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20151018GRGRST36

0:08:15.0 Let me go backwards today: the vajrayana practice is part of Mahayana. A lot of people talk about the three yanas as Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. Nothing is wrong with that. There is this way of counting that. It is known and accepted in the American Buddhist field. I don’t know where it started. Probably with Trungpa Rinpoche. I don’t think it is Geshe Wangyal. Trungpa Rinpoche might have started talking that way. Anyway, people accept it that way and I don’t argue with it. You can count that way, because from the practitioner’s point of view that’s how it is.

0:09:13.3 But generally, when you talk about the three yanas, they are the Sravakayana, Pratyekayana and Mahayana. Sravakayana is the way of the Buddha’s disciples. The other day, when Geshe Yeshe Thapke Rinpoche was talking about Buddha’s disciples, he talked about Shariputra, Maudgalputra and even Ananda and all of those. These we categorize and call Sravakas. Don’t listen to the Tibetan pronunciation of Sanskrit, which is terrible, you know. When listening to Thurman last night, remember for example we say OM SVABHAVA SHUDDAH SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDOH HAM, but he was saying OM SVABARVA SHUDDAH SARVA DHARMA SABAWA ATAHATE HIM KO or something, anyway, he speaks Sanskrit and we have a Sanskrit professor still here today. So they know. But don’t listen to the Tibetanized Sanskrit, because it is not good.

0:10:42.3 Even the name of Nagarjuna is pronounced differently. One friend of mine went to the Buddhist studies department in Chicago and she was saying Nagarjuuuna the way I do and the professor started scolding her, “Say it properly”. I think they say Nagaaaarjuna. Anyway, that’s right. Tibetanized Sanskrit is mostly not very nice, anyway. But for 1000 years it has been done by thousands of people, actually hundreds of thousands of people. Anyway, the Sravakayana is the self-liberating vehicle. So Vajrayana, out of the three yanas is part of Mahayana. Vajrayana is not separate from Mahayana. Some people do not accept Vajrayana at all. The majority of Buddhists other than Tibetans mostly don’t accept Vajrayana. Vajrayana is available in China and Japan, but they don’t consider it really as Buddhist. In China it is very much Vajrayana, but it is mixed up with some kind of Daoism and they couldn’t separate it very clearly. Am I wrong Professor?

Audience (David Mellins): I didn’t study Chinese Buddhism very thoroughly.

Rimpoche: Okay, anyway, that’s China and in Japan it got mixed up with Shinto. So really the Vajrayana, even though it is very much there, it is not there as Vajrayana. Yeah, a little, but…yes, it’s there, but not there; that sort of category.

0:13:27.1 Thailand, Cambodia and so on, the Hinayana, the real disciples of the Buddha’s path, never accept Vajrayana. The Theravadan people do not even accept the Mahayana at all. So they really only accept the Theravadan level and that’s it. That’s it.

0:14:00.2 Now, according to the Tibetan Buddhism, we also have a problem. The Theravadan level we will call the “self-interest people”. Why? Because they want to liberate themselves. They want themselves to be free. The self purpose is more important than the purpose of serving and helping others. Self-liberation is their goal. And of course the base is the Two Truths. Always Buddhism works with base, path and result. What you want to get, how you are going to get it, on what basis you think you are qualified to get it. Base, path and result – everybody knows that. I have said this maybe for the benefit of some people.

0:15:24.6 So, the goal of the Theravadan is self-liberation. The goal of Mahayana is total enlightenment. The base is almost the same – ourselves. The path is also the same, but that I have to talk later, so I am not going to talk just now, but the main purpose is what we were talking yesterday: the Four Noble Truths, and out of that the two negative truths: how did we get into this terrible mess? There is so much suffering, really. I almost like to say: you have no idea, how much people suffer. Individually they suffer tremendously, though they come with a little smile and look nice, with make-up and all that, but it is pain and torture inside. So much. What you want you are not getting; what you don’t want you are getting it. You are getting older, which you don’t want to, day by day. You are getting sick and then, whoever you want to be together with, friends you don’t get, and what you don’t want is available around. They bug you and there are all kinds of things and there are different sufferings for different people all the time, really tormenting us. We have that, honestly.

