Archive Result

20140125GRNY

0:03:19.9

Welcome everybody. We do meet here occasionally and today happens to be the first time this year, 2014. When we are constantly meeting, sometimes we go on the basis of a certain text, but when we meet occasionally like this, we basically talk about our practice, in the sense that it is not necessarily as Jewel Heart practice or in the sense of any Tibetan Buddhist group.

0:01:41.7

I mean practice in the sense of what we are looking for, what we want. What is our purpose for having a spiritual practice? What do we want to achieve out of that? What can Tibetan Buddhism contribute to that? These are the basic questions that I keep in mind while talking to you. In my personal case, I know what I am looking for. I don’t want to search for what I am looking for. But I always think about what you are looking for. Why are you looking? As far as I am concerned personally, I know what I am looking for. That’s a funny thing to say, but I just have one purpose and one goal and that is: to become fully enlightened, to become buddha. That’s simply put from the Buddhist point of view.

0:03:45.0

Where I come from it is such a thing that we all can become buddha. It is not something pre-arranged or pre-fixed. It is not guaranteed for everybody to become that, but it is an opportunity, open to those of us who are on this practice. If you are lucky enough, if you are successful enough, you may make it. If not, you may not make it, but you become a little closer. That’s where I come from, with my background. That’s why I know what I am looking for. I not only know now, but somehow I didn’t have that as a big question at all, since I was born in Tibet and brought up in old Tibet. When I am over here, I see you people struggle with that question for a very long time, and many people do not get through that at all.

0:05:38.4

You do have today the great Christian tradition. You do have all other eastern traditions, a big spiritual shopping mall, in New York City particularly and on the west coast too. We are in the mid-west, and there we don’t have those. We are better off, not so much choice. One time I saw an Australian telephone commercial on TV. Some Australian guy comes to New York City and goes to a diner for breakfast and he sees so much choice of different eggs, different bread and all that and he couldn’t choose. So he left the diner and went hungry. Then the commercial said, “In Australia we have one telephone service.” So you get it – you don’t have the problem of choosing. I thought that was a very funny commercial. But like that, personally I never had all those choices and by the time I began to see all that, my teachers, my parents and the people around me already made the choice for me and put me always half way through.

0:07:44.3

You people are having a lot of difficulties. These don’t come to you as difficulties, but as choice. Also, there is the difficulty of not knowing what to choose. No one really knows until you get your result. That is why it is difficult. But many of you are very open-minded. Particularly it is great, there is tremendous openness in the United States. In the 80s and 90s and now it is very open. I think that is great. Where this openness will lead us we don’t know. But openness is really great and it has many more advantages than disadvantages. When you shut down then you don’t have much choice. It is like living in a room where all the windows are shut down. No air will circulate and it is terrible. But when there is openness, air goes through and there is air exchange and there is a lot of freshness, a lot of new ideas. Each and every new idea that you get in, you have to get for your own benefit.

0:10:06.0

You have to take that in and incorporate it. If you don’t, you are missing the opportunity. I don’t think any one of those people will say that. What I am saying is that any conservative Tibetan Buddhist or any other person will say that, but I think it is the opportunity and idea and advantage you can get. However, I will also like to say that if you don’t have your own basic principle or path on which you are travelling, if you have a lot of good ideas then, it is not going to lead you anywhere. Again, I don’t know, but what I can say is this: unless you have your own basic principles, then bringing any other good ideas and suggestions and paths to push yourself through [is not going to work].

0:12:09.2

Basically, what we are struggling with is with our own negative addictions. That’s really what it is. We are really badly addicted to hatred, obsession, jealousy and other negative emotions. Each one of these negative emotions, when they occupy us and strongly grow in your mind, you know what it makes you: completely crazy. Then there is fear on top of it and you become absolutely crazy. You don’t have to think very much for a good example: Bush-Cheney. Sorry about that. But really, the fear and hatred brought us to this level. That is the big scale. On a smaller scale, in our own family, in our individual area and in our own mind, everywhere, that’s what happens. That occupies us. That is our problem and our struggle. We are looking for a spiritual path to overcome that very struggle that completely overtakes the individual and whatever that individual touches. In a bigger area that touches the whole United States and the whole thing will be shifted in that line.

0:15:09.0

And if it touches individuals and family, then there is that much effect. If it is a single person, it also affects that much. So that is our struggle. We want to overcome that. We want to overcome it gently. You can’t do it surgically. It has to be a gentle process, because this is the addiction of not just one life time, but many life times. This is what we are looking for. We are looking for overcoming those difficulties, either too extreme anger and hatred or too extreme obsession. Jealousy goes in between here and there. We know very well, because we suffer with that day by day. What does the open-mindedness do? It shows us that now we don’t like it. We know there is something better than that. We don’t know what it really us and that’s why we look for our spiritual path. The spiritual path, whatever we are looking for, should be able to deliver the goods. There are lots of spiritual paths, as we now see openly.

