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20150426GRNLST12

0:00:47.2 Good morning to you and welcome everyone for today’s Sunday talk. As you can see, I am not in Ann Arbor, like the last couple of months, but in the Netherlands in the Jewel Heart center. Probably the tangka or painting and the Buddha image behind me, maybe I am blocking it, but that may indicate to you that I am in Holland. I had a very smooth travel here and it is wonderful to be in our own apartment at the center itself. It is very convenient and also very welcoming. Not only the people who live here, but everybody made the best arrangements and they receive us and every food and drink arrangement is completely filled up, so we didn’t have to go out, since I have been here, a day and a half.

0:02:46.7 Today, because of the jetlag, somehow I fell asleep, so I didn’t get time to put on my usual Sunday tie and suit. But you are in the Netherlands and you act like the Holland people. So I am just wearing very comfortable clothes, almost pajamas

-like, like sweater, etc. – not pajamas, really. That is half a joke, but a joke can become funny.

0:03:27.9 So now the subject we have been talking about is the basic Buddhist points and particularly we have been talking about the Four Big Conclusions or Resolutions of Buddha’s message. Again, I really wanted to close that talk, but somehow it is still sort of linking between the next subject and the previous one. Maybe it is helpful here for a few people. We do have a handful of Jewel Heart people listening tonight. The very big conclusions of Buddha are normally called Four Logos or Four Virtuous Signs or Four Seals of Buddhism.

0:04:54.2

EVERYTHING CREATED IS IMPERMANENT.

So again, I like to mention to you that created means that the basic knowledge, what is to be known, are basically two things: permanent, solid, static things and impermanent, created, destructive things. Basically, all existence is categorized under two separate categories of objects to be known, as bases that are to be known.

0:06:31.5 Buddhism, and particularly Tibetan Buddhism, teaches you knowledge. Even the fruit level or result level that we call the Buddha stage is also known as total enlightenment, total knowledge. What is to be known is a very big thing. The result, becoming Buddha, is based on whether you know everything or not. That’s why it is called total knowledge. So the basis of knowledge is really the fundamental basis of our functioning. That has two things: created or permanent, static.

0:07:51.3 Permanent, static things are permanent, doesn’t matter, but anything created, whatever is created, is impermanent. Du che tham che mi tak pa. I know it is a repetition for so many of you who are on line, but we have a saying in Tibetan:

If it is important, be careful and repeat it very often. And if it is dharma, say it 100 times.

I think that is what I am doing for some of you. When I say ‘impermanent’, as I said a number of times, a lot of people will think that way down the road somehow it is going to be destroyed, broken and fall into pieces and therefore it is impermanent. But that is not the understanding of impermanence at all. That’s actually a very coarse, rough understanding.

Impermanence here is anything that is made possible to function by terms and conditions is what we call ‘created’. Whatever we create is created in such a way that the moment it is established it begins to decay or age or goes into the movement of destruction. It sort of naturally builds destruction within the creation itself. The moment it is created, it begins to be destroyed. That’s why, as human beings, the moment we are born, in one way we are building our life, our strength, our body and everything. But the natural destruction is already within that and the moment it is created it is growing as well as the destruction begins.

0:11:10.8 That’s why it is impermanent. Everything, creation itself, has the destructive mechanism, which takes place immediately, the moment it is created. The Seventh Dalai Lama says,

ke ne ki tse tsam yang dö wa ru me pa

shi dag shin je drong du pang dze kyi gyu pa

sum bo se yen shi we nang tsu don du pe

ken den dro shi nang she nang du tse kyo wa (spelling???)

The moment we are born we don’t even have a minute to be settled and relax.

We are running towards death like a galloping horse.

Though we call ourselves living beings, we are in the nature of dying.

How sad our situation really is.

