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Good morning everybody and welcome here today, wherever you are. Maybe you are in your own beautiful room or in a gathering or wherever you may be and I am actually recording this on Monday afternoon in Ann Arbor, for the Sunday morning of the next Sunday talk you will be receiving.

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So welcome to this Tibetan Buddhism talk and I like to state that for Tibetan Buddhism, we are definitely talking about Mahayana Buddhism. Of course we are talking about Vajrayana Buddhism too. Vajrayana is very commonly available within Tibetan Buddhism. The other areas of Buddhism don’t carry Vajrayana much. Vajrayana is so important. Without it is very difficult for any individual to really obtain enlightenment. Of course the goal of Tibetan Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism, the result we hope to gain by practicing, is the Buddha level, both the mind level as well as the physical level. In Sanskrit they call it dharmakaya and rupakaya.

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Dharmakaya refers to the mental state and rupakaya refers to the physical condition. The physicasl state of the Buddha really is Buddha’s physical qualities. There are 32 major and 80 minor signs of being a buddha. In Tibetan they are known as tsen sang po – 32 signs of major achievements and 80 equivalent exemplary signs of obtaining the ultimate state. These 32 and 80 signs is what we believe Buddha appeared like when he appeared in India. The Buddha images we see today everywhere, there may be slight differences in physical shape, because of artist’s freedom and because of in which country it is made, the cultural differences, etc. Sometimes you see Buddha’s ushnisha, his hair knot, sharply pointed, like in the Thai culture, the Thai buddhas have that sharply pointed head. Then when you look at China and Tibet, the ushnisha is not that sharp and a little shorter. That’s the extra lump on the head.

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Also, when you look at the physical condition of the images made by Indian artists, they very much look like Indian physical shapes. In China the Buddha images look more like a Chinese person. That’s because of the artists and also there is an instruction in Buddhist teachings that say that it is very difficult to make a true copy of how Buddha looks like, even how tall the Buddha’s ushnisha is – whether it is hair or whatever it is. No one can really measure.

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One of Buddha’s disciples, an arhat with magical powers, went as long and as high as he could, but no matter how far he went, he still saw the Buddha’s ushnisha running longer than that. That’s why the real physical condition is very difficult to comprehend. We cannot. That is why room is given to every culture to have Buddha’s physical appearance differently. That is allowed and acceptable. And because of the 32 major and 80 minor signs, which somehow are in the physical condition, that’s why Buddha’s physical condition is considered superior to everybody who is ordinary.

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Each and every one of these qualities are the result of building the contemplative level, building positive virtuous karma. There is much more, but briefly speaking that is what I want to say about Buddha’s physical conditions in the common Mahayana or sutra Mahayana, also referred to as causal yana. When you talk about causal yana and result yana, then non-vajrayana Mahayana is considered causal Mahayana and Vajrayana is the result Mahayana. That is from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view.

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From the vajrayana point of view the qualities of the physical appearance of Buddha is very different. The costumes, the dresses, the jewel ornaments that we offer to the Buddha also differ. It is not like His Holiness always calls it: a simple Buddhist monk. It is not in that manner. It is a little in royal chronicle style. It is sort of a royal costume. When we talk about Buddha, we talk about three different layers of being a buddha. We call the mental level dharmakaya. Then the exclusive physical level is the sambogakaya in Sanskrit. That has five exclusive qualities. Then there is the manifested level, which we call nirmanakaya. All three are the physical and mental level of Buddha, the Enlightened. Enlightened means to have total knowledge. That means that anything to be known is known to you. The traditional Tibetan teachers will tell you that your mind is known to your mind. The mind of the knowing person who knows and the subject that is to be known – any phenomena, whether a sentient being or non-sentient, animate or inanimate – are equal, if you measure them.

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If you bring a yardstick and bring one yard cloth or one meter cloth, it is the same. One meter is one meter, not an inch more and not an inch less. Likewise, the mind who knows and the things to be known are equal. In other words, there is nothing left that you don’t know. That is total knowledge or all-knowingness. That is very much possible. We think it may not be possible. How can it be possible? Just simply think about it. Then you can see yourself learning more and more every day. I learnt something today and I learnt something more today and something more and something more, every day, on every subject. There is always something more to be learnt. Even the experts keep on learning more and more. Experts become better and better, because they are learning more. That means that learning is not completed. But can it be? Yes, it can. Any individual subject or everything can be learnt.

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When you have learnt everything there will be time when there is no more to learn. And that level is called total knowledge. Buddhists call that level “Buddha”. When we say Buddhahood is our goal and our object of practice, that’s what it is. Sometimes people will argue with this, saying it is like God and “I don’t think I can become God. I am not going to waste my time to become God.” People say that. That’s also true. But for a Buddhist, the goal of the spiritual path, the best achievement is considered total knowledge, so it is possible. We don’t think that Buddha was not buddha right from the beginning. No, he was like us, just like you and me. He was also somebody just like me or just like you. However, he happened to have greater opportunity than us and he happened to be putting in a little more efforts than you and I and because of that achieved more than we have.

