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20140907GRAAETB60

0:00:07.5 Good morning everybody. As you notice and remember we are still talking about the Mahayana Buddhism. Basically, it is common in the west to say that this Buddhism is Mahayana and that Buddhism is not Mahayana. They themselves will say yes and no. But the whole idea is individual. We ourselves will recognize whether our practice is Mahayana or not. It doesn’t depend on what any tradition claims nor on what somebody else says it is. When we say “Introduction to Mahayana” we try to see the difference between the usual, normal, commonly known Theravada tradition and Mahayana. That’s why you have these 10 different instructions.

0:01:58.8 The first one is drubpa rang gin go wo la dam pa – the nature of the practice itself. We already covered that, so I m not going to repeat. In that we talked about bodhimind. That is the gateway to Mahayana. It is nothing more or less than unconditioned, unlimited, ultimate love and compassion. That is bodhimind. Maybe I should mention here: bodhimind is really the love/compassion aspects. You can’t get no better compassion, you can’t go beyond bodhimind. Even Buddha – Buddha’s compassion I can’t say is bodhimind, but it is equal to bodhimind. Nothing can get better. That’s the love/compassion aspect.

0:04:04.8 Love/compassion alone doesn’t complete bodhimind. It also has the wisdom aspect. The combination of wisdom and love/compassion makes absolute bodhimind. Remember, bodhimind is divided into two: relative and absolute. With compassion it becomes absolute bodhimind. When it becomes oneness within one individual person then the essence compassion becomes wisdom and the essence of compassion becomes wisdom. When it is interpersonalized within the individual both of them are there and one becomes the essence of the other. You very often hear the Tibetan expression: tong nyi nyin je nying po che – translated literally: the essence of wisdom – love/compassion.

This is not saying that the real wisdom is love/compassion, nor is it saying that the real love/compassion is wisdom. It really means that love/compassion and wisdom become inseparable within the individual. When you trace that individual’s compassion, and then you trace their wisdom it is compassion. There is no separation, no duality. Nobody uses that expression here, however, for you to understand better I am using this expression. There is no duality between these from the interpersonal point of view. You cannot say that there is no duality between compassion and wisdom, because there is. But when you are at the interpersonalized level then compassion becomes wisdom and wisdom becomes compassion. That’s why the expression says the essence of compassion is wisdom and the essence of wisdom is compassion.

0:07:54.4 Along with that we talk about the Two Truths, the absolute and relative truth. And even if you talk about bodhimind you have both of those, relative and absolute truth. So when talking about bodhimind and the two truths, that is the nature of the practice.

0:08:31.2 Then the thought and principle on what you practice is the Four Noble Truths. We talked about that already. But there is nothing to be finished. Whatever we have talked about earlier, that builds the base and when you are doing practice it comes up all the time. It is not like “I have done it and so I pack up and go.” It is that you can compartmentalize them and put them in a box, label it, push it aside and catalog it and then put it in the Smithsonian. It doesn’t work that way here. It always pops up, right? So that’s the Four Noble Truth, the principle in which you function. The words in Tibetan are drub pai mig pa den pa zhi la dam pa. mig pa is the subject or object, and the principle on which you base that is the Four Noble Truths. You will also notice that here we talk about that quite differently than we did earlier.

0:10:11.0 By the way, it is interesting to notice that the 16 different wrong understandings of the Four Noble Truths are very much based on Maitreya Buddha’s uttaratantra, not the abhisamayalankara. In the normal lam rim teachings that is not emphasized so much and even in the abhisamayalankara it isn’t. The abhisamayalankara is Maitreya’s synopsis of Buddha’s teachings on prajnaparamita, which is wisdom. There are the direct and indirect messages of wisdom in the prajnaparamita combined together. The direct message is wisdom and the indirect message is love/compassion. That’s why even the prajnaparamita text itself has direct and indirect meanings. The direct meanings are the wisdom aspects, the indirect aspects are the love/compassion aspects.

0:12:52.7 Maitreya Buddha’s synopsis-words are directly mentioning compassion in direct words. It is a little confusing here. People can get easily confused. When Buddha taught the prajnaparamita wisdom, he taught the direct and indirect teachings simultaneously. The direct teachings are the words he said like “Form is empty, emptiness is form. Emptiness is no other than form”, etc. So he is talking about emptiness directly. Meanwhile, by saying “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form” he is also talking about form. With regard to form there are heaps or collections. There are physical aspects, sound aspects, smell aspects, taste and touch aspects. So all that will come indirectly.

