Archive Result

20150524GRAAST16

0:00:00.0 Good morning to you, welcome to the Sunday talk. As you see I am back in the United States and speaking to you from New York City. So, we are live from New York City for the Sunday talk today. My visit in Holland was very wonderful and successful and I gave teachings on lam rim de lam, the Smooth Path to Enlightenment. Particularly I emphasized very much the beginning level, as well as the “Common with the Lower Level”, in quite good detail, as well as teaching on two chapters of the “Bodhisattva’s Way of Life”, the chapters on Patience and Enthusiasm. Both of them I briefly explained. There were about 10 days of teaching. It was very good and the members of the Dutch Jewel Heart are very, very well and doing very good. Also I am looking forward to going back to Holland in November to begin with the introduction to Vajrayana, particularly the Buddha of Compassion, Avalokitesvara, an initiation/blessing, which should be a very good introduction for those who are interested in Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana and this is the kriya tantra, so it is really a good introduction to Vajrayana. So we will be doing that and I am looking forward to that and then the actual teaching in November is going to be on Vajrayogini, with initiation. So hopefully, this will be good and I am looking forward to it.

0:03:14.1 Now, today we are continuing talking about our subject. Last time, if I remember correctly, I talked a number of things. Earlier, we began with the Four Noble Truths and then the Four Signs or Buddhist Slogans or also known as Buddhist Resolutions. Then we had the Four Reliabilities. All those we talked. And I am sure a number of you will have some questions. So, regarding that, if you have any questions, I will encourage you to write an e mail to the webinar committee at Jewel Heart, jewelheartlive@jewelheart.org and the next Sunday I will be talking to you from Ann Arbor and that time I will be reading your questions and trying to answer if I can, if there is something that we need to discuss. I will pick up and please write clearly to the webinar team. Next Sunday we will discuss it from Ann Arbor.

WHY TALK ABOUT MORALITY

0:05:13.5 Today, now there are so many four, four, fours, like the Four Noble Truths, the Four Conclusions, the Four Reliabilities. I was originally planning on talking on the Four Reasonings, but maybe that’s too many fours. So maybe I go for three today. So anyway, one of the most important teachings or messages that Buddha gave us about how to live our life is what Buddhists know as the Three Higher Trainings. These are very important, because whether they are higher trainings or not, but the three most important things to live our everyday life are these.

0:06:32.6 One of them is morality. When I talk about morality, some of you will appreciate, but some of you may not and think, “Why talk about morality? I can do whatever I want to and nobody can tell me what I can and cannot do.” But this is a slightly different morality than what we normally understand. The normal American understanding of morality is almost looking at sexual activities and sexual orientation or something like that. This is certainly not that. When Buddha talks about morality, he is talking about basic human dignity and basic human etiquette. Yes, we do talk about sexuality, but not about whether it is heterosexual or otherwise. We are talking about our commitment. This morality, which Buddha emphasized, is not only the sexual aspects, but the normal, usual human behavior, such as you cannot take the life of others.

0:08:33.0 Particularly human life. So killing, murdering, is very definitely a wrong thing to do - every killing, whatever it is. There is no justification taking a human life. No matter whatever the end may be, it does not justify the means. Taking a life of course is an immorality, particularly, when the other person is in a weaker situation and you are in a better situation. That’s what these murderers do. They try to put the victims into a very weak situation and they beat them up and defeat and torture and kill them. That is very definitely the No. 1 on the immorality list, honestly. This immorality is taking life and that is the direct taking of life. Of course, nobody would like to do that, if you are a sensible human being. No one would like to take a human life. Not only human life, but even weaker animals and other creatures, just because we can. We are human beings and we can take their life quite easily. But that is morally not right.

0:10:47.9 Really, avoid taking any life. Of course, human, no question. No question. Then, even other animal lives. The bigger the animal, the heavier the negativity is supposed to be. But killing of animals may not have any comparison with the killing of human beings. So this is very important.