0:17:42.3 But yet, we are human beings and we know how to behave a little bit, you know, that sort of suffering, plus the lower realms. There are the hell realms, hungry ghost realms and animal realms. Even the samsaric god realms have tremendous sufferings. I think either Geshe Yeshe Thapke or Thurman or somebody mentioned it yesterday. We call them god’s realms, lands of joy and wonderful, and they also have tremendous emotional pain. For example, I think Thurman mentioned last night that sometimes – I don’t know who said it – but the story is this. Shariputra was one of Buddha’s outstanding disciples, along with Maughalputra. One is wisdom, the other is magical powers. Sometimes you see pictures with the Buddha and two monks standing right and left. These two are Shariputra and Maudgalputra.

0:19:28.6 Shariputra had a disciple who happened to be the son of a rich family, maybe a king or minister, I forgot, or business man. That guy died, so Shariputra followed him to be able to complete his path in his next lifetime. So Shariputra followed him and went up to the samsaric gods realms where he was reborn. Normally, in his life, whenever he saw Shariputra from a distance, he would jump down from his elephant. Normally, he was riding and elephant. We would jump down and touch Shariputra’s feet and do all that. And then when you are born as samsaric god you have three qualities. You see your past life absolutely clear, like you are living today and your present life you are seeing. And your future life, if you look, you will find it, but you will never look. So these are the three qualities they have karmically. So they are known as “Three Timers.” So Shariputra knew where he was and he appeared in the samsaric gods realm to help him.

0:21:22.2 He was running around with plenty of young boys and girls of samsaric gods and when he saw Shariputra he raised one finger, just to acknowledge him and then went away. So instead of jumping from the elephant he raised a finger and ran away. There is so much entertainment, withdrawing the mind and the suffering they get is by the time they are about to die, their natural flowers are getting old and droop down. The moment that happens everybody will notice that this fellow is going within seven days or so. So everybody avoids them. Some good friends will bring new flower garlands on the tip of a long stick and throw it at them. These are local flowers, because the natural-born flowers are going bad. So you can wear the local flowers for a few seconds. I say seconds and a week [before the person dies], because in that level, their weeks are so long – a couple of years for us, maybe more. Very long. So then they notice where they are going to be reborn.

0:23:21.9 Last night in Thurman’s talk about the ten virtues and non-virtues he said, “Don’t call it virtuous. It is skilled and unskilled.” He presented it so beautifully. He has his own mind, this brilliant mind of his. I don’t know whether we can copy it or not.

0:23:56.5

Their good karma is finishing, so the result of bad karma is left, so they probably notice they will be taking rebirth as a pig in the slums of Calcutta or something. Terrible. So they have so much unbearable worry – in our time, years, in their time, seven days, seven long days. They suffer tremendously. And the natural-born flowers have decayed. It is sort of reminding them every minute that they are going to go. So they see the next life and they suffer tremendously. So samsaric gods also have tremendous suffering. As long as in samsara, there is suffering. So you like or you don’t like it? We don’t like it. Nobody likes suffering. Nobody wants suffering. When you don’t want it you don’t say, “You are born with it, so you have to suffer.” You don’t do that. That’s not a wise way.

0:25:52.9 We have this wonderful mind, and this wonderful, capable body and the question is: what can I do? Yesterday I talked to you: from the First Noble Truth, move to the Second Noble Truth; from the karmic consequences to where the karma comes from. I created my karma by engaging in positive or negative deeds. “ Skillfully” – that is how Thurman mentioned last night the ten non-virtues. The opposite of that is perfect morality. Perfect or not, it is good morality. Those negativities are creating samsara. So reducing it, purifying it, whatever you could cancel, cancel it. Whatever you can purify, that is cancellation. And continuously build positive, so that you will have positive results. That’s the very simple way on the ground. The Vajrayana way is what Thurman talked last night in a very, very profound way, honestly. That is very different, but this is simple, straight forward. It is the normal path, which we, without any difficulty, can do; without any difficulty. We simply bring awareness, alertness and follow it, even though you will fail. For sure you will fail. It doesn’t matter. If you fall 300 times, make sure you get up 300 times. Don’t let it go down. Continuously keep on going. If you do that, on the one hand you reduce the cause; on the other hand you utilize the purification and accumulate good karma together. Then the negative karma gets exhausted. When the negativities are completely exhausted, the exhaustion of the negativities is the Third Noble Truth.