This really indicated the meaning of impermanence. Most of us simply think it is impermanent, because one day it is going to break, one day it is not going to work, one day it is going to be destroyed. That’s not the understanding of impermanence and that’s not going to affect us much. But knowing that it is built into our nature itself as destruction we will begin to make a dent in our unshakeable, permanent feeling of our life. You know, everybody always seems to know that we are like perishable vegetables. However, we will always plan to live for years to come, although that is not a wrong thing to do in the material world.

There is a saying in Tibetan

Although you may not have a day to live, you have to make a plan for hundred years.

It is contradicting each other. Sometimes the material world contradicts the dharma world. Sometimes they move well together. That’s how it is.

0:15:06.3 This is probably the 21st time of repeating this particular thing. I didn’t count it, it might have been half a dozen times. But basically, that’s impermanence. You can see the impermanence of whatever is happening in Nepal today. It is very, very unfortunate. I didn’t hear the latest news. Yesterday I was already in Holland and it happens to be Marianne v.d. Horst’s birthday and she invited us up in her apartment, upstairs. So we went up and had a cup of tea and beautiful, delicious cake. And there I saw something about Nepal on television and wondered what was happening. So that terrible news was on.

0:16:48.6 At that time they reported that about 14,000 people died, but I was saying that with such a damaging earthquake in Nepal this number is very definitely going to go up and I said that even if it reached 6 – or 700,000 I won’t be surprised. There are many medieval buildings and many of them are simply rocks, bricks and mud. Many of them may not even have cement in between. However, the later ones will have a little bit of diluted cement between the rocks and bricks, but there is no iron or anything. So how can it stand? So there is going to be huge destruction, no doubt and it is very, very sad and bad news.

0:18:14.1 Not only have a lot of people lost their lives, but these are simple mountain people and their livelihood is mostly from tourism and all that will tremendously affect their economic survival thereafter. But human beings are human beings. They find somehow a way to live and manage. But it is so sad for those who lost their lives and their families and everything and I like to offer not my sadness but also my prayers. We all like to offer our prayers and share their suffering. It is for me quite close to my home. As a matter of fact, the effect of that earthquake was not only felt in Southern India but also back in Tibet, even in Shigatse. I was told by somebody today – probably Derek – that there is destruction in Shigatse, that far away, up in the mountains and far north east. I am sure it is 500 miles away or more. So it was a huge earthquake.

0:20:36.1 Also the aftershocks. There were already some big ones, 6 point something. That is most horrible. But then we also appreciate the kindness and compassion of the world’s people and their help, support and aid. All that is pouring in and that is an expression of human kindness and love and compassion, for the fellow human beings and even those animals and other living beings and everyone. In a way we should appreciate and rejoice, since we can’t do much personally. Rejoice in whatever help is being given and share the sorrow and suffering that people are facing.

0:22:09.5 It is not only the Nepal earthquake, but somewhere there was also a volcano problem, covering the whole atmosphere with a huge amount of dust and I do not know how many people lost their lives there, but that’s all the ugly face of impermanence. It also indicates how important our relationship with the environment is.

Particularly the earth and water and air. How dependent we are, how important they are. But when we are not thinking we don’t pay attention to the destruction of the environment. Sometimes people think that thinking about the environment is luxury, not knowing how closely we are connected. We are very much dependent on those elements and if you don’t have clean air to breathe, what happens? We all know now. But we never bothered. When your air is completely covered with ashes of dry lava, what do you breathe in? Dust. Can human beings survive by breathing dust? Not only dust in the street, but everything is covered completely. It is like snow fall, when you look at the pictures. So you can’t breathe. If there is no pure water, what are we going to drink?

0:25:17.3 So we are very much interdependent between the environment and inhabitants. One supports the other. One gives life to the other. But we pay no attention and destroy the environment as much as possible. As a kid I was brought up in Tibet, where we didn’t know anything about that, and in India we struggled for survival and paid no attention to the environment. I even thought sometimes that the issue of the environment was a thing for people living in luxury, something additional to do, something to occupy their thoughts. I even thought that the environmental issues were some of the ways how some Americans would like to make money at the expense of all struggling poor people – not knowing that when the environmental damage comes, how we are not going to survive in life. Not knowing how genetically modified food is going to affect the world. This is also becoming an environmental issue.

