Archive Result

20150329GRST08 Gelek Rimpoche with Glenn Mullin

0:00:04.4 Gelek Rimpoche: Good morning everybody and welcome here today. As you know I have been talking the Sunday mornings – but before that I should introduce you, but Glenn doesn’t need introduction, honestly, because he is a very well known, extremely well known Tibetan Buddhist scholar, teacher, lecturer and Vajra master. I can’t introduce you……

Glenn Mullin: My biography is so extensive (laughs). When the First Dalai Lama wrote a praise to Buddha, a very famous poem by Gyalwa Gendün Drubpa, he ends by saying: Buddha’s life was like the ocean and my attempt to describe it is like a piece of grass taking a drop of water from the ocean. So trying to describe my life, Rimpoche, and I am very modest as well (laughs)

Gelek Rimpoche: Absolutely.

Glenn Mullin: But if I were to introduce Rimpoche, not only would we need all the one ocean with the drop, but all seven oceans.

Gelek Rimpoche: That’s why we are living near the Great Lakes here! (laughter)

Tsongkhapa, when he praised Buddha, said, “Those arhats who flew in the air and saw how high Buddha’s ushnisha is, after a while got tired and they had to come back.” So just like that, Glenn has been doing so much. If I recall, in the early 60s, maybe 1962 or so you were already in Dharamsala.

Glenn Mullin: No, that was in the early 70s. I am a late comer, a new bee. And you Rimpoche, were teaching in New Delhi from time to time with Michael Perrot and these fellows from England, at Tushita Meditation Center. So I would attend Rimpoche’s teachings and my enlightenment before that came very slow, but then Rimpoche spoke and enlightenment progressed just like that. (laughs)

Gelek Rimpoche: Interesting, anyway, talking about enlightenment, this morning I was listening to NPR. There was a review of a book called “ A Death on Diamond Mountain”. I forgot the name of the author [Scott Carney] but listened to the interview. Looking for enlightenment and sacrificing one’s life – they put that together. Very strictly speaking, as you know, Maitreya Buddha said,

Chö kyi tün du so tung wa

Ten drel ke chig chu tro gye

Lon den to wai lam ne kyi

Chi me to pai tak da yin (spelling???)

One of the non-returning signs is that you easily welcome death for the development of dharma.

However, in today’s time, people’s mind is such and also the principle, to me, in the Buddha’s teaching, and almost the teachings of all great religions’ traditions, is non-violence. Non-violence doesn’t only belong to Gandhi-ji, though he made it very known. Nor does it belong to Martin Luther King. It is the idea that brought Buddha and even great western teachers [together], not necessarily only Dharma, but other earlier philosophers, etc. And people appreciate [non-violence] and it is the need of the time and non-violence is extremely important. We are already living in horrible violence.

0:06:24.6 Last night you said it and I heard it. I was hiding behind there, because I was late, so I thought, “better hide”, so I was hiding behind there and you were saying that the aftermath of 9/11 was always miserable. Yes, it was miserable. You know, in the morning I have to listen to NPR, because I am a Democrat (laughs)

Glenn Mullin: No, Rimpoche, I know that secretly you are listening to Rush Limbaugh! (laughs)

Gelek Rimpoche: But I must say, I do watch Fox News. You know why? These days they give you better news than anybody else. That and Al Jazeera. CNN takes one little piece, like the recent air crash. Then for three or four days they don’t talk about anything else except that air crash. So I do listen to Fox.

Glenn Mullin: So what was the NPR story on Diamond Mountain?

0:07:50.2 Gelek Rimpoche: They were reviewing the book. They were talking about Michael Roach and that lady Christie [McNally] and the guy who died. My feeling is that not necessarily every instance of losing one’s life is violence, and maybe I differ a little bit from other Tibetans as well. For me, violence against one’s individual self is violence. As you mentioned last night, you don’t agree with some of the Tibetan politics or policies. You are not the only person. You are not the only person – on this stage. (laughs). To me violence against the individual self is violence. I hate to see Buddhism and Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism be linked with the association of violence. So I feel very uneasy about it.

