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20150614GRAAST19

0:00:00.0 Good morning and welcome everybody for this Sunday talk. Today is Sunday, June 14. I think this weekend we will begin our summer retreat. It will begin on Saturday night with the orientation and Sunday we will start. Next Sunday, as already announced, the Sunday morning talk will be plugged in with the morning session of the retreat, between 11 am and 12 pm, as the Sunday talk. I am sure Kimba will announce clearly that the Sunday webinar will continue as Sunday webinar and the retreat webinar will run parallel to here. There are separate links.

Kimba: We can’t run two webinars on the same account, so we will continue with the Sunday link as usual, from 11 to 12. There are only about a dozen people who are watching the retreat by webinar, so they will need to switch to the Sunday link at that time and then during the break, go back to the retreat webinar link.

0:03:01.4 Rimpoche: And also would you tell when we have to switch the account a little later?

Kimba: We will announce it when we switch the link on Sunday. Again, there’s only about a dozen people, who will have the summer retreat link.

0:03:29.7 Rimpoche: So then that’s fine, all right. All are welcome. As you know we already announced the subject of the retreat as: the development of compassion and love and it’s power. As for the development of compassion and love, we will be talking about the development of bodhimind, which is of course the Mahayana portion, and we will talk based on the Delam, which is Panchen Losang Chögyen’s root text.

0:04:25.3 The Tibetans earlier considered him the First Panchen Lama, but if you go into the Panchen Lama’s lineage he is now becoming the Fifth Panchen Lama, because the Chinese count Khedrub-je as First Panchen Lama, who is one of Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa’s most outstanding disciples along with Gyaltsab-je. Counting from that, there are 11 Panchen Lamas. Today’s Panchen Rinpoche is then the 11th Panchen Lama. Thus Panchen Losang Chögyen becomes the 5th Panchen Lama.

0:05:16.1 We Tibetans, earlier used to call him the 1st Panchen Lama, because the name “Panchen” means “great Mahapandit” and that title was given first to Panchen Losang Chögyen. That’s why the Tibetans called him the first Panchen Lama. However, the Panchen labrang, Tashi Lungpo or labrang gyaltsen tongpo, used to count both and I think the Chinese have now confirmed the present Panchen Lama as 11th Panchen Lama. So Panchen Losang Chögyen becomes the 5th Panchen Lama.

0:06:15.6 Panchen Losang Chögyen’s delam is what I have been able to talk about quite carefully in Holland, up to the “Common with the Medium” level and the Mahayana part was covered rather quickly in Holland. So now, I would like to go as much as I can into detail on that. But the days of the retreat are limited to only just 7 days, not even 7, but just 6 days. It is Sunday through Saturday. We do have orientation on Saturday evening, and I don’t know whether I am going to do any teaching them, most probably not. Orientation is our program people’s job and it is Kathy who really has to orient people, telling them “this is east”, so that’s what orientation is, right? And then Sunday morning onwards, I hope Karla will be there and at least for Friday, when it is tsoh day. If you can come the whole time, that will be great, and it is wonderful to have Karla and we have Karla and Carla. So both of them are going to be there and Hartmut will be around too.

0:09:02.4 It’s going to be on the basis of delam and particularly on the Mahayana portion. That is the development of love and compassion and the ultimate, unlimited, unconditioned love-compassion and that is bodhimind. That is the technical name. In absolute reality it is the unlimited, unconditioned, ultimate love and compassion. It is unlike the usual summer retreat. In the usual summer retreats we will give a lot of talks. But when you go into the delam it will be more meditative and if possible, experiential, but there is not so much to share experientially, but the book itself will guide you meditatively. So it is almost going to be a very meditative week. Because of that reason there are not so many discussion groups. We cut them out and instead of that, we have Demo Rinpoche here. Here is my father’s reincarnation, as well as my nephew. So it is a very funny double hook relation. It is more than Oldie vehicles. They have hooking round, not one, but two or three, so it is almost in that manner. On the one hand he is my father’s reincarnation.

