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20150719GRAAST23

0:00:00.0 Good morning and welcome to today’s talk. These Sunday talks, as you notice, sometimes we are picking up important topics. So we are right now talking about the Three Trainings - morality, concentration and wisdom. When those three activities are engaged in with bodhimind, love-compassion and the bodhisattva way, then they are called “Three Higher Trainings”. Very important is ethics. We did talk a lot about morality. We are still talking about concentration.

0:01:30.3 Within concentration, as the basis of concentration, we are talking about focusing. Focusing is extremely important. We emphasized that for a couple of Sundays, so you are very much aware of it. Basically, if you are not focused, you probably have no effect for whatsoever, whether in the subject of learning, meditation, or practice. Last week we talked about practice, focusing on actual, practical things. It was a little easier for me to talk a little strongly last week, because it was recorded and in my room there was nobody else except Jonas. So I could say things a lot easier than when I see a number of people looking at me. Anyway, I tried to point out exactly what happens when we have the negative emotions overpowering our normal thinking. That happens to so many people. Very interesting, these negative emotions, like anger or dislike and hatred – it may not really be hatred, but dislike – interruption, uncomfortable and that is very close to anger. Some of you may be angry, or not angry, it doesn’t matter. The negative emotion is definitely taking a toll. When it is getting a hold of you it is very difficult to recognize it as negative emotion.

0:04:25.2 It presents itself to you as your own protection. We talk that a lot, but when you come to the point, you really see that it is a matter of “my rights”, “my safety”, “protecting me”. In that manner it will come and we will see, recognize and acknowledge it as protection and safety, rather than as negative emotion or anger. That’s what I pointed out, not talking about any individual. That goes for everybody. All the time it happens that way. But it is the example we saw. Having said what I said already, it doesn’t only mean you have to be compassionate, caring. Yes, of course we have to be compassionate and caring, but that doesn’t mean we have to be doormats either. As an institution we hope to create something here for people who have difficulties to be able to be safe. But it also requires putting certain safety measures into a procedure. So we do have an example of the Washtenaw County Community College for safety measures for their staff members, in case of sexual harassment.

0:07:06.2 That is for their staff. There are churches who have rules, but whatever may be, we are in Washtenaw County and whatever this county’s policies and measurements are, we would like to follow that as procedure, because of the safety of our people, which is extremely important. It is our priority too. Yes, you need compassion. You need to know and recognize your problem and pinpoint it. I mentioned to you last week it’s like a boil that needs to be squeezed. So you have to squeeze that out of your own mind and thoughts and system. At the same time, we also have to take the safety procedures and I am sure Jewel Heart will come out with some kind of policy, particularly in case of sexual harassment and all that. We will just simply follow the law of the land.

0:08:39.4 We will follow these procedures and I am sure we will come out with some set procedure. There was an incident that took place during the summer retreat and it is followed up with that. Certain people got quite upset, rightly. But at the same time it was my job to point out where the fault really is, where the problem really comes in. That is not only a few people, but everybody. Almost every one of us has that problem. It is good to be able to point it out when the problem rises. Otherwise we give a story. In this case we will tell a story:

0:09:46.6 There was a teacher and a student. A thief broke into their home at night. The student got so angry and got hold of the thief and kept on beating the thief, saying, “I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha.” Then the teacher tried to stop the student from beating the thief and finally he had to take hold of the student and put the finger on his nose, saying, “Don’t you see it? It is your own anger.” And even the thief said, “I am glad there are only three jewels.” Anyway, that story I can point out and tell you rather than actually saying, “ This is happening here. Here it is.” And many are upset. Rightly, but it is upset, it is anger, it is irritation and it is that irritation and that anger taking over your mind stream. Not in the name of anger, not in the physical shape of anger, not in the identification of anger, not in the identification of hatred, but in the identification of safety measures, precautions, and all that. That’s why earlier Tibetan teachers said that non-virtuous friends don’t come in with horns on their head, fangs in their mouth, wearing funny, rough dresses. They will come as dear friends, advocating for your sake, for your safety, for your own protection, etc.

0:12:41.0 My job is to point it out, which I did. I don’t mean to have to ignore what happened. You take your safety precautions, but you don’t get irritated, you don’t get upset. So this irritation, getting upset, getting angry, is negativity, negative emotion.

So focusing on that, recognizing that – if you have mindfulness, you will be aware of it.

Addicted to Mindfulness

The lack of mindfulness makes the negative emotions take over. If you have mindfulness you will recognize it and immediately acknowledge this as negative. Since we are not being mindful, it has it’s chance to take it’s root in your mind stream, influencing your mind for another phase of it. So mindfulness really makes a tremendous difference. Focusing, concentration is mindfulness. Mindfulness means awareness, acknowledging it, honestly. Sort of halfhearted things happening is not mindfulness. Mindfulness is really being aware of what’s happening within the individual’s mind.