0:27:24.6 When I am looking back at my young age, we were not appreciating real food. We liked to have refined food, because it looks more white and fancy. I don’t know how it tastes in the mouth. Taste is something that you adapt. You adapt whatever you want to adapt to and then you feel comfortable with that. And even the genetically modified grains, at first I thought was great. Then you begin to realize three years later that the farmers cannot grow it again, because they made it function for only three years and after that the farmers have to buy the seeds again. Looking at poor farmers in India! Traditionally they farmed the fields, saved their seeds and consumed the rest.

0:28:57.6 But now the saved seeds don’t grow, because the three years are over. So we begin to realize something is wrong. And now we know. But even then, I like refined food more than good food. Colleen eats brown rice and brown bread and brown this and brown that, but I still eat white wheat and white rice and that’s how your addictions make you do things. I know very well. White rice will get you a lot of sugar. Even if it is good rice, with no sugar added, it becomes sugar and affects my diabetes, which is giving me lots of symptoms already, as you notice. But still, I enjoy that, because that is the addiction that makes me eat that.

0:30:31.1 So how important the environment is. This is not the dharma point of right livelihood, but it is right livelihood, because what you eat is what you survive on. Sustaining your life is what you eat. That makes you healthy or weak or sick. It is so important. These are all impermanent and they are building naturally with the destruction. So it will go and will be destroyed. But you can’t say: it will go, so let it go. We have to see how we can survive and save our life and the earth and water. Saving the elements is saving our life, our human survival. We have to struggle, because it is impermanent. So I better conclude the first point: all created phenomena are impermanent.

0:32:05.6

2. ALL CONTAMINATED THINGS ARE SUFFERING.

There is an official definition of what is contaminated and what is not. But the bottom line for simple people like us is: when it is not pure it is contaminated. We have been talking about food: if it is contaminated it is pure. If you get pure food it should be uncontaminated.

Likewise our mind; when it is pure, it is uncontaminated. When it is not pure it is contaminated. Look in your mind: each one of us has direct knowledge of their mind, unless we are slightly crazy. We are not completely screwed or cuckoo, so we see our own mind and remember our own mind. We know our own mind.

0:33:56.4 Our mind is direct knowledge to us, not indirect knowledge. It is not a knowledge that is very difficult to understand. It is simply direct knowledge. Therefore, we know our own mind. We know how pure or impure our mind really is. We know how much the addictions of the negative emotions such as anger, hatred, jealousy, and ignorance influence and affect our mind. If you look at your own mind for a minute, you begin to see all this, in the form of thoughts, ideas or something popping out of our mind.

When we look at our mind we may not see mind. We may see just blank. Within that blank you begin to see thoughts popping up. Those thoughts show how mind is perceiving. Mind almost becomes in the manner in which it perceives. It is such a gentle, delicate thing, very easy to influence. I used to give the example of a clean-clear crystal lamp shade. That is the mind itself. The thoughts and addictions, positive and negative both, are like light bulbs inside the crystal lamp shade, whether they are red or green light bulbs. You switch them on and watch from the distance and you see a green lamp shade or red lamp shade or yellow lamp shade, a cool-looking lamp shade or a horrifying, terrifying color lamp shade. All of those are what happens within our mind.

0:37:00.0

So that is direct knowledge to ourselves. Knowing that, you may your own judgment, saying how pure your mind really is. If you can’t make that judgment by this point, then keep on watching your mind and when something happens to you, either somebody says something you don’t like or somebody use something that you really wants to happen and it doesn’t happen, or somebody says no to you or something, you watch what kind of thought pops up; mischievous, mean, you really want to react. We get those thoughts all the time. You just dislike it and you say you don’t like it. Some people just dislike it and want to challenge, scream, argue and do all that. Some people will think, “I noticed. I will say nothing just now, but keep it in my mind and I will get them back later.” All these thoughts come up, in different ways for different people and that shows you how mischievous you are. That shows us how impure our thoughts are. And that itself is suffering.