0:09:39.4 About Michael Roach I don’t know anything. I do know him, because I met him, when his teacher Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, who was a friend of mine, invited me if I am not mistaken, in 1976 or 1977. I was in New York and Geshe Lobsang Tharchin sent somebody to pick me up and spend a few days in New Jersey. There was a young boy, wearing a knitted hat, who picked me up from New York and took me to Geshe-la’s place and he was making Tibetan tea, with half and half milk and it was very nice tea and that later happens to be Michael Roach. When he and I were talking together in one of those Tricycle “Change your Mind” days in New York, some big monk came and they all said, “Geshe Michael Roach” and I thought “Oh” and he said, “I met you. I picked you up one time.” So, that little boy with the knitted hat happens to be Geshe Michael Roach.

0:11:21.6 Glenn Mullin: And the moral of that story is that if you drink Tibetan butter tea you become very tall. In Tibet, the best butter tea is made in Kham, because they have really good yaks and dri, so then the milk is very good and the butter is very rich and the Khampas are the biggest, tallest, toughest Tibetans, thanks to the beautiful butter tea.

Gelek Rimpoche: Very true. It is true, the milk products make a big difference to a child growing. People who drink more milk at a younger age become taller and bigger – although genetic differences are there too. Many of those Khampas are connected to..

Glenn Mullin: Gushri Khan

Gelek Rimpoche: Yes, one side is Gushri Khan and the other side is the Kinnauris. Not so much Newaris, but Kinnauris. There are certain families, like the one of Rara Rinpoche, remember? They are from the Kinnauri tradition. Their bone structure is very different from many other Tibetans.

0:12:58.6 So I was a little disappointed this morning, because for one thing Tibetan Buddhism and particularly Vajrayana Buddhism, of course, while having wrathful deities and this and that, but it’s principle is non-violence and that’s Buddha’s principle.

0:13:22.6 Glenn Mullin: And that boy who died in that cave, what did the NPR story say?

Gelek Rimpoche: Unfortunately, NPR said this morning, the lady happens to be Vajrayogini or something and she invited Shiva and stabbed the boy three times or something. Some of those are crazy acts. So then they threw them out of the group in the middle of a three year retreat. Anyway, whatever, I don’t want Tibetan Buddhism associated with any violence, including violence against oneself, even though it may be for enlightenment. But it may not have been. Maybe the guy got sick and wounded and didn’t get better and wasn’t treated. So people die, for sure, everywhere, for sure. We all die, don’t we?

0:14:37.3 Glenn Mullin: I think also, in these long three year retreats, in a three year period, there is always a chance that a disaster will happen to someone. There were 25 people in that retreat or something like that – a large number of people. Well, the man was in love and love always carries its own danger. Myself, on my mom’s side I am descended from Sir Francis Bacon, who wrote the Shakespeare plays and one of his favorite themes was men and women in love and somehow someone kicks the bucket. Or as D.H. Lawrence put it, “Francis Bacon, who wrote the Shakespeare plays, puts such noble words in the mouths of such ignoble people”(laughs). They are all running around killing each other but saying things very poetically.

0:15:51.2 When I was teaching recently in Chicago, someone said that when you do meditation and you do these kinds of practices, there must be some danger involved and I think whatever we do in life, there is always some danger, isn’t there? For instance in America, one of the biggest causes of death and broken bones is owning a dog. And we don’t seem to mind. People still go out and buy dogs and own dogs. Then the trip over their dogs and hit their heads on a rock or they fall down the stairs and break a leg.

