Archive Result

Soundfile 19870100GRRTOMLOVCOM (01)

Speaker Robert Thurman/Gelek Rinpoche

Location

Topic Vimalakirti Sutra

Transcriber Barbara Ferrari

Date 10/4/20

10:45:01- Introductions and layout of teachings reviewed

10:47:40 I am beginning because I am involved in context, so I am trying to create a certain context in which the content of the path will be taught by Rinpoche and in the questions we will discuss different things and you can also question other matters that are of interest to you that maybe have not come up in the talk. You can ask about what came up that puzzled you and what didn’t come up. Both you can talk about.

Now, the Vilmalakirti Sutra, which is going to be the basic text of context for us. Another words, the space where we are trying to be. Actually, today I brought these two thangkas and one of them is the bodhisattva, since I am talking about context, this one is the bodhisattva Manjushri in his pure land and he is a kind of palace in a different kind of universe and the people in his universe, who have been incarnated in his universe are those people sitting in those little lotus’ because it is like a pure land. He is called a bodhisattva and a bodhisattva is something like a being who is seeking enlightenment who is going to become a Buddha. On one level a bodhisattva is a seeker of, a person who’s life and lives are for the purpose of obtaining Buddhahood. From which attainment that person will genuinely be able to benefit other beings. That is basically what a bodhisattva is. Then there are some bodhisattvas that have already obtained Buddhahood, actually they are already Buddhas, but before they obtained Buddhahood they said when I obtain Buddhahood as a Buddha I want to be millions of bodhisattvas around the universe helping other beings in millions of incarnations everywhere throughout the universe. They make that as a vow. So it is like when they become god, in the Christian analogy they say you want to become godlike in order to be able to benefit beings like a god does, but then you say once I become god I don’t want to be like god just sitting off in heaven somewhere aloof. I want to be incarnated everywhere to help beings. In as many places as there are beings that are suffering and Manjushri is such a bodhisattva. He is a bodhisattva who billions of eons ago in another universe totally previous to millions of previous big bangs and big collapses and whatever you want, whatever your notion of creation 10:50:11.1 and destruction. He made this vow- every time, in any future universe whenever there is a Buddha or where ever the Buddha’s teaching is present I want to come there and I want to ask hard questions, that is his vow. “I want to appear as the bodhisattva Manjushri and I will ask questions of that Buddha. Otherwise Buddha’s will just chit-chat you know they will talk about this and that and “isn’t it nice to be enlightened today” and “where are you, in India isn’t it nice and here I went to Tibet…” and something like this. Manjushri will interrupt and say “I don’t want to hear about all of this I want know what is the meaning of emptiness, what is the meaning of ultimate reality, what is the purpose of our lives, what is the fabric of our being, that is what I want to know about. Manjushri will be there to interrupt to ask big questions like that.

He carries a big sword in his right hand. Actually in his left hand, over his left hand he holds a stalk of a lotus and on that stalk is a book and that book is the larger version of the Heart Sutra it is the Prajnaparamita, that is the transcendent wisdom scripture that is the scripture that teaches the nature of ultimate reality from the Buddhist point of view. It teaches what is ultimately real and what is ultimately not real and so by understanding that scripture one can understand everything according to the Buddhist belief. So he carries that book over the lotus on his left shoulder and over his right he holds in his hand the sword, which we don’t need to be afraid of, its only symbolic symbolizing the sword of wisdom which symbolizes incisive intelligence cutting through not only spiritual materialism, but any other kind of confusion and seeing the nature of reality. Cutting through to the core of reality so that one can recognize and know what is the nature of things so that ones human wisdom can reach its fullest potential and enlightenment. That is the bodhisattva Manjushri. He is the kind of symbol in Buddhism, particularly in Tibetan Buddhism of the wisdom aspect of the path. Also in the Vimalakirti Sutra he is one of the main interlocutors, he is one of the main people who in the Sutra talking with Vimalakirti, in fact, he is the only one in all of the Buddhist community who will go to visit Vimalakirti. No one else will even go to see him because Vimalakirti is a very cantankerous sort of character. They are all afraid to go that Vimalakirti is going to scold them or tease them or criticize them, he is a very critical minded about any sort of confusion. So no one will go until Manjushri goes and the minute Manjushri goes then they all run behind Manjushri and want to go. So he is an important figure in the Vimalakirti. He goes to visit Vimalakirti and the dialogue between him and Vimalakirti is the main dharma of that sutra.