0:39:07.7 Sure, we will suffer by that, directly and indirectly. Directly we suffer because it will destroy our peace of mind. I used to give the example of a clean, pure glass of water. If you taste it, it is good. But then I get mud in my hand and put my hand in the glass and start washing it and then the pure, clean glass becomes muddy, not drinkable. That’s how we make our mind contaminated. Every contaminated thing is suffering. That is the conclusion.

0:40:25.6 The bigger suffering is not the physical pain. Yes, physical pain is very bad, no doubt. It limits you quite a lot. That’s okay. That’s suffering, no doubt. But the bigger suffering is more than that, mental suffering. Mental suffering is much more effective in being painful than physical suffering. And the mental suffering also brings the continuation of suffering in physical, emotional and mental ways. Therefore, contaminated things are the subjects or objects we have to discard. Uncontaminated things are to be taken in. That’s why the goal of the spiritual practitioners is to discard certain things and obtain certain things.

The object to be discarded that you have to throw out, clear, get rid of is the contaminated mind. The mental contamination and contaminated mind. Mind is impermanent and changes minute by minute, second to second. Even though all the past and even present may be contaminated, however, we want to make sure that the next immediate and future thereafter is not contaminated. That’s why there is something to be taken in and something to be gotten rid of. That is one of the basic principles in which practitioners watch their minds.

0:43:11.4 That’s how practitioners judge themselves, make a decision of what to get rid of and constantly, continuously try to get rid of this, whether you are awake, asleep or whether you are paying attention or not. Those are to be blocked and gotten rid of. Not only that, but you have to get rid of even the imprint, everything. As an example for an imprint, if you are have a piece of garlic, the smell is terrible. If you chop the garlic on the cutting board, then even if you remove the garlic the cutting board will maintain the smell of garlic until you properly cleanse it. That lingering smell of garlic is like the imprint I am talking about. There are the imprints of hatred, of obsession, of all the negative emotions, also jealousy. Some people try their best, but suddenly some thought pops up and it is a little mischievous and tries to harm somebody else in the form of teasing or something.

0:45:00.7 This may not be a strong effect of jealousy, but it is a little more than an imprint of jealousy. That is how they are affecting us. So, every contaminated thing is suffering. That is the second conclusion.

0:45:57.6 3.

3. ALL PHENOMENA, EVERY EXISTENCE, CREATED OR PERMANENT AND STATIC, UNCREATED, WHATEVER IT MAY BE, IS EMPTY AND SELFLESS.

I talked about that at least half a dozen times over the last Sundays. I may not really want to repeat, but again, very basically, everything being empty does not necessarily mean it is nothing. There is something always. But that something is very transitory, very temporary. Over here for example, we see six pillars and three beams. The beams are lifted up by the pillars. We see these square, white things holding up the beams. The activity of the pillars is to hold up the beams and joists going across. I don’t see those, because they are covered by the ceiling of dry wall or plywood or something. But that is their purpose. So the existence of this pillar is to be able to hold these beams up. That’s the activity. This pillar is able to hold this beam up, because a collection of particles becomes one solid piece.

0:49:22.4 Anything, pillars, tables, glasses, lights, computers, cameras, everything is a number of particles put together and functioning in their purposes. Computers function as computers, cameras serve as cameras and take pictures, pillars server to hold up beams, the beams serve the purpose to hold up the joists, the joists serve the purpose to hold up the floor. They are all depending on each other. The joists depend on the beams, and the beams depend on the pillars, the pillars depend on the ground. All are able to function because the particles combine together. If the particles fall to pieces, then there is nothing.

