “I know it absolutely”. So you can give that level of knowledge-based information. So, that is this particular mental faculty. It does these jobs. Reliability here is recognizing, becoming reliable and being able to label.

0:28:40.2

What does that mean, reliability? There is also that very word reliability. It has two categories. One category is the surface level, superficial or common. The other is truly, absolutely reliable, such as if it’s color is blue or yellow, etc, you clearly understood that this is yellow or this is blue. That is absolutely understood.

0:29:48.6

Sometimes I have confusion, but my confusion is between green and blue. I am not color blind. Many times when I see green I automatically label that blue. The traffic lights change from red to yellow and yellow to green. But in my mind – and sometimes I even say it – the light has turned blue or green. It gets somehow mixed up. Maybe I have a little difficulty in the discriminating faculty. That can be from culture, or from how I learnt in the beginning when someone showed me, ‘This is green’ and when I understood that as green or blue. The first person who introduced me to the label of the color in English as green and blue may have mixed it – I don’t know. Probably.

0:31:44.4

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition calls the person who first gives you a label a “label abbot”, da zar khen po. That means the abbot who labeled. That’s like a monastery abbot. That’s not only Buddhist monasteries, but abbot generally. “Abbot” is an English word, right? So the person who introduced you to “blue” for the first time in your life is labelled “blue abbot”. The person who introduced you to “yellow” for the first time is known as “yellow abbot”. That’s da zar khen po, the labelling abbot. When the labelling abbot used the wrong message, somehow I picked that up and my childhood up bringing was maybe not corrected or maybe they let it be, because it was not so important. They might have thought, “Doesn’t matter, let him call it green or blue or whatever. At least it is not yellow or red.” So sometimes I have that difficulty.

0:33:35.9

That example gives you a better understanding of this discriminating activity of knowledge. That affects all your understanding. I made one mistake, mistaking blue and green. Then that mistake becomes a usual habit and that is how it defects your knowledge, your information. That’s how it defects your mind – through this mental faculty.

0:34:53.1

That’s why many people hear differently. Many people see differently and remember differently. There is one evidence seen by three different people and they give you three different statements, in accordance to this mental faculty of discrimination, which gives the understanding to the person. That’s what happens. That’s why many of our arguments in courts are entertainment as well as actual reality. There are court cases with so many different eye witness accounts, trying to make a difference in the decision. Many of them may be bought and they are purposely lying. But many of them are really telling the truth to themselves. That different understanding is coming out of this mental faculty of discrimination.

0:36:25.4

So this mental faculty also functions from different bases. Now, for example, the eye will have an eye consciousness and that eye will have a collected understanding. So does the ear, nose, tongue and the physical body, because of the touch. Then the mind itself has an understanding. So there is the eye-collected understanding, the ear-collected understanding, the tongue-collected understanding, the nose-collected understanding and the body-collected understanding.

0:38:03.3

And the mind-collected understanding. So basically, you can also divide six different ways. Now, I not only introduced you the mind and the first two omnipresent mental faculties but also I introduced you to the functioning of the same thing with eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose consciousness and body consciousness and taste consciousness.

0:38:47.9

So the eye consciousness is seeing, nose consciousness is smelling, ear is hearing, tongue is tasting and body is feeling. You know that. On the one hand you will say, “What are you talking about? Even kids know that already.” On the other hand I am introducing you to a little bit of the subtler aspects of the mind and its faculties. There are a lot of those things. I don’t want to go into so much detail, because instead of service you may get confusion or disservice.

0:39:58.8

But I like to talk to you about one thing: there are lots of divisions here. I can go into detail very much. There is space-like, consciousness-like and there is also nothingness. If you set your mind on thinking nothing, just simply sit and think nothing, that consciousness discrimination mental faculty of the mind not thinking, what is the mental faculty of discrimination doing then? That discriminating mental faculty is doing the work of thinking nothing, knowing nothing, not acknowledging. Chi yang me – that means there is nothing. That’s what that mental faculty is doing.

If you meditate, sitting space-like, that mental faculty is doing the space-like work. The same for the consciousness-like state. They do that.

0:41:26.4

This is the mental faculty of discrimination. It functions in that way. Again, I realize what I presented, this very mental faculty I really did one percent, maybe less than one per cent, out of the information that I have about this mental faculty. I guess I may have to stop here. Though it was a little short and doesn’t give me enough time to talk about the second mental faculty, so it is about 15 minutes earlier than I should have talked to you.

0:42:30.2

What should you do with this? What would you like to do with this? Think about it, if you are interested. You know why I am talking this? I am not telling you fairy stories or be like in kindergarten, telling you, “This is this, and that is that.” I am trying to tell you that when you meditate, when you practice, in the spiritual practice, what can your mind do? How can you manage? There are lots of people who don’t think about the mental faculties functioning and that sitting and meditating and particularly certain meditations like kundalini and all of them, some people go a little bit unbalanced or uncomfortable with their own mind, because they did not have really the full grasp of the mind functioning. Sometimes you see something funny and you get frightened maybe. In one way I can say that this is hallucinations, forget it and dismiss it.

0:44:07.9

Another thing – whether hallucination or not – it may be really happening and is real to the person. Particularly, for people who have mental difficulties. To us it may seem like the person is joking or doing a monkey dance. But in reality the person literally suffers and has a lot of pain and if you just dismiss it, that’s not right.

0:44:47.7

There are two ways of dismissing. One is saying, “These are hallucinations, forget it”. Another is to say “It’s normal”. That’s how many people will dismiss, you may even do that for yourself. That’s because you are lacking this type of information. There are a number of them. You never observe how your own mind is functioning. You cannot observe your own mind’s functioning without knowing the difference between mind and mental faculties. Plus, particular, these five omnipresent and five sustaining mental faculties, if you don’t understand those clearly, you can’t observe your mind. When you look in your mind, it is like looking at blank. Blank looking at blank – that type of thing happens.

0:45:56.3

Some people will tell you on top of that, “Whatever thoughts appear, peel them off, like orange skin.” I don’t know how long and how much you can peel, because there is nothing to be exhausted. If you are peeling orange skin, oranges have only one skin. When you peel that the real orange will come, which you can eat. But thoughts, if you try to peel them like orange skin, another skin will come and another skin will come, no matter how much you peel.

0:46:44.5

So these are the points why this little kid-like talk is coming out. If I made this into a mystical mystery thing that would neither serve you nor you would get much benefit. Some of you may say, “Oh, great teaching, thank you.” Some may say, “Oh, I don’t understand anything.” Some of you may say, “Very nice, very valuable in future.” But in reality nothing. So that’s why when I make it as simple as I can it sometimes becomes like kindergarten talk. My apologies for that. But think about it. At least you have now heard about two mental faculties, feeling and how mind and feeling are related.

0:47:52.3

Then how does the second mental faculty of discrimination work? Whether “discrimination” is the right or the wrong translation, is still in question. I am not a linguist and my English is horrible. So I don’t have neither the authority nor the capability to say right or wrong. I have to use what other people have translated. Anyway, I explained to you du – collection and she – knowing and I explained the three points of collection and the three ways of getting it. The mind is getting the message, recognizing and acknowledging it and labeling it. So think about that and you will probably see your mind’s function a little better than what you used to see.

0:48:55.7

Thank you and see you next Sunday. 0:48:55.8