Archive Result

20161120GRAAST69

0:00:00.0 Thank you and welcome. Whenever I choose to come to the center to talk, there seems to be difficult weather. It happened three, four times before and in winter I am sure it will happen again and again.

The last week Sunday we totally talked about the election. But the election is the not the point. The point we made from the Dharma point of view is that if you are angry, you get hurt. This is a very good example of people who raised their anger and dislike and as a result they either refused to vote or voted against Hillary. I think the election, there is no question, was bigger than Hillary. I think the major economic plan is going to be trickle down economy. Not only Republicans but almost all wealthy people think that way. I mean the super-rich think that way. Everybody gets what is dripping down. That’s more or less going to be the economic policy. But on the social side we are going to lose tremendously. Economically, we are going to lose, but maybe they want to make sure that the Republicans are more capable than the Democrats and open up certain coal industries or something. If they do, there may be a little more employment.

0:03:23.4 Anyway, whichever way the administration has come, road building and infrastructure will definitely happen. Hillary had already declared she would do that and now they are trying to put up 3 Trillion Dollars for infrastructure projects, which may give immediate jobs to people, which is good and which could have been done by Obama, but it didn’t happen. I don’t want to repeat myself, but the Supreme Court will be very strongly conservative and the consequences of that you know. Hopefully, we won’t have a Third World War. This is very possible, very possible. I am not giving you as prediction, but it’s very possible.

0:04:44.8 But for us, we got hurt. I just wanted you to know that if you don’t vote, you think you just didn’t vote. But it means there is one vote less for the Democratic side, in this case. That means it becomes one vote plus for the other side in the Electoral College and then the whole thing goes. And people have been telling people that if you don’t vote, you vote against. They never thought that’s true. Some people thought it is just a ruse, trying to get your vote. But it is not. The voting system is very funny. One vote minus becomes one vote plus for the other side.

That’s why, even though Hillary got two million votes more, still she didn’t win, because of one vote minus becoming one vote plus. The voting system is such. That should really go away. It should be one man one vote. But the smaller states will have some difficulties, because their population is less, but anyway, whatever it is, let’s hope for the best.

0:07:24.3 Also we should have an open mind and see what’s going to happen. It may not necessarily be all black, but let’s see what happens. The biggest learning experience from this is that if we are angry we hurt ourselves. That’s exactly what happens and it is shown so clearly. The anger against Hillary or the Clintons or the wealthy or whatever, and also somehow during the Primaries Hillary has been projected as representing the wealthy on Wall Street. That somehow raised people’s anger and that anger did not go down and then suddenly the election came and the opposition came together in the last three days. The Republicans joined them together and they voted as a block. The Democrats were still angry and that’s what happened. Anger hurts yourself. No one else was hurt, not the Republicans, not the super-rich, not the corporations, not the hedge funds, but who was hurt? Poor people were hurt.

0:09:39.0 It is interesting. I thought that Obama Care was definitely going to go, even on the first day. Now I hear it may not be going at all, because No 1, there is no replacement and No 2, there are a lot of things they continuously want to have. So it may not be going out on the first day or week or in the first 100 days. They may change something to show they did something, but maybe it’s not going. Who knows.

0:10:31.1 So your anger hurts yourself. This is clearly demonstrated. You don’t know you are angry. You never think it’s going to hurt yourself. But the consequences are so clear: it does hurt you, so badly. That’s that.

0:11:07.3 As anger hurts you, so does obsession, hatred and everything. This is how the negative emotions are functioning within us. Everything we do we justify and we become a little blind, from the wisdom point of view. But you want to believe what you want to believe. That’s how negative emotions immediately, directly hurt us. Then you know the consequences of negative emotions quite well now. Anger is anger, no matter whether it is about politics, economics, personal or public or in society or whatever. Anger is anger. Hatred is hatred. It has its own consequences, no matter whatever it maybe. Even anger based on Dharma, on spiritual practice, has consequences. Anger based on religious sectarian actions has consequences. Honestly, anger is bad. Hatred is bad. It’s consequences are not exempt on the basis of religious beliefs. That’s why certain religions, including Buddhism, have bases or points on which you raise your anger. Honestly.