0:50:31.7 The earthquake in Nepal separated those particles and that’s why the houses fell down. Not only the ground was shaking, but the particles were separated. Not all pieces may break, however, them joining together with the purpose of giving shelter has been separated and therefore they all collapsed. This is truly telling you that it is empty. Where is the house? The house fell down, yes. But now there is no house. All the pieces did not get destroyed and are still there. The rocks, bricks and wood are still there, unless they burnt. All the particles are there, however, they are not combined together, so therefore they are unable to function.

0:51:49.0 Everything, whatever is functioning today, human beings, inanimate objects, everything is just there because the parts and parcels are just right together. So they are functioning. When they function they work. When they work, it becomes. The light here on the table, has a little bulb, the structure and a little wire, which connects to the electricity. The electricity comes through and it works. The light bulb shines and I can see. So the light is working. When there is no bulb or no connection, it won’t work and ceases to be. The meaning of empty is that. It is not saying that it is not there. It is there, because the conditions are right.

0:53:30.6 This is the very famous treatise of Nagarjuna. Today, all science welcomes that; not only the psychologists, but mostly the physicists are with that very much, because this is the reality of our life, according to the Buddha, which seems to be tallying with the scientific development today. Scientists have been looking for the end of the Russian doll for a long time. Now, bright scientists realize that there is no end of the Russian doll, including I was told, Stephen Hawking. Earlier, he gave a Christmas dinner lecture at the White House during President Clinton’s time. He ended his lecture by saying, “Mr. President, Madame Clinton, I will show you the end of the Russian doll one day.” However, later, I was told he contradicted that statement and said there is no end of the Russian doll.

0:55:22.3 Remember, the scientists were fully satisfied to find the atoms as tiniest materials, indivisible objects. Then further development of scientific knowledge shows you there is much more. Buddha kept on saying 2600 ago that there is no indivisible thing at all, no matter how subtle, how tiny, how unperceivable to human capacity – even then it will be divisible. There is never anything that is indivisible. East never touches west. This side, that side, east side and west side are based on the point where you are.

0:56:47.0 Yes, there is east and there is west. Yes, there is this side and yes, there is that side. But each one of them are interchangeable. Because they are empty, they are interchangeable. The point of reference is where you are. Even time is dividable into past, present and future. So that is empty.

Now selflessness. We cherish ourselves so much. We say “I”, “I”, “I”. “I” have a problem, my eye is not working. My kidneys are not functioning.” If I do that I will be miserable, no doubt. But I don’t. I am sorry. Because we cherish “I” so much, that’s why. If we really look where is that “I” we cherish so much, it will simply be there because everything is just right and functioning. If something is not right it is not functioning. That’s how it is. So if I think that there is some very solid “I” in me, the most precious like a queen bee or queen ant or something, then I will be miserable in my life. Everything you want most probably will never happen the way you want it. But something happens that you don’t want anyway.

0:59:23.5 Then life will be miserable. But then you realize that there is nothing, that it is all circumstances, simply the functioning of me is me, nothing beyond functioning. It functions because all causes and conditions are right. That’s why the interdependent nature of life is there. It is interdependent in the sense that causes and results depend on each other. Parts and parcels depend. Time depends. Even in our normal language we say, “I was my time.” Then they will say, “Your time has passed.” So all these are circumstances and things happening, so even “me” just happens to help my body functioning. My mind, not going crazy, just simply there, understands, thinks and produces thoughts and expresses ideas.

1:01:20.4 And that mind, that body, combined together, functioning well, without interruption, without destruction or falling to pieces, that’s called life. Happening together, being able to serve the purpose of me, that is just me. Beyond that, some dictator within us, someone called “I” is simply our ignorance projection rather than reality. So that selfless, if you understand that a little bit, if you can think about it a little bit, is a tremendously strong antidote to negative emotions. Every negative emotion is built on serving, protecting, managing self. Not only negative emotions, but even material thoughts, non-spiritual thoughts, are really aimed at making me better.

1:03:41.5 Even the person who claims to be a spiritual person like me, also very strongly has the thought of making me better. And these thoughts are based on the false “I” and when you realize that is not there, you forcibly take away the heart of ignorance. What more powerful antidote of negative emotions can there be?