0:17:30.1

There are some spiritual paths that will simply give you a little harmony, a little peace of mind. That is also very precious. I tell you honestly, it is very precious, because we can’t really get simple peace in our mind. Every time we try to do something right, something good, some wrong thought or wrong idea or wrong influence or wrong condition or cause will pop up and turn us off again. So, peace of mind is also really a wonderful thing to get, even for a short time, forget about total enlightenment, forget about total compassion, forget about great love. But simply a little joy and happiness becomes very rare and if you can get a little bit of it, then it is very precious. We all know.

0:19:22.5

This spiritual path, whatever you engage in, is supposed to give you that. It is for that purpose, right? Each one of them will tell you something. Buddhism will tell you its own little tale and each and every tradition will tell you it’s own little tail. Some of them are just a little too simple, some of them a little more complicated. As normal Americans we will go for the simpler ones. However, I like to say one thing here. When we look into our negative minds and thoughts that we have we see how complicated they are. It is not just that simple. It will come in so many ways, at so many levels. Every level of our life, whether you are dealing with politics, business, or whatever, it is sophisticated and that many negative influences, thoughts, ideas will pop up. That is our capability in one hand. We are capable of producing all of those. As extreme as it will go, there is no limit.

0:21:25.5

Honestly, people go very far away. There is no stop for anything. Look at what’s happening in Syria? Look at what has happened in Iraq and what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no stop, no limit. Even in our own place it is supposed to be peaceful but today there was a shooting in Baltimore in the shopping mall and three people got killed. So our mind has no limit. Human beings are doing it, right? And where does that come from? It is our mind and it is putting limitless thoughts out and that shows how complicated our negative emotions are. You sit in a huge office and think the best way you can do, but the negative emotions will tell you: do this and that. And that’s how we got into Iraq.

0:23:10.7

That much sophistication and complication we have in our negative emotions. So to overcome that, you also need something a little more sophisticated, honestly. You cannot just simply pray and then it will be over. That may not work today. It is 2014 and that may not work. We need a little more sophisticated method to see how these negative emotions are working, where they are coming from, and how can we challenge them. Will this method work against that or not? In the good old days it was fine. You could simply pray and then somebody would work, whether it was God or somebody and it would work and you got done with it. And we like that, because then we don’t have to do anything. We give the responsibility to somebody else. But it might not work. In the old times, yes, because we didn’t have anything else to do. Honestly. It was limited, although the eastern religions did have the sophistication and deep levels for way over 2000 years. However, we were not aware of it and those who did know kept it very secret.

0:25:39.0

Only one or two individuals somewhere in the forest or in the Himalayas somewhere else in the middle of the snow knew. Besides, we really didn’t know much about it. And it only came into public openness, fortunately or unfortunately, in Tibet. I don’t think anywhere else. India of course had it and China too to a certain extent, but actually very limited. The biggest opening that ever came, was in Tibet, as far as I know. I am sure I am wrong, and I hope I am. But as far as I know the biggest opening was in Tibet. And that also happened because of the great Atisha, the Indian Bengalian teacher-scholar who came to Tibet and before him Guru Padmasambhava. It’s because of these two that it somehow became open in Tibet.

0:27:05.0

It was open, however, it was sealed completely for geographical reason as well as the people’s choice. It was the choice of the Tibetan people to keep it. They somehow realized that keeping this pure spiritual path was very difficult. It had been difficult in India, although it had started in India. The Tibetans saw that, so they decided to keep it secret, by sacrificing material ‘development’. Modern development is great, but that comes with a price. You know that very well. That’s why the old Tibetans earlier decided to sacrifice the development just to keep the spiritual path pure. That was their goal. That is the only reasons why Tibet was kept landlocked, thinking that the Himalayas would protect. When the Communist Chinese came, they came through the air and under the ground and everywhere else. They had forgotten that, thinking that the Himalayas would protect.

0:29:03.8

The Himalayas did protect, but the Chinese worked so hard and made holes through the Himalayas and came through, honestly. Yes, we have to have an open mind and get everything from everywhere if it can help, but you need your own basic principles. That is what I mean. If you don’t have your own foundation, on which are you going to add up all those good ideas and information? Traditionally, the Tibetans were taught by the early Indians and they taught among themselves. Those teachings would say that if you have a good base within you, when you go outside and you find anything else you can use it.

