Archive Result

20140525GRGRETB49

0:00:00.0

Announcement: Today’s webcast is being sponsored by the Jewel Heart Chicago Sangha and if you or your sangha would like to sponsor a webcast or contribute in any way you can go to the Jewel Heart website on their home page and click on Thanks a Million. Thank you.

0:00:32.1

Gelek Rimpoche: Thank you and welcome to the webcast this morning. I was aware of it, but I was coming down here thinking about today’s teaching and what I did not cover yesterday. So now I remember this is the webcast. So everyone welcome.

0:01:42.4

On Sunday mornings we have been talking for a whole year introducing Tibetan Buddhism in general and this year, now, in April, early May, the subject is really introducing the Mahayana aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. The reason why I did that is because people know about Buddhism quite well. Somehow those who are interested have quite good, manageable knowledge. Particularly those who are in Jewel Heart. But then again it is not very clear for many people the difference between Mahayana aspects and Theravada or Hinayana aspects. I said very clearly many times, Hinayana is not really an appropriate word to use, because the Sanskrit word Hina seems to mean “small”. Yana is vehicle. So Hinayana is the small vehicle and Mahayana is the big vehicle. By that naming some people get offended.

0:04:02.4

American Buddhists are very diplomatic. They would like to offend no one. So they would like to call it Theravada or sometimes even the “Elders’s Way” rather than Hinayana. So that’s the name difference. But in principle there is a huge difference. Hinayana and Mahayana are both definitely pure Buddhism. No questions. However, I will also like to say that the Buddhologists, particularly the western professors, and even the early Indian scholar, will say that Hinayana is the real Buddha’s teaching and Mahayana is something that was later rebuilt. They say that and they have very important reasons to say that too. But we, the Mahayana people, say that Mahayana is Buddha’s teaching, as is the Theravada. There are very important points.

0:06:28.6

From the Mahayana point of view the Hinayana teachings are the basis and foundation. The Mahayana is built on the Theravadan principles, honestly. A lot of people may not accept that or agree with that, but it is the truth. The most fundamental, the first teachings of the Buddha, like for example, the Four Noble Truths, are the base on which all of Buddha’s teachings are built, whether Theravada, Mahayana or Vajrayana. All three are built on that principle.

0:07:38.1

Somehow, if we don’t have the Four Noble Truths as the base, the Mahayana will be hanging in the air, without ground. The Vajrayana will be definitely flying in the air, no ground. So the grounding part is really that part. [Hinayana]. According to the Mahayana teachers, the Theravada teachings are the principle and base for the Mahayana path, plus the Mahayana path of love, compassion and wisdom.

0:08:30.4

By the way, there is no difference between Theravada wisdom and Mahayana wisdom. It is really wisdom. Some people misunderstand, citing that out of the four Buddhist schools or tenets the two schools from the treatises’ point of view that are called Hinayana schools and the two others are Mahayana. But that doesn’t mean that the wisdom of the Theravada principle and the wisdom of the Mahayana principle differ. The difference simply comes in because of the schools and their theories themselves. But the wisdom is the same. The very wisdom that cuts the root of samsara in the Theravada is the same wisdom which delivers the individual through the ten bhumis or stages. It is also the very same wisdom that delivers the bliss-void inseparable combination of the Vajrayana. They are the same wisdom, no difference.

0:10:29.4

The difference between Theravada and Mahayana is not on the wisdom point. If the wisdom point of the Theravada path were weaker than that of the Mahayana path, then the individual person who is meditating on wisdom, could not – or should not – cut the samsara and obtain the nirvana state. But they do. That shows that this wisdom is perfect wisdom. That is the reason why even in the Mahayana it is not compulsory that you develop the bodhimind, the ultimate love and compassion first and then receive wisdom later. That is not confirmed. Sometimes there are some who gain the wisdom of true understanding even before developing bodhimind.

0:12:02.7

Nagarjuna said,

Yang dag she tso ngön tang te

Dön dam nam pa nye gyur ne

Tang nge tim ne jig den la

Nying je kun tu kyen ne sung

Dro dön che pa pa gyur ba

Jang chub lo gye kä pa yin

Lo dang nying je gyen par sha (?????)

There are people who develop wisdom, before compassion and love, before they even enter into the Mahayana path. Also from the Mahayana point of view, those who have entered the Theravada path, become stream enterers, then one time returners, no more returners and then attain the stage of no more learning, the arhat level. Either you are stream enterer or once-returner or not returning any more – whatever the 8 different result levels of the Theravada traditions are. They have four causal and four actual result levels. In Tibetan that is called zhug – nä, entering and remaining. So there are four pairs, making eight. The first is stream enterer, entering and actual level. Then it becomes one time returning, entering and actual, no more returning, entering and actual and the arhat level, entering and actual level. An arhat is someone who has attained nirvana.