0:15:12.9 Particularly, when you are not aware, when you are relaxed. So mindfulness has to be learned and habitually picked up. In other words, mindfulness is something that you can get addicted to. I put it the other way around. You don’t call that an addiction, right? But still, you can. When it happens, then it is always there. It is alert. That addiction, as I just now called it, is a good addiction. You will not get caught without awareness any time, anywhere. That is a very good thing. Not only does it protect you from negativities, it will also protect you from unhealthiness. If you are mindful of health, then you don’t want to eat something wrong, like very sugary stuff. At least I was told that, though I love sugar. That’s why I became diabetic. I don’t know whether you remember or not, I used to eat tremendous amounts of Amy Joy doughnuts. I used to eat almost two dozen a day. No wonder I became diabetic, you know. Even as a kid I used to chew candies at night and every morning blankets were stuck on my face and I had to pull them off. I was told sugar is not good for your health, which I now know, but I still don’t have awareness and alertness. I want to chew sweets, but the sugar-free sweets never taste the same, though they are sweet. The Dutch people make sugar-free chocolate. It’s not that good. It’s not the same thing.

0:18:24.6 My alertness, awareness and mindfulness on chocolate is strong, so that sugar-free chocolate, when I taste it, I know it’s not the real one. So that happens all the time. That awareness, alertness, mindfulness, when it’s really there you don’t have to put efforts in to get into it. Then you will be very alert with the wrong things. Like you know, you can become very much aware that the sugar-free chocolate is not the real one. When you look at it, you know. When you put it in your mouth you know, when you taste it you know, when it melts on your tongue you know – it’s not. That’s because the mindfulness of chocolate is too strong, so you know the fake one is not right. That is how mindfulness works – on anything you do. People who are very much concentrating on their work, the ones we call absent-minded professors are so mindful of their subject that they forget other things. Their awareness is not that much. The total awareness is focused on one thing. That’s why they become absent-minded professors. It’s not that the professor doesn’t have a mind and concentration and focus. They do have too strong mindfulness on their subject, so the other things are neglected.

0:20:29.0 That’s how mindfulness works. Our job is not to have mindfulness on one thing only, but in everything we have to do we have to be mindful, so that negativities have no place in you. Unhealthy things have no place to take root within you. Unwanted events have no place within you. Mindfulness does that. It not only gives you relaxation of mind. It also gives you mental comfort. Mindfulness is really, really important. Concentration - one of the ethics is mindfulness. Without mindfulness nothing really works, as I told you. Even wisdom may be wisdom, great, no doubt. But the greatness of wisdom depends on mindfulness.

Zhi ne lam dang tra wai lhag tong gi

Chi tsam je kyang nyöng mong me tog pai

Yi lo pu tak chö pei she rab de

Yö me zhi ne ta la kyö ne ne

Ta tri u mai rig pai tsö ne kyi

Dam tsig mi te tam che chi kye wa (spelling???)

Without focusing, concentration or shamata,

no matter how strong or great the wisdom might be,

it will get nowhere. No matter how much you analyze

it will not repel the negativities or negative emotions or negative mind.

The great wisdom, knowing truly what it is,

needs to be mounted on the horse of concentration or shamata.

Then use the weapon of sharp wisdom, the mind of the center

And then cut the root of ego-grasping.

“Center” here means to be free of the extreme right and the extreme left and be in the middle, the middle path.

So that is how it works. Concentration, focusing, is one of the fundamental principles of Buddhism. It affects our life tremendously. It affects very positively our practice.

Many of us do what we call “practice”, saying certain words, with and without focusing and thinking. You may think it doesn’t serve any purpose. But it does serve a purpose, even if you don’t think. It does serve a purpose, because there are some people who say “I say a lot of blah, blah, blah la here and I don’t know what I am saying, I don’t know what it is and even if I know I don’t think about it, so it doesn’t really mean much to me at all.” That is not true. Even if you don’t think about it, even if it doesn’t mean a thing to you, you do have the vow of thinking about it. At least three times a day, three times a night – six times in 24 hours. So when say this, then the vows are not broken, but fulfilled. Those prayers you say. Even you think nothing, even then it is not a waste of your time.

0:25:52.2 It if fulfilling your vows and commitments. Otherwise you will be breaking your vows and that will become obstacles for your development, obstructions for your understanding, it will become an obstruction for you to improve your mind. So don’t think it is nothing. It is something, even though you don’t think anything. You begin to say the words and the next recognition is that the prayer ended. Even then it serves a purpose. I normally don’t mention that too much, because we want to understand and think and use our mind. That’s why I don’t mention it. But sometimes, if I don’t mention it, some people may think, “Well, it’s useless anyway, forget it. I have forgotten to do it and sometime before I die I repair my vows somewhere, somehow.” People may think that way, but better not.

0:27:13.6 Keeping the vows intact is much better than repaired vows. When you have broken them you have to repair them. But then it is just like a repaired article you have. When it is not broken it is much better. When it is broken, you rejoin it with crazy glue or something and it is the same article, but it’s a repaired article rather than the original good one. So you can see that. So it’s really important not to break the vows and commitments. Besides that, vows and commitments not being broken is one of the ethics, the most important morality. That’s why, even if you don’t think when saying your prayers, it still serves the purpose. It is something.