10:52:55 On This side is the bodhisattva Maitreya who has a slightly different history who presently considered by Tibetans, he’s there in his own pure land which is called Yegotchunzin (sp?) 10:53:05.7 in Tibetan it is in the Tushita heaven. In the Buddhist universe there are six heavens in the desire realm, seventeen (17) heavens in the form realm and four (4) heavens in the formless realm so that’s about twenty-seven (27) different heavens. Those different heavens themselves have different regions within them and in the particular region in one of the desire realm heavens known as the Tushita heaven, which means the joyful heaven lives Maitreya. He has a special realm of that heaven, you know like the town of Woodstock or something, special town which is his own pure land. That is the very favorite pure land of Buddhist scholars for some reason they like to go there when they die because I guess they can continue their studies quarrelling with one another, debating, etc. So there are a number of important scholars. There is the great Indian teacher Atisha over here, this one with the red hat and the stupa behind him and on the right is the great Tibetan master Tsonkapa who lived in the 14th and 15th centuries. Below them are two bodhisattvas Vajrapani and Avalokiteshvara. There are these two worlds, you know planetary teachers, previously human who have passed away but are dwelling in Tushita according to the belief of Mahayana Buddhists. Maitreya himself is presiding over that and he is said to be, he has on his one lotus the wheel of dharma which is the wheel of teaching over his right shoulder symbolizing that in the future he will be the next Buddha. Some of you may have heard of Maitreya because, in fact by many western mystics he is associated with the second coming of Christ. He is the next Buddha to come to earth and some people who have tried to make, kind of mystics who want to combine Buddhism and Christianity both from the Buddhist and the Christian side associate Maitreya with Christ in that sense that he will come in the future. There is confusion whether it will be 5,000 years from now, will it be 100,000 years from now. We can discuss that kind of thing more at the end of the session. But anyways, he is dwelling now in Tushita, he emanates onto earth in various emanations, incarnations even now. He comes as a full scale Buddha like Shakyamuni Buddha did last time. He is the symbol of the return of enlightenment, that enlightenment hasn’t been something in the historical past but comes again and again in the universe. Actually, Shakyamuni Buddha is considered to be the fourth Buddha of a thousand Buddhas who come on this planet in this universe. So there is going to be another 995 of them and Maitreya is going to be the next one. Then there will be 994 after that.