0:11:31.7 As a matter of fact a great earlier Tibetan lama, one of the biggest lamas in Tibet – just like the Panchen Rinpoche is the 11th Panchen, today’s Demo Rinpoche is also the 11th Demo Rinpoche. When I was a kid, nobody called my father “Demo Rinpoche”. Everybody called him Kyabgön Demo Rinpoche. Whenever we addressed him we addressed him as Kundun, rather than “Rinpoche”. Outside, we talked about him as Kyabgön Demo Rinpoche, like Drikung Kaybgön and that type of person, or the Karmapa and so on. But inside, among us we talked about him as Kundun.

0:12:42.4 When the Dharamsala people as well as Harrison Ford’s wife Melissa Mathison, named the Dalai Lama movie “Kundun”, they thought that that was the title for the Dalai Lama, but it is not. It is a title they use for all big lamas as well as big officials too. One of my uncles, who was a nephew of the 13th Dalai Lama, and who was Prime Minister of Tibet, was also addressed as Kundun all the time. So when there is a lack of cultural understanding because the elder people are keeping quiet and the young people half know and half don’t know and make a decisions about language, then sometimes there are misunderstandings and troubles like that.

0:13:57.9 So ku – dün means “Your presence” and can be used anywhere. If you go to Ladakh, they will address any big lama as Kundun too. So that is sometimes confusing. So Rinpoche’s English is really in the learning stage and yet he speaks okay, he can make you understand. He is going to speak one afternoon, I think on the second day and on the first afternoon I have Do’en talk who is also a zen master and represents the ladies. Jewel Heart – I like to remind you – considers it very important to have the feminine principle as one of our biggest, most important points. Right from the beginning I declared Tara as feminine Buddha and we very much push the feminine aspects of all activities, and very particularly in Buddhism. We always have Tara pictures and Tara practice everywhere, because we are pushing the feminine principle. If you think carefully, even in the Vajrayogini practice we just don’t say “Lama Herukapa Yab Yum”. We say “Lama Heruka and Lama Vajrayogini”, and we repeatedly say it. All of those, we push the feminine thing so much, ever since I have been in the United States. Still, the American women will not vote for a woman (laughs), but that’s not my faults. If American women refuse to vote for an American woman candidate, that’s not my fault. I can do nothing. I can’t tell anybody who they should vote for. That is your right and your choice, but our principle is to push the feminine principle. It is a Jewel Heart principle ever since we established Jewel Heart. So we do this and this policy is not only carried in the United States, but in Jewel Heart everywhere, in the Netherlands as well as South-East Asia and even in India.

0:17:39.5 We really promote the feminine principle as very, very important, because that is something that has been left out. Even in the greatest country in the world, the United States, you don’t have equal pay. Women’s pay is 20% less and every woman has to prove their capability to the peers of men. They have to have such harsh competition and even in the spiritual practice, particularly ancient spiritual practice, like Buddhism, which came up in a male-chauvinist culture at the time of the Buddha. That was Indian culture. Buddhism is not necessarily male-chauvinist – not necessarily. But it is the culture at that time. It was a male-dominated culture. That’s why there is the issue even of female full-fledged bikshunis.

0:19:12.5 As far as I know, the vow does not continue from Buddha onwards. I was also told that the Karmapa, during his tour in the United States, said that he will promote the bikshuni [ordination]. I don’t know how, but during the history of the Karmpas, one of the Karmpas promoted one of his own nieces as biskhuni and that was very controversial, even among the Karma Kagyupas too.

0:20:00.1 So I don’t know. I have no idea how he is going to do that. But as far as I know, the feminine full-fledged bikshu vow coming through Tibetan Buddhism is not continuing. When that is not continuing, you cannot make new vows. As far as I know, these vows are coming from Buddha and are a continuation. As we say: if you want pure dharma, the dharma must come from the Buddha, just like if you want great water, it must come from the glaciers. Like that. So I don’t know how he is going to do it, but it something can be worked out, it will be great, but it must be accepted by everybody, particularly by HH Dalai Lama and every other Vinaya holder. It is really important to hold that.

