Archive Result

20150315GRAAST06

0:00:00.0 Good morning and Happy St. Patrick’s week. It’s not the day yet, but we won’t meet on Tuesday, so this is the week. Well, we did talk here based on really one verse of Chandrakirti’s:

GANG TSE RANG WANG JUG CHING THÜN NE PA

GAL TE DI DAG DZIN PA MI GYUR NA

YANG SAR LHUNG WAI ZHEN WANG JUG GYUR WA

DE LE CHE NE GANG GI LONG WAR GYUR

If, when living in good conditions and acting with freedom,

We do not act to hold ourself back,

Once we have fallen into the abyss and lost our freedom,

How shall we raise ourself from there in the future?

While you have freedom, and you have all facilities, if you don’t do whatever you are supposed to do, then if you fall into the lower realms, who is going to help you? No one is going to be able to help.

0:01:32.9 That was the basic verse and then what are we supposed to do? Chandrakirti also said,

GANG CHIR TSE NYI GYAL WAI LO TOK PHÜN TSHOK DI

SA BÖN DRANG NI PEL LA CHUN DRA YUN RING DU

LONG CHÖ NE LA MIN PA TA BU DÖ JUR WA

DE CHIR DAG GI THOG MAR NYING JE TÖ PAR GYI

Because for this bountiful harvest of the Conquerors

Compassion itself is like the seed, like water for growth,

And like ripening remaining for long enjoyment,

At the beginning I praise compassion.

Compassion itself alone is important at the beginning, important in the middle and important at the end, even during the fruit time. When you have become a Buddha, and if that Buddha doesn’t have compassion, then Buddha will not bother with anybody else. So compassion itself is the most important thing, that’s why tse nyi – compassion itself alone. But when you talk about compassion or love, it is something you cannot go alone with. Compassion alone is going to work, compassion with dharma base. There are so many people, if you look among ourselves, who have great compassion and they do care, but they don’t know what to do. Many of them will turn their energy more onto charity work. I don’t mean that’s bad. It’s great. Many will turn their energy towards saving the environment and many will turn their energy towards doing something very specific.

0:03:49.1 This is great, we do need it. But as a human being, such as ourselves, with this great mind and this great attitude and this great opportunity and this great possibility, we should be able to do a little better than that, a little more than that. This is the world today, where there are so many great spiritual masters, who have appeared. This is the world where Buddha has appeared and taught and left the message. This is the world where Jesus came and left his message. This is the world where so many spiritual leaders have come, whoever they were. This is the only place where they went and this is the only place where they left their impact and we are the benefactors.

0:05:12.4 With all these benefits we have of those messages and the kindness shown by those great leaders, we should be able to do a little better than what we have been doing. We have the opportunity, we have the capability, we have everything. Within our own freedom and facilities, that’s what it is.

0:06:04.9 I don’t mean looking down on others, please don’t misunderstand. Absolutely, the environment has to be protected, otherwise it will be polluted and nothing will be left. It will be worse than New Delhi or Beijing. You can’t breathe. You know I went to Delhi about a year ago, I think, maybe 18 months ago. I used to live there and it was okay. The biggest shock for me was that there were no clouds in the air and the sun was shining, but the sun could never come out of the pollution. It is always like some kind of storm. But there was no storm, and it was not even a dust storm, but pollution. The sun could never come out though where no clouds in the air. The sun could not shine out.

0:07:22.6 That’s the biggest shock I got. I was telling Colleen, “Let’s pack and go.” That’s not the Delhi I remember. I used to enjoy Delhi, it was a beautiful place, with beautiful gardens and wonderful things. Now all the gardens are covered with some kind of dust. All the trees have their branches hanging down, beat up by the sun, beat up by dust and pollution. Beijing is not any better. So if you don’t take care of the environment [that’s what happens].

0:08:09.7 We are lucky, compared with that. All western countries are lucky. And we may be in the terrible mist west what is supposed to have acid rain, but think about now. It is beautiful. Beautiful sun shine, the beautiful snow was great, and now it is going and gone – going going gone – so again it is as beautiful as ever. So think of the other polluted areas and think about this and we are very lucky. Not only we appreciate our luck, but we can see what we can contribute to others. So we should be concerned. Though it is not supposed to be great at all, it is great.

