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20150510GRNLST14

0:00:04.4 The subject we are talking today is the continuation of how Tibetan Buddhism looks at life. As we are looking in this we talked about how Buddha discovered life on the basis of the Four Noble Truths. We also talked and presented and discussed the four great resolutions. These are sometimes known as the Four Logos of Buddhism or as Four Signs of Virtue and sometimes as the Four Great Conclusions.

0:01:34.9 All of them we presented to you so that you can deal with your life, the spiritual life as well as life itself. Within our life so many things happen. But most of them, whatever we wish to materialize, does not materialize or take shape. On the contrary, things we do not want to encounter, somehow happen to move in.

0:02:41.1 When that happens, sometimes some people have some difficulties, but many people will manage through. The dharma, Buddha’s wisdom, really should contribute and help us to solve our difficulties. How do we solve our difficulties?

First through understanding. Why is it happening and what is happening? We don’t need much understanding of what’s happening; it is already happening and we have direct personal knowledge. But we don’t know why. Many people blame their suffering on others. It’s mother’s day and many people blame their mother or their father or brothers, sisters, uncles and aunties, and we always blame people outside and never look at ourselves. We look at ourselves as faultless. We don’t want to see our own faults. We don’t like to acknowledge them but always look for somebody else to blame. That has been our problem and when we can’t blame somebody else we get upset with ourselves, rather than knowing that we created it. You do know, but then you get angry, tremendously angry against yourself and blame everything and then you are not only very sad but it creates tremendous sorrow. People do that. Here we need a little understanding.

0:06:19.3 You as an individual are the person who has created the source of this problem. But it is not your fault. You might have created the cause a number of lives ago or years ago. So it was not by choice that we created suffering for ourselves this time. So one should not be terribly upset with oneself.

0:07:20.6 Secondly, we created the causes for our suffering unknowingly. I don’t think anybody likes to have problems later and creates the causes of the problem now. We have created the causes of our problem at a certain time in order to fulfill certain desires. Whether we have really fulfilled our desires is very questionable. Chances are it is not likely. Yet, we created the problem of the suffering we experience today. This is not something we knowingly did, wishing to do it. Therefore, getting angry with oneself is extremely wrong.

Yesterday, in Holland, we were doing some teaching here and studied the great Indian Pandit Shantideva, one of the great learned scholars and sages. Everybody knows what a pundit is. We use that term very often and even in politics we talk about political pundits. So Shantideva was one of the great Indian pundits. He wrote a tremendously important text on compassion and love and on ultimate, unlimited compassion and love, which technically is known in Buddhist terminology as Bodhicitta, chitta being the heart, which refers to mind.

He talks about how the people who have that unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion, are supposed to be functioning, the people who have fully reached their unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion, how they are supposed to be managing their life and functioning. Charya avatara - the way to live, function and manage. I just remember one verse. Let me paraphrase.

0:11:33.7 If there is something to be corrected, one should correct it and if there is nothing to correct, then there is no use of worrying about it.

We worry so much about things we can’t do anything about. But by worrying we can’t do anything and get more trouble and some people may even go into great depression. If you are a brilliant borderline person you may go to the other side. Worrying is something we should never entertain. If you don’t like it, notice that you don’t like it. Find out if you can do something or not. If you can, do it. Don’t keep on thinking about it. Just do it. If you can do nothing, don’t think about it. It will only give you more trouble. But notice that this is creating a problem and therefore you don’t want to repeat that. That is more helpful, rather than worrying. Worrying will bring a lot of mental and physical discomfort. That is what we can learn from Buddha and his great followers. Many of their great wisdoms are extremely helpful and have really deep insight.

0:14:34.0 Last Sunday we said: Buddha has four points of reliability. The texts say this and that and we take so much directly. The point is this: yes, these are ancient texts. But they don’t necessarily speak to us directly. Sometimes they tell you things indirectly. In certain traditions certain people say, “These are the words we saw in the Collected Works of Buddha”, something called Buddhist Canon. I tell you later about the reasons why they are called “Collected Works” and “Canon”. So people quote directly from the Buddhist Canon therefore it must be taken literally as it is, just like sometimes people say it is the word of God and that becomes unquestionable. But if you are following Buddha’s wisdom, it is never encouraged to just take the words directly, even though it is Buddha’s word.