0:14:29.5 More or less the whole text directly talks about emptiness and indirectly talks about love/compassion. Maitreya Buddha’s synopsis changes that around and directly talks about compassion and love and that’s why. The hidden message is made open – unhidden by Maitreya Buddha. That’s why we are able to talk all this directly today.

0:15:19.2 Now we are at the drub pai ten kön chog sum la dam pa, the third of the 10 instructions: the base on which, the witness or object to whom you pray. And that’s the Three Jewels. That is the western translation, honestly. In the original Tibetan they say kön chog sum, the three most important scarce ones. These are not openly available – kön and the best is chog. Somehow in the west that has become the Three Jewels, Buddha Jewel, Dharma Jewel and Sangha Jewel. They are jewel-like. There are examples like that, but somehow that was picked up and now it is commonly known as the Three Jewels in the western language. In Tibetan it was just the best three scarce things. I don’t think the expression “Three Jewels” was commonly used in Tibetan, either in dharma language nor common practice language. But somehow everybody knows it that way in English. So here we talk about Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

0:17:47.6 For the Buddha, the idiom we use in Tibetan is sang gye. Sang means clearing. What has that person cleared? The two obstacles. One of them is the obstacles to total knowledge. The word Buddha is borrowed language for me. It is Sanskrit. What I understand is sang gye. If somebody puts a plastic bag over your head and you can’t breathe and if you pull that off, you have cleared that blockage for your breathing. In that way, sang stands for something that is cleared. What is cleared? The two obstacles. When I say obstacle to total knowledge, that means that total knowledge is the measurement for perfection, not from the learning point only, but also the development point. To be a perfect person, nothing can go beyond that. It is the ultimate achievement. Gye means total knowledge. Just by removing the obstacles you gain total seeing, total knowledge. I hesitate to use the word “knowledge”, because some people may think, “Oh, that’s just knowledge. It is education.” Don’t dismiss it that way. If you do so you are undermining yourself, your own future.

0:22:02.7 When you talk about Buddha, on the one hand we talk about the historical Buddha, but simultaneously we also talk about our own future Buddha. The result Buddha is the result refuge. The result refuge is our goal, it is our own objective. Why do we put efforts in? Why do we try to make ourselves better? Just because we want to be better and we want to be the best. The best is the Buddha state and that’s not just from the Buddhist point of view. That is an important point. You may say, “Buddhists say that Buddha is best”. Maybe. But in reality to me, when you become best, whether you call that Buddha or not, you become Buddha. That’s why I have no problem – and some Buddhist friends may get upset with me sometimes when I say this – with sitting in the church during the service and that Almighty to me has to be Buddha. Buddha is that. The best of all, whatever you call it, it is Buddha. And it doesn’t have to be called Buddha and you don’t have to be Buddhist to become the best of all. So it has gone beyond the word – identification.

0:24:24.5 Buddha doesn’t belong to Buddhists. Maybe it is Buddhist terminology, to identify something. You are identifying actually the best that any individual human being can achieve. I did use ‘human being’ purposely, because it is a little to get that through other than human states. That is the goal; that is the purpose. When you talk about Buddha you are not talking about an exhibition, saying, “That is Buddha, he is has an ushnisha, that extra lump on the head and he has big ears.” We are pointing out, “What does that extra lump mean?” It means the collection of millions of merit and virtues. What do the extra long ears mean? They can hear beyond our imagination. Besides that, at the Buddha level, the way and how body, speech and mind function, is very different from our way of functioning. Our body, speech and mind functioning is that we have to touch and feel through the body. Trough speech we have to say things and the mind knows. But at the Buddha level the body can think, understand and speak. Speech can think and feel and speak. Mind can understand, touch, and speak. So it is the same functioning with no separation. Mind is body, body is mind, right there. It has gone beyond the law of physics – completely.

0:28:03.7 That’s why it is possible to buddhas to have total knowledge, of what has happened a million years ago and what will happen in a million years along with the changes what is going to be and where it is going to settle. They not only know, but they know past, present and future simultaneously together. That is what we call “clearing obstacles”. That is what we mean by total knowledge. I used the words “million years”, just as a number to hold in our minds. Actually it goes way beyond that – infinitely, in terms of time and space – infinite existences. It is way beyond our imagination. That is what it is. It is just not a Buddhist thing. That’s what it is.