0:28:53.4 Thurman mentioned that last night and he also said, “Rimpoche didn’t get to it yet” or something. For me it is a matter of just simply saying: with the exhaustion of the negativities you are left only with positive.” Either Thurman or Geshe Yeshe Thapke also used the term gog den, remember, the Truth of Cessation. It was Thurman and he even used karuna as den go and all that. Anyway, the exhaustion of negativities and the causes of negativities, that’s the cessation. What is finished is our negative emotions and their causes. They are finished, so you have got their cessation. The cessation could be total enlightenment, it could be the state of an arhat or at every level of the work you do and that is the Third Noble Truth.

0:30:11.6 Now the Third Noble Truth is the path. That means: what do we do? What can we do? What should I do? That’s the question. So normal teachings will tell you that the Fourth Noble Truth, the Truth of the Path to the Cessation, is the 8-fold path or the Four Noble Truths or something. But let me talk to you this way:

0:30:40.8 According to the Buddha, he has given a tremendous amount of different varieties of things to do for different people to suit their minds. And to many people simply it simply suits to think, “I wan to be good. I want cessation of my negativities.” Fro that Buddha gave the Theravadan path. So the goal of the Theravada path is simply to get freedom from suffering. So you have the statement: samsara is suffering – nirvana is peace. You hear that. When you have exhausted the samsara including the causes, then you get nirvana. Cessation is nirvana. People sometimes use nirvana as death and samsara as life, but that’s not true. It is simply an expression, but the truth is that when everything samsaric is exhausted, then you get nirvana.

0:32:49.4 How that gets exhausted is a different story. I am not going to talk that tonight, or this time even. I briefly just want to mention this, but I am going to talk about the Mahayana path. That’s why I don’t want to talk that here, because time won’t permit me and also, no point.

0:33:13.8 The most important point over here is recognizing the suffering and acknowledging it, disliking it, being disgusted with it. Then develop the desire to be free of it. We call that renunciation. Renunciation simply does not mean to give up and run. No, people sometimes misunderstand that. If you really can give up everything and be celibate, and if you can maintain celibacy, then do it. Great. But if you like me, and cannot maintain celibacy, then you don’t have to. But it is the mind. At the mind level you really should not have strong attachment to samsaric things. Renounce that attachment. It is very difficult to renounce. Why? Because there are beautiful picnic spots everywhere. Yes, you are suffering. Yes, there are beautiful beaches. There are beautiful hill tops. There are beautiful things here and there, everything. So these little picnic spots, in our normal conversation we say – keep us in life. But really, they are maintaining our attachment to the samsara, the circle of existence.

0:35:52.7 If you want to renounce that, it is a great desire, but nobody can really give up the circle of life’s repetition. No. Whatever you do, it will continue. Some people suffer so much that they would like to commit suicide. Suicide doesn’t end the suffering, because your life doesn’t end. This life may end, but your life doesn’t end. It will continue. For none of us life begins at the time of conception or birth and it never ends at the time of death. This life, yes, begins at the time of conception or whatever and ends when you die. When our mind separates from the physical identity, then that’s called death. That ends this life, but this life is part of life, part of zillions of lives continuing.

0:37:15.5 So it doesn’t end at all. So committing suicide gets you only additional torture. It is not easy. It is very difficult and very painful and suffering. It is additional torture. If it ends suffering we could all commit suicide. But it doesn’t end there, not at all. Not only it doesn’t end, but also it creates more completely terrible negativity. Whether you are killing yourself or other people, it is killing of a human being. So you cannot, should not and will not do it. Honestly. That doesn’t help, but it will harm you much more. You have more sufferings of things you don’t like, even more. So that is not the solution. The only help you can help is reduction of negative karma. Purify the negativities and build more positive karma. How do I build good karma? That is really a moral issue. Really, ethics or morality. Thurman mentioned last night, the ten negativities. Avoid them, at any level, wherever and by avoiding those ten negativities you have the good morality of the 10 positive virtues: three by body, four by speech and three by mind. That makes ten, right? That’s how it works.