0:14:39.3

According to the Mahayana aspect, those who have entered even the arhat level, the highest level of the Theravada path, are of two paths, Sravakayana and Pratyekayana. They both have their own set of the path of accumulation, path of action, path of seeing, path of meditation and path or no more learning. Both of those, at whatever level they may be, even after they become arhats, have to enter through the Mahayana path, because the ultimate result is considered one and that is the fully enlightened level. That is the ultimate fruit, the ultimate achievement. So the Mahayana schools accept that the result or fruit is only one and that is the ultimate level of no more learning of Buddhahood.

0:16:37.6

The Theravada schools accept two final results: the no more learning of the Theravada path and the no more learning of the Mahayana path. Some even accept three goals. The point is whether ultimately there is one fruit level or two or three. The Mahayana accept one and the Theravada schools accept two or three. What is the true reality? According to what I know, it is one – (laughs) – that’s because I claim to be Mahayanin. Do I have any other reason? No, I don’t. You know why? Because I didn’t get there, so therefore I don’t know. Honestly. So if I don’t know I have to rely on some reliable information given by Buddha and his disciples and the earlier great teachers of India and Tibet. According to them, there is only one result. Even the Chinese Mahayana accepts the same thing.

0:18:24.1

I do not know what Zen accepts on the ultimate level, whether it is one, two, three, four or five. I did not, but I forgot, I didn’t pay much attention. When I was teaching Tibetan as a lecturer at the University of Michigan, Professor Donald Lopez applied for a position at U of M and he came to give an interview lecture and Professor Gomez asked him, “Is the ultimate yana one or two or three?” Then Lopez replied that according to Zen it is this and according to the White Lotus group it is that and so on. He pointed out about 20 different viewpoints and I heard all of them. I asked him, “What do you personally accept?” And that is not the right question in the academic field, because there it is more about theory and theology and what these and that people say, but not about what you personally do. But for us, it is what we do. That’s why I already gave my own answer earlier.

0:20:41.8

I don’t know, so when I don’t know I rely on the sources that I consider reliable. Why do I consider them reliable? Those sources are really debated by my great scholars for centuries and turn out to to be still standing. That’s why they are reliable. I don’t know if we have any scientific proof, whether the ultimate result is three or one and I don’t think any scientist is interested in finding that out. If they are, they will find it. Why not? Because it is the reality and therefore science will find it. But I don’t think they are interested, because nobody will give money for that. Nobody will fund that project. They don’t see any material profit in it.

0:21:58.7

So that’s the difference even on the fruit level. So the Mahayana will say that even after obtaining the ultimate arhat level of the Therada-yana, even then you have to enter the Mahayana path. But you don’t then enter it at the first of the five Mahayana paths, like the path of accumulation. You have accumulated enough merit. You don’t enter at the path of action, because you already achieved the path of action on the Theravada path. So you will enter at the path of seeing, the third path. Even there you don’t have to work so hard, because you have already seen the wisdom of emptiness. That’s what “seeing” means – you have seen emptiness. Since you have already seen it, you are at that level and that’s where you go through.

0:23:21.6

So then you work through the 10 bhumis. That is a Sanskrit word meaning earth or land – and in this context it means level or stage. So you establish your first ground or stage. And there are 10 of them and the 10th is the eleventh hour as a sentient being. The next minute you are going to be changed into an enlightened being. So that’s how they do it. Buddha Maitreya is considered by some Tibetan schools as a Buddha and by others as a Bodhisattva. In the sutras themselves he is called Bodhisattva Mahasattva. But they give you the example of Maitreya Buddha as the eleventh hour bodhisattva. In the next hour he is going to be a buddha. It is sort of the last stage of the 10th bumi. The moment you transit to the 11th, you are no longer a sentient being, but an enlightened being.

WE CAN BECOME BUDDHA

0:25:37.4

There is system dividing living beings into two categories: sentient beings and enlightened beings. According to that point of view we are all sentient beings and when you are fully enlightened we change our sentient nature into enlightened nature, total knowledge nature. That is the transition. So the pure sutra part, the five paths and ten bhumis is this path. Some people say it is the hierarchy structure of Buddhism. But it is not necessarily a hierarchy, but the individual’s levels of spiritual development. If you don’t have the level then you don’t have a marking where you are going. Even the birds flying in the air, find nothing in the sky to mark their progress, however, when they look on the ground, there are places like mountains, lakes and so on. And they become the markings for where they are getting. Similarly, the people who are on the path also do that.