0:30:21.0

The Tibetans give you a funny example. When you go out and find a handful of loose dry tea leaves and handful of coffee and a handful of salt and a handful of sugar you bring them home and want to utilize them. If you have a base for the tea, like a tea jar and if you have a coffee jar, a salt jar and a sugar jar, then you can put your sugar with the sugar, the coffee with the coffee, the tea in the tea jar. So you don’t mix them up, without knowing what to do. But if you don’t have a base and you have a handful of all these things, what would you do with them? That’s the traditional example and it is still true today. You can get very good information and ideas from there and there, but if you have organized your own spiritual path in steps as well as identified the negativities you are challenging, then you can put all your energy together and attack the hatred, the obsession or whatever. Otherwise you won’t know what to do with these. So organizing your own spiritual path is very important.

0:32:29.0

It doesn’t matter whatever tradition you are following, as long as that tradition gives you your needs. That is important. As long as you have that, then it is fine. For me, I am looking for total enlightenment. I am not happy until the path is capable of giving total enlightenment. I am not happy, even if the path is capable of giving total enlightenment, but not quickly enough, if it is delivering enlightenment to me 10,000 years later. What will I do with that? It is not good enough for me. Honestly and that’s why right from the beginning I said, “I know what I am looking for.” Really, there are paths that deliver enlightenment, but 10,000 years later. There are Buddhist paths that don’t give you total enlightenment at all. You are very much aware of it. But they are Buddhist paths and great, no doubt and good, but not good enough for me. What is needed for me is getting to enlightenment as quickly as possible.

0:34:29.2

Sometimes it is so quick that they tell you that you can get it within 3 years and 3 months. I hope it is true. I am sure there are people who obtained that, but as far as I myself am concerned, I put in more than 3 years, for sure and there is no enlightenment for me yet. That’s the truth. I hope there is and I am sure there is, but that is a little too much. But it should be reasonable and attainable within the life, or at least within the next one or two lives and transitions. That’s what I need. So I know what I am looking for. And you should know whatever you are looking for. If you follow this path, I don’t know why you would settle for less than best. Sometimes people do, because they don’t know what it is or they have no better choice or whatever the reason is.

0:36:49.8

Whatever you choose, you have to choose a path and build that path well. At least establish the ground. Once you have established the ground it is easy to add up anything you want to. If there is no ground you can’t add up anything. So you get a handful of salt, a handful of sugar and then what are you going to do? Mix them together? It’s not so bad if you have sugar and salt. It could be chili and sugar. I guess you can get sweet and sour. So that’s why it is important to build the ground. Everybody should have some basic ground. I simply tell you what Tibetan Buddhism does and I will try to be as simple as I can. At the beginning of all, the foremost, you probably noticed, unlike than other forms of Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism says, “I take in the Guru. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha.” So there are the four rounds, rather than the usual three rounds: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Whatever tradition you look at in Tibetan Buddhism, Sakya, Nyingma, Kagyu, Gelug, they will have the four rounds of refuge and the guru comes first.

0:39:22.4

The basic foundation, the fundamental base, in developing the spiritual path in accordance with Buddhism that developed through Tibet, is the guru devotional practice. There are certain traditions within Tibetan Buddhism that emphasize guru devotion directly so much. There are certain traditions that will not emphasize guru devotional practice so directly, but finally they will also lead you to guru devotional practice. That’s why refuge in Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is emphasized.

When you talk about guru devotional practice there is one thing you have to remember. It is not based on one individual person. Maybe the guru is represented by one, but here the guru really is the total reality of all buddhas. We are not saying that one individual is the total reality of all buddhas. We are telling you that guru represents the total reality of all different buddhas. As a matter of fact, not only all buddhas, but also all dharmas and all sanghas. When you are talking about guru devotional practice we are not really talking about one individual person, but about a person in your own mind, whoever is representing all buddhas, all dharmas and all sanghas – whoever that person is. It is way beyond an individual, honestly. Guru is something that you create by you, for you, for the purpose of gaining total enlightenment, no other than all enlightened buddhas.

0:42:47.7

That is guru. Maybe I should not go beyond that. I should leave you there. If you want to know more details, read in the many teachings and reliable books on this subject. Particularly, where I come from, has the tradition of lam rim. There is tremendous teachings on that. Almost every lam rim will talk to you about guru. Also, every sadhana or yidam or deity practice. It seems like this is something separate. But if you look in detail, you will also see the guru devotional practice in there as a core principle. You will see it everywhere. That’s why this is labeled as “root of all development”. If this works well, everything will grow well. If this doesn’t work well, the root will be shaking. When there is no good root, then no matter how tall the tree is it will fall over. You know that, right? So it is the fundamental basis.