0:21:14.4 By mentioning the feminine issue I am bringing that up together. The feminine principle is one or our priorities among Buddhists. Jewel Heart is a lay organization and one that promotes the feminine principle. We don’t promote much the bikshus and bikshunis. We don’t have bikshunis. We have one fake bikshuni here whom we call “Ani-la”, but she doesn’t seem to be here today. Anyway, so that’s what we do. We will almost make sure that the lectures are beginning with Do’en, who represents the American clergy, as well as the feminine. And she is a great long time zen roshi. Her husband is also a roshi too and they have a zendo in Toledo and they are zen teachers there. So she will be talking on the first day. The second day Demo Rinpoche is talking and the subject is whatever they want to talk. Particularly, when you have language difficulties you have to give the choice to them whatever they want to talk. That is much easier. On the third day, I really want one of our great heroines, Padma Ball, to speak, because she has been in Jewel Heart for a very long time and she is a solitary heroine. She is just simply living by herself and there are lots of difficulties, additional to our struggle. Being solitary for a long time – in the sense of not having a sangha around, she is by herself alone, somewhere in the Virginia mountains, the Appalachian mountains.

0:24:15.6 So I want her to share her experience and things like that, with us. Then, this year there are three other geshes and they want to participate and come to Jewel Heart. We didn’t invite them. They wanted to come by themselves. Two happen to be from Nyare Khangtsen. One is Geshe Tenzin……..actually his official name is Ngawang Tharchin. I started saying his nickname. Sorry, that’s why it slipped out of my mouth. He speaks good English and it is a very good geshe and also a very good cook. So he is going to speak about – I hope not cooking but – dharma and that is on the third or fourth day.

0:25:28.4 Then there is another geshe, Geshe Jampa and he says his English is zero. He has been in Canada for a long time, so I hope he will come in the morning for the Tara sessions and lead the Tara sessions. He may need an assistant for guided meditations, because there are like half a dozen new people. So one of our Jewel Heart teachers will assist him. Then the third geshe is not a Nyare Khangtsen geshe. It think he is Lho pa. He is also a Loseling geshe, so he will speak one day too. So that’s how the summer retreat is going to be shared. So it’s very exciting. I will be here for the morning sessions and early evening sessions. So we hope to end – as far as my portion is concerned – at 6 pm and after that there will be other activities, which is Kathy Laritz’ administration and if she administrates, that will be great and if she doesn’t administrate, she will become General Laritz.

0:26:58.9 I am teasing. When His Holiness came here she had the responsibility of pushing people around, making them get up and push them them down. So one of those guests called her “General Laritz, what is your next order?” So if she administrates, the will administrate and if not, she will become General Laritz. I don’t know what these evening programs are of if there are none. I don’t know. So will announce that in the orientation.

0:27:47.0 The times are roughly set. They don’t have to be set before or be announced before. But if we can, as Kathy pointed out, it helps with making arrangements for baby-sitting and so forth. But the orientation is really the time when these things are announced and it will change a little, not very much, but 10 – 15 minutes earlier or later during the day itself can be. It depends on how much the explanations will go, how much the meditation will go and how I feel. All these are considerations. Its not like Hitler’s rule where it has to start exactly at 10.10 and finish exactly by 12.10 and it’s not like school, where, when the bell rings, everybody gets up. I don’t think we will do that. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.

0:29:12.3 So that’s my part of summer retreat orientation. And those who are listening on the webinar, if you are going to join us with the meditation you have to join us with the prayers too. The prayers will be Heart Sutra and Lam rim lineage prayer and lam rim dedication. The Heart Sutra will alternate between the Tibetan and the English version. However, if we are in a time crunch we may shorten it to just say the TAYA GATE GATE mantra a couple of times. The lam rim lineage is going to the be the shortest and that is Buddha and then the lineage of wisdom, the lineage of compassion, up to Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa and then after him Gyaltsab and Khedrub and the lineage thereafter, continuing up to Kyabje Ling Rinpoche. That is how we are going to end it. We are not going to say the verses for Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and HH Dalai Lama, because I received the delam teachings first from Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and then from Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche as well as from His Holiness, all three. But we are just going to stick with Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and then finish off the lineage prayer.