0:15:29.0 Very much sometimes. Some people get angry because you are going against Buddha. Some people get angry because you are not following the normal Buddhist norms. When that becomes anger, even though it is based on religion, it has it’s consequences. You are not exempt because you are admiring Buddha and someone is angry with Buddha and then you are angry with that person. Anger is anger and it has consequences. If you are angry with the one who is angry with Buddha you may have two different karmas developing. You get the dark anger karma and you get the virtue of admiring Buddha. They don’t cancel each other out. You have both. So knowing that, remembering that, realize that. Any justification of anger is just that: anger justification, honestly.

0:17:26.4 I am repeatedly saying this not because I am angry with the election results, or try to talk to you about that, but because it is such a direct demonstration of how anger controls people. Anger normally does not give you any good results at all. In some social justifications here and there anger may deliver, because people don’t act very strongly on social justice with love and compassion. We did not develop the passion of compassion very strongly that it burns like anger. We have automatic habits of anger pushing and strongly, so then the individual pushes. The result of delivering results is the individual’s effort, not the anger. But it looks like the anger did it, because anger pushes the individual. You redouble your efforts. So you get the consequences. That’s how it is. Yet you only realize afterwards.

0:19:34.3 That also, after long time of thinking. So does virtue too. Sometimes virtue gives you a little satisfaction. If you do your practice well, you get a little satisfaction. Other than that, the results are long time coming, there are no immediate indications. That’s why karma is so funny. You really don’t know. You don’t really have any indications of positive and negative results coming. There is and there is not. You have to be very much aware of it. So, personal awareness of compassion and love is important. That way the individual is kept in virtue. Negative actions will have less influence, if you keep compassion.

People got very excited during the elections. Many people kept anger as their base. There are few people who kept love and compassion as base, because it is compassion for people and particularly poor people when you think they are losing their social service, their environment, losing planned parenthood, etc. It’s not about losing Planned Parenthood as organization, but the effect of that on poor people. It’s about losing poor women’s right over her body. Seeing that with compassion for the people who are losing their rights. Some will never know until it happens to them and their family and then they will say “Why?” But that was already done on November 8, 2016. It was done then. But the question of “Why?” will only come when it touches your family or yourself or some of your friends.

Knowing that, having compassion for people, I try my best to see it that way. But it’s not that my anger didn’t pop up. It did. Anger and shock both popped up. Shock probably is neither virtue nor non-virtue. It’s neutral karma. It depends on the influence of the shock. It could even be obsession for the party you support or the candidate you support. If it is influenced by obsession or anger, then the shock is becoming negative. If it is truly a shock, not knowing, like being hit in the head with a stick without knowing anything, then it should be – it should be neutral. I am nobody to say if it is virtue, non-virtue or neutral, except by using my wisdom. I don’t have clairvoyance. So you don’t see that. But that should be.

0:26:54.7 Just like that, every action we engage in during our life, that’s how negative and positive goes in. Honestly. So that’s why karma is so subtle. Buddha says karma is subtler than emptiness. Wisdom of emptiness is difficult to comprehend. You have to get the idea, think about it, meditate and encounter it. It’s difficult, but the karmic understanding is even more difficult than that. It is so subtle, so vast, so much. Unless you become a fully enlightened Buddha I don’t think you can comprehend karma at all fully. Yes, it is easy to say that hurting animals is negative karma, that’s torturing and torturing human beings is negative karma. We can easily say that, because that is so gross. Then it goes more and more subtle and mental things are much subtler than physical ones. Even with mental things there are mixtures. And then, if one negative is strong within you it blinds you. You don’t see other consequences. So these are the karmic things functioning. So be aware of them. Don’t be so stubborn.