0:11:38.0 Then indirect killing. Of course, everybody is aware of direct killing, but there is indirect killing. The indirect killing is something that particularly we ourselves can be very much involved in, whenever we engage in those wars. War is nothing but killing. But we sometimes contribute to killing too. One has to be quite aware of it. On the one hand, as American citizens, each and every one of you has the right and the power to be able to stop the wars. You can try, because you have the power and capability. That does not mean it will stop immediately. But the efforts of stopping war should not be neglected and should be supported.

0:13:18.4 Particularly, now the elections are coming. In the elections some candidates will say, “I will destroy them without trace of anything.” Such a thing should not be supported, because we have our own control on that. Each and every American citizen has the power to vote. This is such a great power. I never had that for a long time. Since I became American citizen I also enjoy that power and appreciate and treasure that. Each and every one of you has that. So you have to exercise that right of yours, particularly not contributing to killing or sexual misconduct or stealing. These are the four major ones including lying. And that is not just the used car seller’s lie, but the black lie.

0:14:44.8 This is the basic morality we are talking about. Particularly I would like to emphasize killing, because with killing we are not much involved directly, but very much indirectly. It is by nature. As good Americans citizens we pay our tax. When we pay our tax, the tax money goes to supporting war and that is not direct, but indirect killing. That will be a very big issue on morality for me. For you – I am only telling you what I am thinking about. That does not mean I will not pay my taxes. I do have to pay my taxes, because if I don’t, that’s morally wrong. So this is my moral issue, so I do pay my taxes. But at the same time I am aware of where my tax money can be involved.

0:16:13.3 At the same time there is so much of my tax money involved in helping. There is a tremendous amount of help for the people, particularly those in need, like our senior citizens, as well as those military service people who have come back and also the health services and environmental services, as well as helping the Third World nations. To all of that our tax money is also directed. So from my mind, I always think, as I pay my taxes, that I have contributed to the good services of the humanitarian services my country engages in. In my mind I am contributing towards that.

0:17:22.5 Sometimes mind power is so important. So even though, once you have paid your taxes you have no right to say where they are spent, but if you don’t have that right, the treasury department or the law makers decide wherever they spend it, I am quite sure they have the right to do that, but from my mind I have contributed towards that. That may prevent me from getting indirect karma of contributing to killing. This is simply mental, nothing physical, or action-oriented. That is just for my own satisfaction, by me, for me. I think that way. Some of you may like to think that way. That is up to you. I am simply talking about what I do. Whatever it is, we try to avoid killing. Killing is not right. Saving lives directly is karmically a cause for our longevity. Also, karmically, helping others helps us to have a healthy and long life. So killing is a direct cause for shortening our life.

0:19:26.2 That’s why the first morality is that of avoiding killing. Of course, human killing is very important to everybody. You don’t have to be Buddhist. Just good human beings do not kill, as you know. Therefore, some people would like to kill and hurt people, and like to do harm to other people. It is from their karma. Some people are like that. If anyone of you or your friends or somebody you know has that character, gradually, with kindness and compassion, you should also try to help them avoid that. Try to tell them this is not good and try to change that person and it will be a great help for that person and great help to yourself and good karma for you and for them and for the whole of mankind. So this morality issue is not only for the individual. It is very much for the individual, but also the whole of society, for everybody.

0:21:04.4 So I don’t have to talk much about killing, because everybody knows. I am going to sort of not spend a lot of your time and my time on that. But I also like to talk about the killing of animals. The killing of animals – here I am talking about wild animals. I live in Michigan. There are deer hunting seasons and I have no personal objection to people’s lives and characters of hunting, but at the same time I feel a little uneasy, because those little wild animals mind their own business, dwelling in their own forests and woods and suddenly a gun shoots at them, taking their life. Particularly, when you see the deer lined up, the mother trying to protect their cubs and trying to stand in the way and letting the little deer pass through and at that time getting shot.

0:22:59.4 That is not really great, but a little painful. On the one hand it is fun for many people. Also there is the meat or deerskin or whatever. But on the other hand, that particular deer lost the most precious thing they have – their life. It’s just lost through a bullet and their blood is going out and they breathe out and lose their precious life. And the little deer are left without mother. Many of them have a lot of difficulties and some of them may even die, because there is no protection for them. So that is a little painful.