0:30:55.2 Then we will add up the “Foundation of All Perfections”, the first day for sure and thereafter we will see how the time goes. Maybe the first day we will do a longer mandala offering and thereafter it is going to be shorter mandala offerings, except on the last day, which will be Saturday. Saturday we are going to end by 12 noon and the ending puja will be a smoke puja and I like to do that in my house. We are going to put up prayer flags and will have the smoke puja there. Even if you are not participating in the summer retreat, but you are here, you are welcome. We are going to have a barbecue thereafter. This is not the potluck, so don’t bring anything. Bring yourself, but not anything else. You are welcome. But you can’t come in the house, because we won’t be able to fit you all in. We are all outside. Hopefully it won’t rain. If it rains, better bring your umbrella.

0:32:17.1 Something like that, whatever. Hopefully. I am looking forward to that and that’s how we are going to end and there is no initiation or anything of that type. But it’s going to be very meditative. Only Saturday, the ending day, is not going to be meditative, it’s going to be fun. I think some people are bringing some instruments, like guitars and drums and everything else. If it doesn’t rain, I have got a nice back yard and everybody will have fun. Even if you are not attending the summer retreat, if you are part of Jewel Heart, come and bring your family and participate, okay?

0:33:30.3 I think that’s my part of the orientation of the retreat and then most important is the motivation – even from now on onwards. So this is beginning tomorrow. The motivation of making some kind of improvement in your mind is important. Our mind is basically very rough and harsh and hard and a little mean, always trying to get the other one or afraid the other person will get you. Our mind is rough in that way, suspicious of others, afraid of others. I better get you, before you get me. Remember, George Bush’s slogan.

0:34:39.1 I can’t say much about George Bush, because His Holiness is going to spend his birthday with George Bush’s birthday in Texas, I heard. They are good friends and I better keep my mouth shut on George Bush. But George Bush’s mistake is his mistake, no matter who his friend is. It doesn’t matter. We didn’t have to get into these two unnecessary wars, honestly and even today you can’t end them and all this IS and so on are the reincarnation of pushing down the Sunnis and Saddam. That’s exactly what it is. Whether you accept it or not, that is the reality. That mentality of “I am going to get you before you can get me” is not a good mind.

0:35:46.8 A good mind is kindness and compassion and caring and loving and that is really important. And it is also important not to go love and light. Kindness and love, sure, but not love and light. Love and light going overboard. New age people will say: what is suffering? There is no suffering. Well, there is suffering. I got pain; my kidneys are gone. That’s pain. That’s suffering. I don’t see with one eye. That is suffering. And I pretend not, but it is. I don’t see you all. It is like a little zig zag thing there. So it really is. And love and light is a bit too much, a little too extreme. There are two extremes: the right extreme and the left extreme. The right extreme is so righteous. In this country hell has been used for a number of years to threaten people and the churches have overused this in the extreme. The new age rightly came in to counter that and they said: there is no pain, there is no suffering. What is suffering? There is nothing called suffering.

0:37:42.6 That is a little extreme too. I worked well with Ram Das. Now I haven’t seen him for many years since he moved. He is a great, great, great guy. I did his Omega retreat, substituting him for maybe 3, 4 years. The Omega retreat was his yearly income. That was his major income and he would live on that. So a number of us substituted for him pro bono. I did that and one time, when he got a little better, he worked with me here in one those retreats together and I talked about suffering and later on he said, “What is suffering?” So I said, “Your stroke is suffering” and he said, “No, no, that’s my guru’s blessing.” It’s great that he can see it that way. That is really admirable. And I even told him, “You speak better English than I do.” That is very true, even though in those days he didn’t speak well, because he was still under speech therapy and all that. So I said, “You speak much better than I do.”

0:39:06.7 That was true even at that time. He couldn’t pronounce well, but he still spoke better than I do. So he is great, wonderful. But in my principle, suffering is real and it is genuine. And also, our principle, the principle of Buddhism, the Buddha’s experience, is the Four Noble Truths: the truth of suffering is the first. Over the Sunday talks I talked a lot of fours: The Four Noble Truths, the Four Buddhist Resolutions, the Four Reliabilities and then we went on to three: the Three Higher Trainings and out of that we have been talking about morality.