0:30:22.9 We are in our nature a little stubborn. A little stubbornness is with everybody. Everyone of us has that. It is in our positive and negative emotions that are overtaking the individual. The negative emotions will hide within ourselves as justifying our actions. Mentally, you justify. The reasons don’t have to be right to convince you or me, because my wisdom is not up to date. I notice myself, when I was in India, I got sick with tuberculosis. I got better, but when I got back to the United States, they gave me a skin test and that showed positive. Then they gave me an 11 months treatment. So every time I take a skin test, I test positive for tuberculosis. So I tell them, “I had an 11 month treatment for that, it’s okay.” But after I got sick this year, every skin test shows negative for tuberculosis. Just the opposite. Dr. Doris told me that’s because my immune system got hacked. When your immune system is not functioning, positive things show up as negative and negative things show up as positive, as far as the TB skin test is concerned. So when I need to go outside somewhere to get dialysis, they require a skin test, which now shows negative. I told my doctors and nurses once, but it didn’t register in their ears, because they see the test as scientific result. Then I kept quiet, because it is easier to go along with that. Sorry about that, but it is easier. If I raise it, that raises other questions. So best thing is to let it go and finish it off and come back, because it’s not going to change anything anyway and it’s not going to affect anything else anyway.

0:34:13.3 It’s showing negative now, not positive. So I kept quiet. Maybe that’s the influence of the 5th Dalai Lama telling us in his “Advice on the Two Systems” not to tell everything that is on your mind. Remember? In our normal system it may or may not be good advice. But the advice says: thoughts will come up. But every thought that comes up is not meant to come out of your mouth. If you do so, some of them will become lies. Normally, politicians know how not to do that. But Hillary doesn’t seem to know anything about it. That’s my reading. I am sure I am absolutely wrong, but she says whatever she thinks. Sometimes wonder why people say she’s crooked. That’s why it changes all the time, because it is directly from mind to throat to mouth. Then because of who she is, it becomes public. Tomorrow it will sound different, because the thoughts change.

0:36:35.7 So the 5th Dalai Lama says: raise your thoughts but don’t say anything, don’t even show it, especially if you want to hurt someone or take revenge on someone. Never indicate that.

0:36:54.4 Keep it within you. Analyze whether it is the right or wrong thing to do, not once, not twice, but thrice. Then you may realize that you may never want to engage. Then you drop the idea. If you think you still have to do something, then do it. Whatever attempt you want to make, do it right – even if it’s wrong. That’s what the 5th Dalai Lama tells you. Do it right so it has its effect, it’s result. Even if it is negative and you are going to pay the consequences and it is wasted. That’s what it is.

0:38:22.9 Some of these advices are from the 16th century, so they may or may not all be acceptable. Particularly the non-Dharmic advice, like taking revenge. Actually, they don’t say take revenge, but they say if you want to take revenge, just don’t say, “I take revenge.” Don’t announce it. That’s how they tell you. I was trying to take a little advantage out of these two systems, the material-political and the Dharma system and combine them into our live, which should be really beneficial to us. But some of those non-Dharma things are very questionable, even in our non-Dharma good society today, like this revenge issue. Don’t say it, don’t give warnings. All this is very questionable. When people give warnings about the war, then innocent civilians have a chance to hide or get away. That’s giving them some opportunity and there are a lot of positive deeds in there, though the consequences of destroying the enemy is much worse.

0:40:43.8 The enemies can run away but the innocent people are left. That’s the normal case. However, with a little warning, if you can save even one or two lives, it is worth it. So really to be telling you what’s right and what’s wrong is very difficult. Yet, each one of us is born with good human intuition and that is always very positive, more or less. Using that is very important. What makes you not use that is laziness. Laziness will take over in war actions. Laziness will not let you entertain your intuition, but will force you to go by the book. Sometimes it may not work. Again, sometimes intuition may go against books and that also gives you consequences. So life is difficult, honestly, when you are seriously thinking and to me this is Dharma. I don’t necessarily take Dharma as a ritual or worship or even meditation. I take Dharma as life and life as Dharma. Compassion-love is something extraordinary within that. It is always shining. Other emotions are gray, dark.

