Archive Result

20160612GRAAST51

0:00:02.6 Good morning and welcome everybody. I see beautiful peonies on my table and also on the altar. And it is a beautiful time to have beautiful flowers like these. Great, but at the same time it is so bad what happened in Florida. I believe in Orlando, Florida. I don’t know when it happened? Yesterday or this morning?

Audience: 2 in the morning

Rimpoche: 2 in the morning, so as we normally do, it so sad indeed and we will dedicate our virtues to those who lost their lives. I was told it was some 50 people. That is a lot, really, and 50 some wounded. Hopefully, the wounded will recover and lose their lives. Those who have passed away we dedicate and pray.

0:02:01.9 Dedication and prayer are almost the same thing for us, when we are doing it. The difference with dedication is that you have something to put down, like a down payment. Prayer is like you are borrowing money for a mortgage, without down payment. So it will be a lot harder to get a mortgage without down payment. That’s one thing. Then, without down payment, whatever we say simply with folded hands, is just begging, wishing. But with down payment you have something to say, because you are putting your values down. In this case we have a lot to put down, not just 20%. You have got much more, particularly with a good motivation like bodhimind. If you put that down, if that’s not a 100%, it is definitely 80% or more.

0:04:04.4 Any time, when we are praying for anybody for anything, our prayers can become dedication, because we have something to dedicate. We have a lot of positive virtues at our disposal, though we don’t see them. But you feel and know it. If you do something positive every day, something great, that is something for you to carry and dedicate and utilize when we need it.

0:05:06.4 It is like your savings being ready at your disposal. It is not that you are saving and have to wait till it matured. The way we dedicate makes the savings available to us at any time. That is a big difference between you and your colleagues. You are equal persons, but they don’t have much positive virtue. Our virtues, the efforts you put into creating them with hard work and then we have a lot of the motivation of bodhimind influenced virtues, which are huge, huge.

This is an election year and we have those delegates, pledge delegates and super delegates. Just like that, the virtues that we have coming out of bodhimind and wisdom, compassion, etc, are both pledge delegations as well as super delegations. So we have something very unique and important. A little learning within Tibetan Buddhism tells us that the mind is the most important thing.

0:07:45.5 Mind over matter. Honestly. I think I mentioned to you a number of times. I did struggle a lot between mind and matter, the material view. When I was born in Tibet, that was the period, when I was maturing in my teenage years, that was the time when the Communist Chinese came over and occupied Tibet – in the late 50s and early 60s. The Chinese are completely materialistic. First thing in Lhasa they had these loudspeakers put up in the corners of buildings that were 3, 4 stories high. Later it was almost every other building. Then they put wires through and kept on broadcasting their propaganda and education. They kept on talking all the time about their idea of a political, social and cultural system. So they kept on talking about how more realistic the materialistic things are and how unreal the spiritual paths are. That’s what I heard every day, morning till evening. They kept on shouting that in the middle of town everywhere. At the same time I was studying Buddhism that holds that mind is most important, over the material world. So that is a clash between the two different types of information.

0:10:51.5 I only settled this when I was in the United States, because this is so strong. Both seem to be true and real. The scientific development, if you look at it, how true, how wonderful, how realistic it is today. It is even much better than decades ago. At the same time it is also becoming clear how real and important the mind power is. So these two are very, very tough for me. Of course, it will be difficult for you people to accept mind power, particularly when we ourselves are weak in mind power. So it is difficult. However, this mind power is absolutely real, because without mind nothing can happen. Even the scientific power, like the power of medicine, will be demonstrating to you that you have mind and body and they cannot demonstrate that you cannot have it. There is nothing to be demonstrated.

0:13:02.7 So the base becomes our mind and then the physical. The emotional is powerful. When it takes over, it takes over. Sometimes you have no control, but it is the third category. The mind power is the most important. Without that nothing can happen. So the mental power of spiritual is very powerful and important. It materializes when you need it, when the time comes. That’s why I said, when talking about dedication: we have something to dedicate, because it is not invested to mature. It is at your disposal at any time, anywhere you want. So let’s dedicate our positive virtues to those who have lost their lives this morning in Florida.

0:15:18.2 How do you dedicate? You form this very strong thought: with all my virtues I dedicate….

Again, some people will think, “I don’t want to give all my virtues, because I need them.” But again, this is mental power, which is inexhaustible. No matter how much you use, virtue is such that if it is dedicated to enlightenment, until then it becomes completely inexhaustible. No matter how many times you use it, you use it a million times, it is still there. It doesn’t get exhausted. It doesn’t finish. This is the beauty of our virtues. They are dedicated to the right cause. Buddha recommends to get enlightenment or freedom for all living beings. So until that materializes, no matter how much you use it, it will be there. But if it is dedicated only to achieve something like to get better, to recover soon, then when I get better, when I have recovered, then that virtue is finished, because it was only dedicated to that.