1:04:42.2 One thing I also understood: the spiritual interest and spiritual understanding based in the west - even the eastern spiritual philosophy, though it might have been in the west for about 50 to 100 years - for a very long time has been either compassion or wisdom. Many people opt for compassion rather than wisdom. Understandably, because wisdom is quite difficult to get. Compassion gives direct results and therefore, giving food to hungry people and shelter to the homeless and medicine to the sick, etc., those compassionate activities are taken up quite strongly among western spiritual people, including the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Judeo-Christian tradition has a tremendously admirable service, like hospitals, emergency nurses and education, all over the world. How wonderful.

1:07:09.1 Now I don’t know whether I have the right to say it or not, but the lack of understanding of the combination of wisdom and compassion together becomes difficult. So it becomes an either or. So compassion has taken a tremendous power and strength within the western religions and spiritual people. Yet, wisdom has not taken root, because your mind did not engage in it. You simply know that knowledge is wisdom and even the teachers give a simple white wash and the seekers also give up and focus and dedicate themselves to compassionate service – which is wonderful. I am not criticizing that. Please do not misunderstand. I am not criticizing that.

Even I myself was on the receiving side of those compassionate acts. When I came out of Tibet and truly walked across the Himalayas for a number of weeks, the first thing I got was two red pills. It must have been vitamins or something, no idea. I was told that they were prevention for heat problems. So I consumed then. After that I got food and clothes – though the pajamas didn’t fit me at all. I got a set of pajamas for a 6 foot tall guy. So I had to wear that. There was nothing else to wear. I came with monks’ robes and they were woolen and heavy and soaked with rain and snow and with heat and smell. So when I changed, I got those pajamas, which didn’t fit me. Also I got a pair of shoes that would fly away, because they didn’t fit. But anyway, it was a wonderful thing to have and great.

1:10:23.8 Then there was wonderful food, like cheese. They called it American cheese. But I think it was Dutch cheese, honestly. It was some beautiful, Gouda type of cheese in tins. Plenty of them. In those days there was a great production in Holland. There was over-production and instead of throwing it away into the sea they gave it to the refugees. Otherwise they had to throw it away to maintain the price. Nowadays I don’t know if they have that much production. I don’t know if anybody throws food into the sea. I have no idea. But I was on the receiving end and it was really appreciate and I am grateful to the kindness, compassion and action shown by people.

1:11:34.1 But it should not be either-or, but both. And if you don’t have the wisdom, compassion alone will not get you anywhere. It will make you a good and kind person and you create less negativities and you create good virtue and the result of that will be good, no doubt. However, it is only limited. With wisdom you cut the root of negativities. You cut ignorance and ego loses its own red carpet it is standing on.

1:12:17.0 When ego falls, all negativities will fall. The combination is so important. Earlier, one of the great Indian mahapandits, Chandrakirti, said that when a powerful birds would like to fly and cut across the ocean, it needs two powerful wings.

Kun tsob di nyi sho yang kar bo je gyur pa

Nang pe gyal po de nyi kye wo nang ba yin

Dun do da nyi kye wö lung gi shu tob gye

Gyal we yön ten gya tso pa ro cho da to (spelling???)

The powerful wing of the relative, like love, compassion, etc., and the powerful wing of wisdom, the understanding of the nature of reality, these two move together and make the individual cut across, wherever you want to get to. Otherwise, if you have only one wing and you keep on flapping it as much as you can, it will be like the Australian boomerang. When you throw that it circles and comes back. So wing is not going to cut it. That’s what Chandrakirti has said. And that’s why the Tibetan spiritual path has something to present and contribute to the western spiritual life. I am not talking about Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism or Christianity. I am talking in general. The –isms don’t matter. What matters is the individual movement.

1:15:04.7 Uplifting the dependent individual – not the independent individual – is possible, because it is dependent. If it is not dependent, but static, then you are wherever you are and you don’t change. But if you are dependent, then you can uplift yourself. That is more important than the –isms, like Buddhism or Vajrayana or whatever. That’s what it means: every phenomenon is empty and selfless. That is the third conclusion.

