Archive Result

20150517GRNYST15

0:00:04.9 Welcome to this Sunday talk. As you see, I am still in the Netherlands, talking to you from the Jewel Heart center in the Netherlands. We also have an audience here tonight of a number of wonderful, good old friends, almost all the original Jewel Heart founders, Marianne Soeters, Piet Soeters, Marianne van der Horst, Carel Weevers, and our Jewel Heart President and the board members and vice president and Dharma coordinators committee. All of them are here today and all are very happy to be observers to the Sunday talk.

0:01:30.2 Jewel Heart Netherlands, as many of you know, is my original Jewel Heart. It was there actually before Jewel Heart America. It was formed here by a Dutch woman, the late Helen van Hoorn. She was a wonderful woman and she had been traveling India. Se was a great intellectual, originally part of the European Socialist Party and a wonderful woman. She was spending a lot of time in India to study Tibetan Buddhism. She had the great opportunity to meet the late His Holiness Kyabje Ling Dorje Chang, the senior master of His Holiness Dalai Lama, as well as Kyabje Trijang Dorje Chang, the junior master and many other great teachers like Serkong Dorje Change at that time. She came to Delhi to study with me at the behest of Kyabje Ling Dorje Chang. She studied for a while and was very good at it. Then I thought, instead of wasting her time to endeavor in studying dharma in India, it would be better to go back to the Netherlands and have her fellow country people served by her knowledge and experience and so she finally returned to the Netherlands and started working with her friends like Marianne Soeters and Len and a number of others, which was the beginning of Jewel Heart here in the Netherlands.

0:04:30.1 Then she invited me and I came and the first meetings were in Masbommel at the FPMT Maitreya center. There was a good geshe, Geshe Könchog Lhundrub and today I spent part of my morning with my good old friend Gen Namgyal-la, who is teaching Tibetan and he was Geshe Könchog Lhundrub’s translator for 7, 8 years. So Geshe-la was there at that time as the Dharma teacher or instructor or spiritual master at Maitreya Institute at that time. Finally, we had Jewel Heart temporarily meet, as I remember, in Marianne and Piet Soeters’ dining room, at a big, nice, long table near the window and we met there for a couple of weekends. That’s how it was really home-grown and started from here and now we have a very, very good center. As a matter of fact, one of our members, who is also instrumental in building the Jewel Heart building, told me that this is the biggest Tibetan Buddhist center in Holland, both in terms of dedication and numbers of people as well as the building, etc.

0:07:00.5 So it is from the dining room of Marianne Soeters that it has grown up to here. This is the continuation. So we are very happy that Piet and Marianne dropped in today and are here with us. And also, of course you know Marianne Soeters really worked very hard on my transcripts. All these thirty-some odd transcripts are available today, and most of them were done from the beginning, for a very long time by Marianne Soeters and the Dutch people. So you all have benefited from the work done by the Dutch. So I am very grateful and thank you to all the members of the Dutch community here and particularly Marianne and Piet Soeters. Also, what you may not know, many of them are translated into Dutch language. Piet Soeters takes care, making sure that it is in the language he admires and works with and it is really, really great and a very happy moment for me and although we don’t have other members here except for a small group of members here. So I am very happy.

0:09:00.0 On these Sundays we have been talking very much about the important points of Buddha’s wisdom, which is not necessarily so much about Buddhist dogma, but actually the reality of our life and how we can incorporate the Buddha’s wisdom into our life and particularly, without declaring yourself as Buddhist. I was really looking for very essential and common, not dogmatic, points dealing with our life. So I began, as you remember, with the two truths. the absolute truth and the relative truth. I did that for quite some time and then I talked about the Four Noble Truths. That was the Buddha’s first teaching. Although it was given 2600 years ago, it is absolutely relevant in all of our lives today, whether in the east or in the west, whether you are old or young, it is very much dealing with our life, and it is completely and truly relevant. So we spent a lot of time talking about the Four Noble Truths.