0:16:30.1 Also, about five years ago, I was at Mt. Kailash, doing a second khora and suddenly we had a very strong hail storm and the temperature went from very warm to extremely cold very, very quickly and there were hailstones bigger than golf balls and a very strong wind blew. At the time, because of the sudden change in temperature, I thought that probably I was not going to survive this. So I sat down and started meditating, thinking, “I am probably going to be dead in the next hour or two”. Then I thought that this would be very nice, because on my tombstone it would say, “He died circumambulating Mt. Kailash”. And that would be so much nicer than if it said on my tombstone it said, “He tripped over his dog and fell downstairs and broke his neck.”

0:17:24.8 So in terms of the young man who died, naturally it is a very sad story and I feel great sympathy for everyone who organized the retreat and of course for Geshe Michael Roach as the teacher and so on. But whatever we do, there is always some danger involved and as the First Dalai Lama puts it in his tsewang commentary, his commentary on longevity practices, ”When our life span is finished, all we can do is look to the next life.” And in terms of the young man, naturally, one feels sympathy for him. One problem we have in America too is that people are often for the scandalous side of something that happens. People also often think of Buddhism of something only for monks and nuns. That’s kind of a popular image given by Hollywood and what not. But of course, monks and nuns are less than one per cent of the population, or more like one tenth of one per cent.

Gelek Rimpoche: one tenth of one per cent

Glenn Mullin: and now maybe even less than that. And so naturally, all those people have love affairs and sometimes things go a little bit wrong and in their case I think no criminal charges were laid against anyone. So it wasn’t like she murdered him. She just scratched him a few times. (laughs). And he didn’t die from that.

Gelek Rimpoche: That’s right, he died from something else, pneumonia or something?

Glenn Mullin: Well, they went out into the desert and meditated in a cave and then ran out of water. But for me that’s much better than tripping over one’s dog. Dying in the middle of a three year retreat is much more interesting than just falling down, hitting your head on a rock, tripping over your dog.

0:19:20.8 Gelek Rimpoche: So I was feeling a little funny about it this morning and thought that maybe I will bring that subject up.

I am sorry, before I forget. I have to say to everybody and particularly to our friends in Singapore: my deepest condolences on the passing away of Lee Kuan Yew. I am sure many people may have different thoughts about him, but we know he is the one who almost single-handedly brought Singapore from being a little fishing village, sold by the Sultan of Johor to the British for 100 Pounds years ago, to a one city country, one of the most outstanding examples of modern society. That was Lee Kuan Yew’s deed. Also he has done so many great things, particularly in his principle, the Dharma as his own principle of functioning in his government and all this. So we send our condolences to our friends in Singapore.

0:21:30.9 That re-emphasizes also

FOUR BUDDHIST RESOLUTIONS – PRACTICALLY SPEAKING

….The subject we have been talking about: the four resolutions of the Buddhist philosophical principle. A lot of people will call it different names. Normally, in Tibetan it is called chö kyi dom zhi. Sometimes it is also called ta wa ka ta gi chagkya zhi. There are different names. The first one of these is:

All created phenomena are impermanent.

So to remind you once again, that doesn’t mean just that down the road some time it is going to go and so it is impermanent. That is gross impermanence. True impermanence is that the moment things are created, in their own nature the mechanism of its destruction is already attached and functioning. That’s why the definition of impermanence is ke chi ma o. So every second it changes and is that way. So when we are talking about the Death on Diamond Moutain and Lee Kuan Yew and so on, that’s impermanence, gross impermanence. Then:

Sak kye tham che dugnal wa - everything contaminated is suffering.

There are philosophical meanings and definitions. However, my explanation is that as long as your mind is not pure, it brings suffering and it is suffering. Lo pön Yin ye ne, that is Vasubandhu, gives the definition of sak kye as something else. Now I forgot.

0:24:23.5 Glenn Mullin The word sak in Tibetan, as well as meaning contamination, can also mean “fall down”. It leans to something unpleasant.

Gelek Rimpoche: You are very intelligent. Honestly. You know why? I look at sak kye coming from one word sak pa, which is “Harmful along with it”. But then you talk about it as in sa, something falling down. That is both true.