Last Sunday I told you that Buddha himself encouraged his disciples: Don’t just buy it, because Buddha said so. Just don’t buy some metal because the seller tells you it is gold. When you want to buy gold, examine it; rub it and burn and cut it and when you are convinced that it is the best pure quality of gold, then buy it. Otherwise don’t.

So Buddha’s words are sometimes not direct and cannot always be taken literally. For example, there was an Indian ruler who was very much influenced by his ministerial friends. He overthrew his father, who was the big ruler and put him in prison and took over the royal management of the country. He functioned as king and put his father in prison. He always thought the father never created the space for him to become king. His thoughts added up and added up and he was convinced that his father was not a good person and not king and not good for him. So he kept him in house arrest for a long time in the lower part of the palace.

0:19:39.2 Meanwhile, the father was a follower of Buddha and was doing his practice and meditated and became an arhat, and was able to free himself from the suffering of uncontrolled and unmanaged misery that we experience again and again, and as Buddhists believe, even in life after life, which is called samsara, the uncontrolled circle of repeated lives. He was able to free himself from that. He could die any time he wanted to and could be reborn as what and when he wanted to. He had that choice in his hand. That’s called: one who has defeated the enemy, who didn’t let him have control and power over himself. One who has defeated, that is called victorious over the enemies. That is not another person, but our negative emotions and negative deeds. That is the monster within ourselves. It is not an external person. I might as well mention that. The struggle is internal and the victory is too. That is not another being but the monster in our mind itself. Victory over that is called freedom. This is what human beings can achieve and they are very much facilitated to be able to achieve that, provided we build our compassion and wisdom and at this point more wisdom.

To continue with the story, the elder king was put in jail, and meanwhile the younger king had a son, the prince, who had some kind of blood disease. They couldn’t cure the son. The son’s grandmother, the new king’s mother, the original king’s queen, told him, “You have to suck the blood of your child, otherwise he will die. You have to do it. You had the same disease before and your father sucked your blood.

The present king asked, “Did he really do that for me?” The mother said, “Yes, he did that a number of times till you were cured.”

So he regretted that he treated his father so badly. He did what his mother told him and his child got better. At that moment he decided to release his father from prison on the lower floor of the palace. He indicated to the ministers that he would free him. All these ministers got very excited, as they were loyal to the father. Since this kid had become king they remained loyal to that king, however, now they all decided to run and free the father. So there was big, rushed movement upstairs. The father thought, “Now they are coming to kill me, so I better die before they come.” And by the time they reached downstairs to free him he was already dead.

Then the present king was very sad and almost went into deep depression, realizing that he had punished and tortured and killed him. So it was really that bad. Finally he thought he should see Buddha and asked him to help him.

0:27:14.1 Buddha said, “Welcome, great king.” He said, “I am not a great king. I have tortured and killed my father.”

Buddha said, “It is okay to kill one’s parents and destroy one’s own country, subjects and retinue.”

That made the new king think and begin to mentally communicate with Buddha and open up. So for that purpose Buddha had said these words with a different intention; the father of this suffering world should be killed and so should the mother and retinue and if you do so then you are liberated. So Buddha’s intention is not to kill the parents but to kill the creator of suffering, one’s own ignorance and ego and the obsession, etc., the retinue of the negative emotions. If you can gain victory over those you are liberated.

If you take those words directly, that the parents should be killed and the country destroyed, then that ‘s wrong. So this is not surprising today. Look at many traditions with their biblical type of words. There are lots of interpretable words and there are many with direct meaning, without needing to interpret in all the ancient traditions. That’s why Buddha talks about the Four Reliabilities:

0:31:02.2

Do not rely on personality and fame of the person, but on the words themselves, the dharma itself.

Do not rely on the words, but on the meaning.

Today I will introduce the third:

Rely on direct words, not on indirect, interpretable words.

0:31:59.6 Many statements are interpretable. In our constitution, when not easily applicable or suitable, we have amendments. And it’s not that we amend the Buddha’s words, but that’s why the great mahasiddhas and mahapundits did interpret them. And that’s why in the Buddhist tradition there is not only the Collected Works of Buddha, the kangyur, but also the shastras (Tib: tengyur) . There are 100 odd volumes of Buddha’s words and over 200 shastras. These present the meaning and interpretation the words of Buddha and give you the direct and interpretable meaning and these are established through the shastras by the early Indian scholars and adepts.