10:55:50.6 He figures in the Vimalakirti Sutra also because at the end of the Vimalakirti Sutra when Buddha has said this is a great Sutra, everybody had a good time, people learned a lot, now in the future there is great merit in just keeping the Sutra. People who read it and study it, there will be a great merit in it, there will be a great benefit in it. At that time the four (4) guardian kings of the directions, who are sort of Olympian type gods in the Indian world. They are sort of like the gods of Olympus you know like Mercury, Neptune or something like that but they are particular guardians of the directions. They say “oh that’s great Buddha, anytime in the future when any persons read or study or meditate on or teach the Vimalakirti Sutra we will appear and we will protect them against war, famine, plague, earthquakes, these kind of things. These sort of guardian gods say, these worldly gods say. Then Maitreya comes along and he says “Buddha, I really like this Sutra, what’s its name?” and Maitreya has a photographic memory or a tape recorder type memory another words one of his things, because he is the next Buddha and the Buddha’s one his foremost disciples and when the Buddha will talk for days or hours and Maitreya would just remember it totally word for word. He is one of the collectors of the Mahayana scriptures actually, according to the Mahayana belief. He would just remember everything that was said and recite it back to you. So Buddha entrusts to him the keeping of the Sutra because it wasn’t written down that well. They didn’t have tapes there, they didn’t have anything. Their tape company was Maitreya’s brain. Maitreya says in the future anytime anybody wanted it recited or written down or passed from hand to hand or whatever, anytime anyone would study the Vimalakirti I will be there he says. I will be with those people and my presence will be with them. He makes this vow actually in the sutra so I thought it was very appropriate to bring Maitreya, unfortunately I don’t have a thangka of Vimalakirti because Tibetans didn’t make thangkas of Vimalakirti for reasons that I’ll explain to you. Vimalakirti, he is the sort of layperson. He has this odd thing, on one hand he is suppose to be this most wise person in the Buddhist community of those days. On the other hand he is not a monk, he is a bodhisattva but he’s not a sort of angelic bodhisattva like Maitreya and Manjushri so he’s not to well know. On the other hand, in Tibetan legend he was reincarnated in Tibet many times. His most recent, most famous incarnation is someone called Jon-gal-ro-de dorje (sp?) 10:58:33.4 and Jon-hu-tu-tu (sp?) is a famous lama of the 18th century who lived in China and Tibet. He was a colleague and close friend of the 7th Dalai Lama. He is believed to be the reincarnation of Vimalakirti. Never the less Vimalakirti is a figure in the sutra that I was not, other than his reincarnational history, he is not that well known in Tibet. Probably because he was a layman and this was very confusing. It tended to be confusing in the history of Buddhism in China and other places. You had this layman who was so extraordinary and apparently more extraordinary than many of the monks and many of the bodhisattvas in fact as you will see when we read the Vimalakirti. He was a very aggravating character because he was so critical. He was kind of very critical. He was critical of confusion seeking enlightenment. This did bother people sometimes, but we will come to that.

10:59:28 What I want to come to in the short time that have, I want to talk about the beginning of the sutra. The first chapter of the sutra is called the purification of the Buddha field. Actually nowadays if I translated that I probably would say Buddha land, I kind of like the term Buddha land, but Buddha field is literally correct too. It is relevant that a Mahayana Sutra, this being a Mahayana Sutra, what is known as universal vehicle sutra. It begins with this topic and in fact the first question in the sutra always Bodhi sutra, which you purports to record actual audiences of people with the Buddha usually. Although, often other teachers do teach in them but they always do so under the umbrella within the field of awareness of the Buddha. Within the teaching energy of the Buddha they teach. So this one begins the first chapter does not occur and Vimalakirti is not in it. It occurs in the Buddha’s own place where he’s dwelling near the city of Vaishali, which is Vimalakirti’s home town. It’s sort of a large city, not a small one. It’s relevant that the question, the opening question of the sutra is the question about how to develop the Buddha field, how to develop the Buddha land. Another words, rather than the opening question being “how Buddha do we become enlightened?” or I, how do I become enlightened which you would think be a question one would ask, one would go to learn, I want to get enlightened, how do I do it? But this question is not that here. The question of this sutra begins with we are already on the path of trying to become enlightened, in being on such a path how do we purify the Buddha land? How does the bodhisattva, rather to say the being, the noble son or noble daughter as they say in the Mahayana sutra who wishes to achieve perfect enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, how does that person purify the Buddha land? Now what is meant by purifying the Buddha land? It is a very extraordinary concept actually. It means how do I transform my whole universe, really. Another words it’s a kind of request of enlightenment on the part of a person who has already realized they are totally and inexorably interconnected with all other beings. They cannot enjoy some liberation, even Nirvana, even freedom, even for the pleasure of bliss of heaven if other beings are left out there suffering. Not only in the human realms or animal realms, but in places like hells, preta realms they have. The Buddhist universe is very rich with states of being, much more dreadful than any, even the most depressing human situation is paradise compared to all the various forms of life that one could be in and according to Buddha one we will be in if one does not gain control the life cycle and be able to control in a sense ones future lives.