LISTEN, FOCUS, MANAGE YOUR MIND

0:40:10.9 I am supposed to talk to you about concentration today. Concentration is also extremely important. If you do not concentrate you learn nothing. Honestly. There are people who don’t concentrate and who sit in the classes and listen and learn nothing. I gave you the example when the 13th Dalai Lama gave a month long or two month long lam rim teaching and one guy learned only that his county belongs to a particular district. And that has nothing to do with lam rim, right? If you become that way, then it is not worthwhile.

0:41:12.1 We are based on Buddhism. Whether we are promoting it or not, we are based on Buddhism. If we are not, then how can we promote feminine Buddhism? Feminine Buddhism has to be Buddhism. So we are based on Buddhism. Every information that you have received from me for the last 30 years – three decades – is based on Buddhism and particularly Tibetan Buddhism. So, it is the Four Noble Truths as the basic principle. Whatever you learn, if you don’t learn, you cannot meditate. If you cannot analyze, you cannot understand and you can’t understand if you don’t learn it first.

0:42:11.7 Learning is important. I told you the Four Reliabilities: 1) do not depend on the charisma of the speaker, but on the message. 2) do not rely on the words, but on the meaning. 3) do not rely on understanding, but on wisdom and 4) do not rely on interpretable teachings, but on the straight forward explanations.

So paying attention is on the basis of these Four Reliabilities. No 1, you have to listen and you have to focus. If you do not focus you are not going to get the message. The message will fly in the air and you are around there and it will bypass you and you won’t get it. Just like kids who do not know how to focus have a very limited capability of learning. So you really have to focus.

0:43:51.5 Learning how to focus is learning concentration. The focus is becoming better and stronger and more stable and more stuck to the point. That becomes concentration. That concentration becomes meditation. We talk about shamata or zhi ne. But without concentration and focusing there won’t be a shamata or zhi ne. We talk about beautiful feelings, physical or mental and a stable mind. Where is that going to come from? That comes from shamata and shamata comes from concentration. Concentration comes from focusing and focusing comes from learning how to focus.

0:44:58.5 Very often they give you the example of the monkey in the temple. If you have a monkey in the temple it will jump on the images from shoulder to shoulder, knock down the butter lamps, knock down the water offerings and eat up the food offerings, knock down the begging bowl filled with fruit and cut and bite every fruit and throw it out. That’s what’s monkeys do, right? So our mind is like a monkey in the temple of our body. It does not focus and touches this and bites that and throws that out and jumps everywhere and can’t sit down and can’t focus. That’s what the mind does. So you have to learn how to focus. You have to learn how to listen.

0:46:13.4 I am sure every kid knows how to listen, because the parents will teach them and there is a natural quality too. There are two types of quality: the quality that you learn and pick up and the quality that you bring with you from your previous lives. So most of us have a great, quite good quality that we have brought with us, but some don’t. Some have to really learn how to listen, how to focus and how to think about it. But you people don’t. You went through with school, the western education. That really taught you and besides that, all of you are sensible, educated, wonderful people. So you know how to listen.

0:47:16.9 It is only a matter of managing your mind within your body. You manage your mind. Don’t let your mind manage. I remember, once I was giving a lecture for the FPMT in Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel; actually it was the Kowloon Peninsula Hotel. There were lots of people and there was a guy sitting on a chair at the back somewhere. He got up and raised his hand and said, “You said not to have attachment. So what do I do with my Rolls Royces. I have a couple of them.” I said, “As long as you drive the Rolls Royce, you are fine. The moment the Rolls Royce drives you, you are in trouble.” And it’s true. As long as you manage your mind, you are fine. The moment your mind pushes you up and down, like a monkey, you are in trouble.

0:48:22.6 So learning, focusing is your biggest challenge. Sitting is not so much of a challenge. You sit or you don’t sit, that doesn’t matter. But you have to learn how to think. If you can focus for 10 seconds, you learn much more than being unfocused in a one hour class. You learn much more in 10 seconds of focusing and you make a big difference in you. That’s how concentration works. Honestly. Those of you, who are parents, you know how you have to teach your kids how to think and focus. So you know better than those who are not parents. You have to teach others how to think. So if you don’t know how to think, how are you going to teach others how to think? You can’t, right?