0:24:15.8 Then of course our pets. Sometimes we keep our dogs or cats and then they get very sick and we cannot bear their suffering and we call it by interesting names like “putting them to sleep” or “putting them at rest.” We give those interesting names, but in reality we are shortening their life. That also you have to be thinking about very carefully. You know, unless it is the last resort, one should never make an easy decision, because this good old pet could no longer walk, could no longer pull his or her lower part of the body. There is quite a lot of inconvenience of cleaning their mess and all that and if you try to take it a little easy, that’s a little immature decision.

0:25:48.1

But sometimes, circumstances are such that you cannot help it. And in such circumstances you have to have the knowledge that shortening life is part of killing. However, it is killing with reasoning. But that really sort of raises similar issues in my mind. There is something called mercy killing, particularly some cultures have some funny ways. I read and heard in the news a couple of times that people throw stones at the women, trying to kill them and they call that “mercy” [“honor”]. Sometimes the family, the father and brother, is trying to kill the sister, under the disguise of mercy [honor] killing. This is not right. No right-minded person will think it is good. We all know this is not good.

And also when you hear about killing, some people may think it is okay. Some people have bad karma, like killing. So even if you don’t do the killing yourself, you may hear that somebody killed somebody and you enjoy that and feel satisfaction with that. If you do that, you unnecessarily created bad karma for yourself.

0:27:56.8 So I would like to inform my friends of that. One of the doorways of getting negativities is “not knowing”. When you don’t know, if you feel satisfaction when somebody else did the killing, you do share some negative karma. You create negative karma for yourself. You are sharing that person’s negative killing karma also. You have to be careful. No one should appreciate any killing, even if the law punishes. We will respect the law, however, we will not appreciate it. We regret. That’s what I do and that’s my suggestion for my friends.

0:29:08.2 The law does killing. If possible, this killing should be completely stopped. The capital punishment is something we should all try to change and I am glad to know that many states don’t have capital punishment. But many do. Many continue to enforce it and this is rather unfortunate. I heard in the news over the last couple of months, there are those chemicals which end life and they are no longer available and we are sort of going back to the barbarian style of even having executions through gun shots and this is a little unsuitable for the modern world in the 21st century.

0:30:25.2 In my opinion, this is going back to the 1800s or the 18th century. So I don’t think we would like to go back. We must move forward. Forward moving means no capital punishment. But whatever the law does we respect that and honor that. That is also our morality: respecting the law. It is morality. But we regret things like capital punishment and hopefully it will end and we will work towards ending it and try to contribute whatever we can, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and legally – whatever we can. I am talking about animal killing too. There are a lot of animal societies trying to save their lives. All that is great. But sometimes, when they cannot save them, they try to shorten their live too.

0:31:54.0 - I question that. I question that as a moral issue, but I don’t have other solutions either. If you have a solution to offer, that’s great. But I don’t have any, but I also question shortening any lives of anybody or any animal. Then, of course, we have nowadays the beheading of people and murdering and all of those are just wild and crazy. So we will not appreciate that and we should condemn the killing of anybody. If you think they have no choice or something, then without knowing you will be involved in killing. No one would like to be involved in killing, as far as I know. My friends, who are listening to this would not like to be involved. No one would, they don’t. But unknowingly it may happen. So you have to be careful. Today you have heard about direct killing and indirect killing and the rejoicing in other people’s killing and contributing towards killing. All of those are indirectly being involved in killing.

0:33:50.3 You have to be aware and careful. Now the second point of morality that I would like to talk about is sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct, some of you know and traditional Buddhist teachings talk about sexual misconduct, but they really talk about what was available at that time. They don’t emphasize so much what it is today. Today, one of the most important kinds of sexual misconduct is rape.