0:43:58.4 Compassion is really caring, thinking that the other people may get hurt by my actions, always wondering, always worried about other people losing, rather than you losing. I notice with myself, without effort, when my brother came to see me, I was always thinking that he shouldn’t be the loser, in dealing with anything. I began to think why. That’s probably caring, compassion. That tells me when you look at your loved ones, you don’t want them to be the losers, even against yourself. That’s a little questionable. When it goes against you, you would like to be the winner, because you are you. Many people think that way.

Earlier Tibetan lamas tells us this story:

There was a boy and he said, “When my father is fighting with other people, I like to see him win, because he is my father. When I am fighting with my father, I like to see me win, because it’s me.”

That’s what it is. So it needs efforts to get to the point that when you are dealing with your loved ones, you would like to be the loser and they should be the winners. But we don’t have that. We do have the equal level. That is easier for us to come to. But for me, I like to be the loser. I am not blowing my own trumpet, but honestly, that’s what I do. That’s why I don’t really care much about material things. And when you don’t care, you get more, honestly. Funny, eh? I used to like dresses, clothes, ties, etc. Some time back I noticed I had a little over 200 ties. So I brought them all to Jewel Heart in boxes and gave them to you people and even the ladies took them. I was happy. Then I looked at my shirts and I still had shirts that were made in 1966/67. From then onwards, I think I had over 200 and some of them are new. I was very ashamed. You know we always talk about Madam Marcos of the Philippines, who had 3,000 pairs of shoes or something. But more than 200 shirts is shameful, so I let them go one night. Now I have accumulated more again, not 200, but quite a lot in many colors.

0:49:46.3 That’s how it is. So the real compassion, the real love, the real care, would like you to be the loser and them to be the winners. I noticed that automatically with my brother. I told you. Sometimes with loved ones you do that, and you don’t notice. Sometimes you have to put effort in to get there. But then it should not be one’s brother or loved ones alone. It should be everybody. When you talk about love and compassion, it’s not that easy.

There was a question from Holland yesterday. I talked to them from my house. It is beautiful. I can just go downstairs and talk to them. I can talk to anybody and I talked to you people a number of times from downstairs. There was one question about the limits of compassion. I said it’s limitless. By the way, this glass here has become too heavy for me, I can’t lift it up anymore. Anyway, I need a lighter glass now.

So the question is whether compassion is limitless. It is limitless because of to whom you have compassion. To whom you have love is limitless. That’s rather strange. But also you should know it does not cut the intimacy of individuals. Love for us means you and me, who are full of delusions, will have no problems to have intimate relationships. We have jealousy, we have everything. But love should be love for all, for all the limitless subjects or objects of love and limitless compassion. So do not make distinctions between them. Sometimes people think that compassion is limitless and love is limited. No, love should be unlimited for everyone. That’s what Buddha said. How much that is practical, I don’t know. But that doesn’t cut our intimate relationships. We have enough delusions to hold that, really.

0:55:15.9 So these are a couple of practical things. I was planning not to say a word about the elections, when I was coming in. But it is too practical for us to miss the opportunity to know how negative emotions influence us, control us and affect us and justify us. That’s why also our purifications are never perfect, because we justify our deeds. Hurt is hurt, harm is harm, no matter who you harm, even yourself. I heard some people say, “I brought that person into the world and I have the right to terminate it.” You know mercy killings, right? They say that. But that’s absolutely not right. You have provided, you have facilitated bringing the person into the world, because of your attachment, not because of your love. It is because of my karma, because of the consequences of my deeds that I was born. No one has the right to terminate my life besides me. Even me, I have no right, unless I am sure about what I am doing, when I am positively, without doubt sure that I am not getting better. So no one has the right. So for me, the justification of mercy killing is invalid. Certain traditions deprive their children of medicine. In my eyes that’s wrong. I hope it’s not my delusion. Right and wrong is extremely difficult to tell.

0:58:46.0 Somebody’s right is somebody else’s wrong. That’s why it is really difficult. We were against Communist Chinese very much. I was a staunch anti-Communist in the late 50s, 60s and 70s. My projection of a Communist was somebody with fangs in an open mouth. The mouth they get people in there they cut them and take their blood. That was my impression. So at that time, my projection of everything that Communists did was that they are sucking the people’s blood. Right or wrong, I am still not sure. At that time, perhaps that was right. But then who took it? Nobody, right? That’s funny. We blame the leaders. Maybe, judging by how wealthy the Communist leaders became, maybe they did take everything. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be the case that the leaders are taking everything, but the second and third generations for sure, benefited tremendously.