Glenn Mullin: One of my lamas once mentioned that and though I like to take credit for the idea, someone mentioned it to me. (laughs). But he mentioned it in Tibetan. I think the idea behind that, as Rimpoche was saying, is that if we don’t have enlightened wisdom, if we don’t see things in a true or pure way, then the way we see those things and the relationship we have with those things, has some kind of inevitable difficulty, some kind of frustration or some kind of stress, some kind of conflict will eventually come with the way we think about things and actually the way they really exist. Actually, there is a distance between those and there is bound to be some kind of conflict.

0:25:53.9 Gelek Rimpoche: You are giving Vasubhandu’s definition of sa kye.

La ma tok pai dü che nam

Sa kye kang che de tar..

Sa nam kün che je pa te

Sa ne lam che den pa ni

Tra wo o so so so yin (spelling???)

So you were giving Vasubhandu’s explanation. Anyway, thank you.

For practical purposes I say that when the mind is not pure, then it creates all the sufferings. So it is most important to watch your own mind all the time. People who listen to my talks, who come in here, they are all practical people. There are also great intellectuals there, a number of professors among them, but their main purpose is how to function practically in everyday life, so I am trying to interpret that into very mundane, everyday language. Sometimes I call it “bare bones”.

0:27:19.8 We also talked about chö tham che tong che dag me pa and nyang ngen le de pa ne zhi zhin ge ba o. Everything is the nature of emptiness. We do have some younger kids here today, so I hope this will contribute a little something. In one of the principles in early human philosophy I will say, there are differences between the early schools, such as Buddhist schools and non-Buddhist schools. Many of those schools do accept that everything is not empty, that everything is something there to trace, that there is an end of the Russian doll.

0:28:31.8 Talking about the Russian doll. You know, Stephen Hawking, during the tenure of President Clinton, gave a White House Christmas Dinner Lecture. He ended the lecture by saying, “Lady and Mr. President, there will be the end of the Russian doll.” Later, I was told, he changed his viewpoint and stated that there is no end of the Russian doll. However, that’s why these scientific studies are so important. Particularly, Buddha’s point of everything being empty, doesn’t mean that there is nothing. We do have a couple of school kids here who came to find out what Buddhism is about. So empty doesn’t mean nothing in Buddhist philosophy. There are internal differences in how Buddhist schools explain this, but the bottom line, bare bones explanation is that everything is dependent.

0:30:19.7 The interdependent nature of life. People may think that east is east and west is west. But if you think one more you will see: if there is no west, how can there be east? If there is no east, how can there be west? West depends on east and east depends on west. This side depends on that side. If there is no that side, how can there be this side? So all things exist because they exist dependently, helping each other through interconnection. Interdependence is the bottom line for understanding emptiness and selflessness.

0:31:27.1 That doesn’t mean that the self is not there, although the Heart Sutra says: no nose, no tongue, no ear, no mouth, no dick….Sorry. But we have all of them. We do. There is the big nose, bald head and all this is there. But in general, all Buddhist schools will think that an independent self-existent self, pak chig rang wang chen, is never accepted by any Buddhist schools. There were four of them in India and four, five or six, seven or twenty in Tibet. None of them will accept that, because of the dependent nature, the dependent origination, the interdependent system of existence. That is my bottom line when they say: chö tham che tong che dag me pa – all phenomena are empty and selfless. That is my meaning.

The last one is: nirvana is peace. What does that mean, honestly? I did talk to you a little bit, because there will be a time to be pure for everybody.

0:33:17.9 Everybody will have the time and chance to be pure, because impurity in ourselves again is in the nature of destruction, the nature of exhaustion. It is going to finish one day, no matter how long it may take. For some people it may take a couple of eons, to some a couple of years, to some it may take a couple of lives. Whatever it may be, but the pure part of the mind will be separating from the impure. Impure things are naturally faulty, so they will naturally go down. Nirvana is peace means that. It is not that there is a place called “Nirvana” and I jump there and then I am in peace.