0:45:19.1

On top of that you add up three steps which correspond to the Buddha’s teaching on the Four Noble Truths. Step one is to be able to understand and recognize all suffering as suffering. Many times we don’t know. We have a lot of sufferings. Actually we are experts in suffering. We have been tortured a lot. We know it, however, sometimes we don’t even know. Many of those sufferings that come to us we perceive them as joy, as pleasure, as something fancy and fantastic or entertaining. But they are all sufferings. 0:46:48.9 Almost everything, wherever, whatever………than service 0:47:06.8 – small gap in recording. What I meant here is that knowing that suffering is suffering is actually observing your own mind. When you do that, you will see two things: desire to have joy and harmony and pleasure before you die, from today till death. Some of us will see beyond that, something after death in the next couple of lives. These two desires are what is chasing us and really makes us work hard and strive and do everything and anything to make this enjoyable and happy as far as we can project, as much as possible.

0:49:25.0

That is why the first desire is really looking for my interpretation of joy, my interpretation of happiness, for me, my family and those who are connected with me, up to that thing called death. That’s one thing. The second desire is not seen by everybody, just a few people. Otherwise, most people don’t’ even care, and don’t even know and are not concerned with the joy and happiness [after death]. These two desires drive us like slaves to do every day what “I think, my interpretation of what’s right.” Truly speaking, everybody would like to do the right thing. No one would like to do the wrong thing. Particularly, good human beings, good Americans, will always like to do the right thing. Honestly.

I have been telling some of my friends that we got into those wars like Iraq and the American public did agree to go to war. It is not simply Bush and Cheney’s war. It was Bush and Cheney’s war, but the majority of the American public agreed to go, No 1, because of what happened on 9-11. No 2, there was fear and No3 a lot of Americans think, “We have got to do the right thing.” I can see it. Many Americans were thinking, “They have been killing each other for centuries. We have got to go there and stop the killing and do the right thing and then leave.” That’s how we got into that. That’s because of our own interpretation of their happiness.

0:52:43.7

True, they have been killing each other for centuries. This is not happening since last year or even since the 1980s, but it has been happening for hundreds of years. When we went there, we internationalized their individual tribal problems and it became much bigger. So we all have that desire to do the right thing. Doing the right thing before we die and doing the right thing for the future, if there is one.

No one can deny life after death, as far as I know. Very few people can accept it. But no one can say that it is not there. It has become a question whether it is true or not. That’s what it is for a lot of people. I don’t know, but some intelligent people will say, “I don’t know, but if it is true, I don’t want to be the loser.” Many people don’t care and think, “I don’t know, let’s worry about it then.” Perhaps, that’s where intelligent and not intelligent is divided. And maybe not, who knows. I am just throwing an idea in the air. Allen Ginsberg used to say that all the time,” I don’t really know whether there is a future life or not, I never saw somebody who came back and said: I am back. But if there is, I don’t want to be sorry then.” Perhaps that’s how intelligent people think about. And those who are not so intelligent will say, “I don’t care whatever it is. When the day comes I will see.”

0:56:06.9

Intelligent people plan what they are going to do tomorrow and next year and for the next 10 years. Less intelligent people will only think about today and worry about what happens today. They start learning for their exam on the day, in the next hour. That shows you how our mind works. Intelligent minds will think years and maybe lives ahead. Lesser intelligent people will think about today and the next hour or minute. I don’t know.

So we have these two desires: my interpretation of happiness before I die and the desire to have my interpretation of happiness after I die. These two desires are what makes us slaves. Knowing that, looking at that as a fault establishes our own basic first purpose. To make it short, those who have been with me for a number of years, let me remind you to look into the Three Principle Aspects of the Path. There it says,

DAL JOR NYE KAR TSE LA LONG ME PA

YI LA GOM PAI TSE DI NANG SHE DOK

LE DRE MI LU KOR WEY DUK NGEL NAM

YANG YANG SAM NA SHI MI NANG SHE DOK

Wonderful is this life, short its nature.

Don’t cheat yourself with fleeting pleasure.

Deeply contemplate the certainty of karma

and the constant suffering of samsara.

See beyond the cycle of lives.

Thinking about the precious human life and the difficulty to find it and its shortness, it’s impermanence, will cut the first desire, which is to see happiness and joy as my interpretation before death. The second desire is challenged by thinking about the reliability of the karmic system and understanding the suffering of samsara. These two strong desires we have are the source of a lot of our suffering. It is opening the door to a lot of our suffering.

1:00:07.6

It’s not really the source, but it is opening the door to a lot of suffering and difficulty. Knowing that, challenging that and shutting that door, is the first step. Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa says in the next verse,

DE TAR GOM PE KOR WEY PÜN TSOK LA

YI MÖN KE CHIK TSAM YANG MI KYE ZHING

NYIN TSEN KÜN TU THAR WA DÖN NYER LO

JUNG NA DE TSE NGE JUNG KYE PA LAK

No longer craving fantasy,

a steadfast desire for liberation.

Attaining these two is the first breakthrough.