This person, who is the vessel as they say or the receptive of the Mahayana teaching, the universal vehicle 11:02:42.6 meaning the vehicle which all beings ride upon. This person has already recognized they are totally interconnected another words you and I and we are all completely part of each other in some sense. No one of us can be safe or saved unless all of us are safe or saved. Even God is not separate from us. We are all in this boat together kind of thing. Therefore all being have to be saved for anyone to be saved, ultimately. So the question for such a person is not only how do I become a Buddha, to be able to benefit all beings, to make sure that everything I do is really helpful and nothing harmful but also, how do I transform the whole universe? Which is a pretty drastic question if you are a physicist in particular. Physicists would appreciate it of course materialistic physics have the unfortunate idea that they can transform the universe as sort of a material field and that the human spirit is not necessarily part of it, you know. It’s just some atoms there and they can transform something outside of themselves they don’t necessarily acknowledge that they have to transform themselves, not all of them, I don’t mean all of them, but the field as a whole because of the unfortunate notion that the human spirit is not some irreducible, non-material living entity that cannot be reduced to formulary or equations or whatever.

So this is the question, which the Vimalakirti begins, but actually before that I should do a little introduction itself. All Buddhist sutras begin with an initial assembly in which the Buddha is presented as being present somewhere and the circumstances of his presence are told because they are believed to have been actual conversations that took place. They say when and where as a sign of authenticity, for example all Buddhists scriptures begin with the statement “Thus I have heard at one time.” 11:04:32.5 That is Maitreya speaking actually who says “thus I have heard” that means I have heard this and have memorized it, I didn’t make it up myself. At one time and it was on a specific occasion it was not something just in general that I’m sort of digesting what I remember vaguely but I heard him on this particular teaching, thus I have heard at one time. After the initial salutation, that’s always the first phrase (Tibetan phrase-E vamia shutam…11:04:59.8). You always have to have that beginning sound E vamia shutam…That means it is a real scripture, a real recording of the Buddha’s deeds.