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That’s why we have become the followers and he has become buddha. Right from the beginning, it was not like that. So every quality, every knowledge, every achievement, is dependent origination. It depends on causes and conditions and efforts. That’s why it is dependent arising. It is dependently developed, dependently arisen. That gives us an opportunity to strive for these qualities, giving us an opportunity to achieve and to become better and become the best and become wise and become the wisest. That’s the opportunity we see and that is our goal and that gives us life and hope for our purposes and that is how Buddhahood is something reachable by you and me.

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In the common Mahayana it is reachable. Vajrayana tells us that not only is it reachable, but it is reachable within our life time. It is possible. That’s why the goal is also not necessarily very long term. It doesn’t have to be hundreds of eons later, but is very practical and could be real reality within our not very long future – within very short time, manageable within the period of span of our own memory. When I talk about base, path and result, Mahayana Buddhism has total enlightenment as the result. I am emphasizing Mahayana, because the Mahayana Buddhists will say that you can become buddha and that’s your goal.

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The Theravada-yana, whether Shravaka – or Pratyeka – yana, don’t have full enlightenment as goal. Their goal is to become an arhat, to be free from suffering, from samsara and its causes and effects. So the goal simply is freedom from samsara. You see, even the goal differs between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. In Tibetan Buddhism, being Mahayana Buddhism, the goal becomes Buddhahood. Likewise, the goal of Buddhahood goes for the physical and mental aspects. Now the cause to get that is the path. That is Buddhist terminology. The things you do to achieve your goal are called very often “the path” or “vehicle” (Skt: yana). It is the vehicle you use and that depends on the result you have to get. If the result is enlightenment, total knowledge, or Buddhahood, the vehicle also has to be bigger and wiser. That’s why it is called Mahayana. If the result is simply individual freedom, then the vehicle also may not necessarily have to be that elaborate. So very often it is referred to as “self-liberation vehicle” or even earlier, in stronger times, as Hinayana, the small vehicle. But small is not necessarily weak. It is not necessarily poor or not so good. Bigger is not necessarily better.

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The thing is this: the result of enlightenment is two: physical and mental aspects. The path that delivers that also has two parts: the compassion aspects and the wisdom aspects. It is not that on the Theravada or Hinayana level they don’t have compassion. They do have tremendous compassion. But that compassion is not like the one described in the Mahayana. That’s why compassion is very large in Mahayana, in the sense that the subject is larger and the objects of compassion are larger, the commitment of the compassion is more severe. That’s why it is called the larger vehicle. So the vehicle is compassion and wisdom.

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You all know what compassion is. I talked to you so much last year. I am not going to talk more about it this year. Also, the wisdom. Wisdom is true understanding of genuine true reality. It is such an interesting thing. You should know. Wisdom doesn’t know which is not true. Wisdom does not dig into anything mystical or mysterious. Wisdom reveals the true reality. True reality is something that is truly existing, not something that is not existing. If it is not existing, then it will not be the reality. So therefore, wisdom only reveals what is true and what is really existing.

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So we do have a large number of delusions or confusions, sometimes referred to as dualistic [states], but the true reality will go beyond all of those and reveal what really the true nature is. Wisdom is going beyond confusion, going beyond misunderstanding, going beyond miscommunication. That is revealing the true and genuine reality. That’s what wisdom is really all about. You can think about very mystical points of view and make it mystical. But you can also think that it is reality, it is true and it is genuine. Both are reality. This true wisdom and genuine compassion also become comparable with our basis. The other Sunday I talked to about the basis in terms of the two truths, the relative and absolute truth.

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The relative truth is our reality that we live in, our life, the things that are happening and functioning, the karmic functioning, like good causes bring good results and negative deeds being negative results. These are relative truth. Absolute truth is absolute reality, the genuine dependent origination itself is the absolute truth. These are within us, whether we see or recognize them or not. But everything that is happening with us in life is the relative truth and that is based on our absolute truth.

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When you are revealing that, making it more clear, clearing more misunderstandings and more confusion and more ignorance and more blocks and obstacles, then what will be truly revealed? The result dharmakaya, the mental aspect, the ultimate wisdom. Absolute compassion and love-achievement will be the physical aspect. So in our ordinary level of today, with our physical and mental condition, whatever we are and whatever we have, that itself can become compassion and can become wisdom. Not only it can become, but it becomes the very truth of compassion and wisdom itself. It prevails more and more by clearing the obstacles, which are the delusions. Delusion is our negative actions and their consequences and also their causes – all of them.