1:01:04.3 So that’s why wrong and right is difficult. At that time, everything right for the Chinese was wrong for the Tibetans. Everything right for the Tibetans was wrong for the Chinese. So it was really difficult to judge for me in those days. By now, it is slightly different for me. Everything they do is not wrong and everything what we do is not right. Sometimes it is even the opposite. Everything we did had something wrong, everything they did had also something wrong. So everything is wrong now for me. So right and wrong is very difficult to judge.

1:02:30.4 Even if you take the conventional level of right and wrong one deeper, into emptiness, then everything is empty. But anybody can say that. Everybody can think that. And that might not be emptiness. In true emptiness you have to see things up here at the conventional level rather than taking the conventional level into the absolute level. The philosophical thought makes the division into conventional and absolute. Then we get the excuse to hide in the absolute or the conventional. We even openly say that “conventionally” or “absolutely” it is like this or that, creating different views contradicting each other. Both are not lies. They are not there.

1:04:00.5 So right and wrong is very difficult. So negative and positive are equally difficult. We have one advantage we can use: if it hurts anyone, including yourself, it is more or less negative. But in order to help, if it hurts a little bit, then it is questionable. Surgical treatment is violence, no doubt. They are cutting a piece of your body with weapons. That’s violence, no doubt. But it is violence without hatred, without anger, with love, with care, with the desire to help. It might not be negative, I don’t know. Hopefully not. That’s because of the motivation. It’s because of the purpose, not because of action. If the action becomes strong, if you get hurt, then it becomes negative, for sure. That much thought I will share with you today. Any questions?

1:07:21.7 Audience: Over the years, I have been following politics and notice that the aggregate of feeling influences our mind. When you like somebody you don’t see their faults and when you don’t like somebody you believe anything bad that anybody says about them. I think that is something to observe in our minds. It is really hard to read another person’s heart. So it’s very difficult to know what they are really thinking. It’s hard for us to be objective about another person. So if we are aware of the aggregate of feeling and how much it influences our minds, that helps us to be more objective, I think.

1:08:38.3 Rimpoche: I am a very keen observer-student of politics of any country, honestly, Tibetan, very, very deeply involved in observing, but I don’t get involved in Tibetan politics. I don’t do anything. Whether Dharma politics or political politics, I don’t. I am very keen on Indian politics and automatically you get very aware of Pakistan and Sri Lankan politics and South-East Asian politics like Thailand and Cambodia. There was a period in Cambodia, before they called it Kampuchea, they had the Khmer Rouge, which was miserable. Millions of people’s bones were found everywhere. It was a terrible period. Thereby automatically, nobody paid attention to Laos, a very small country. Everybody throwing bombs on Vietnam also threw them on Laos. During World War II many of our pilots emptied their bombs over Holland, rather than over Germany.

1:11:56.1They did the same thing in Laos, emptied all the bombs over Laos and then went into Vietnam empty. Also the biggest mine fields in the world are located in Laos. I was quite keen and then of course, Chinese politics and American politics are of interest to me. I live here and I eat here and I contribute here, so I am also keen on American politics. So it is true, if you like the person that contributes to liking their policies. But the truth really is that it is the policy that makes you like the person. You should definitely look for that. I am neither Democrat or Republican, nor am I independent. Honestly. I will like certain policies that help people, particularly poor people. Rich people are already rich, no matter whoever comes into power. They will remain okay. A few rich people may suffer, because they take revenge. But even they remain okay. But whoever comes into power, who is going to suffer? The poor people and the weaker sections of society. So who is going to hurt them less? Which policy is going to hurt them less? That’s what I am looking for. Then when you see Bernie Sanders come up, see you he has got certain important subjects to talk to people about. Some of them are excellent. If these policies come in, poor people are hurt less and they may benefit more. But what I saw from Day 1 and what was confirmed on Day 2, 3, 4, etc, is that he is coming from anger. I don’t like it. Even when everyone was in love with Bernie Sanders, I didn’t like it. I didn’t say it, because the 5th Dalai Lama tells me not to say what you don’t like.