Now in this case he is in Amrapali’s garden in the city of Vaisali and they describe all the great monks who where with him and the description of the great monks gives one a sense of what it is to achieve a certain type of personal liberation, what kind of persons they were and then there is a more lengthy description of the great bodhisattvas because this is a universal vehicle sutra it is considered better to be a bodhisattva than to be just an arhat or a saint. The description of them indicates the quality that one seeks to achieve by attaining enlightenment. I won’t go into that because if we went line to line we would never finish even the first few pages. Then they describe the name of these bodhisattvas and this of course is probably vexing for western people, long lists (Tibetan-Samadashana, asamashana…11:06:03.3) you can’t pronounce them probably and many of them are not so famous. There are a few famous bodhisattvas in that but luckily they didn’t give you the whole 32,000 name by name, only a couple of dozen. Then notice that present are a whole bunch of Brahmas. Brahma, as you know, is a God and he is in fact the creator God in Indian culture. Brahma was the creator of the universe for Indians and so in a sense he represents the creator God within the culture in which this originally took place. Note that there are many of these creator Gods because the Buddhist worldview is that are many universes not just one universe. Each one has their own creator God. Buddhists are said to be atheistic, they are not atheistic. Buddhists believe in God, plenty of them, that’s all. They don’t have only one poor little God all by himself somehow or even by herself, but there are many Gods. However, there is one creator God they accept, one first God who has the position of creator and technically is not quite a creator he is just a first being who takes place in a new universe. He arrives there first. There is a funny Buddhist story about it. This God, he had such great merit from previous lives that he arrives there and when the other beings arrive and see that this guy was there first, he is a great shining God, like a sun, like a thousand suns they see he was there first they thought he was the creator and they see him and they say “hey daddy, great.” He knows that he didn’t create it, he just arrived there and he is wondering what is happening. On the other hand he is lonely so he thinks, I wish that other people were there and suddenly, bing, then there is a lot of other people. He sometimes almost believes his own press releases too, he thinks maybe I made them. I wished they were there then they were there so maybe I did make them. Buddhist have very colorful and amusing stories about world creation. A little irreverent, but not really. Just intended to expand people beyond a sense of a far domination by a big and rather wrathful and angry daddy who is in charge of everything and has somehow put them in this situation and they are stuck there and don’t know what to do about it. To get out of that kind of feeling that excessively authoritarian malfeastic cultures put people into. Some of you might recognize what I am talking about. They try to broaden it out, they say there is plenty of creators and they also have their problems, some of them have marital problems. Mrs. God gives them a hard time when they are too mean to the people sometimes. They have to many flaws, to many pillars of fire, whatever. They put in more of broadened and relaxed framework in the same time having a great sense of veneration and respect for the power of deities. On the other hand they do present the deities themselves having respect for the Buddhas. Meaning being who might be more human like, actually but who are enlightened. Finally enlightenment and not power is the most beneficial and important thing in the universe. Another way of putting that is love and not power is more important in the universe. Another way is that love is the most important power in the universe 11:09:21.6 at least in the Buddhist belief. Not some dominating, manipulating notion of power, but love as a self-giving type of power is the greatest power. We will look at this. Anyways, the Brahmas are present, we will come back to that but that is what it is meant that the Brahmas are present. We have to understand that when he says all these different gods are present, Brahmas, that means that other Brahmas came from other universes where they were known as the creator Gods of those universes. Chakras means Indras (sp-11:09:51.0) The Indras are the kings of the gods. They are like Jove on Olympus. So the Buddhists had the Olympian Gods as well as the malfeistic type gods within that culture. They don’t leave anybody out. Lokapalas are like the world protectors and Devas are like smaller gods like angels, Nagas are dragons, yakshas are forest creatures, gandharvas are fairies, literally scent eaters, asuras are titans sort of demigods and are rather powerful and a bit violent, Garudas are eagle beings. Ghandaras are like centaurs but opposite of a centaur with human bodies and horses heads. They live in the mountains and are very erotic and are into having a good time up in their forest. Mahoragas are serpent creatures that lived in India, but they come to hear the Buddha not just the humans. All these different deities and leprechauns and fairies and gods and dragons, they all come. They believe whenever the sutra is discussed that although human beings can’t see them all these dragons and beings of the forest are all present. They come to hear it that is why we recite the heart sutra. Not only for ourselves as humans but for all these beings who are around as well. 11:11:04.5

So then they introduce them as being there. So this is kind of an oceanic assembly of human and non-human beings who always present when the Buddha teaches. These young people from the city of Vaishali, they are like the New Yorkers, the lachavis (sp? 11:11:19.0) It sounds funny but these lachavis they are acting like New Yorkers and the young ones come out, it is very interesting that the young ones come out of the city. These are like the young nobles of the city. Notice that the old ones don’t come out of the city. Why is that? Because when Buddha came to the town on that particular tour, he always accepts the invitation of the first person who asks him to be his host whenever he is going somewhere. No matter who it is, he accepts. Now, Amrapali was the famous courtesan of that city. Like a famous movie star in ancient India, not like prostitute in modern language but rather like a geisha in Japan. Almost like an actress or a movie star. She had a fantastic, huge estate outside of the city with a big garden in it. She beat the elders of the city, like Mayor Koch, this type of thing. She beat them to where the Buddha was coming with his retinue. This is actual history. She said, Buddha please come and stay in my grove on my estate, you and all of your monks. I will provide food for you the whole time and I wish for you to be my guest. He said fine, he used to say yes without saying anything. He would just nod. When he didn’t say anything, that meant yes. Assent by silent as they say.