0:09:24.6 But human beings are more capable than that – on top of that, because this is the opportunity. The life from now to death, no matter how long it is, it is not long. It is short. Within that short life time, if we can’t make a difference once and for all, to our own life and the lives of others, then we are failures in our – in normal western language – “God-given duty ” or responsibility. And that’s why we need the development of compassion and love. And love-compassion alone doesn’t know what to do, so we also need the method of Dharma. I talk about Dharma, because that’s the only thing I know. If I were a Hindu I would talk about Hinduism and if I were a Christian I would talk about Christianity. If I were Jewish I would talk about Judaism. To me, these great religions all have their own way of helping and leading people. But then, for me, fortunately, luckily, I happen to be Buddha’s follower. So I only know what Buddha did and what he said and the disciples and followers of the Buddha, their explanations and commentaries, which of course changes in various cultures.

0:12:01.7 That’s why you have Indian Buddhism and Sri Lankan Buddhism, Thai Buddhism, Burmese Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism is very adaptable to any culture. Buddhism itself is a way of life, a way of thinking, it is a philosophy and is adaptable to any culture. That’s how it is. Indian Buddhism is no different than Buddhism with Indian culture adapted. Chinese Buddhism is nothing than Chinese culture adapted. We Tibetan say we have the best – because we are Tibetans.

0:13:17.3 No, it’s because we have Vajrayana – honestly. Because of the vajrayana it becomes the best. And besides that, it turns out to be the one that makes the most sense in the scientific world. I have been reading these books that have come out, produced by a lot of bright young people who wrote them together, both Westerners and Tibetans. They are trying to prove how scientific it is. I don’t know whether it is scientific or not, but it is somehow making sense with science all the time. Anyway, on the other hand, whatever it is, whether it is making sense or not, it is a 1000 years old and has helped millions of people and it has it’s own little thing. Without knowing that, without tapping into those sources, you can’t take the benefit. Otherwise, the best thing you can do is meditate. Sit down and meditate. Relax. Don’t entertain your thoughts. Be mindful and aware. Be aware of your physical movements. Acknowledge them. That’s what people teach you how to meditate.

0:15:52.8 Meditation is truly a mental activity – not a physical activity. Physical activities are important. That is traditionally in the Indian culture the hatha yoga, right? People do that nowadays quite a lot and they do it very well. You also see how beneficial it is. It is tremendous. Then when you use the mind it goes even beyond that. So before you do anything you need to know. Don’t do anything you don’t know. Honestly.

0:16:49.2 I recall, when I came here the first time. (You are not drinking tea, are you? You are not supposed to in this room. Thank you. You can drink water, if you don’t drop the water. This is the 13th Dalai Lama’s carpet, but the Hare Krishna people used it for so many years.) So if you don’t know what you are doing, you are simply copying. When I got here the first time, Sandy and Aura arranged for me to give a talk at the Friend’s Meeting House. There were two room, a bigger and smaller one. We were in the smaller room. People were sitting cross-legged. I didn’t know people here were sitting cross-legged. Then, we talked about meditation and everybody moved and everybody made some little gestures. There were not so many people, may, 5, 6 7, but everybody had a little meditation gesture. Everybody did something. I thought to myself, “That’s funny. What are they doing?” I was not aware that meditation was very well taught around here. I am talking about 1984, 85, 86.

0:19:42.0 In those years I came as visitor on a tourist visa. Then in 1987 I came here to work at the Case Western Reserve on a J1 scholar visa and later Jewel Heart was born. It was born because a group of people then wanted to keep me here, about 30 of you and mostly Ruby, Matthew’s mother. She said, “Now I am not letting you go. We are going to keep you.” She found that we had to register some society. We didn’t know what to do. Ruby ran down to the Zen center and borrowed their constitution and wherever “Zen” was written, we put Buddhism and 30 people signed and filed and that’s how Jewel Heart was born – just to get me permanent residence status. There was an immigration lawyer from Detroit, who was all paid by Ruby. Finally, I got the permanent residence and now Jewel Heart is like this. Originally, Ruby borrowed the Zen thing and wherever it said Zen, she put Tibetan Buddhism or something and that’s how it worked.

0:21:34.4 So I was wondering what people were doing and they were simply looking at each other and copying. For the physical part you can do that, but the mental part you cannot. For the mental part you have to know something. So you need a basic idea. You don’t have to try to be a scholar or something, but many of you, truly in Jewel Heart, to tell you the truth, and I said this a number of years ago – many people in Jewel Heart really know quite a lot of Buddhism - if you compare that with any other centers. There are great scholars in the other centers too. So it’s not that they don’t have it. They do. But people in Jewel Heart generally know far better than any other Buddhist center – honestly about the principles of Buddha’s teachings. They are really fully aware of the Four Noble Truths, the Two Truths, and we are now talking about the Four Big Conclusions, the Buddhist logos.