0:49:49.4 So the parents will tell you. By the way, is today Father’s Day? Oh, next Sunday. I thought I can wish you Happy Father’s Day, but maybe it’s too early. One week in advance. So every father, anyway…..So that’s how it is. The parents know how to teach the children how to think, how to put their mind. Likewise, then you know how to do it.

0:50:28.7 All of you are great. You went through school, through college and each one of you carries degrees. So you don’t get degrees without thinking. And I got a shock. When I learned the Tibetan schools in India don’t teach how to think, they will also almost teach on the example on the blackboard and memorize that and everything is memorized and they get through by memorizing. And somehow the Indian government tries to look the other way around, because we are not catching up in education. So, they very kindly look the other way, as a minority priority. India is great. If you are a minority, at 50% you are passing. If you are in the majority, 70% is your passing mark. So there is a huge difference there.

0:51:46.8 Some of the Tibetan schools don’t learn. They only learn the exams and memorize them and they get through. That’s very exceptional, but in the end we are the losers, because although you may get a degree, but you don’t have the education and you just have a piece of paper saying that you passed, but you don’t have the education.

Education is something that goes into your mind and it is quality and the formation of quality and character within the individual. That is the result of learning and concentration.

0:52:35.2 When you are talking about concentration, before you even talk about shamata meditation and all that you have to talk about focusing and learning. Honestly. That is very, very important. Without that you get nowhere.

As I say, morality is important. That is understandable to everybody. But when I say that focusing is important people will think, “Really? I don’t want to. I want to touch whatever I want to touch”, like Ginsberg’s poetry. If you read through you will see it. I won’t repeat. So, that’s true, but that is also done with focus and concentration. Knowing Ginsberg, he does everything for focusing. Meditation is a big deal for Ginsberg, a big deal. He experiments everything for focusing, for concentration. Even sex was experienced for writing poetry. That’s what he does. He has sex and keeps a paper ready on which he writes, while having sex. He writes poetry and he experiments with that and uses that time for focusing and learning and expressing. That’s where the chocolate toes come out. (laughs). That’s really what it is.

0:54:34.7 If you look at those great people, – I can’t call them forefathers, but pioneers, people like Ginsberg and William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, they tried to focus and show people how to focus and how to manage. Ram Das too. All of those earlier teachers, though I was surprised to learn from Amy Hertz that Larry Brilliant told Amy that they did either compassion or wisdom. It must be right, because a lot of those previous people who engaged on contemplative work, only dealt with compassion activities. Contemplative work was almost used as compassion activity, which is not really right. The wisdom must be used together with that. I was very surprised that they said “either-or”. That is not right. Without wisdom there won’t be. Other activities are like blind.

0:56:19.7 That’s according to the great Indian Mahapandit Chandrakirti.

Mö long me gu me ba che wa trag gya ne

Lam yang me she trung chen jug pa ka la ne

She rab me na mig me pa du ching nang ne

Mig tu me pai jang chub rig pa nö ma yin (spelling???)

When talking about the six paramitas, the wisdom perfection is like the eyes, leading all other five activities in the right direction. So otherwise it is like the blind leading the blind, without wisdom. That’s what happens.

0:57:04.7 Anyway, all of you are great. No matter whatever, you may not learn anything from me, but at least you heard that wisdom and compassion have to go shoulder by shoulder, side by side, in oneness, like two wings of a bird.

Kun tsob de nyi sho yang kar po gye gyur pa (spelling???) – the bird that wants to cross the ocean has to have two wings. So remember that. At least, you know that. And that will be our revolution or contribution – rather than doing one or the other – to the contemplative world. You have to have both together, not either or. So some people may think you cannot focus on two, but if one focuses on one, it will be stronger. That’s your choice. But in order to achieve your thing you need both.

0:58:21.9 That is how I am going to end today and I will see those of you who are coming to the retreat here personally and also if you are coming to the Sunday morning at retreat time, you are welcome at 11 am, but by 12 you have to leave. Okay? You can stay for the talk, but you have to leave then when it ends. That’s what it is. And thank you so much.

0:58:58.1 May all beings…….. 1:00:32.9