So he went off there and when the elders came and pulled up in their carriages they were very piqued that the Buddha had accepted the invitation of this movie star instead of their own town hall sort of thing. So they were kind of boycotting Buddha temporarily. They said, who needs Buddha we have our swami here at Rishi, we will go downtown and we don’t need that. If he goes with movie stars he must be weird. Buddha was living out there in the grove and teaching his teachings and there was good vibrations from his monks coming out there like a flock of orange geese. They always wore colored robes, like Rinpoche is wearing and they were all there. So the young ones couldn’t stay away finally and they all came down to see the Buddha and they all brought these jeweled parasols. This is how it begins; they lay these parasols down in front of the Buddha as they came up. They bowed to the Buddha as they greeted him and then they laid the parasols down. Imagine 500, there was quite a pile of parasols suddenly in front of the Buddha in this grove where he was sitting. After they laid them down the Buddha concentrated and when he concentrated that pile of parasols, I’ll read this you’ll see. He said “As soon as all these precious parasols,” this is on pg. 12, “had been laid down, suddenly by the miraculous power of the lord they were transformed into a single precious canopy so great that it formed a covering for this entire billion world galaxy.” Now I think of this as the first planetarium in history that I’ve ever heard of. 11:14:07.5 Suddenly the parasols formed a great jeweled dome over everybody and in this dome you see the surface of the entire billion world galaxy was reflected in the interior of the great precious canopy. Where the total content of this galaxy could be seen, limitless mansions of suns, moons and stellar bodies, the realms of the gods, dragons and so forth, the king of mountains and all the great mountain ranges, all the great oceans, rivers, bays and so forth. All the villages, suburbs, cities, capitals and wildernesses, all this could be clearly seen by everyone. The voices of all the Buddha’s of the 10 directions could be heard proclaiming their teachings of the Dharma in all the worlds, the sounds reverberating in the space beneath the great precious canopy. So it as if we look up in this tent and on the surface of the tent it would be jewel lined type of surface and we would see New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Birmingham, Moscow, Peking, Lhasa, Tibet, the middle of the ocean the South Pacific, all of this and many different planets, Mars and different galaxies, alpha centari. All of this could be seen, all interconnected, all different life forms. Kind of like a multi-media video show flashing all these different aspects of nature and different dimensions simultaneous on this canopy so what is the message that such a symbol would bring home to us all, exactly what we said earlier, that all things are totally interconnected. That the whole universe is all forms of life are present in every atom of life. Every atom has its role within all forms of life and yet all universes are contained within each atom of every universe. This inconceivable vision of interconnectedness is what he first taught 11:15:57.1

So after he taught that everybody was wowed by that, naturally they thought that was amazing but apparently they were not too surprised because they expected the Buddha to behave like this. There is this hymn of praise of the teacher by the young lachavins (sp? 11:16:21) They make an initial praise of him because they recognize the source of such transformation such educational transformation not so arbitrary but teaching a certain message that is a symbol of all the teaching. If all of us could realize our interconnectedness with the whole universe, not only oneness, interconnectedness is not just oneness. Oneness does not mean we are just the whole universe, it means that too, but it also means that we are a part of so it relates to other parts. We are not the whole because there are other beings that are also the whole. Everybody is the whole, you see. We don’t egoistically become it all and swallow up everything, it’s all namely us everybody else also does that so that means we are somehow all interconnected. It’s a little more complicated than just being one. It’s being both one and many within the context of being one. If we could understand that we would be relaxed, wouldn’t we? No longer would we feel the isolated little entity with everybody else chasing us and us trying to fend off everybody else the paranoid form of existence in the world for the egoistic person who feels that they are somehow totally distinct and ultimately isolated from the rest of the universe. Again, it is a little more complicated than just being one and everybody melting into a big soup where nobody has to be responsible for their own relative individuality so it doesn’t actually eradicate individuality, but it is more complicated. But still we feel a bit better feeling somehow one with all others. It gives us a larger team and makes us a little less worried about things. It makes us, in some sense, a part of the future. We don’t just have to be paranoid that the future will bring death or suffering and it makes us a part of all other beings. So they sing praise to the Buddha then they ask this question about how to purify the Buddha field.

