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20140323GRAAETB44

0:00:04.3

Good morning and welcome to this Sunday talk. Since this year we started these talks on Tibetan Buddhism I was only able to speak to you on two Sundays. The first Sunday happened to be the 10th March, the day I was kicked out of Tibet, or rather, I ran away. Nobody kicked me out, but had I stayed I would probably have been tortured. So I ran away.

Last Sunday happened to be the month of Buddha’s Magical Competitions. The Tibetans celebrate this as mönlam and I did talk to you about the reasons and what the mönlam was all about. A lot of people do talk a lot about the mönlam these days and it is celebrated almost everywhere where there are Tibetans or Tibetan Buddhist centers. Even in New York City, our good old friend Bob Thurman always has a concert for Tibet House benefit, every year in the same month and I talked to you about the magical contest that is the reason for this, last Sunday.

So we only had two Sunday talks in 2014. Now the actual subject of Tibetan Buddhism that I am supposed to talk about for the rest of the Sundays. I have been thinking about whether I should talk to you about Tibetan Buddhism in accordance with the philosophical treatises’ way or simply talk more the normal, practical lam rim way.

0:03:55.9

For the last one year I basically talked to you the lam rim way, so it is now appropriate to talk the treatises’ way. Particularly, I thought I need to speak a little bit about the Mahayana, which is very familiar terminology for many of you and then Theravada-yana and what that’s all about. That’s what I am thinking of talking to you. When you talk about the treatises, sometimes different schools, such as early Indian Buddhist schools, like the Madhyamaka, the Middle Path, or the Mind Only school and all their ideas and differences, that’s one way of thinking, but that maybe a little too philosophical for Sunday talks.

0:05:42.1

Before I even talk about the Mahayana-Hinayana issue, what is Buddhism? What is the difference between the great earlier Indian other traditions and Buddhism? Not only the early Indian tradition, but there are lots of other Asian traditions. I know nothing about Judeo-Christian traditions, so better not say anything, because it will clearly show how little I know, or how much I know. So the best thing is to say nothing. But the early Indian schools I could talk about, but if I do that it will become too philosophical. But the thing is this, whether it is the earlier or later schools or whatever we are seeking, as lot of people in the western hemisphere are seeking something. In Asia it is tradition, almost all the great Asian traditions come from India. There are many of them. Many come from China.

0:07:48.6

I was telling you, when I first came to the United States, in the beginning I went to Omega and Mirabai was there and Ram Das. I met him there and he is a wonderful person and I just asked Mirabai how he is doing and she says he is in his 80s and doing very well in Maui, Hawaii. That’s very good news and we all send our respects and regards. We wish that Ram Das not only remains long, but also may be very active in helping people. That’s my wish and our people’s wish. Mirabai is there today and we are very happy to have you. Thank you. We are good old friends. Mirabai came and visited me in my old house in Cherry St. It was a nice house. I enjoyed it and I am also glad to have John there now. He bought it from me.

0:09:44.6

So Baba Ram Das, also known as Dr. Richard Alpert, told me, “You are from the home of the spiritual path.” I mentioned that last Wednesday [in a talk at the University of Michigan]. I thought about it, “Interesting”. I never realized that the old Tibet was the home of the spiritual path. When I really think about it now, then yes, very definitely. Not for so long – about a thousand years. It preserved all the teachings of Buddhism, rather than that of the Charvakas or different schools. That’s why the Tibetans have Buddhism as a gift for anybody. The Tibetans were able to keep it. When we came out of Tibet, in one way it was very sad and terrible and so on, we lost our country and were separated from parents, teachers, monasteries, colleagues and so on, but on the other hands certain people have certain missions.

0:11:29.2

That includes His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, in my opinion. He has been able to present Buddha’s teaching to people such as yourselves for your consideration. Remember, every religion that is coming from us – like me or Ram Das, Mirabai or that type of persons, I don’t mean us Tibetans only, and let’s presume I put myself into the category of genuine religious teachers, whatever the presentations are, they are for your consideration. They are not ordering you or forcing you to do them. Sometimes we are in the habit of thinking, “When they tell you religiously, you have to do it religiously.” It is not. It is for your consideration only. If you like it, take it. If you don’t like it, throw it away. You only waste your time and attention. Even Buddha himself said,

“Don’t buy it, because I, the Buddha, said so. Buy it because you like it and if it is useful for you. If you find it is real, take it. If you buy gold, cut it, rub it against a stone, burn it with fire and if you find it is true, genuine gold, then you buy it. Otherwise throw it away.”