0:29:46.7 When you look in other tradition, I know nothing. So I can’t say much. But they will say, “It is God” and they describe that as something we cannot touch, cannot talk about, cannot measure, cannot think about it. So it is inconceivable, unimaginable. So we leave it there, because our human mind cannot comprehend beyond that. If we try to we get totally lost. So that’s why they leave it there. That’s really what it is. Bottom line.

But there is one difference. As far as I understand, God is God and we are we and we have nothing to do between that. God is the creator, who creates and make judgment and we follow. But in Buddhism we create our own future God or Buddha. So we are responsible. And the relationship between Buddha and the practitioner is that the practitioner will become Buddha.

Other than that, that’s that. It’s the same thing. No one can say, if there is God, that’s not Buddha. No one can say that Buddha is not God. That’s the reality. That’s not new age – I am sorry.

0:32:37.2 We talked about the 8 qualities of Buddha last time. I already counted them last time and better not recount them all now, because then I will not go down anywhere in the subject, except you may have questions about the 7th and 8th – own benefit and others’ benefit. When you become a Buddha you have accomplished not only your purposes but also the purpose of others. That doesn’t mean that everybody has been freed and has become a Buddha. It means that you have established your own perfection state, but you also have the capability of helping and serving others. So out of the 8 qualities some are own benefit and some are benefit for others. I did not emphasize the knowledge aspects and compassion aspects in details. I did not talk about the capability aspects in detail, because this is just the introductory level. But your total knowledge, your total understanding, your dharma knowledge will tell you that.

I just gave you a brief example of knowledge and one of compassion last time and a very brief example of power. So probably Buddha’s aspects are covered with that.

0:35:36.6 Now the Dharma. I thought I would finish the Dharma today but it seems we didn’t start that last week at all. The first quality is that the Dharma is inconceivable. What does that mean?

According to the ibdindia.org handout Dharma is inconceivable,

“…which means that the Dharma is inaccessible to the analysis of the four extremes by words or conceptual consciousness. In other words, the Dharma is free from the four extremes which are (1) the extreme of being truly/ultimately existent, (2) the extreme of being non-existent, (3) the extreme of being truly/ ultimately both existent and non-existent and (4) the extreme of being truly/ultimately neither existent nor non-existent.”

0:38:19.7 I think it is simple, honestly. When you look at the uttaratantra,

sam me nyi me tog me pa/ dra se nyin pö cho ne kyi….

The Dharma is inconceivable, free of “the two”, and free of the conceptual awareness. It is pure, luminous and the aspect of an antidote; it is that which is [freed from attachment], that which frees from attachment; it is imbued with the very characteristics of the two truths.

(Translation: ibdindia.org)

Actually, inconceivable means sam me, unthinkable. It has gone beyond our normal words. There was one of the Buddha’s qualities: dra tog gi chö to me pa [3. not realized by other conditions], meaning it is not expressible by words and concepts and thoughts. It is the same thing here. It has gone beyond that. The example is that the division into the 4 extremes, the yes extreme, the no extreme and both and neither. That’s the four things they are talking about that. So it has gone beyond that. In other words, the Dharma as being inconceivable means that sometimes words cannot express and thoughts cannot conceptualize enough. There are not enough words to describe it and there are not enough thoughts to conceptualize it. It has gone beyond that – sam me or sam du me pa. That is the first quality.

0:41:05.7 The second quality is: Free of “the two”. They [ibdindia.org] put in brackets: uncontaminated karma and afflictions. I am not sure whether that translation is correct or not. That might not refer to natural karma and emotional-oriented karma. That’s what this is talking about as “uncontaminated karma”. That is karma that not necessarily contaminated. Karma is neutral. It is neither contaminated nor uncontaminated. When it becomes linked with positive needs it becomes uncontaminated. When it becomes linked up with negative needs and deeds and thoughts then it becomes contaminated. I think Gyaltsab-je in the nam she nying je [commentary on Abhisamayalankakara] did use that. But I think Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa, in his Golden Rosary [commentary on Abhisamayalankara] used it differently. That’s why I don’t want to conclude calling these two “uncontaminated karma and afflictions”. I am not sure. The easiest way is to go with “relative and absolute”. Two is two, as long as you can count two (laughs). It is okay. There is nothing wrong with saying “uncontaminated karma and afflictive emotions-influenced karma”.