I want to come to the second major symbol. He asks how to purify the Buddha land and the Buddha says the bodhisattva transforms the universe by first recognizing there is no universe to be transformed. First of all he makes this rather puzzling statement. He says if you want to build something in empty space you can’t do it, you can’t build in empty space, there is no way. The bodhisattva knowing that there can be nothing built in empty space, that all things are like empty space and nothing can be built in empty space proceeds to build a Buddha land and make it beautiful in empty space. The universe’s transformation is only possible acknowledging from the beginning it’s impossibility. It’s perplexing and we will deal with it. If you think oh I’m going to make a new world, I’ll start with a bulldozer company or building company and I’ll rebuild the universe, this is impossible in this realistic conquerized way of seeing the world, taking for granted the world of delusion and thinking it were really real and thinking I’m going to rebuild it. It would be impossible. Only recognizing the unreality of all worlds and the fact that all worlds are fundamentally imagination and fundamentally imagined by beings, human and Devine only first knowing that do you then know that you can transform it. Actually it can be transformed because of some form of unreality that it has, some malleability. For example, you wouldn’t worry if you were in a dream about changing your environment in your dream 11:20:07.4 because you know that your imagination and your environment are interconnected in a dream. Only by recognizing the dream likeness of this reality, that this reality is a dream or dream like then you can re-dream it. You can enter into the bodhisattva enterprise of dreaming it from love rather than dreaming it from egotism. This bad and nasty world of suffering, discontent and scarcity is dreamed by mutual collective egotism. It’s all egotistically dreaming a nasty world reflecting our own egotistical minds. So if Buddhas can dream of Buddha world is the idea, but before anybody can do that they have to recognize the world is dreamed. Is unreal in some sense. That’s why it says only by recognizing the impossibility is it possible to build a Buddha land and make it beautiful. He goes on and on. Finally, he says the Buddha land of the bodhisattva is as pure or perfect as the bodhisattva’s mind is pure and perfect. The inner and outer are always connected. The mind is the most powerful part of reality. If you know the physics of the mind then you can know the physics of the supposed external reality. The mind is more dominant, important than the teaching. Then Sariputra, who is very logical, has the thought that we all will have if we are being critical and logical. He says wait a minute, Buddha is saying that the Buddha land is as perfect as the bodhisattva’s mind is perfect, Shakyamuni Buddha is here, he is a Buddha, he was a bodhisattva for billions of years then he got to be a Buddha meaning that he perfected his mind supposedly, but look at this world of India, 5th century BC, it’s a bunch of garbage. Over in England they are living in caves, they are painted blue and purple. Over in some other place they are doing a dance and they are cannibals. What a grubby world this is. Everybody dies after a short time and there is all this stupid dictators and generals and warriors. Ajaxs and Achilles are running around slaughtering the Trojans. A bunch of idiots here in India are slaughtering people in the Marbata (sp? 11:22:13.7) war. What kind of a Buddha land is this? This doesn’t fit with Buddha’s land. Then he thinks, Buddha was either a very lazy bodhisattva with a bad mind or what he is saying is wrong. Sariputra is very respectful he thinks that logically in his mind that Buddha is full of it basically is what he is thinking. This Buddha land is nuts, it’s ridiculous; he is quite irritated by it. He doesn’t say it because he is a polite monk and the Buddha is a big Buddha and his guru so he is not going to say it, but he thinks it. Unfortunately for him Buddha reads minds. So Buddha says hey Sariputra is it the fault of the sun and moon that those blind from birth don’t see them? Sariputra knows he has been caught. His mind has been read. He says no, no Buddha it is not the fault of the sun and the moon, if someone is blind they can’t see the sun and moon. Oh yes, Sariputra so my Buddha land is totally excellent and totally pure, but you Sariputra haven’t got the eyes to see it. He still doesn’t