0:13:54.5

In those days there was no 999 stamp. Nowadays we just look for the 999 stamp or the 222 or 18 karat stamp. Actually we trust too much into the stamps and papers and all that. And we get into a lot of trouble too. But in those days they didn’t have that. So Buddha said, “Before you buy, cut, rub and examine and when you convinced, buy it.” That means, today listen and think about it and figure out if it is going to be useful for you or not. Whether you agree or not, that might not be a big issue. But for many of us to agree is important. We like to hear something that we are familiar with, something that we have a prefabricated idea already and when what you hear tallies with that we shake our head and if it doesn’t tally we go, “What are you talking about?”

0:15:25.0

But the thing is, Buddhism or any other tradition, has as the first step learning. We went through that last year. Learning is the first step. If you don’t learn, you can’t think on the subject. If you can’t think you can’t meditate. The steps are learning, analyzing or thinking or contemplating and then meditating. These are the three steps, whatever the subject you are approaching.

0:16:35.6

And the subject you are approaching is basically Buddha’s way of leading the individual from samsara to nirvana. Life after life, without freedom circling and functioning – that is basically what’s referred to as samsara. But if you say, “Is this samsara?” a lot of people will point at any suffering and say “Samsara.” Many people say that and it is true, nothing is wrong. But what is the deepest point of samsara within each individual? When I say “my samsara”, what am I referring to?

0:17:53.0

Maybe it depends on how deeply you are thinking. If you are thinking a little lightly, then it is the sufferings. There are things you want to have function and they don’t function. Things that you don’t want to happen, are happening. What you want you won’t get, what you don’t want, there are plenty of them circling in front of you.

One friend of mine, a great Tibetan teacher, who wrote a little poetry, said, “When I was young I was admiring all these biscuits and I always wanted them and didn’t get them. Now that I am grown up, all these biscuit tins are circling around my body but can’t find my mouth.” He doesn’t want to eat, but there are lots of biscuit tins circling around. That’s exactly what happens. You run after what you want and try your best and you can’t get them. You get rejection after rejection. Then what you don’t want, there are plenty of them circling around you.

0:19:29.3

You may call that samsara. That is sort of a little light way of looking at. But a deeper way – not necessarily the deepest – of looking at samsara will be the continuation of the identity. We identify ourselves, saying “It’s me”. That identity is the combination of my body and mind. That’s my identity, honestly. And the continuation of that identity, identifying an entity called “me”, that is my samsara. Contaminated continuation of identity, without choice or control. That is the real samsara. Because of that, everything is happening. Because of “me” comes “my”. That’s why everything becomes existent. Deeper down, that is what you are referring to when you talk about samsara.

0:21:40.3

The discontinuation of that is really what we are looking for. I will not say that this is necessarily nirvana, but to be free from that is nirvana. According to the Buddhist logos samsara is suffering and nirvana is peace. All the sufferings are there because of the contaminated continuation of identity. And when you become free of that, the contaminated becomes uncontaminated. The uncontrolled becomes free choice. And then samsara becomes nirvana. Suffering becomes peace. That is the object or goal introduced by the spiritual paths that we follow.

I purposely used the plural, because it’s not only the Buddhist schools, but a lot of traditional Indian early schools look for that. That’s their aim. So that is one of the goals. But I think every tradition, from the Indian traditions, Hindu or Buddhist different schools, as you always remember, Buddhism in early India had four different schools, not like the Tibetan four sects. These schools differ, because of that identity, the contaminated continuation of identity or rather entity – when you are recognizing that entity, the schools will change their thoughts. That’s why four different thoughts will come. That’s why four different schools are there in Buddhism, at least.

But all of them are true. No one is wrong, including the earlier five pre-Buddhist schools. None of them are wrong. It depends on how deep you go. That identity has layers of its own faith. When one layer comes out, another layer appears. Each school will deal with that and that’s why these different schools are there. It is not that one is superior to the others. It is almost like one individual has to deal with all these different layers, because the trick of the entity will show on that identity those different layers. So when you say there are four different schools, don’t think that three are wrong and one is right.

So when you say there are four different schools, don’t think that three are wrong and one is right. We always think that way. We think that if it is truth it has to be one truth. But Buddha always says that are two truths. That’s very funny. Buddha said there are two truths, relative truth and absolute truth. No 1, it gives tremendous amount of room for everything. No 2, it is reality. Number 3, there is no third truth at all.