1:16:18.4

4. NIRVANA IS PEACE

I mentioned this last Sunday. Nirvana is not a separate place. Nirvana is within our own mind and samsara is within our own mind. We normally think that samsara is when the houses and everything is not functioning properly and there is suffering and that nirvana is something like a pure land or heaven. We probably think that out of the three: hell, heaven and earth, hell and earth is samsara and heaven is nirvana. But that’s not the case. Hell, heaven and earth, all three are within our own mind, together. Which one you are going to use is your choice. You may say, “I may not be able to choose nirvana, because I have so many negativities, negative emotions, and so on.” But all your negative emotions are impermanent and exhaustible. There will be a time when they are all gone. When they are all gone, that is nirvana. That is peace.

1:18:18.8 So nirvana is peace. That’s the fourth conclusion. Now I would like to talk continuously. You have to implement these resolutions. There is nothing to be executed as a decision, but the conclusion or decision is taken for your benefit. Here also, if Buddha concludes something, that is not good enough. We ourselves have to conclude. It has to be my resolution, by me, for me, just like we say in the democracy. It can’t be Buddha for me. It is by me, for me, and therefore I need to understand and draw a conclusion.

1:19:48.0 How are you going to draw your conclusion? You have to think and analyze and make sure that is reliable. You have to know, analyze and understand reliably. What does that mean? Analyzing simple thoughts, whatever pops up in your head, will take you everywhere. I saw some of my friends who have a certain spiritual path, both husband and wife, meditating together. They go somewhere and when they finish the meditation, I asked them, “What did you meditate?” one of them said, “I went 300 miles away”. I said, “How?” They simply sit down and watch their thoughts and the thoughts will take them away.

1:21:41.4 Thoughts are unlimited and are part of mind. Therefore, there is clarity and lucidity. So when they take you, they take you. You are traveling and you can go 300, 400 or 1000 miles and what do you get? You see all kinds of things and you come back. All is done imaginatively. Physically they are just sitting in the corner of their roof top of their New York apartment. They travel 1000 miles and come back. Good meditation, but good does it do? I am not criticizing their practice. Their practice is great. But there is no reliability in this.

1:23:07.0

Buddha presents the Four Reliabilities:

Rely on the meaning, not on the words

Rely on the presentation of the subject, not the name and fame of the author

Rely on the direct explanations rather than the indirect, interpretable explanations

The last one is dealing with the mind, I don’t remember right now.

Whatever the person says or presents, look at that and don’t buy it just because the author is famous, or the presenter has charisma and is well known. Following that as a reason is unreliable. If the person’s presentation is good, then you should rely on that, on the subject that is presented, rather than the popularity or name of the person presenting.

1:25:13.5 That’s where Buddha says: Don’t buy it, just because I said so. Buy it, because you are convinced it is pure.

Ge long da gam ke pen

ser che dang we ser chen du

leg par ta la na yi kap

lang war cha yi kü cher mi (spelling???)

Examine even my words properly, as you would examine gold. You don’t just buy it because they say it is gold.

This is 2600 years ago. So when you want to buy a piece of gold, you cut it, and see whether it is pure gold or not. You rub the gold against a certain stone and make sure it is gold. You may burn it in fire and make sure it is gold. So you examine it through various ways and convince yourself it is gold and then get it. Don’t buy gold because I, the Buddha said so.

1:26:42.5 That tells you: depend on the subject and explanation, not the name and fame of the presenter.

What time is it?

Audience: 6.30 pm, you have gone for one and a half hours.

Rimpoche: Oh, I didn’t realize, so sorry. So I better conclude. I just want to say thank you and I am happy to be in Holland. I can talk here more and actually, it is early evening here and I would like to say Good evening everybody and thank you.

1:27:46.6 May all beings…….. 1:29:35.3 Thank you