0:11:19.5 This was followed by the Four Logos or Four Signs of Buddha. The Four Noble Truths are probably known to most of you and many people. The first of the Four Logos or Four Signs of Buddha’s thoughts is: created phenomena are all impermanent. It talks about ‘created’ in the sense that it was not created by Buddha or God or anything, but created by causes and conditions. Created in that way it becomes completely impermanent. So it functions. The definition of existence is to be able to function, whatever it is. Created phenomena are able to function as whatever the phenomena are. For example, on the table in front of me there is a timepiece and this timepiece is created. Not only manufactured by the manufacturer who made the clock, but also by the conditions of this clock materials as well as the technology as well as the pieces put together. That then becomes this timepiece. It functions and it tells me the time. It is not like the Rolex watch.

0:13:36.1 Recently I saw the advertising of the Rolex watch here in Holland and it says: it will not only tell you the time but also history. But this piece on the table here will not tell me any history, because the clock itself is new here, at least for the last one year or so. But it tells me the time. When it tells me the time that serves the purpose of being a clock. So it is a created phenomenon. Likewise, I have a glass of water on my table and have this little microphone. All of those are created phenomena and they are all impermanent. If one piece is missing they will stop working. For example, this microphone I am using, if the battery goes down you are not going to hear me. That’s exactly how it is conditioned.

0:14:53.8 Likewise our human life is all conditioned. Absolutely. The cause of human beings to be born is what we need to have and then we need our consciousness or soul. I will not hesitate to call it “soul”, though it is very staunch Christian terminology. Buddhists like to call it “consciousness”, but what is so different between soul and consciousness? Language-wise of course, but the actual definition, when you are looking at it, there is not that much difference. Consciousness may only refer to mind and soul may refer to also something other than mind, but that’s why I say the language has differences, but when you really go down, the bottom line of what it means, may not be that different.

0:16:14.5 Also, I would really like to say all the great traditions, like Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, etc., are all great religions and they use different definitions and have different language, but at the bottom line they almost become one. Their purpose is to help all living beings and make the individual better and achieve something greater than what we are having now. That is almost the same thing. Some may tell you that you become closer to God, some may tell you that you become fully enlightened, some may tell you that you become the best of all. There are all these different definitions, but all will bottom line at boiling down to one. But if the individual practitioners change that into sectarian materialism, then everything will become disagreement and everything will be terrifying and bad. So every other thing becomes bad. That is the individual human beings’ interpretation and way of looking and adopting.

0:18:06.0 But in the spiritual path, I really think, if you let it be, there is very, very good harmony, because they are all great beings who have created these. For me, it happens to be that I was born in Tibet, where Buddhism was really flourishing and I had the opportunity of learning at the feet of great masters, and then I was kicked out of Tibet in 1959 and I have nothing else to carry except a little knowledge of Buddha Dharma, which I present to the world today. That’s what I have been doing for the last 30, 40 years. So for me it happens to be this path, but that doesn’t mean the other paths don’t have it. They are almost the same. One thing I will never say is that Buddhism is superior to the Judeo-Christian faith or to Hinduism, or for that matter, the Sikh religion and all that type. But if you think about voodoo-ism, then Buddhism is greater, as is Christianity and Judaism and everything. Voodoo-ism and shamanism, I am not looking down on them, but those great traditions are great traditions and along with that there is goodness even in voodoo-ism and shamanism and all of them. So for us, we are really seeking help and wherever we get help, we really want to pick it up.

0:20:32.4 That’s why I am presenting the wisdom of the Buddha, which is really not so much dogma-oriented. I am trying to present it that way to you, so that there may be some kind of good ideas to ease your suffering and pain. We do have a lot of mental, physical and emotional pains, as well as we suffer from the normal human sufferings, such as aging, sickness and dying and death. We are really subject to all of them, whether you like to talk about them or not. That’s not so much about dogma, but that’s the reality. I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. I almost jumped, when I talked about reality. I can talk about the four logical points, but I think I haven’t finished the four reliabilities yet. So I am not going to jump into the logical points. Sometimes I do that, forgive me, when I am talking my thoughts take me here and there. But I don’t want to run the cart before the horse.