0:23:22.8 Sometimes people talk about what constitutes being a Buddhist. They say it is taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But that is not true, honestly. Though we say it and accept, but it is not. That’s because Buddha doesn’t take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. If he does, he takes refuge to himself. But then you can’t say that Buddha is not Buddhist. That’s why one who accepts that Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are perfect objects of refuge is a Buddhist, not one who takes refuge. That is Panchen Sonam Drakpa’s point anyway. Then many people say, a Buddhist is someone who accepts the Four Buddhist logos. Sometimes they are called Four Seals or Four Signs. In Tibetan it is chö kyi dom, Dharma Conclusions.

0:24:58.1 The first is that everything created is impermanent. The second is that everything contaminated is suffering. The third is that every phenomenon is in the nature of being empty and selfless. And the last is that nirvana is peace.

We have talked about three of them and we mentioned it here and there a number of times. We introduced them here lately in detail. But briefly speaking created things are impermanent and they are suffering, because they are impermanent. Impermanence does not mean that at some point it is going to be destroyed, but the moment it is created, it is born in the nature of destruction. Every minute of it, it is working for it’s destruction. It is almost like a time bomb, that is switched on and keeps ticking and every minute is getting closer to the end when it explodes. So in that nature it is born and in that nature it is functioning and in that nature it exists. That’s what impermanence means. It is not that one day it is going to go. We all know that, unless you are some kind of stupid, stubborn person who says, “I will never die.” There are some Brooklyn people who may say that (laughs). They say, “I am not going to die. That’s not in my vocabulary.” Other than that, everybody knows. That doesn’t mean you know impermanence. Impermanence means that the moment you are born, in your own nature, destruction is attached to it.

0:27:27.6 Then every contaminated thing is suffering. We talked that a lot of times. There are a lot of ways how things are contaminated, but the real truth is that if your mind is not pure then it is contaminated. The bottom line for practitioners is the mind. If your mind is pure you are not contaminated. If your mind is impure then you are contaminated. Impure here means that it is not only covered by delusions, but much more: selfishness. There are people who only think about themselves, not about others. It never appears in your mind that this will cause inconvenience for others. They only think, “I am going to do this, this is mine, that’s what it is. This is my right. My this, my that.” It is only my, my, my. And they never think, “If I do this, it will cause inconvenience and trouble for others.” They never consider other people. We live in the interdependent society. I depend on you, you depend on me. Right depends on left, left depends on right. Front depends on back, back depends on front.

0:29:21.4 Up depends on down, and down depends on up. That’s what it is. That’s how we live. It is an interdependent world. West depends on east. Do you know that? East depends on west. When there is no east, how can there be west? It is dependent. So you have to know this and think about it. When you are living in society, you have to think about that your deeds affect others. If you only think about me, me, me, me and “That’s what I want” – there are consequences. I don’t know who taught it, God or karma or whatever, but there are consequences. Even our laws will punish people because you harm somebody. I believe that is the basis of law. That is the karmic law. Human law, karmic law and even if the human law and police doesn’t catch you, karmic law will catch you.

0:31:33.5 So you have to know the consequences. When you are honest and do the right thing, then you get the rewards – though we are never satisfied with the rewards, because our desire is so much that it can never be fulfilled. But if you think about, like me, I am thinking about it, at least I have lived for 75 years. Earlier, back in Tibet, it was like in the 18th century. Then I came to crazy India, and that has an absolute crazy life and I even made myself cuckoo with that. It absolutely got into my head. I was a naughty person. I smoked.

0:32:46.5 I drank and did everything I could. I think I was looking for some kind of kick, something other than Dharma coming up, some kind of woom. I think many of you did the same thing in the 60s and 70s. You people did more drugs. I didn’t. I did it once or twice in Texas and I threw up – twice, badly and violently, even with marihuana. I don’t know why. Then I got accidentally given an Indian bhang by an Indian business man for breakfast. These are my drug experiences. We had breakfast with and Indian minister and business people and some Tibetans. There was this big Tibetan doctor there from Tibet. This businessman started telling the others, “Don’t give the doctor the blessings”. That means sweets that are blessed by the temple. This was really bhang mixed with Indian sweets. The moment this businessman said, “Don’t give the doctor so much blessing”, the minister got up and left, straight away and left the breakfast. I didn’t know, but after a while, things became much more clear to me. Everything was so clear. Finally, when I reached my home, somebody went into the bathroom in another bedroom and they flushed and I heard the flushing inside my ear – that clearly. Then people coming to near the door, talking, I could hear it here (inside my ear). So funny, but I am sure all of you are experts and know what I am talking about.