By remembering that, you don’t have desire for samsaric joys even for a minute. If you have the desire for liberation, day and night, that is the first break through. The base is guru devotional practice and now this is step one, leading to the first break through. I remember the Tibetan and I try to paraphrase in English as much as I can, but some of you may have the English translation with you, in book form or in your i-pads. One of Thurman’s translations even said, “Turn off the interest of this life.” Every translator translates differently. And we have our own translation, based mostly on Glenn Mullin’s translation.

It is easy to say a steadfast desire for liberation”, but mostly we have the two other desires, and mostly the desire to be happy. We all have every right to be happy and that is our purpose. But he problem is: what is happiness? My interpretation of happiness or true happiness? These differ. Why? We have never known true happiness. That’s why even when we pray in the Four Immeasurables we say, “may they have the joy that has never known suffering.” But we don’t know that joy. We only know the joy that knows suffering. We don’t know the joy that has never known suffering, because we don’t have it. Why? Here I will throw something to you. Maybe you can think about it.

1:06:23.3

There are certain teachings that tell you that in absolute, deep reality, we are truly pure and wonderful, but we have fallen back from that wonderful-ness and are experiencing suffering. A lot of people say, “Originally we are great, but we have become faulty.” I don’t agree with that personally. The path that I follow, Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition, carried by my teachers, like Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and his teacher, Pabongka, and all of those don’t agree with that. If you are pure and the pure cannot become faulty again. If the pure becomes faulty again, what guarantee do you have, after working so hard? Some people will talk about primordial purity and say that you are already buddha in your origin. All that may not be true. That is me talking. If you are buddha already you must be buddha. Buddha doesn’t become non-buddha, otherwise then non-buddha has to become buddha again and then becomes non-buddha again. So then it becomes pure samsara, nothing else.

1:08:57.9

That’s why I do have difficulty with words like “primordially pure.” But certain traditions do accept that and I have no quarrel with their tradition. Let them accept whatever they accept and let me do whatever I am doing. Honestly.

I have to talk to you because you are coming here to listen to me. So this is what I think. That’s what it is. I don’t accept primordial, original buddha within every individual. You may have the buddha seed and that’s why it is possible to become a buddha. We all do. If we don’t, we are deprived of becoming buddha. The seed is with you. Every seed is not a true result. If the seed is also the result, that becomes a problem. There was this traditional famous debate between a Buddhist philosopher and a Charvaka teacher. The Charvaka teacher said, “If you have the seed you have every reality. The seed is the reality.” Then the Buddhist teacher said, “When an ant has a karma to take rebirth as an elephant a hundred times, then when that ant goes up a grass blade, there should be a hundred elephants climbing up the grass blade, because according to you there is the seed of a hundred elephants as reality going over there.”

1:11:29.5

So that ant has the karma to take rebirth as elephant a hundred times. That means one ant is

carrying the seed of a hundred elephant’s birth - one time, two times, three times, etc, up to hundred times. When that ant climbs up a grass blade, in reality are there a hundred elephants climbing up that little straw? Because the seed of a hundred elephants are going over there. So if the seed is the reality, that is a problem. Seed is seed, not reality. It has the possibility.

For example, we do have flower seeds which may be able to grow into a flower, if the conditions are right. If it is put in the right soil that has the right moisture and the right heat, then it may become a flower. But when you have a packet of flower seeds on the table you don’t have a zillion flowers on the table. Only the flower seeds are there. So the seeds are not the reality of flowers, but the possibility of becoming flowers. Like that, we have the seed to become buddha. There is no buddha sitting here. I am sitting here, but I do have the seed or possibility to become buddha. But that’s not buddha yet, just the buddha seed.

1:13:31.0

We all have that seed, because if we don’t we can never become buddha. We have the possibility to become a buddha at one time or another. That’s from the Buddhist point of view. From the non-Buddhist point of view there is the seed available with us for the total best achievement. But we are not the best achieved. That’s why I mean: I don’t accept primordial enlightenment within the individual. If you are enlightened you are enlightened. You don’t become non-enlightened. Then there is no end, right?

That seed does not become buddha if the conditions are not right. It’s a seed, like a packet on the table. That’s not going to grow into a flower as long as I keep the packet on the table. If I put the seeds in the soil and add a little moisture and a little heat, then they may grow. They may – or they may not, if there is something wrong with the seeds or if the soil is not right or if the water is too little or too much. So it has to have seeds and the right conditions for them to grow. We don’t have the right conditions to become enlightened, because we have too much desire here. So the first thing is to get rid of those two desires. And that is the First Principle.

1:15:52.7

We have every right to be happy. But my interpretation of happiness might not be the happiness we are really looking for. We have never seen true happiness and each and every one of us, if you check in your own mind, not for the sake of the argument, but in terms of true, genuine desire, when we say ‘happiness’, what are we looking for? Everybody differs. Even you yourself, differ within yourself. Your desire for yesterday’s happiness, today’s happiness and tomorrow’s happiness changes. That’s because we have never had the true example of true happiness. We don’t have the true example of the joy that has never known suffering. We only pray for it, but we don’t know it yet.