0:34:30.1 I don’t think it is in that way, although many of us will think in that way. We talk about pure lands and all of those, but that’s not the point. That’s how I have been talking about it. I just wanted to introduce you to what we have been talking about. But the introduction became a bit too long in between.

0:35:01.8 Also, you know, His Holiness always says that Tibetan Buddhism works very well with science. In my understanding, it is because of emptiness and dependent origination. So for certain scientists now, there will be end of the Russian doll. Everything is dividable. There is no indivisible thing. In Buddha’s principle too, everything is dividable, no matter how subtle, how small it may be. East never touches the west.

0:36:08.8 Glenn Mullin: So the Russian doll is one inside the one and then another inside that and so on?

Gelek Rimpoche: Yeah, and the actual doll that I saw has Chelsea Clinton as the final one. Before that was Clinton with his saxophone, before that Lewinsky and Hillary. Anyway, at the end comes Chelsea.

Glenn Mullin: Recently I led a ten day Milarepa-Rechungpa practice, the se tal sung kyal (spelling??) and they had a set of those Russian dolls in the retreat house and there nine one inside of the other. Good emptiness meditation. But back to what Rimpoche was saying about emptiness and interconnectivity. There is a text in Tibetan called uma ta tri. The one from Gyalwa Ensapa is really wonderful. The Second Dalai Lama speaking about it, mentioned that when we talk about emptiness, we can become philosophical, but on the other hand, if you think of yourself walking through a mountain pass and you see a tree stump on the mountain and the mountain pass is famous for having bandits, you think, “My goodness, that’s a bandit”.

Gelek Rimpoche: That’s right.

Glenn Mullin: And then you get very afraid and excited and you do all kinds of things, because you think there is a bandit about to rob you. In reality, no matter how much you look at that tree stump, you don’t find a bandit in there. There is no bandit that you can ever find. It is the same when you look at Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche.

Gelek Rimpoche: No, just Gelek.

Glenn Mullin: If you look at him, he looks like an ordinary guy, with nose and ears and everything, but no matter how much you look, you never see an ordinary guy. All you find is a Buddha.

Gelek Rimpoche: (laughs) – Well everybody has Buddha nature. That’s that.

Glenn Mullin: So back to children. What does emptiness mean to a child or young person? If there is someone you dislike a lot for example. Think, “Why do I dislike them? What is that thing I dislike about them?” You will notice that when your feeling for that person changes, the person you disliked, disappears.

Gelek Rimpoche: True

Glenn Mullin: 0:38:48.4 It is a whole different person you are experiencing. So I think that side of emptiness from Gyalwa Ensapa is very, very useful to think about emptiness experientially. It comes from him and then I think it comes down to….eventually to the Second Dalai Lama and others.

Gelek Rimpoche: to Drubchen Chö Dorje and all of those.

Anyway, I have a couple of questions for you

Glenn Mullin: Oh oh (laughs)

Gelek Rimpoche: no, no, you spent a lot of time in Asia and particularly Mongolia and Korea and elsewhere. How about Buddhism in those areas, particularly Mongolia? Traditionally, as you know, in the 17th and 18th century, there were so many great teachers in Mongolia. Remember, you and I were together in Mongolia in Ganden Tekchen Ling monastery?

0:40:11.3 Glenn Mullin: Yes, Rimpoche is referring to the time when they were taking a photo of the group and we were upstairs and had to go downstairs for the group. So I said to Rimpoche, “Oh, we don’t need to take that photo, let’s just go sit and talk about Dharma.” So they all went down and took the photo outside, and on one of those photos were 300 people and nobody can see who is there anyway. So if anyone showed me a photo from then and asked, “Where is Gelek Rimpoche in this?” I would say point anywhere on the photo and say, “Oh, there he is.”