0:27:26.7

jigten jin pai zhen la ma sen pa

den pa mi nyi nyi ja dom bar ze

ka zhin kun tsob de zhin dön dam de

Den pa sum ba nam ya ma che sol

This refers to Buddha as total knowledge. Total knowledge is aware of the two truths, relative and absolute. A third truth never existed. That’s what this verse says. But Buddhists talk about the Four Noble Truths too! So you get a fourth without the third! That is a joke. Don’t take this seriously. The two truths is something and the four truths is something else. You can’t mix them up. If you do, you are mixing apples and oranges.

0:28:35.0

When you think on those lines, there are only two, relative and absolute truths. There is no third and no in between. I was accused in the beginning by lots of my friends, when I came to the United States, that I have no gray area, either I was black or white, no gray. Probably it’s because of this: either relative or absolute and no third. Nothing beyond and no gray in between. That’s what it is.

0:29:28.7

We talked about the Four Noble Truths last year and this year we should talk about the Two Truths. This is the base on which we function. There is base, path and result. These are the three important norms in your spiritual practices. On what ground are you standing? What are you hoping to get? How are you going to get it? So the traditional way of talking is: base, path and result. Without knowing the base on which we stand we lose our own ground. When we don’t have a ground we will fly. We are flying all the time, not grounded. I used to say that for years: we have to be grounded, grounded. People keep on asking me: what do you mean by grounded? In one sentence I can’t tell, honestly. But you really have to be grounded.

0:30:52.2

Once you are grounded, you are on a solid base. From there you can go or sit or jump or fly or whatever you want to do. There is a base to which you can return. When there is no base you cannot return. Remember, during the meditation course we talk about that: you have to have a base to which you come back. We gave you the example of capturing a bird, putting it in prison and the bird always wants to fly out. Take it on a boat in the middle of the ocean, let the bird go and the bird will fly and fly and get tired and there is no place to sit down and so it will come back.

0:32:04.3

Just like that everybody needs a base. On the spiritual path the base is the two truths. On the basis of the two truths there are two paths – two ways of doing it. There is wisdom and compassion. What you hope to get – the result is the dharmakaya and rupakaya, the mental aspects and physical aspects of enlightenment. So the two bases are the two truths, the two paths are wisdom and compassion and the two results are the mental and physical aspects of total enlightenment whether you call that “Buddha” or whatever, it is the best spiritual results human beings can get.

0:33:22.6

The base on which you work means you are grounded. Otherwise you are not grounded. When you are not grounded, then a) you don’t know right and wrong properly. Many of them become questionable and you have to trust somebody and when somebody is telling you something you think “Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t”. You have doubt for so many years. Finally you decide to follow, however, you don’t know exactly where you are going and what you are doing and that happens when you are not grounded. When you are grounded, then you know where you stand and you know what your path is and what you hope to get.

0:34:42.9

Many of us right now, when asked what we hope to get from our spiritual practice, won’t know exactly. We have no pinpointing of what we are looking for and what we want. We don’t have that. So now you should establish that. “I want these mental aspects and these physical aspects.” And you really want them together, not separately. You want mind and body in union, otherwise funny things happen. All weird things are happening because of that.

It is very interesting when you think about union, having them together. There is the union of the physical and mental aspects, then there is also the union of compassion and wisdom and the union of relative and absolute truth. Union is represented by the yab-yum, the male and female yidams standing together. Traditionally, this used to be secret. Now there is no secret. Everybody knows everything. Pictures are everywhere. From the art point of view this has appeared, as well as from the mystical point of view. So whatever the way it came, that’s what happened. But union is not necessarily the sex aspect – though it is the male and female standing there – but the union is at the result level the physical and mind together. In other words, when you have fully achieved your result your mind and body become one. I used to say they are on one frequency. But they are together. Whatever the mind functions, the body functions, whatever the body functions, the mind functions. Wherever the mind functions, the body functions. Wherever the body functions the mind functions.

0:37:44.3

It is also when, what and where all together. When we are talking about union, that’s what it is all about.

One time I remember, it was in New York about 25 years ago, in St. John the Divine Church. The Grateful Dead were bringing the tantric college monks of Gyütö to a performance. Our Sonam was the chanting master then. I don’t know whatever the reason, but I was asked to speak. Maybe because I belong to Gyütö. This was sort of managed by Professor Thurman. Richard Gere was also there. Thurman told me, “You are going to speak. I am going to bring candles and you say the migtsema and light a candle.” I used to know Thurman in India too. He used to read with me and all that. But then I had not seen him for a long time. Richard Gere was the MC and I did not know him well at that time and he announced me as the next speaker and he was worried that I speak too long and he said, “Only two minutes, only two minutes”. I was climbing up the stage when Thurman came running and pulled me down. So I fell from the steps. He said, “They forgot the candles. So don’t light your candle and don’t talk about the candles.” There were supposed to be a thousand candles. So I said “Okay” and I spoke about the frequencies of body and mind a little bit and their activities and wherever the mind is the body functions and so on. Our way of functioning of body and mind frequency and that of the enlightened beings differs.