0:35:34.6 I didn’t do any other drugs, but everything else. I used to smoke the Indian “Panama” cigarettes, with no filter, terrible. I smoked almost 3 packs a day, and there are 20 in each pack. But I didn’t inhale! (laughs). So I have been able to cut that out one day, actually through will power, honestly. If there is a will, there is a way. So I just cut it one day. I had to cut it, because I had to go to Ladakh and the culture is such that if you smoke cigarettes, you look like some city slicker or something. People consider you to be from a very low category in those days, in the late 70s.

0:36:58.5 So I had to cut it. And told everybody and they all said, “Cut it when you finished the packet.” Then one day I was thinking, ”Everybody says that, but the packet will never finish, because if I finish one, I will open another one.” So I decided to cut it that day. Then there were a couple of friends who said, “Okay, you finish this one and then cut it.” I thought, “Ah, here you are telling me to cut it now. Don’t finish this.” So I put it down and since then I didn’t smoke. I got a headache and I took aspirins, lots of aspirins. The main power that made me not smoke is that I counted the time. I put that cigarette down and then for half and hour I didn’t smoke and then I didn’t want to blow the half an hour in one blow. Then that became an hour. Then a day, then a week and then I thought, “I put in so much hardship for a week. I don’t want to blow that in one puff.” That is how I was able to prevent, prevent, prevent. Then I got some aspirins and chewing gum.

0:38:42.4 Addiction is such a thing. It is terrible. It really itches and pinches you and you almost have to jump out of the seat. But even then, if you think about it, addiction is something that can be corrected. That’s really what it is. And we can see the external addiction of cigarettes. It is the same thing with the internal addiction of negative emotions. What you need is awareness and willingness and not wasting the time in which you had no anger. You don’t waste that time. You put in so much effort. And every minute this time goes up and every day it goes up. That works that way without smoking and you can do the same without anger. That time will go up.

0:39:56.6 You don’t waste that sort of thing you have, that week-long time without temper-tantrum, without screaming, without showing your temper. That’s a lot and then it becomes 10 days and then 2 weeks, then 3 weeks, then a month and the month-long effort you are not going to blow it in one minute by screaming, unless you are crazy. That’s how you talk to yourself. So any addiction, no matter how horrible it might be, people have the power to control it. You have that power, particularly for mental addictions. The essence of Dharma is this: correction of your mental addictions.

0:41:08.7 Meditation is for that, for the purpose of making it that stronger, whether through concentrated meditation or analytical meditation. Analytical meditation will give you the reasons not to repeat. Concentrated meditation will make it a habit not to repeat. It will give you a new addiction: non-anger, non-hatred, non-obsession or freedom from obsession, free of whatever it is. That is really the change in your life that you are looking for.

0:42:08.3 I am still talking within the four big conclusions. Today I am supposed to talk bout selflessness. I wanted to talk to you a little more. Selflessness, in Tibetan is dag me, actually “no I”. We talk about Buddhist wisdom and the true wisdom is what we call emptiness. What is emptiness? This is the beginning of emptiness – dag me. Dag in Tibetan means I or me or self. Me is negative – like not. So people translate that as selfless, I less, no I, no self and all that. But when you talk about it and think about it, it is not true that I am not there. I am here. Though the Heart Sutra says, ”No eye, no ear, no tongue, no nose, no nothing, no head, no tail” – all tipsy-turvey absolutes. But if there is no head, how can there be bald heads? They say that and it has meaning, but also, you know how large your nose is and you can catch it and blow it and dig in it. So it’s not true that it’s not there. They are talking about something else, when they talk about no self.

0:45:13.4 I am not sure how I am going to talk to you about this. You know, I have to give you a little philosophical or dialectical terminology. I am so sorry, I didn’t want to do that, but “-less” is a negation, right? You are negating something. Dag me – negating something. What are you negating? You are negating something that is not there but you think is there. It is not a correction of a mistake. In Tibetan we have to easy terms: ma yin ga and me ga. Ga means negation. I am negating something which is not and negating something that doesn’t exist. Does that make any sense? To some people it does. They have some background on that and they are nodding their heads. But many people are looking at me, “What are you talking about?”