0:40:45.3 So I got to spend two hours quietly with Rimpoche, in the middle of this very busy conference, which was very nice.

0:40:47.7 Gelek Rimpoche: We have been looking at photographs in that room and there was the Bogd Lama Jetsün Dhampa, the Kalkha Jetsün Dhampa and then one of these Ganden Tripas of Mongolia and there were so many great scholars in that period, the 16th, 17th century. They have contributed tremendously to Buddhist literature, to Buddhist astrology and to Buddhist practice, like the lam rim, lojong type of practice and they have contributed tremendously to philosophy too. Some are even clearer and better than real, old Tibetan texts, because Mongolians don’t speak Tibetan. That’s why they have to come down in the language to where people can understand. So this has contributed tremendously.

0:42:09.6 But then of course, the communists came. The Russian revolution affected Mongolia, and everything was destroyed, which is what happens in history all the time, even in India and then in Tibet and then it re-developed. So how is it? Can you tell me a little more, because our audience will definitely like to know.

0:42:42.8 Glenn Mullin: Yes, I think most people, when they think about Mongolia, they think about Ghengis Khan, and the great military history and they think about wild horses and these kinds of aspects of Mongolia, but as Rimpoche has mentioned, it has one of the great Buddhist histories of Asia.

In about 1230, Kublai Khan, the grand son of Ghengis Khan, made Tibetan the official intellectual language of not only Mongolia, but all of his empire. And from that time until today, they used the Tibetan language. As you notice, in Ganden all the chanting is done in a strangely pronounced form of Tibetan. The Mongolians, when they read and chant in Tibetan, it is a little bit like listening to Brooklynites speak English – if anyone is from Brooklyn here. The people who speak with a pure Brooklyn accent have his unique way of speaking. Anyway, the Mongolians have used Tibetan script since that time as their intellectual script and they had a standing script, which is more like a dribbling script, which is written from top down, as the government script as secular script. They have used those two from that time on until today.

0:44:17.0 In the time of the Third Dalai Lama, he traveled and talked there very much and had a great impact. At that time, the Gelugpa, the Dalai Lama’s school, became very, very strong. About 90% of Mongolians became mostly linked to Gelugpa. Then the 4th Dalai Lama was a Mongol, the only Dalai Lama born outside of Tibet. The 5th Dalai Lama was put in as Lama King of Tibet, because Mongolia had been in civil wars with the various kingdoms and Tibet had been in civil wars with the King of Beri, the King of Sang, the king of Lhasa, and so on. There had been a hundred years of fighting with a lot of small kingdoms and everyone thought, “We need one figure head at the center, who is a peace maker”. So they put in the 5th Dalai Lama and he became also the spiritual head officially of all of Tibet and all of the Mongol territories, including Manchu-Mongols, the Zumkar kingdom, the Hog kingdom, the Buryat kingdom and so on.

0:45:37.3 The Panchen Lama at that time, and this is not researched very well and I am sure you know this, as you are a treasure trove of knowledge on this, a lot of the Gelugpa tulkus basically come from the 1st Panchen Lama’s time, when he kind of instructed people, “Now you have to set up a reincarnation lineage and come back and you will be the representative of Dharma in your valley and you have to maintain this tradition for future lives.” So he gave such commands to Khalkha Jetsün Dhampa, the first equivalent of the Dalai Lama in Mongolia. So when he died they had to look for his reincarnation, because the 1st Panchen Lama had commanded that and the 5th Dalai Lama had certified it.

0:46:30.4 From that time on, the Lama Kings of Mongolia were incarnations of Jetsün Dhampa.

Gelek Rimpoche: They call him the Bogd Lama.