0:28:28.8 We think it is nothing, that just saying the words doesn’t mean anything and is useless. But if you look in the reality, it serves a tremendous value, really, a tremendous value. Over the long term you begin to see how this value affects you. You begin to see in your looks, gestures, physical looks, in your way of functioning, living and thinking and everywhere it makes a difference, even without much thinking, if you are saying your commitments regularly. It makes a huge difference. It also protects you from being attacked by the negative emotions. Quite a lot. It doesn’t mean you are always protected, because somewhere, sometime we lose it, because we are sentient beings, we are not enlightened beings. Sometimes we lose it. Doesn’t matter. Don’t be surprised. I think you should be surprised if you don’t lose it at all.

There is an old saying in Tibetan. We make that joke on the Mongolians. One old Mongolian said, “If a human being does not fly in the air, that’s nothing to be surprised about. If a human being did fly in the air that would be a surprise. But if the bird does not fly in the air that is a surprise and if the bird does fly in the air there is no surprise.”

0:30:54.3 Likewise, if sentient beings did not lose to the negative emotions that would be a surprise. But if enlightened beings lose to negative emotions that would be a big surprise. So that’s really what it is. A little bit of losing here and there, or sometimes even losing big – that depends on the individual and their habits and childhood upbringing, as well as examples of their growing time. That will form your habits and patterns of life. It depends on that. Some people get more angry than others. Some people’s tolerance is much stronger than others’. Some people’s short temper is much quicker and more effective than that of others. It depends on so many factors, like the closeness of the individual to negative emotions, their childhood upbringing and their examples and even the people around you make a big difference. If your roommate is a short-tempered person, chances are you are going to be short-tempered too.

0:32:31.0 They influence you. If your roommate is a very sweet, nice, tolerant person, chances are you are going to be a sweet, tolerant and nice person. It affects you. Really, we know that the environment affects the individual. That’s absolutely true and the individual affects the environment too. That’s why we have to care for our environment, because the individual makes a difference to the environment and the environment makes a difference to the individual. Likewise, our companions will make a difference to us and we make a difference to our companions. So even if you are losing your temper you should maintain a little patience, not only for your own sake, but even the sake of your friends with whom you are sharing your life. And so, that’s how people live.

That’s how you are mindful, that’s how you should really help yourself. I think I should be concluding the mindfulness or concentration talk here and next Sunday I will be here and we will try to talk about a little bit of wisdom.

0:34:35.7 I do have to announce something. I don’t remember

Kimba: Gloria will announce the change of the webinar link for Sundays.

Rimpoche: All, right. That much and then I have something personal to say. Yesterday Colleen’s elder sister, Sheila Smiley, passed away last night. I would like to give my condolences to all the members of her family and we did say a number of prayers – by the monasteries in India – and also here, myself and Demo Rinpoche together last night said a number of prayers, but all of you please kindly pray for the fulfillment of her wishes. Her rebirth should be a good, great human rebirth, with the understanding and open mind and meeting with the great spiritual path, preferably the path that Buddha shared and preferably the path that Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa shared and the continuation and completion of her journey. Please do pray.

0:37:03.3 Also yesterday was the Memorial Service for Rebecca Head. Elizabeth Hurwitz represented Jewel Heart and me. She did that when Rebecca was very sick in the last part of her life. She has been there almost all the time and a number of times per day. She did everything and worked diligently, from the angle of both, friendship as well as human feeling as well as spiritual. All she did and also at the Memorial Service she represented me and Jewel Heart. We should also pray the same thing. Please do.

0:38:22.0 And not only Sheila and Rebecca, but our old friends, Jewel Heart persons who passed away. For all of them we just simply pray that their negativities have been pacified and all our virtues and those of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and the buddhas and bodhisattvas, support all of them, wherever and whatever life there are in. That virtue becomes help for them. It becomes a little pocket money for them to be able to ease their suffering, to fulfill their wishes, to be able to meet with the teachings of Buddha, Jamgön Lama Tsongkhapa and that they will be able to continue the path they have started. So that’s what I like you to think. Actually, you should think this sort of thing very often.

0:39:53.6 Maybe it is not easy to think that all the time, but think that very often, no matter how long the years have gone by. It doesn’t matter. They were there, they were with us. They were our friends and some are in a good life, some in not so good a life, so our dedication prayers will definitely help them.

0:40:29.0 So that’s what I would like to say today and I would like to conclude by saying that one of the important things we are pointing out is mindfulness. Shamata is really the ultimate mindfulness, without which wisdom really doesn’t work very well. So it is important. Mindfulness is utilized by us, knowing awareness, knowing alertness, by having concentration, having focus. In other words, think and think right, without disturbance. Don’t let your mind be fickle. We have very fickle minds and emotions. Don’t let them control you. Be focused, be mindful. That’s what it is really is. That should be done always. I told you: get addicted to mindfulness. Then you don’t have to put any efforts in. It is there. Like when you are addicted to drugs, you know, you don’t have to put efforts in. You have to put in efforts not to get addicted. Just like that, get addicted to mindfulness. That’s all and thank you. I will be there next Sunday.

0:42:43.3 May all beings… 0:44:19.1