0:22:39.0 Just now I have been talking about the Four Noble Truths, the Truth of Suffering, The Truth of the Cause of Suffering, the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering and the Truth of the Path of Cessation, which causes the cessation. I have talked about that in detail and I am not going to revisit, but I am still mentioning it, because the fact that I finished talking about it doesn’t mean it is over. It is dealing with our life every day. Suffering, the cause of suffering, is there a way out of it or not, and what is the way out – can we really achieve it – that is our daily life. Even if we have physical pain, we will look out how to get out of the pain and will take aspirin or anything, which clearly shows that we are looking for a way out of the pain and we know there is a way out of the pain. The aspirin will help us temporarily. If you reduce the cause, [it really helps]. All phenomena are created, and causes and conditions are part and parcel of existence. Our pains and sufferings, all of them are also dependent on causes and conditions. If we remove the causes, if we dismantle the conditions, we will not suffer.

0:24:23.7 We take aspirin and it somehow disconnects something in our physical body, so the pain is blocked and we somehow don’t recognize it and then the time will heal you. So it looks like the aspirin has healed us. But the reality is that the aspirin disconnects certain things. I am not a doctor, I have no idea, I am guessing. I have also truly no idea what I am talking about just now, but this is my understanding how these pills function within us. So we look for the pills, because we don’t want that suffering and are looking for a way out. Looking for a way out of suffering is our human nature, not only human nature, but it is sentient beings’ nature. No one would like to suffer. No one would like to be tortured, no one would like all this, but we get it. We call it karma. We created the causes and conditions and when they materialize then we suffer.

0:25:54.0 That tells us that the causes and conditions can be separated. For example you can block the pain, because then we don’t feel the pain. The pain is not gone, but we don’t know and feel it. It doesn’t mean there is no pain, but we don’t feel it. The same thing, when we do operations. We get anesthesia, which will block the awareness of the individual and violently the doctors cut you wherever they need to. We don’t know that, we have been blocked by anesthesia. We have been put to sleep, so we don’t know. That doesn’t mean the pain is not there. It is there when the anesthesia subsides, which shows it is there. If you can pull the conditions out or if you can pull the causes out, then you can be suffering-free. That’s what Buddha has been talking about for 2600 years.

0:27:46.1 That is absolutely relevant in our life. So we talked about that. Then we talked about the Four Buddhist Logos and I don’t want to repeat that, because then I am going to spend most of the time in repetition. We already mentioned it. But one thing is important when we say that every created phenomenon is impermanent. I said it a number of times, but I like to repeat it again, because it is important. Many people think, “Yes, I know it is permanent, because down the road it is going to decay; down the road I am going to kick my bucket.” That is gross impermanence, the gross understanding, but not full understanding of impermanence. The understanding of impermanence is this: the moment we are born, the moment we are functioning, we are functioning in the nature of destruction – not necessarily in the nature of destruction, but along with it. The moment we have completed creation, destruction starts.

0:29:24.4 The minute after that, immediately, the next minute destruction starts. We call it growing up and maturing, up to age 25 or so. Then the body starts decaying. That is in our nature. The moment we are born and it is functioning, it starts. That is the meaning of impermanence and not that sometime afterwards we will kick our bucket and therefore it is impermanent. Or the food will perish, so it’s impermanent. That’s not it. Impermanence means that every minute we are there we are moving, moving towards decay, moving while decaying and running towards kicking our bucket.

0:30:40.5 That’s what impermanence is all about. Even this timepiece here goes tick, tick, tick, every minute it is going to destruction. That’s exactly what impermanence is all about.

Then every contaminated phenomenon is suffering. I don’t want to repeat, as I have already explained it. Then: every phenomenon is empty. I spent a lot of time explaining emptiness, which is very famous and known as Buddhist wisdom. Emptiness is not empty. It is dependent. It is the interdependent nature of existence, to give you the bare bones, bottom line language. We are interdependent. Every world today is interdependent. Even outside, the other galaxies, if there is a close encounter with the third kind with us, it is interdependent. So interdependence does not function just in this world alone, but way beyond, in the multi-galaxies of existence of life. That is the meaning of emptiness. It is empty in the sense that there is nothing solid or “The one”. I always talk about the end of the Russian doll. There are these Russian dolls where you take out one thing and within that another thing and out of that get out another thing and at the end something comes out which is the end of the Russian doll.

0:33:09.0 There is not end of the Russian doll. There is no singular atom; there is nothing single. Everything is a pair. There is no single atom. I very often say: east never touches west. The east of this finger will never touch the west of this finger. So it goes with every atom, every neutron and everything else. Even time also has terms and conditions. And every atom has it. That’s why there is no solid “This”. That is what empty is all about.