1:17:31.5

That’s why our desire is negative thought-oriented desire, not genuine, true happiness-oriented. The picture you projected as happiness is that, if at all. Many people don’t even have a picture of happiness. They just simply say, “I want to be happy.” If someone says, “What’s that?” you may think the person is crazy, but in reality we don’t have a true image of happiness. Day to day we have different ideas of happiness because of our mental attitude. If you are hard up with money, then your happiness will be having $100,000. In reality, you know that $100,000 are not happiness.

Similarly, each and every individual person has a different happiness. The person who is tortured by physical pain, to be painless is to be happy. But when they reach that they know they are not happy. This is all because we don’t a true picture of happiness. So Buddha tries to give you two examples. One is nirvana and the other is total enlightenment. He said these are true happiness. Nirvana is freedom from suffering. The negative achievement of suffering, being free from pain and suffering, is nirvana. It is also called liberation. But total enlightenment is much more than that. So Buddha gave us these two true pictures of true joy and said: you figure it out.

1:21:14.2

So it is left for us to figure out and to achieve. Buddha doesn’t lie, so therefore, for as much effort we put in there will be results. That much I can say. Otherwise, Buddha would be lying to us. And that’s not possible. So establishing that goal actually is the second step. So anything you find to help to establish that goal, now you have the first container for keeping the path to liberate yourself. So anything you find you can put in there and make sure it is the right one. If you put the wrong one, then you get into trouble. Open mind is very important, but if you get the wrong one, it is big trouble. We do have a good example in the sutras.

1:22:59.7

This is Angulimala’s story. It happened during the Buddha’s time. There was this young, intelligent person seeking liberation. He found a wrong teacher who told him, “Go and kill one thousand human beings, and cut off their thumbs and make them into a rosary and wear that. Then come to me and I will liberate you.” So this guy killed so many people. And this was in the village. So everybody knew he was a killer. No one would talk to him or come nearby. Whenever he was around they would all run away. He had killed 999 people and wore their thumbs. But now nobody came and talked to him, except one person, his own mother. She still wanted to help him and kept popping up and at the same time she was very afraid to be killed, if she came too close. So from a distance she popped up and tried to talk to him. He also had some hesitation to kill her. So he couldn’t kill her.

While that was going on, suddenly Buddha appeared. So Angulimala was very relieved, thinking, “Now I don’t have to kill Mom. I can get that guy.” So Buddha was walking and Angulimala was chasing him, but he could never catch him. He told Buddha, “Wait for me.” Buddha said, “I am waiting, but you are not catching up.” And he couldn’t catch him. That’s how Buddha broke the ice. Finally, at the end of that Buddha was able to help that guy and the eventually became an arhat and attained that first level of liberation.

1:26:11.2

So in one way it is very easy, but that’s what happens. If you have the wrong path you get misled. Then you have a lot of difficulties. Even in our own country we know that. What happened with Jim Jones? Heaven’s Gate? That’s how people are misled on the path. So yes, open mind is welcome but you have to be intelligent enough to know not to follow a path that misleads you.

1:27:26.3

In Tibet we didn’t have that problem. As I told you, whether I liked it or not, by the time I was thinking about it, I was already half way through. So there was no question for me, although I must admit, I was a good monk for a long time, rather well-disciplined, but when the Chinese “liberated” us in 1959 I was totally liberated from my good monkhood too. I was looking for some kind of happiness, truly. I was experimenting with what happened when I drank alcohol. Not much happened. You get a good head ache. So I thought, “Maybe there is something in cigarettes”, but there was nothing. I learnt how to smoke. I did inhale.

1:29:08.8

And I smoked so much. I smoked those terrible “Panamas”. I smoked almost a packet and a half a day, without filters, for a long time. Then of course, I tried sex and all of that. I was not choosing what path to get, but choosing what was there, thinking, “Maybe there is happiness in smoking cigarettes, in drinking, in their combination” and so on. I even tried marihuana twice. Once knowingly and once unknowingly.

1:30:24.4

Knowingly, I tried and started throwing up. I am sorry, and it was not happiness for me, unfortunately. And unknowingly I tried because some Indian business guys invited me for breakfast in Dehli. There were two Indian ministers and a Tibetan medical doctor, Dr. Tenzin Chödrak, a very famous doctor, HH Dalai Lama’s personal doctor. So while having breakfast they brought out Prasad, that’s like a blessing from the temple or something. So you don’t want to say no, particularly as these were Hindu people, just because I am Buddhist. And while eating those sweets, the two ministers got up and left. They ran away straight away. I didn’t know why. Then the business guy told the other one, “Don’t give the doctor too much, because he has to see patients today.” And so I am was the guinea pig. And things became so clear. That’s the funny part. And I didn’t get sick this time. I could hear people talking in the next room as clearly as though they were in my ear.