1:15:57.9 But we need to know. I didn’t like it, because it’s anger. So, it raises anger and the hunger for change and the difficulties brought it up and made it so strong and we got hurt ourselves in the end. So that’s how I observe. I always like the Democrat’s policies far better than the Republicans, because the economic principles are the Democratic party’s policy since a very long time. You know who really worked hard and did a lot? Carter. No one gives him credit. He really did much and his presidency is treated as a failure by some people. But he worked so hard. Reagan benefited from Carter’s 6 years. I am afraid that Trump will also benefit from the 8 years of hard work of Obama. They may even win the next election because of that. You never know.

1:17:54.5 But elections are supposed to be about the work they do rather than the result they enjoy. The intelligent should know that. Obama had suffered tremendously because of the earlier administration’s policies. The Clinton administration produced a zero deficit. The next 8 years of administration increased the deficit 10-fold. As a consequence of that, Obama suffered for four years and the next four years became okay. The results are coming now, we know and I hope they will continuously come and that will be given to Trump as credit, rather than to Obama, in the eyes of ignorance. But intelligent people know.

But many times people like certain people and therefore like their policies. That is absolutely wrong. We should like people because of the policies they offer. The question was about body-mind relationship. This is body-mind relationship. Wherever the body goes, the mind goes. Wherever the mind goes, the body goes. That is body-mind relationship overtaking the thoughts, or thoughts influencing the body-mind relationship.

1:20:53.1 Audience: In a situation where you observe one person hurting and you know you have a skill that could help that person and you begin the process of helping the person who is hurting, you notice the person who has done the hurting, who has put the hurt on another person, and you have something that you can do to stop that person from hurting the little person and you struggle to keep your focus on the little person who is hurting, but part of your mind is feeling the anger coming up towards the big person inflicting the pain. Could you speak about the practical training of GOM to pull your mind back from the anger impulse towards the person creating the harm and put your focus back on the person that you want to continue to help?

1:22:23.2 Rimpoche: This is an extremely difficult question. There are always pros and cons. The normal human norm is: Mind your business. But if you are seeing, without anger, before you get angry, before any angry thought comes out of the mouth, and you can give a gap and think about it, then draw the attention. Not pointing out. Pointing out will be sure to be a cause of anger. But you can draw the attention, without getting angry, neither yourself nor the other person. Maybe there is an answer, but it really needs skill. Otherwise, it is sure to create trouble, rather than help. Is there the need? Yes, but it is really the question how. Milarepa once was meditating. One of his disciples, a hunter, came and chased a deer or musk deer (Tib: goa). He was absolutely tired from chasing and came to Milarepa’s cave and saw him meditating. He said, “I know you must have seen it. Which way did the deer go?” Milarepa said, “That way” and pointed in the opposite direction of where the deer had gone. So he lied, but that lie doesn’t become a lie, but became saving the life of that musk deer. This is giving us the example of saving lives.

1:25:56.7 So this is the example and we can make our own judgment based on that. That’s all I like to say. Besides that, both John Moran and Elizabeth Hurwitz are extremely intelligent, you know that. As long as you don’t step over, you are right on the top. Use your intelligence, both of you. You are both brilliant. I noticed sometimes, when we were in Jewel Heart in Washington St, I noticed that John is intelligent, honestly, very vividly. I also noticed his stubbornness. That was very interesting. We had some fire alarm there and he put his coat on the fire alarm, not only once, but twice or thrice and when he pulled away his coat the alarm went off. So funny. That is stubbornness: not using your intelligence and paying no attention, thinking, “I am minding my business, just getting my coat and walking out.”

1:28:11.1 If there are no other questions, I want to say thank you, also to the Dutch, who are listening and I see them tomorrow and all of you I see next week, thank you

1:28:30.4 May all beings…… 1:29:51.6