0:39:36.8 In the Theravada path, you maintain morality properly, plus purification. By maintaining the good morality, automatically you are building the ten virtues, the ten skills. By avoiding the 10 unskillful activities you have the ten skillful activities and that will help and that’s how it is done.

0:40:24.2 When you maintain that, your own personal suffering is going to be exhausted and the cause of suffering is also going to be exhausted. Is that enough? How long is that going to take? These are totally different questions. Actually, it takes a long, long, long time, not only this life, but many lives. So what to do? So then actually, the Mahayana path is there. That’s because of the Vajrayana. The Mahayana path will give you a quicker way, actually, Vajrayana, very definitely. Here we are talking about obtaining enlightenment even within a lifetime. I don’t whether anybody can today or not, I don’t know. But there is no talk of cessation in the life time at the Theravada level, nothing. I am not looking down either. Sometimes people think that Theravada is a little useless, because it is not like Mahayana or Vajrayana. But do not look down on it. You know why?

0:42:41.8 Theravada principles are the basis of Mahayana and if you don’t have the base you cannot build. When there is no foundation you cannot build anything. If you build something it will become an ice castle and when the heat comes, like these days, the whole ice castle will go into the Hudson River. It doesn’t stay, right. So you really need the base. The base is in the Theravada teachings. The total practice within Theravada is the morality issue with a little wisdom and concentration. Those are the three major things. Wisdom is the same thing in Mahayana and Theravada. It’s the same wisdom. Concentration meditation is the same thing. So this is what Buddha calls the Three Higher Trainings. So the Three Higher Trainings is the practice of the Theravada; the Four Noble Truths, etc, these are the major path of Theravada. So that is the base.

0:44:14.8 When you don’t like suffering and are disgusted by it, you just don’t want to bear it for even a minute, actually this can be taking advantage of. You think, “All right, I don’t like it. What can I do? What can I do for my loved ones? What can I do for those I care about?” So you have to think that the dislike that you have is something that everybody will have. No one like to voluntarily accept that. When you begin to think that you notice that your mind is not equal towards everybody. We don’t have that. We don’t have equality of equanimity.

0:45:31.9 We are Americans and that everybody is equal is the greatest American thing. But it’s not. Me – superior. My – after that. You – inferior, yours – not so important. That attitude is what we deeply have within us, deeply. We are bringing that addiction with us from thousands of lives. It is very deeply engrained, though educated, intelligent persons like you will simply deny that, saying, “I do think about equality.” But your mind is direct knowledge to you, so think deeply and you find there is tremendous ego-grasping self-cherishing within you and that makes you think that you are superior and that others are inferior. Equality is not there. When there is no equality you can’t treat everybody the same. You can’t care for everybody the same. Me and my – we all say that and do that. It is my family. That is quite an extension, but it is only me and my spouse maybe and then family is a little extension. You have extended your mind.

0:47:54.9 Others, well they are there. Others, it’s okay. That’s how our mind is. The equality is not there. You have to put in lots of effort to think about equality. I want my happiness, so do they. From their point of view they want exactly the same that I want. What I don’t want, they don’t want. I don’t have much time to talk, but all of you are very familiar with this. So on the basis of equality and equanimity, then develop compassion. Develop love. You really have love for yourself. You do. Your dislike of your suffering is because you love yourself. Developing love for others is your task, your challenge. Not attachment, but just love. The nature of love is appreciation. The nature of attachment is the desire. I want something. I want it. It is by me and for me. That is becoming desire and attachment. Appreciation is love. Appreciate as it is. When someone tells you, “I love you as you are”, this is great love. “I love you as you are, but I wish you could change your hairstyle or make-up.” “Maybe you should have a little operation” or something. When you are getting to that level, there is no pure love.