0:34:34.4 Raping people is really the biggest - maybe not the biggest, but one of the big sexual misconducts. Remember, it happens in many places, particularly in Asia, particularly last year in India, so many unfortunate incidents we read about and saw on television and heard on the news. India is of course the home of eastern spiritual traditions, both Buddhism, Hinduism, the Sikh and Jain traditions. All of them are coming from India. In one way, a great spiritual place, holy place with holy people. But on the other hand, such a thing has been very unfortunately being hush hushed by culture and by people, who pretended not to know. All this is really terrible sexual misconduct. Not only by those who are directly engaged, of course, but also those who indirectly pretend not to see and not to know. They are also involved in it.

0:36:20.8 So the biggest sexual misconduct is rape. Not only necessarily girls, but even boys. Men and boys, women and girls are being raped. And that is the biggest sexual misconduct. And particularly there are people in positions of power, using their power. It may not physically being overpowering and raping, but using the positions of authority, like teachers who claim to be spiritual teachers, like me and then using my spiritual authority on innocent people, girls and boys, whatever, using that position and making them do something they don’t want to do sexually, and that is sexual misconduct, no question.

0:37:50.2 Those who claim to be spiritual teachers like me – I am talking about myself – and particularly, when you don’t know and the person doesn’t know and using that position, sometimes that happens and it is really bad and one has to be really careful. Ignorance is not an excuse in karmic law, definitely. That’s what I am talking about. So even if you don’t know it is sexual misconduct, but you are engaging in sexual misconduct, it is sexual misconduct. Not necessarily you have to have forceful sex. As long as it is not consensual sex, then it is something else. So you have to be aware of that. I am sorry to talk that today, but that’s what it is.

0:39:19.5 Not only sex alone, but sexual-oriented hurting of other people. You don’t necessarily have to have sex, but sexual-oriented hurting other people, creating pain for them and making them uncomfortable or miserable. That is also part of sexual misconduct. Then of course, very traditionally, they talk about wrong place, wrong time, as many of you are aware of. So I don’t have to repeat all that.

0:40:43.7 Basically sexual activities that create discomfort for the other person, whatever level it is, that much heaviness of sexual misconduct, making funny jokes, making others a little embarrassed, changing into red face is also slightly misconduct, however, it is not that much serious. But accordingly you can judge. So sexual misconduct not only applies to forcefully forcing sexual activities, but also many other related matters. It really depends on the other person too, whoever you are committing sexual misconduct against. Some people are so sensitive and even a joke makes them uncomfortable and miserable, so you should have awareness and some people don’t mind such jokes and enjoy that, so then it is a little better. But the adjustment has to be on the basis whether you are hurting the other person.

0:42:28.3 If you are hurting them, how much are you hurting them? That way the sexual misconduct should be measured and judged. So these are the important points I like to make about sexual misconduct. That is commonly applicable for both, boys as well as girls and women. Men or women, it is applicable the same. That is what I like to say about that.

0:43:23.4 Then the third misconduct is stealing. It is stealing something of value. If you steal something that has no value – any stealing is not correct – however, the Tibetans have a funny saying: if you steal a little flower or a little incense, it will be only offered to the gods. If you pick up a little flower that doesn’t belong to you, if you pick up a little incense that doesn’t belong to you it may be stealing, but it is not that much. But if you take a box of incense, of course it has value. It costs money. But if you are taking one single stick of incense, it is slightly different. So if you take something that has no value then it is not necessarily stealing. But something belonging to somebody and it’s not yours and you want it to be yours and you are taking it forcefully, physically or through some power trick or through any way, then it is stealing.

0:45:09.9 One of my teachers used to tell me back in Tibet that some of the Tibetan authorities have a funny way of doing business. Take the chieftain of some group. They bring some kind of goods to sell. They bring the goods to distribute to the local people, their subjects or whatever, for more than what the value is. They compulsorily make the people buy those things over their value. So this teacher always used to point out that this is stealing.