1:32:38.9

Somebody went to the toilet and flushed and it sounded like somebody was flushing inside my ear. So I thought, “Okay, what is this?” and they told me, “It is bhang”, which is marihuana or hashish. Since I had already taken I said to myself, “Okay, how do the inner chakras look? What does the central channel look like?” and I started to be able to think a little bit. My projection of those chakras was very different. The moment I thought about the heart chakra it went huiiiiik, huiiiiik huiiiiik and you could really see it, the whole thing, in my hallucinated picture. I totally saw it. The colors are slightly different from what the books describe. The books tell you that it is white outside and red inside, but what I saw was that it was outer greenish and inner red. Otherwise it was exactly like the books tell you. It was quite clear for about two, three hours. I got that breakfast at about 8’o clock and by 12 – 12.30 it was still clear.

1:35:06.9

So I had experimented with everything, looking for happiness in different ways. Luckily I did not chase different spiritual paths. That I attribute to all my teachers, particularly to Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kaybje Ling Rinpoche. I was not doing any dharma work or anything. I was against that. But I always went and saw all my teachers and particularly the two Kyabje Rinpoches. And they would always ask me, “Did you find the happiness you are looking for? So what is it and how is it?” But I had nothing to say. There is no answer for that. One day I went and saw Kyabje Ling Rinpoche. I had condoms in my pocket. I prostrated and the condoms fell out. Kyabje Rinpoche saw that and told one of his attendants, “Bring that over.” And then he started blowing them up.

1:37:01.7

And he said, “Is that bloom or what is it?” But anyway, through their kindness and attitude I was brought back to dharma work. That’s what it is. That is the kindness of the guru. That is how with the desire to be happy, make sure the happiness you are projecting is true happiness. That is not easy. It is easy for me to say, but very difficult for you to figure out. It is going to take a hell of a time and a hell of effort. But it is worthwhile, because that is your first breakthrough.

1:38:21.1

The joy that you are looking for will have no fall back. The idea that I told you about the primordial buddha is not possible. It is just because of that. If you are buddha today you must be buddha tomorrow. If you are buddha today you are also buddha tomorrow. Otherwise, what guarantee do you have after putting efforts in? This is not as short effort. This is not one weekend, this is not one week, this is not one month, this is not one year, this is not even one life. This is the commitment and effort you develop in life after life. So it is a huge commitment. It is not something you are doing to do in the next hour, next week or next month or next year or next couple of years. It is beyond that. So it is very hard. But then it is the first breakthrough.

1:39:55.0

The second is easier than the first. That is the compassion. It is love. We all enjoy that. We are very happy to hear about compassion and love. That is the second point. If you put efforts in the first point, then the second and third points will almost come automatically. Maybe not, you have to put a little effort, but only very little. It is almost growing together, while you are still struggling with the first breakthrough. The second will go together. Compassion, love – we all know what it is. But our compassion, our love, is limited and conditional. Our love is conditioned and our compassion is limited. This is genuinely true, particularly for Americans. We will say, “What’s in there for me?” Who else in the world says that? Nobody. We never hear Indians say, “What’s in there for me?” because they have all this good old philosophy, Buddhist and non-buddhist, for generations. They will never say, “What’s in there for me?” But we Americans do. That indicates that our love is limited. So when you are talking about love and compassion you are talking about unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion, rather than conditioned and limited. Limited love could be attachment. Conditioned love could be desire rather than pure, genuine love.

1:42:50.9

It is give and take. I give you love and what are you going to give me? Money or what? Well, perhaps it is not the love a sugar daddy can buy. It is unconditioned and unlimited. Unconditioned, because everybody is suffering, just like we are. We now know that we suffer all the time. As much as we suffer, everybody else is suffering the same way or even worse. If you look at Syria, they are suffering much more. If you look at almost every part of the world, they are suffering much more than we do – from the economic point of view, peace point of view, and from every point of view. Honestly.

1:44:50.8

Yet we don’t appreciate our own joy and happiness, peace and harmony. We do have some, but it is much worse than it used to be. Nowadays we hear that people get shot everywhere, all the time, almost every day. There are school shootings, shopping mall shootings, and even in the movie theatres you can get shot, just because you are texting and all this. So as we suffer they all suffer. We now know that. That’s why we will have unlimited compassion, unconditioned love. I am not going to talk about that much, because that is the second principle.