So you shouldn’t just buy the original words of Buddha, but check if they are said with a different intention or purpose or something. Who can interpret that? There would be nobody better than those who have almost achieved the same position as Buddha. So we rely on those early Indian mahapundits.

IS BUDDHA'S WISDOM RELEVANT TRUTH TODAY?

Mahayana Buddhism, the greater vehicle, really relies a lot on shastras. Theravada Buddhism doesn’t and they don’t even accept them. Many of them will say: only look at what the Buddha said. That seems to be great, but there are so many interpretations. So it is wise for us to see this. Many of us will say it is the words from the highest and therefore we should follow them literally. My learning tells me that yes, the words from the highest are the fundamental source, but many of them are over 2000 years old and so many changes took place, without realizing.

0:36:45.9 Originally, when the words were spoken, they may have been spoken for a very important, urgent matter, directly. So we must give room for them to be examined and interpreted. So that is a slightly different way of looking at the founders of religions.

The Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism really examines so much and relies on wisdom much more than compassionate action. One must engage in compassionate action, but if there is no wisdom, the compassionate action can only build you tremendous amounts of good karma, but cannot make a dent to the real devil in us, the ego, the ignorance.

0:38:24.7 When you have to deal with that, one part is to examine, if there is a different meaning or intention and purpose and maybe the purpose today for us is different. That is all revealed by wisdom. If you don’t have wisdom, it is very difficult and everything has to be taken literally. So wisdom is very important. So today Buddha’s teaching is simply this:

Do not rely on interpretable statements, but rely on direct non-interpretable.

But who knows what is direct and not direct? Our own wisdom, which is linked up with the wisdom of the earlier great masters. And that will reveal the truth.

That is the third reliability I wanted to talk to you about.

0:40:22.2 What we are building is that the essence of Buddha’s teaching is absolutely relevant to our life today and we can contribute that, not necessarily bringing dharma dogma to people, but there is tremendous wisdom and compassion and love within Buddha’s teaching and you don’t have to be necessarily a Buddhist to be able to practice. If you can find that within being a Buddhist, you are welcome and you are great. But my purpose is to bring those important points to anyone who doesn’t have to be Buddhist and wants to be whatever they are, maybe staunch Catholic, Jew or atheist or whatever. These points have great benefit and service for people and I am trying to bring it out and present it individually to anyone who can use it.

0:42:20.4 Like hatha yoga, the 7th part of the yoga of the Hindu tradition. People have taken hatha yoga separately and used it and today it has become an activity of human beings to improve their life and it is very useful and there are zillions of those useful methods within Buddha’s wisdom we like to take them and present them.

One of them is meditation. And that is coming out. That is not necessarily Buddhist either. A lot of traditions in both, east and west, have meditation, I believe. But somehow many of that had disappeared and was hidden for a while from the western world and is coming back now from the east and is very, very useful.

For example, when you have difficulties in your mind, meditation is very important. It is an important tool to 1) examine your mind, 2) to relax your mind and 3) to encourage positive effects in your mind, and that is very important and things are happening. Each of the Four Noble Truths and the Four Resolutions have tremendous benefits to deal with our life today.

0:44:46.8 This is what I try to do. This is totally Buddhist-inspired, but not really Buddhist dogma, and it is geared towards the individual - not to become Buddhist - but to bring the benefit of Buddha’s wisdom into our life today and lives after. That’s how I like to present this and next Sunday I will talk to you about the Fourth Reliability.

0:46:01.2 Meanwhile, have good mother’s day and we appreciate what mothers have done. Without them we have no life here at all. No one has been born out of a bottle so far. I am reminding you of two things: 1) Appreciate all mother beings and 2) by appreciating we give respect to all mothers and all females, more than others, because they are ones who give life. Not only they give life but they nurture us and bring us up and educate us and bring so much love and affection.

Today, when we remember our mother, we may remember the mother’s stubbornness, her not agreeing with us and maybe fights, quarrels or arguments. But at the same time, with the exception of a few, something beyond imagination, most have absolutely delicate love and affection for their kids. Don’t think of the relationship of your mother to you, but think of your child and you as mother: how much you share and give your love and care and similarly other mothers do the same thing. So your mother did the same thing. Sometimes we forget that and remember our mother as being stubborn and not agreeing with us. So change your mind here and remember and appreciate the mothers and then give the wonderful love and affection to the mothers and have a very Happy Mother’s Day and thank you.

0:49:32.1 end