0:46:17.3 He used that as example. In old Tibet, also messengers of authorities, some of them are so mean. They have power, because the government is behind them. They are representing the government and they misuse their power to abuse the people. Sometimes some important messenger comes to a village and says, “I am representative So-and-So and I have important government activities in this letter. This is my rest place, so I have to get off my horse. And I cannot get off my horse unless you provide me with a box full of butter.” So he wants to have a box full of butter and then he gets off the horse and then he takes the box of butter with him.

0:47:56.3 That is actually robbing people. But then they will also have some goods to sell and compulsorily let the village people buy them for more than what their value is and that is definitely stealing. My teacher always used to point that out. So the stealing doesn’t only apply to thieves and robbers, but if you are not careful, then also business people will have a lot of danger of getting stealing immorality, without knowing - particularly, selling something above value when the other person does not understand.

0:49:11.8 Also, the value, whatever it is. If you don’t sell it, that’s your choice. That’s not stealing. But selling over the value, if you have a couple of percentage points or maybe even 10 or 20 per cent over, openly, then it is fine. But if, without telling and the other side knowing you make fifty or hundred per cent more – and some people do that – then that’s not fully stealing, but it is cheating along with taking the other person’s value without having the right. That is becoming part of stealing. And that is something important we have to pay attention to and we really have to be aware of it.

0:50:20.5 Then the fourth one - Again it is becoming four, although it started with three: the three higher trainings, morality, concentration and wisdom, the three most important things to do.

So, the first, morality, is actually keeping your commitments and vows intact – if you have any vows. That is really the definition of good morality. Even the sexual oriented morality I really spent almost all the time today on that. Then I spent a little time on stealing. So you get an idea and then apply it.

0:51:29.5 The bottom line is: taking somebody’s value either directly or indirectly, forcefully, with the intention and satisfaction, then it is really stealing, even if you are not stealing but forcing people to give it or another way, a very polite way, like saying, “Oh last year you gave me that and it is so useful and beautiful and wonderful and it helps me a lot. Can you do the same thing this year?” In a way it is begging, but you are also not straightforward. You are playing a game. That may not be direct stealing, however, it is connected and not a full-fledged stealing. Also, people may try to give you a little bit of something and try to take something really big in return. That is nye pa tso wa, giving a little and trying to get something very big. This is not full-fledged stealing, but connected.

0:53:06.9 So now I have one more left and that is the big lie. Any lie is not right. In human culture it is not right. If you are lying, you lose your value. People won’t trust you any more. They will not accept what you say because you lie. We all know that. But then, particularly, Buddha emphasized the one where people like me, who do not have any spiritual development, but pretend to be fully enlightened or a little bit less, but anyway, pretend to be somebody without knowing anything, and not only are you thinking that, but you are making the people believe that, but talking to them and cheating them. That is a big lie here. Spiritually, you are nothing and nobody, but you pretend to be somebody and make people believe that you are somebody. That is the biggest black lie. We are not talking about a used car seller’s lie. That is also a lie, no doubt, but a little cheaper lie. But this black lie really is pretending to be something that you are not. You have nothing, but pretend to have. And you are cheating people. This is more of a danger for people like me who claim to be some spiritual guide or something, spiritual messenger. Ordinary people may not have that danger.

0:55:39.3 But basically lying is not good. People will not believe you. They will not trust you. You know that. Also, they will talk about you and say, “Well, who said that?” “So-and-So.” And then “Well, let’s think about that later.” So they say it in a polite way. So they put themselves on that subject. And then a number of people are in the habit of exaggerating and they do it too much. If you are a poet, it’s fine to do that in your poetry. But normally, if you exaggerate too much, that also goes into the lying.

0:56:30.2 But all of you are great, intelligent people and wonderful people. You know all this. These are the human etiquettes of good human beings. So these are the basic four moralities that I would like to talk to you today and it’s completed. And I like to thank you so much for being with us every Sunday and next Sunday I will be in Ann Arbor, and those of you who are near Ann Arbor, please do come to Jewel Heart sometimes, it is good to see each other in life also. But otherwise, we will see you on the webinar next Sunday, at the same time and please have a good Memorial weekend and enjoy yourself and all the best to all of you.

Thank you 0:57:39.6 Four Immeasurables