0:27:42.2

We don’t normally talk about that so much. Why? Because we are not there. We just almost, how many years we have been working, like 30, 40 years, we are still at the beginning stage, according to the sutra path. Mind you, this is very strange. Traditionally, in India, according to Sanskrit and Pali sources, Buddha first generated bodhimind, then accumulated merit for three countless eons and then finally obtained the enlightened stage. They don’t even talk about 300 generations, but 3 countless eons. Can you imagine? It is almost unimaginable. This is interesting. That’s why the lower schools don’t talk about becoming buddha. That’s because it is so far, far away. There is no point talking about it, because it is way beyond our comprehension.

0:29:23.7

It is not that the Theravada doesn’t accept Buddha. They do. They don’t deny Buddha. They are all followers of Buddha. However, they don’t make it eligible for everybody – just because it is too far away. The Mahayana is the only one who says that each one of us is eligible, depending on whether you are capable or not. The Mahayana path says that each one of us has buddha nature within us. There is something which will become Buddha, a seed of becoming buddha is available within us. Therefore Mahayana introduces Buddha as the fully enlightened one, someone who we look at for as our fruit level or result level.

0:30:51.6

Then Vajrayana is part of Mahayana. In the west the division of the yanas into Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana is well known. That is commonly known and accepted. There is nothing wrong with that, but that is not how the traditions in Sanskrit, Pali or Chinese or Japanese lay it out. Actually, it comes in as Sravakayana, Pratyekayana and Buddhayana. These are the three yanas and they normally come in that way.

0:31:55.0

The Sravakas are the disciples of the Buddha. During his time, the monks were listening, taking teachings, and not only at their level of interest, the Theravada teachings, but even the Buddha’s teachings on Mahayana. But they didn’t practice it, they just passed on the teaching. That’s why one of the names for them is Sravaka – they hear it and then say it. But they don’t practice it. They hear and then repeat it.

0:32:40.1

Gon po te ring da ja nyen thö gyur

Jang chub dam pa yang dag drag par je

Jang chub pa yi dra yang rab tu gyur

De wai da jang nyen thö mi se dra (????)

Protector, today we become the Sravakas.

We listen to your teaching of the Buddhayana,

We will pass on your message of Buddhayana,

But we will remain as Sravakas.

That means they are not going to practice the Buddhayana. That is their own statement. So mostly Buddha’s disciples are called nyen thö, Sravakas. These are people like Shariputra, Maudhgalputra, Ramjor, Kunga ö (=Ananda).

0:33:53.7

Pratyekas are self-liberated sages. They appear between two buddhas, like between Amitabha Buddha’s period and Shakyamuni Buddha’s period. They fully develop in between. This maybe a little boring for you on Sunday morning, but since I am talking about the differences between Mahayana and Theravada I have to mention it somewhere, though it is a little boring.

So the Pratyekas are the self-liberated practitioners, no teacher. It is their self-obtained ordinary enlightenment, not the Buddha level. Those are the sages and sooth-sayers, many of them fall into that category.

0:35:15.4

Then the Budhdas and Bodhisattvas are part of the Buddhayana. According to the Tibetan tradition, the Buddhayana is divided into two, the pure sutra level, without mystical aspects. That relies on the five paths and ten bhumis. Then the Vajrayana paths is the mystical aspects of Buddhism. This is part of Mahayana, based on Mahayana and based on Theravada-yana. Without the Theravada principles and without the Mahayana compassion Vajrayana cannot stand by itself. It would be dangling in the air. So it is based on Theravada principles such as the Four Noble Truths, the Twelve Links of Interdependent nature. Then the Mahayana path of developing ultimate, unlimited, unconditional compassion and love and the Six Paramitas plus Four Paramitas, which makes ten Paramitas. That is a Sanskrit word. In English it is often translated as “gone beyond” or something.

0:37:06.6

All of those are the foundations for Vajrayana. On top of that the Vajrayana is built, beginning with the initiations and two stages. Our challenge here are the development stage and the completion stage. On the development stage you are imaginatively building up, and the completion will make whatever you have imaginatively built up, reality - both, you as individual living being and the environment. They become complete on the completion stage. When they are complete, they become reality. Vajrayana is known as as the quick path. We are not talking about 3 countless eons, we are not talking about hundreds and thousands of years of struggle, but about a very practical, short life time, within like 50, 60 years of struggling, you can become Buddha. You become so very close, you almost can make it. It becomes almost touchable. It almost becomes acceptable.

0:39:09.9

These are the differences and this is how I like to end today, introducing the Mahayana path briefly. Thank you.

0:39:21.6