Glenn Mullin: And the first one they called Undergegen, which means something like “the tall guy”, because he was very, very tall and handsome. But like the 4th Dalai Lama, he was a descendant of Ghengis Khan. He became a monk and become probably one of the three or four greatest artists in Buddhist history. He didn’t write very much, but he became one of the great artists. Every temple in Mongolia wanted to have at least one statue made by him. He set up art colonies, if you will, where he would, like Michelangelo and other such artists, work with many apprentices and turn out great master pieces.

0:47:30.1 Things continued like that, and as you said, Rimpoche, in the 1700s and 1800s, Mongolia perhaps even eclipsed Tibet in the number of great masters and especially the number of great writers. I think one reason for that is that if you look now in the monasteries in South India today, many of the best monk-trainees actually come from Kham and Amdo. One of the reasons is that they are very far from home and they end up in the monastery and there is nothing to do except study and practice. If you are from Central Tibet, your family is trying to get you to come home for the weekends and you have all these distractions. So in South India today, most of the best trainees are from very remote regions. I think, Mongolia’s remoteness probably contributed to that and as you know, Rimpoche, the 5th Dalai Lama set up a system, where the whole Buddhist world was divided into areas and if you were born in a particular area, you had a khang, a kind of hereditary right, to study in Ganden, Drepung, Sera, or Tashi Lungpo, Kumbum or Labrang Tashi Kyil.

0:48:54.9 It began with just these six and one had to go there for basically 12 years as a minimum for your training. Later, they cut out the two in the far east and made it just the four in the center. Later, Tashi Lungpo got angry, because they had to pay taxes, so then they cut out Tashi Lungpo. Then you could only go to one of the three, Drepung, Ganden and Sera, each of them having two big departments. From that time on, the Mongolian lamas would go to Central Tibet, usually for about 20 years. And because of being far from home, basically there was nothing to do but study and practice and of course they were there because they really wanted to be there, as opposed to what often happens with Tibetans, where the parents will say, “Oh, we will put you in a monastery, we have got a few too many kids and you are off to the monastery.”

Gelek Rimpoche: Right, right, right.

0:49:50.1 Glenn Mullin: So then the distance I think helps to a lot to make very great practitioners. Then, as you mentioned, Rimpoche, Russian communism swept over Mongolia in the 1920s. Mongolia was the first country to become communist after Russia in the Soviet Union. They didn’t plan it that way. Basically, when the Manchu rule of China ended in 1911, it created a problem for Tibet and for Mongolia. Until that time, from 1644 on, the Manchus, Tibetans and Mongols all had made an alliance, because they were all from the Dalai Lama’s school of Buddhism and they were all what they thought of as one people. There was a very strong cultural bond. So when the Manchus fell in 1911 it made it a problem for everyone. Tibet, of course, eventually lost its freedom because of that incident and not being able to sort things out internationally.

0:50:59.9 The Mongols took assistance from Russia, because the Kuomintang wanted to take over Mongolia. First, they already had a strong connection with the Russians through the czars, who as you know, had sponsored the Kalachakra temple. You probably have even been there.

Gelek Rimpoche: yes.

Glenn Mullin: So they came in like that, as helpers to advise on how to keep out China and how to make Mongolia independent. But eventually, of course, Stalin took over Russia and things became very bad. Between 1928 and 1937 every temple was destroyed and all the monks killed or sent to concentration camps. From 1937 to 1944 there wasn’t even one temple allowed or one monk allowed in Mongolia. Then in 1944, American vice president Henry Wallace, who was kind of a closet Buddhist, was a student of Nicholas Roerich, the Russian-born New York Buddhist painter. Wallace was going to Russia. The Wallace family did wheat farming and they had helped Russia as they were allies in World War II. They helped them to put in a bunch of wheat farms, based on modern American scientific farming methods.