0:50:51.0 There is no love. It is desire and attachment. It is quite hard to make the distinction between real true love and attachment. They are very close. So you know now. What do you really want out of that person? If you appreciate that person then it is great. Allen Ginsberg used to recite a poem here by William Blake:

He who binds to himself a joy,

Does the winged life destroy.

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

lives in eternity’s sunrise.

That’s really what it is. You really need appreciation. Yesterday, Geshe Yeshe Thapkhe quoted from the Bodhisattvacharyavatara that between the Buddha and the people there is no difference. Then why do people respect Buddha, but not people? People cannot develop compassion without people. People cannot develop love without people. So forget about developing bodhimind. Bodhimind is developed on the basis of the people. So as you respect Buddha you should respect people. Remember that?

0:53:06.0 So these are the ways to improve your mental attitude. Then you develop love. When you love someone you really want them to be happy. You really don’t want that someone to suffer. If you could remove the suffering by hand you are willing to remove it, because you love the person. And that is compassion, general compassion. When you are talking about bodhimind you are talking about greater compassion, equal to every being. That is almost impossible in our mind right now. That’s why we need equality and equanimity. When we see the enemy we feel unhappy. When we see friends, we feel better. Even in political dramas that we see like in this election time, if you are democrat and you see a democrat candidate you like them. When you see the Republicans you feel “uhhhhh”. Vice versa, when you are Republican and you see the Republican guy like Ted Cruz or Trump or Bush you like it. When you see Hillary you go, “Aaah, problems, terrible, liar, thief, murderer” and whatever else you can see altogether put on her. Vice versa it is also the other way round.

0:55:50.7 That’s because there is no equality. That’s how we look into it. Without equality you can never get greater compassion, no way. Greater compassion is necessary. You may think, “I have good, strong compassion. I feel for everybody I come across.” But that is not enough. You really need greater compassion because this is the root of bodhimind. Bodhimind is grown out of greater compassion. If you don’t have greater compassion you don’t have bodhimind. We call it bodhimind. It is the unlimited, unconditioned, ultimate love and compassion. So there are ways of developing bodhimind within the usual teachings. There are the seven stages of developing bodhimind or the exchange stages of developing bodhimind or the combination together, the eleven stages of developing bodhimind. Whichever you follow, it gives guaranteed results.

0:58:21.2 If you don’t follow any of them, nothing happens. You can read about it. You can talk about it, but if you don’t mediate and don’t practice, nothing will happen. If you don’t have bodhimind or greater compassion, which is the root of bodhimind, then no matter how much you keep busy and think it is good spiritual practice it is like chicken without head running around. Honestly. So you need a head. That is this. So either of those, the seven or exchange stages can do that. You can look into any good Tibetan Buddhist Mahayana teaching and anywhere you can find this. Even if you look in my transcripts, there are the seven stages mentioned everywhere, in lam rim and in every little talk here and there or in detail in the lama chöpa teachings and everywhere. Even in the Vajrayana teachings you also find them.

1:00:12.4 Then you have all the choice of the exchange stages, which is Shantideva’s wonderful way. It’s not only Shantideva’s, but Manjushri’s way that came to Shantideva and others. That also is available everywhere. Don’t let me talk that to you. If I do, it will take time. It is important and I should, but on the other hand, my theme is the five wisdom points. I have not even reached there. I have not even begun yet. So, if I talk too much on this, it won’t be. So really, all these wonderful lojongs, like the Seven Point Mind Training, the Eight Verses and Dharmarakshita’s Wheel of Sharp Weapon, anyone of those have that. But the Seven Point Mind Training is very, very easy and convenient and good.

You give training to your mind, training in compassion, training in love and developing bodhimind. That is absolutely essential, the fundamental basis of the Mahayana path. You will hear that bodhimind is the gateway, the doorway, like we say that refuge is the gateway or doorway to be Buddhist. Just like that, bodhimind is the gateway or doorway to the Mahayana path. To tell you the truth, without the Mahayana path, no matter whatever you do, it’s going to take a zillion years to get you results. So our only hope, honestly, is the Mahayana and particularly, Vajrayana. So the reasons why we have to put in efforts to develop love and compassion is because of that reason.