1:46:13.0

You need these three principles. The first one is the most important for us, very relevant. The second one is compassion and love and the third one is wisdom. Wisdom here is very important. Again, these three principles are the foundation, the fundamental basis for whatever you do. Even if you don’t want to be a Buddhist, it doesn’t matter. But if you don’t have these principles it does matter. Honestly. Either you take refuge in Buddha or in Jesus or in Shiva. What difference does that make? In reality it has to be the right person. But it does matter if you don’t overcome the desires. It does matter if you don’t have compassion. It does matter if you don’t share love and it does matter if you don’t have wisdom.

1:47:45.7

Wisdom is important. It will tell you what the real source of our confusion is. Why are our desires so well guarded? Why is our hatred so well guarded? Why is our obsession so precious? That is the information you get through wisdom. Wisdom will simply tell you that because your ego is so precious, so important. That’s why you are guarding your ego so well. That’s really what it is. And truly it doesn’t even exist. That’s what wisdom will tell you. That is selfless, I – less, me-less. Me-lessness – I know it is wrong English – but that is the true wisdom. Selflessness is true wisdom. Egolessness is true wisdom. Something that I think is so precious, so important, much more than anybody else that I am guarding inside of me, my big director within me, my Dick Cheney. That’s what it is.

1:50:34.9

In reality, if you look deeply, we don’t have it. We don’t even have it. That is the famous Buddhist emptiness. That is wisdom. That emptiness is that that somebody that we are protecting and saving and guarding, is in reality not there. There is no one, no one. The development of wisdom will simply tell you: show me where it is. You are arguing with yourself and saying: show me where it is. Who is it? Is it me? Is it my body or my mind or what it is? Where is it? I take my body our and I take my mind out, and then where is it? Show me.

1:51:49.5

It is like saying, “I am taking the rabbit out and the donkey out and if there is an elephant, show it to me now. Where is it in the room?” Just like that you are searching for it. Wisdom will search and you will realize there is none. When you begin to realize that, the whole big lie that is guarding something precious gets busted. When that gets busted then you know you were misled. You know it was false. You were on the false path. Seeing that is knowing emptiness. That is the real wisdom. All this, me and my happiness, my this and my that, me and my and me and my turns out to be a big lie which is busted. When that is busted you begin to see the true nature and that is emptiness. And that provides us with the fundamental basis on which we do our deity yoga, our vajrayana and all of those.

1:53:37.2

Incidentally, tomorrow, as you know, happens to be the Heruka yab yum festival. Many of you have come from a distance. I am sure you have come for tomorrow. You might have come from Boston for tomorrow, not for today, right? So we are going to have the Vajrayogini self-initiation and initiation together. Unfortunately this is restricted because only the vajrayana people can come, those who had initiations before. Those who didn’t have initiations before can’t come. If you have a Maha anuyoga tantra initiation but did not have Vajrayogini initiation and you would like to have it, you are welcome tomorrow. If you didn’t have a Maha anuyoga tantra initiation you can’t come tomorrow. I was talking with some of our friends, as a matter of fact my kids. They wanted to come tomorrow and I said, “No, you can’t come tomorrow.” So that’s what it is. But those who can come, you are welcome.

1:55:14.2

We are starting around 1 pm. And then it may go all the way till 5 – 5.30 pm. Those who have not done a retreat are also welcome, because during the initiation you have to step out for maybe about an hour. Then those who have done the retreat can stay in self-initiation and other than that……and then if you have your own bell and vajra, etc, and mandala offering, you are welcome to bring it. If you don’t have it, you don’t have it. But bring yourself, and how do we do the tsoh? Did somebody buy it? Yes, so you can contribute [financially] to that. That is the commitment tsoh day. There are two in the year and tomorrow is one of them. The other one is ten days later.

1:56:49.7

The tsoh materials are already provided.

Rimpoche: Hopefully we will finish by 5 – 5.30 pm and it is so wonderful that Karla came. I requested she come and she agreed and she is going to lead. It will go between Tibetan and English mixed. The books are available with you. There are about 50. I am sure that will be enough. I guess that’s it.

1:58:11.4

Announcement – inaudible

1:58:57.9

Rimpoche: Those who like to come to the winter retreat, that is going to be mahamudra. It should have been vajrayana-restricted, but I decided not to make it restricted, because it would deprive a lot of other people of the opportunity. That means we are not talking about the vajrayana aspects of the mahamudra that much. If you think we are going to talk a lot about vajaryana completion stage, that is not going to happen. But briefly it will come, because the mahamudra root text will tell you a few words. So that’s why you have to explain a little bit. That’s what it’s going to be and that will be from February 14 – 23.

2:00:13.7

Announcments – inaudible

2:00:35.2

Rimpoche: Oh yeah, in March we are going to have the Yamantaka thing. I don’t know how to keep a secret. All right and I guess that’s it and it is a little bit too early, but I am going to close for today and it’s wonderful to see you all and those of you who are coming tomorrow, you are welcome.

End 2:01:05.2

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