0:17:17.9 That’s why it is recommended to dedicate all virtues to total enlightenment, plus whatever the purpose of today is. Utilize that. In our case, today, we should utilize all our virtues for everybody to become enlightenment and particularly those who have lost their lives in this horrible incident. So we dedicate that way. The virtues we have accumulated from that time we know or from limitless times – I am sure we have quite a lot – but most of those virtues will be limited, because we have not had the information, that if we dedicate our virtues to total enlightenment, [they will not be exhausted until everybody has become totally enlightened]. Total enlightenment means the best of whatever you can get, like total knowledge, Buddhahood, as we say as Buddhists. And those who don’t know what Buddhahood or enlightenment is, then whatever the best you could possibly be. That’s what it is. When you dedicate it to that, it is not easy for us to achieve that. It takes time. So until you achieve that, all your virtues will remain at your disposal, with you. It becomes positive karma for you. The positive karma lies with you like body and body odor, or like the body and its shadow. If there is sunshine there is shadow. So just like the shadow follows the body, so karma, positive, or negative, follows you. So you have it.

0:20:14.6 In one of those commercials about depression the actor goes around and that big elephant follows gently behind her, through buildings and into her office and even sits at her side. It is even at the bedside too. When I saw that I thought this is probably how the positive and negative karma follows us. The commercial is about how depression follows you. Just like that, karma follows that way, like the elephant, which is bigger than you, definitely; more powerful than you. But it doesn’t exercise its power until the time comes. It is just like that elephant that sits besides you, ready to affect you and catch you, but not yet acting, because the time has not come. Every karma that you have needs to materialize. It will materialize when the conditions are right. When the conditions are not right, it will not materialize.

0:22:40.3 When I am saying this you may be thinking I am contradicting myself. I said we have our virtues at our disposal any time we want them. At the same time I am saying that karma will not materialize until the conditions are right. Both are true. Utilizing virtues [is] not necessarily [the same as] karmic materialization. You can give your virtues to people to benefit them, particularly those friends and family that are no longer with us. We dedicate our virtues to them and then, when their conditions are right, they will be able to utilize them. That is our best thing to do, our best gift. In certain religious traditions, like Taoism, [they do it differently]. I remember Taoism, because we had one good friend in Malaysia, Yab Ching Hai. He was a kung fu teacher as well as healer and spiritual leader. His anniversary is very soon, either yesterday, today or tomorrow. So the celebration they do for that is Taoist. They will make huge houses, huge lands and beautiful cars, like Mercedes, and planes and all kinds of things and burn them. They think that through the material they can do it. But in Buddhism we do it through karmic virtues and non-virtues. You don’t have to make paper houses or paper cars and even paper money. They make and burn millions of them.

0:25:52.6 That is the Taoist system. If the family is well to do, it will be huge, but Buddhism does it through the karmic system. That’s how we can do it. And when you have created such good karma you may think, “Now I don’t have to do anything”. But that’s not right. All the time we will keep on collecting and accumulating positive karma. We need it, because total enlightenment or the total joy that has never known suffering is the state where no other karma is left with you except great positive karma alone. Whatever result you are experiencing will be the best ever possible. That is the reason why you cannot be satisfied and leave it and think, “I have enough.” You keep on doing it all the time, because the negative karma at our level doesn’t stop. It always continues, because our mind is such, that when you watch your mind you will see it. Our negative emotions pop up suddenly. When somebody says something or mistreats you then your negative thoughts pop up, particularly when it is one of our mistakes. Then you get “Oh” and for bigger ones you get bigger emotions pop up, and ego awakens. That shows no matter how much we try to engage in positive deeds, the negative emotions, when they pop up, take over. Anger or jealousy, hatred, obsession, or ego protection, always pop up, easily, no matter how much you try. That’s why we use all our efforts for positive things to pop up. With all our motivation, all our deeds and all our chores we do.

0:29:46.7 It is so important to change our chores into positive deeds. All of us live in a home. There we have to do a lot of chores. You have to clean up, you have to clean the floor, you have to make your bed, tighten your clothes, do your laundry, do your dishes. So change them into positive deeds. Do you know how? You should. You should. You should. Simply whatever you washing, like the floor, the dishes, or the laundry, think that you are washing your negativities. It is your and all living beings’ negativities. Whatever you are using for cleansing materials, think that you are using positive virtue to overcome and overpower and purify those negative non-virtues.

0:31:18.0 If you manage cleaning the house and tidying your room, washing your dishes, etc, in that way, you have covered almost half or your chores. Plus try to use your walking, sitting, sleeping for positive deeds. I am sure you know. There are walking meditations, sitting meditations and sleeping meditations. Just like that, whether you call it meditation or not, sit for the benefit of all beings. Think, “I am sitting for the benefit of all beings. I am sleeping for the benefit of all beings. I am walking for the benefit of all beings. I am opening the door to lead all living beings into liberation. I am closing the door to shut the door to the hell realms suffering for all beings, and the hungry ghost realms suffering, animal realm suffering, etc. If you do that, it is like walking meditation, closing doors meditation, sitting meditation, sleeping meditation.