0:34:13.2 Then the last of the four – and that is a little bit of dogma: nirvana is peace. Nirvana is peace is because when we see where our problems and sufferings are coming from, we tackle them and deal with them and defeat them. There is a battle between the negative and positive forces within ourselves and we are at stake and we battle that and when we defeat negative forces or the created phenomena which are the nature of suffering, [when they] are all exhausted, then you are left with peace and harmony. Again, when we say nirvana, it may look like paradise or something, but it doesn’t mean that the individual from here has to go in that paradise. This exhaustion of negativities is within ourselves. This positive gain by the efforts of exhaustion of negativities will be nirvana, the cessation of the causes of suffering.

0:36:16.2 These are the four Buddhist logos. By presenting you the Four Noble Truths, the Four Buddhist logos, all this will give you an idea of how we will deal with our life. For one, we have to understand and acknowledge whatever is happening, good or bad. We can never deny. We are in the habit of denying, particularly negative things. Denying will be really, really bad, because denial will shelter our problems. Denial will deny the solution to solve the problem. We are not going to entertain the solution because we deny our problem. “I have no problem, what are you talking about?” I personally have no problem with any tradition, including new age. But when the new age people tell you, “There is no problem, there is no suffering, what is this so called suffering?” then I have a little hesitation. I don’t know whether I have a problem or not, but I have some hesitation because you yourself are suffering, but you still say, “I don’t know what suffering is all about.” That is a little something. But the new age chose to say that. In a way, if you keep on thinking positive and keep on denying all negatives, it may help to a certain extent.

0:38:44.4 But that’s not going to be forever. It is real.

KEEPING OUR SPIRITUAL PATH RELIABLE

Suffering is real. Freedom is real. Both are real. It is available for all of us to experience, whether you want to or not. You have to put in efforts to gain freedom. Suffering, whether you want it or whether you deny, whatever you do, that won’t work. That tells us to understand, to think about it and then to work. The question comes: how do we work? When you are working you work with the mind. Most important, you work analytical, rather than just simply sitting. Sometimes, in the Buddhist tradition, or even the Hindu tradition, they call it meditation. There is analytical meditation and concentrated meditation. Both are mental activities, whether you call it meditation or not. Thinking is analyzing, using your intelligent mind, using your logical power, reasoning and checking within. That is analytical meditation. That will find a point of whatever you are looking at. On that point you then focus with concentration and in that way it becomes part and parcel of you and character of you. Then it is really the personality of the individual. This is how we are changing our personality from a suffering, angry, mean person to a kind, compassionate, loving, wonderful person. The change comes through these activities.

0:41:46.6 How are these activities used by us? For that, we talk about the four reliabilities. Today we are going to talk about the four reliabilities of the information you utilize.

DEPEND ON THE MESSAGE, NOT ON THE MESSENGER.

I talked about Buddha saying: don’t trust me, because I, Buddha, said so. You buy it, because you are convinced. These are very important points that Buddha shared. He is trying to tell us what is reliable and what is not. Truth is reliable, not the charismatic presenter who is talking. If you rely on that you sometimes can go down quite badly. We have not forgotten what has happened with Jim Jones and Heaven’s Gate and even David Koresh. All these have happened, because people didn’t rely on the message but on the messenger. That’s why Buddha said: don’t buy it because I, the Buddha, said so. You buy it because you are convinced. That is the first reliability.

0:43:39.8

DON’T RELY ON THE WORDS, BUT ON THE MEANING.

There will be very flowery, poetic words that may not necessarily mean that it is the truth. It is commonly known that poets and literature have it’s ways of presenting – I don’t want to say ‘exaggerating’, but that’s sometimes what poetry does. That’s why Buddha says: don’t rely on the words. Very flowery words say something, but when you think about it, there is nothing in it. So if you follow those flowery words you don’t have anything to show solidly. What happens is, we always tell you: do not fly in the air. Please be grounded. You are not grounded, because you are flying in the air with beautiful words and no meaning and all that and this reliability tells you: do not do that.