0:40:49.6

I only said a few words, because it was only supposed to be two minutes. And I was quite new in the United States and then I walked away. Richard said, “Oh, this was shorter than I expected.” When I came down the steps there was a big African American gentleman, wearing red colored robes. He gave me a big, fat kiss on my lips and I didn’t know what’s going on. He said, “This was a very good explanation. You speak like a Southern Methodist minister. You should have training.” I was not even sure and asked, “Is this a compliment?” He said, “Of course it is.”

My understanding is that the Judeo-Christian tradition says that God is everywhere because God knows everything. When you know everything your mind is functioning everywhere. What you know you are. That means your physical body is there too. They don’t function like we do. We have to drag our physical body with something over there. Until then we don’t get there. Our mind can sit here and think, “Tokyo, Beijing, Hongkong, Kuala Lumpur, the Indian Ocean, Kazakhstan” or wherever. Mind can do that. The physical body has to go there. Even the Australian border people have to fly a couple of hours to get there and then they only have two hours to search, right? That’s what we have been hearing in the news. But when you have the same frequency, then wherever the mind is there is the body.

0:43:52.8

That is the beauty of the union of body and mind. There is change of frequency at that time. So wherever your body is your mind is and wherever your mind is your body is. Wherever your knowledge is your presence is there. That’s where the statement “God is everywhere” comes in. I don’t know whether I spelled it out that way or not, but this gentleman understood and he happened to be a cardinal. I have never seen those red colors. He gave me a big fat kiss. He was sitting right in front and he walked up to me. That’s maybe 25 years ago, 1987-88. So it is the union and that’s what we hope to get. In order to get that, the way you get there is through compassion and wisdom, which have to be unionized. Is that a word?

Audience: Yes, but it means something different, like the UAW

Rimpoche: Okay. That’s fine. That’s what I was thinking – with less restrictions. I am just joking. Anyway, in order to unionize the path, you have to unionize the base. Relative and absolute. In reality, the absolute is the absolute truth, but the relative is the aspects of the absolute truth. So this is somehow what we have to know. Knowing just the words is not good enough. You really have to know it deeply. That’s why you hear that it is the manifestation of this and the manifestation of me, of I, of the object of refuge, of God of karma and all this you hear, because the absolute truth manifests in the relative truth. When you are getting deeper you sort of sort out the relative truth and get into face of the absolute truth. When you are getting to the absolute truth, that means [out of] compassion and wisdom – the wisdom part you are also already getting deeper, which means dharmakaya, the mental aspect of enlightenment, is already being revealed to you. And that’s how one has to move on one’s spiritual path, otherwise it will be very difficult. One by one, if you keep on learning lessons, then these are good learning lessons but you never learn at all. You keep on having good learning lessons all the time. We don’t have that much time or not even that much life. So this is a very wise way of moving on the spiritual path.

0:48:32.8

Remember, don’t work hard, work smart. That’s exactly how you move on your spiritual path. I will have something of a continuation to this recorded for you, because next Sunday I will be in New York and may not be able to do it live. I will record it here tomorrow and I will get to New York before the weekend.

0:49:21.8

I have been asked to do a Yamantaka initiation in Tibet House by Tibet House and the Nalanda Institute. Sunday we teach the Yamantaka Shortest Possible Sadhana in Jewel Heart in New York, for about a couple of hours. Normally the Yamantaka Sadhana teachings take about two weeks and in Tibet, when I received them, we were starting at around 12 noon every day and finished at about 6 or 7 pm for about two weeks. Now it is such a time that we do the shortest possible sadhana in the shortest possible time, a couple of hours. Anyway I am looking forward to seeing you and thank you so much. It is so wonderful that you came Mirabai.

Do you want to say something to my friends? Please come and say something.

Mirabai: What can I say, but one of the great life gifts is long friendship. It is one of those moments when you know absolutely that karma exists, when you meet somebody who you know you have known for so long and then it ripens over time and you have been such an inspiration for me for so long, I appreciate you so much. That’s really all I can say: cultivate your dear friendships, always.

0:52:27.4 Rimpoche: Thank you 0:52:31.2 Four Immeasurables