0:33:06.4 For example, sleeping meditation is like this: first, of course, you think: for the benefit of all beings, I am going to sleep. That’s what we are capable of now, not more than that. But then, when you get a little better, you should say, “I am going to transform my sleep into clear light and my dreams into illusion like.” You will be able to do that much later. That’s at a little higher Vajrayana level where you can do that, not right now. But right now you can develop the motivation: for the benefit of all. That will also automatically bring you compassion and love together. Thereby it cuts out anger, hatred, jealousy, etc., which is really good. Many times, if we pay no attention, we sleep with anger, with jealousy, with hatred, with fear. When that happens, the whole period of sleep, 8 or 7 or 4 hours, that becomes positive or negative. We have so much advantage of using sleep as a positive period. It has to become your habit, you have to get addicted to that, just like being addicted to smoking cigarettes. Those who are addicted to smoking cigarettes have to smoke, no matter how cold it maybe outside. They are standing outside, shivering and smoking. No matter how hot it is, they have to sit in the open air and smoke, no matter how much sunburn they get.

0:36:05.5 Just like that, if you get addicted to sleeping with the idea of benefiting all beings, that automatically challenges the negative emotions of anger, hatred, etc., which otherwise we would have gone to. So who benefits? You yourself. Tremendously, that’s a huge amount of time. During sleep our consciousness is directly in sleep, not functioning. So the mind immediately before is the leading mind. That can be positive, negative or neutral. So virtue leads to virtue, non-virtue leads to non-virtue. It is just like: violence leads to violence, non-violence leads to non-violence. That’s exactly why the mind immediately before sleeping is important. Likewise, the mind immediately before death is also a similar situation. Actually, the sleep – dream and waking state demonstrate death, bardo and rebirth to us.

0:38:17.4 They are examples of those. But we have no control. When you fall asleep you fall asleep, you have no control. It is difficult to control and you struggle for a while, but mostly when the times comes to go to sleep, you just go to sleep. Just like that, you struggle, but when the times comes to die, you die. You have no control over the process. But the last the mind before death is the mind that is going to lead into a positive or negative outcome, just like sleep. So it is important to provide people who are dying with conditions that are as peaceful as possible. It is terrible to lose one’s life and have the last minutes of life in agony and fear, like in a shooting and all that. It is not only a little harmful in the sense of losing their life, but also as little more difficult to continue thereafter. With that I don’t mean that they don’t continue. They do continue. But it is difficult to make that very positive.

0:40:14.1So that is one of the important points [that I am sharing] because of that horrible situation in Orlando. So that makes us remember what we can do. We have ways and means of doing it. I said the mental dedication is most important. Along with that, saying one or two mantras is very helpful. Mantra has its own power. Meditation has its own power. Karmic virtue has its own power. So we are using a lot of powers. If you give one or two mantras, while your mind is dedicating [that is very good]. As I said a number of times OM AH Hum is the mantra of compassion. It is very powerful and important, blocking the doorway to the six lower realms and liberating people down in the lower realms.

0:42:27.6 Also OM AH HUM is the whole body of buddha nature, the vajra body, which I may become and the whole of buddha’s speech nature, the vajra speech, which I may become and all the nature of Buddha’s vajra mind, which I may become. So OM AH HUM is a very important mantra. When I first met Allen Ginsberg he said OM AH HUM. So did Ram Das. I didn’t think much of it at that time. They were familiar with that mantra. That’s what I thought. But later you realize how important those mantra are. Then you can begin to appreciate. At that time there was not so much Vajrayana in the United States. But still, OM AH HUM was functioning. That’s great. So if you throw in one or two mantras, then there will be additional power. By using those powers to dedicate to these people you yourself also accumulate more positive deeds. So it is a win-win situation. No one is losing anything. That’s how we should take advantage of every negative situation that is connected with ourselves, personally or collectively or whatever it may be. This is the wisdom that you gain. This is the information you gain. This is the power you gain. So you utilize that, making your life better.

0:45:20.1 Now of course, I said so many things. You may be thinking, “He keeps on bla, bla, bla-ing, but what real scientific proof do you have?” No, I don’t have any scientific proof. But the karmic understanding is there and you yourself do understand. You get it. Everything doesn’t have to have scientific proof either. So that’s how you contribute to your life. I think that’s all I have to say today and thank you so much.

0:46:19.2 Although last week I said I won’t be here, Wendy called me and told me that we have an ice cream social and I said, “I will be happy trying to be a socialist as much as possible, with you people.” So I happen to be here today. If I still can I will try to be here next week too. Thank you so much.

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