0:47:09.1 So let me put it the other way around. When you look at yourself, your “me”, what do you perceive? We perceive “me” as solid. Is that true in reality? No. So, appearance and reality differ. Whatever appears may not be that. I was talking to some friend and that friend was talking to another friend. All are in Jewel Heart. That person told this person who I talked you, “When you are looking at the table, what do you see?” She said, “I see a table.” Then he said, “That’s not a table.”

0:49:05.3 I don’t know whether it is a table or not, but you can’t say it’s not a table. A table is a table. There are four legs, a top and the four legs will lift the top up and you can use it as table. So it is good enough to be a table. But what we are talking about is the reality of the table as an independent table. It is a dependent table. That is the truth. An independent table is not true, even if you look at the table.

0:49:53.4 The table depends on the legs, on the parts and parcels. It depends on the mind that acknowledges this as a table and on the people who use it as a table. Then it becomes a real table. But if you want an independent table, someone may make you a table that is not attached to anything else. But an independent table really means that it doesn’t depend on anything. Even a slab of wood on the top is totally dependent on the particles of this wood. The particles put together become a solid piece. I am not talking about particle board, but about true, solid wood. Even that is particle board (laughs). Sorry, I think Supa is going to say, “No, Rimpoche.”

0:51:35.0 That’s why I am saying that what appears and what is the reality is slightly different. That gives you some idea of what we are talking about. Besides that, emptiness is the result of the negation of what does not exist. Emptiness is not the result of a correction. It is the result of a negation. Whatever exists you cannot negate, because it exists. Are you with me? Yeah, you cannot negate something which is true. No matter how much logic you use, or how many scientific experiments you make, whatever you do cannot be negated, because it is the truth. We all say “Truth will prevail”. That’s what it means. Truth cannot be negated. You can reject it, but not negate it. You can reject, because your choice gives you power. You can just do it and say “I reject it” and turn around. That doesn’t matter.

0:53:28.8 But you can never negate it because it is true. So when we talk about negating self, we are talking about something that is not there. You convince yourself and prove to yourself that it is a false perception and not reality. When you prove that to yourself, you have negated the false perception. Reality can never be negated. Why are we talking this complicated thing? Our ego is so complicated. Ego’s manifestation of our negative emotions and being mean and wanting to hurt people, without wanting to hurt them. Some people can’t even help it, just do a little bit to hurt. Maybe you think you are teasing or registering your message or something, however, people hurt people all the time, because the ego is so sophisticated. This selflessness, the negation of self, is the antidote of ego. It is the direct contradiction, the direct power of defeating the ego.

0:55:41.7 That’s why this method is also a little more sophisticated, because it has to overpower the ego. And ego has so much help from confusion. Confusion is such a thing that it will really trick your mind. However sincere you may be, you get mixed up. Confusion comes out of language, out of conversation, out of writing, out of explanation and very importantly, out of thought. These are ego-manifestations. People with wisdom don’t get confused, because it is anti-confusion.

0:56:56.4 That’s why this is a little sophisticated and the principle you have to know is that truth can never be negated. So something false has to be negated. And what false do we have in our mind that identifies self? That is the question. Many Buddhist schools or tenets, have different ideas. Most of them think that the identity of the self has to come from our body, from the physical form. Many schools will say that the five skandhas or aggregates are the meaning of self. That is of course faulty. Then some say, “No, no, no, it is not the body, it is the mind. The five consciousnesses are the five sense consciousnesses and the sixth is that ego self.” Many say that this is also faulty, because it is mind. They say that mind is true and ego is false. So it is not right. So they make it 8 senses and add up two more. One is called “negative” and the other “basis of all” – kun zhi. The Chittamatrins will assert that. Then they say that is the ego, we think. Then yet others will say that it is an extra form outside, which is invisible.

0:59:46.8 All those I don’t know if we have to study them all, but the truth is that we consider Nagarjuna’s point of emptiness and that is nothing but dependent origination. Here people will think that not depending is false and depending is true.

So this is the basic introduction to this topic for today. Then we will talk a little more over a couple of Sundays and I think I will be here too. I don’t have any schedule of going out anywhere, thanks to the dialysis. I can’t move around much. So I will be here for a couple of Sundays. Any questions from the webinar? There doesn’t seem to be. So happy St. Patrick’s week. Thank you.

1:01:53.9 May all beings… 1:02:23.5 end