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These negative emotions and functions and effects confuse us and create more misunderstanding within our mind. So we are pulling farther and farther away from the truth. So the efforts of bringing love and compassion and wisdom bring us closer to the basic basis of ourselves, our own two truths. They are brought closer and closer to my true results by these two: compassion and wisdom. And bringing them closer and closer is clearing our obstacles. They are the consequences of our negative deeds. We talked a lot about negative emotions. They create negativities. These negativities bring us negative consequences. These pull us away from the truth. They separate us from the truth, pull us farther and farther away. When we are looking at the truth, they will block us from seeing the truth and they become obstructions. That’s why we call them obstacles or blocks.

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Our real challenge becomes to clear those obstacles, purifying them, pinpointing beyond them. All of those are different ways of getting is. Simple purification will be making it lighter and lighter and they become thinner and thinner and lesser and lesser effective. Then there are ways of doing it. I don’t mean you don’t need to purify, but there are ways of cutting across.

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Cutting across is not necessarily cutting layer by layer, and not necessarily removing skin by skin, but cutting from the root in a very big way. When you cut a tree from the root, the tree will go. Also if you keep on cutting the leaves and flowers and branches and skin and finally make an attempt to get the stump that will also let the tree go. These are two different ways. On the spiritual path also there are two different ways. Layer by layer, removing one by one, purifying this and purifying that, that’s one way of doing it. Then the other is by looking at the total picture.

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Looking at them in the total picture and totally challenge them together, that will be working smart. Layer by layer, one by one, trying to purify and doing all this will be working hard. In our case, unfortunately, we have to engage in both. We try to engage both, because in case we are not able to make it in the smart working way, at least we have something done layer by layer. It is almost like the hare and tortoise story that you get told as a kid. The hare does it the hare’s way, the tortoise does it the tortoise’s way and the tortoise will normally win because it is working hard. The hare will say, “For me it is a matter of jumping, so you just relax and do something else, rather than what you are supposed to do.” So the hare always loses. But in our case we can’t afford to lose. Therefore, we need to do the hare style of quick jumping, as well as the tortoise style of putting in constant effort of moving.

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So we need both, unfortunately, because the result that we hope to gain is hard to gain. It is difficult, great, but difficult. Every effort we can put in we have to put in. Each and every effort will have to be focused on both, compassion as well as wisdom. So all our endeavor, whatever we do, we must gear it towards that achievement. So the motivation is the first that we have to set to obtain that very enlightenment.

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Not only you set your motivation, but you put all your efforts towards that. Motivation and effort must go together, otherwise you motivate one thing, but put your energy into something else, which probably achieves nothing. So both, motivation and effort must be directed towards the one purpose, and that is, achieving our result. Practice is nothing important, if you can’t get any result. The purpose of the practice is not discipline or anything. Everything is to achieve our result.

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The purpose of morality is not just to be moral, but to achieve some goodness for ourselves as well as for others. The purpose of generosity is not just simply to become rich, but to generate benefit not only for yourself, but for others. The purpose of patience is not just simply not to get irritated or frustrated, but to achieve our purposes. The purpose of enthusiasm is not just to overcome laziness, but to achieve our goal. So it is with concentration and wisdom. That’s why the motivation and efforts must go together for a purpose and one purpose only. Every single thing you engage in, whether you sit down and meditate or whether you say mantras, or whether you do circumambulations or prostrations, or whether you are kind to somebody or improve your own quality, everything must be done for the purpose of achieving enlightenment.

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When you do that, your forces are joining together. When the forces are put together you can get the result. So that’s what it is. What I want you to take home out of today’s talk is this:

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Our result, our hope, our goal, is to become fully enlightened. Enlightened here means two: the physical and the mental aspects, both together. If you are physically fully enlightened and mentally not, then it is not right. Vice versa, the other way too, mentally enlightened and physically not right, that’s also not right. So you do need both, physical aspects and mental aspects together.

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To achieve these two together you have to have compassion and wisdom combined together. To achieve that you have to work on what you are: relative truth as well as absolute truth. This is the base on which we are functioning, the path we are taking – compassion and wisdom and then the result we hope to get is the physical and mental aspects of enlightenment together, simultaneously. So that’s what it is.

Also the difference between Theravada and Mahayhana result-wise. Path-wise there is also a big difference. Compassion as the path is only in the Mahayana path. Also remember, Vajrayana is part of Mahayana. When you talk about the three yanas, Pratyeka-yana, Sravaka-yana and Mahayana, then you talk about Hinayana and Mahayana. Hinayana has two, Pratyeka-yana, Sravaka-yana and Mahayana is the bodhisattvas’ way or the Buddha’s way.

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That also has two: the pure sutra aspect and the vajrayana. So the Vajrayana is nothing separate from the Mahayana. It is also known as the result-yana. So that’s it and I would like to say thank you.

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