0:52:24.6 So he went over in connection with that and said, “Oh, I want to go to Mongolia, to Ulan Ude and Ulan Bhator, because my teacher was Buddhist and spent time there and I have always loved the idea.” So then Stalin had to phone up Ulan Ude and Ulan Bhator and said, “Hey, are there any monks left alive in prison? We have to open two temples.” So for that reason, in 1943 they quickly built that one temple in Ulan Ude. Everything had been destroyed in Buryat, that is Russian Mongolia. One temple was sort of left standing, although it had been converted a little into warehouses for the army and things like that. So it was not a monastery. But they gathered 40 or 50 monks who were still in prison and then put them back into Ganden. So when Henry Wallace came in 1944, both Ulan Ude and Ulan Bhator, the capitals of Buryat and independent Mongolia, had one temple each.

0:53:29.7 And from that time on until 1990 they were only allowed that one temple each. They were not allowed to teach in public. That’s kind of sad. Even today Mongolian lamas don’t have a taste for public teachings. For a Mongolian lama to teach a group like this is still a little uncomfortable, because in that 70 year period it was totally not allowed. But they could teach quietly, secretly in their own way and you Rimpoche, have many friends from Mongolia, because when the Dalai Lama went to Russia, they took him to Mongolia in 1979.

0:54:07.8 Gelek Rimpoche: I was there. There were two Tibetan Buddhist representatives, one of them was me and the other was the former Ganden Tripa, the Namgyal Khenpo and Loseling Khenpo, Gen Losang Nyima. He was the Namgyal Khenpo at that time and it was him and me.

0:54:36.0 Glenn Mullin: And from that time on the Dalai Lama got permission for Buryat to send down two monks at a time and for Ulan Bhator to send down two monks at a time and they could come to India and Dharamsala and study in Senye lhab dra. Of course, at that time, Hambu Lama Chubchang (??) was the present Hambu Lama and also Kuntu Zangpo, who is also a good friend of yours. Those two became the two best educated and trained monks in Mongolia and until today, with the coming of independence from communism in 1990, I think there are now about 200 temples rebuilt. Most of them are quite small. So it is sort of growing and rebuilding.

0:55:24.3 The problem is that when Russia left, they left them totally impoverished. Mongolia in the 1990s had no money. Before 1990 they were not allowed to collect American dollars. That was illegal. So all they had was rubles and it went from one ruble being worth one dollar to one dollar being able to buy 500 rubles or 600 rubles. So when Russia left in 1990, Mongolia became one of the poorest countries on the planet for about a decade, so rebuilding was very, very difficult. They had no structure and no resources and no real talent as well. Now, there are about 500 Mongols studying in the Tibetan monasteries in India and as they come back, of course they are performing very important roles and of course, it will take a long time.

0:56:23.0 The problem with Buddhism is that it is quite a deep and also vast tradition. So just saying “I am a Buddhist” doesn’t make you a Buddhist. So traditionally, it is a 20 years training in Ganden, Drepung or Sera. I think now they have cut it down to 17 years.

Gelek Rimpoche: Is that right? I have no idea. I left that community for quite a long time now, about 40 years ago now. So anyway, it is now ten past 12 and thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and thank you for coming here and giving teachings.

0:57:16.3 Glenn Mullin: My joy, my pleasure

Gelek Rimpoche: I don’t want to take your time now and of course you are doing your workshop and teaching. So I just wanted to say: it has been great and wonderful to know you and for you to be around and thank you. I will be here next Sunday too. As a matter of fact I will be here until April 20th, every Sunday. I guess that’s about it. I am sorry, today we didn’t do much questions and answers, but it was great to be with you. Thank you.

0:58:07.0 Glenn Mullin: And Rimpoche, you opened today by mentioning the boy who died on Diamond Mountain, may I request you to say a little prayer for his happy rebirth?

Gelek Rimpoche: We can do that later, tomorrow. Tomorrow we have our own little business.

Glenn Mullin: Oh yes, we have secret business (laughs) secret tantra business (laughs).

Gelek Rimpoche: Anyway, thank you

Glenn Mullin: Thank you Rimpoche

0:58:43.0 May all beings………. 1:00:10.5