0:45:26.1 I presented the third to you already, so I am just making a brief statement here:

DO NOT RELY ON WORDS THAT ARE INTERPRETABLE, BUT ON THOSE WITH DIRECT MEANING.

This is very hard for us to know. That’s why Buddha never encouraged to worship or to follow the words of Buddha. But today’s Buddha’s disciples, many of them and particularly in South East Asia, many of them will say: see what Buddha says. They refer you to the Tripitakas and many of them do not accept the Mahayana sutras or Vajrayana tantras as Buddha’s words. But this reliability says: do not rely on interpretable words. It is hard to figure out which statements are interpretable and which are not. That is way beyond us. That’s why the Tibetan Buddhist tradition has so many commentaries. Even Buddha’s own words were commented on by the early Indian pandits and mahasiddhas in their shastras.

0:47:11.4 Those shastras are so important. They have debates and arguments and draw conclusions and make it easier for the future generations and better and better and better and that’s why even in the Tibetan tradition there are so many great earlier masters and Kadampa lamas in that period and their interpretations, and later there were the new Kadampa lamas, like Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa, etc. They have more explanations and interpretations, which revolutionize the earlier understanding and thoughts into a new, very logical way, so very close to reality. That’s why it is said: rely on the non-interpretable. Which is interpretable and which is not interpretable is very difficult to know. But that is part of it.

0:48:43.8 Now I have to present today’s point, the fourth reliability:

4. DO NOT RELY ON MENTAL UNDERSTANDING, BUT RELY ON PERFECT WISDOM.

That is a big deal now. Our mind, when you think and concentrate, gets a lot of ideas, particularly, if you are sitting and not analyzing. If you are analyzing, you not only keep your focus on the subject, but you get various ideas and analyze these ideas and reject what is not known to you and what is not right. You can keep on rejecting and you get some idea.

0:49:48.7 Right or wrong – never every draw a quick conclusion. Sleep on it, for days, weeks, months. Talk to other friends. Think and gain a better understanding. If you are simply siting, you get all kinds of things. For a while it is blank and then some movement comes and if you want to meditate on somebody who is sitting, that fellow will get up and walk. If you want to have somebody sitting there with their mouth shut, they won’t shut up but will be talking to you. Then you will be following that. You will begin to hear a voice; you will begin to do all this and that. This is not reliable. Do not rely on that. That’s what Buddha is saying. Even if you mental, analytical, intellectual thinking gives you a little understanding, just because you have gained a little understanding, do not rely on that. Re-examine, and re-examine and re-examine and talk with some other person and read more reliable information and see whether what you are getting and this reliable information are tallying or not. If not, then probably your conclusion is not right.

0:51:43.8 So go on like that and finally it becomes wisdom and then it is reliable.

So these are the Four Reliabilities that I would like to talk to you about. These are the ways how we look and meditate and analyze. These are very, very important, whether you are Judeo-Christian or Hindu or Muslim, or whoever you are, if you are really keen and interested in helping yourself, even if you are atheist or agnostic, these are useful and helpful. So I wanted to present this and if you see something in there to help yourself, you can pick that up.

0:53:06.8 Very often I say; if you have questions and if you are connected, send an e mail to the Jewel Heart webinar team at jewelheartlive@jewelheart.org. Then we can discuss that at least at the next segment next Sunday. This is my last Sunday talking to you from the Netherlands and next Sunday I will be talking to you from New York. The Sunday after that I think I will be in Ann Arbor. Once I get to Ann Arbor, maybe not the first Sunday but thereafter, we can have a couple of dialogues through this webinar. We can dialogue together, wherever you are. If you are interested in raising questions and dialoguing would you please send an e mail to jewelheartlive@jewelheart.org and indicate that you are interested. This is within the audience, whoever is listening, 200 – 300 people. So everybody will hear that and benefit. If we have good questions, we will be happy to have a dialogue on Sunday mornings for a few minutes before the time is over. With that I would like to say Thank you so much to everybody listening this Sunday. If you want to communicate with us, please do contact jewelheartlive@jewelheart.org. With that I would like to thank you, everybody on the web and I also like to thank the people here, the board and DCT and good old friends and all. Thank you.

0:56:00.9 We will do the Four Immeasurables here: 0:56:20.4 chanting of Four Immeasurables…….. 0:56:20.4