0:45:01.7 According to Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa here, inconceivable here is gone beyond words and conceptualizations. It is also what happens when the perfect person directly encounters the perfect meditative state. The perfect person means the person on the 3rd path and above. They can directly encounter Dharma. Neither thoughts can conceptualize and divide that, nor can words describe it. Yet it is totally existent for the direct encounter at the special or arya level. That is the path of seeing. What are you seeing? This. Remember the five paths: path of accumulation, path of action, path of seeing, path of meditation and path of no more learning. Hinayana or Mahayana it is the same thing. The path of accumulation is where we are. I mean we are not there yet, but we are accumulating merit. The path of action is purification and accumulation both together. On the path of seeing you will be able to see this inconceivable Dharma directly. That’s why when you say “inconceivable” it means it has gone beyond words and conceptualizations.

0:47:39.0 In our mind, gone beyond words is fine but we feel it is not beyond our thoughts. We can think about it. Here they are telling us that this inconceivable Dharma has not only gone beyond the words, but even the thoughts. But then there are some who see it and they are called “special” or “specialists”. You can say “special people” but actually it’s nothing special, but they are specialists who are looking in that and who see it. That’s what ‘Dharma is inconceivable’ really means. That tells us something. 0:48:49.3 True Dharma is really wisdom. Indirectly that is what this really tells you.

Back to the second: Free of the two. Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa says to that: sag je chi lä nyön chi rig pa pang pa-o. That means free of contaminated karma and delusion. So this second point can be read as uncontaminated karma and afflictive emotions-influenced negative karma or as contaminated karma and afflictive emotions-influenced negative karma. Maybe it’s not un-contaminated karma. That may be a problem, because uncontaminated karma is pure karma and if you have no pure karma you don’t have good result. That will be a problem. That may be too detailed and too philosophical for a Sunday talk, honestly. But certain traditions will say that you will go beyond karma when you become Buddha. Certain other traditions will say: nobody goes beyond karma, even buddhas don’t. Buddha is the result of all the positive karma and positive karma continuously remains and that’s why there are buddhas. But that maybe too philosophical here. 0:51:50.2 But I just don’t want that word [un-] contaminated. So that’s the second quality.

The third quality is: free of conceptual awareness. That’s talking about the 16 wrong understandings of the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truths wrong understandings are permanent, not suffering, self existence, purity.

the Five Contaminated Aggregates

are Permanent.

the Five Contaminated Aggregates

are Pure and Pleasurable.

[there is] a Permanent, Partless and

Independent Self.

[There is] a Self-Sufficient Substantially

Existent Self.

(Translation: ibdindia.org)

So being free of the 16 misunderstands of the Four Noble Truths, that is this quality of being free of conceptual awareness. So this is not just conceptual awareness, but the wrong perceptions and identifications and all that – that awareness.

0:54:13.2 I will leave it here. It is 11.15 and other schedules are there. Next Sunday Geshe Yeshe Thapke is coming here. I may ask him to do the Sunday morning talk. It is his workshop and I don’t want to interrupt it. He is a great teacher. But there will be Sunday talk and he will either continue with this subject or he will talk his own subject. I don’t know. We will leave it up to him. I guess that’s it. I don’t want to talk too long.

0:55:45.9 Thank you so much and one thing I almost forgot to tell you. I just learnt a few days ago that Geshe Söpa has passed away. It is sad indeed. He was a great Tibetan Buddhist master and also a mid-west teacher. He was one of the best geshes available, honestly. He was an outstanding geshe. As far as I know, he was quite known even in Tibet, not a geshe yet, but a student, in the 1950s, when we would get together in certain areas in Tibet. Later Geshe-la did the geshe examination I think in India. That was in the early 60s. Later he came to the US as a cook. He was a teacher and a cook for a couple of young incarnate lamas who were picked up by the Mongolian Geshe Wangyal, who founded the New Jersey Learning Center. At that time it was a monastery. Geshe-la was there for a while and later he came to Wisconsin and many scholars today are Geshe-la’s students.

0:58:28.7 Geshe-la I think was 92, so he had a very long life, and it is great and he completed his life and so we pray and wish and dedicate our virtues to accomplish whatever his thoughts and wishes are. Also we like to express our condolences to the monastery and center there on behalf or our Jewel Heart people and with that I like to say: Bon Voyage.

0:59:34.7 May all beings……

1:01:08.1