believe it. He thinks the Buddha is after him, but he still doesn’t believe it because we believe what we see, right? Sariputra is being logical. You see what is in front of your face. You should actually. You shouldn’t believe anything some stupid guru tells you. Otherwise you will get a lot of trouble, get very bankrupt, practice some weird teachings, you never know what will happen to you. So you should not believe it just because somebody said so. Even if it’s the Buddha with a golden face, a big huge extra brain on top of his head, whatever still don’t believe him. So he is right not to. Buddha then has to show him. He says okay, then Brahma, that is God comes and he scolds Sariputra for a while. He says, Sariputra you have lousy site. You just reduced the world to your own dualistic categories of good and evil, bad and good, it looks crappy to you because your mind is full of crap. He actually says crap; I’m not being vulgar. Therefore, Sariputra don’t project your crap on the Buddha’s world. His world is not full of crap. I see it as more exquisite than the most exquisite heaven and I’m God and I’ve seen all the heavens. 11:24:25.6 Shariputra was going blah, blah to God also, but he still doesn’t believe it. Buddha says I know you don’t believe it Shariputra you can’t help it. So Buddha takes his toe puts it down on the ground and the instant he does everybody sees the world as absolutely perfect. They see everything as completely and totally perfect. Their own bodies made of jewels, living jewels, not some sort of hard cold dead crystal, but living jewels; rubies, emeralds and diamonds all sitting in a giant jeweled lotus. They don’t have to worry about going to lunch, having their veggie burger, paying their tuition, nothing. They just float there, their energy comes in, and they don’t have to go to the bathroom. The energy comes and goes and they are perfectly there. The dharma is coming to them, the whole universe, every atom, every blade of grass; every mosquito is full of dharma. They realize it is the perfect universe the Buddha has made and they see it like that. Buddha has to be a big I told you so to Sariputra he says, Sariputra do you see the splendor of the virtues of my Buddha field? Do you think my Buddha field is crappy now, he says. When you have seen this jeweled matrix, total perfect universe that you are in. Oh no, but it looks great he says I see it Lord here before me is a display of splendor such as I have never heard before or beheld, he said, Suddenly, a perfect universe. He’s not in the wrong moment of history we didn’t miss out on Buddha; we didn’t miss Baba Ram Dass’ class. Baba Ram Dass is in every atom of your beard. There is millions of Baba Ram Dass’ laughing and playing with you on the roof and everywhere. Nothing is missed everything is totally perfect. We are at the perfect evolutionary connections to develop ourselves with the optimal and perfect effectiveness toward perfect enlightenment, which will enable us to perfectly benefit all other being. Everything is a total flow of love. Suddenly, he sees like that. Everybody is pretty flipped out by that. They go ooohh wow, everybody is really happy. In the next minute the Buddha picks up his toe again and it looks like crap again. Rather, it looks like the ordinary thing, headaches, telephone calls, bills to pay or the equivalent in ancient India. Everybody is depressed and they get a big insight into impermanence. 84,000 beings get the insight into impermanence. So that is basically the end of that chapter. Buddha makes a few things more actually the fact that the world appears like that, the Buddha says, it’s a part of my skill and liberative technique. He introduces this concept known as skill and liberative art, the art of developing and evolving living beings and liberating them. If everybody lived in a jeweled goo at all times, everything perfect, people would get a little indulged, don’t you think? We would develop a lot of wisdom because the jeweled goo is full of Samadhi 11:27:20.4 So we would get tremendous meditation and we would all be total yogis and great Samadhi, but maybe we wouldn’t develop much compassion. Somebody else gets killed or something dies or even hell would look like some jeweled goo, it’s like hot goo, but what the hell it’s just jeweled goo that all perfect. Compassion cannot arise without the acknowledgement of the suffering of other beings. Even if that suffering is self created in a sense. Even if it’s their own personal theater or their personal dream, not really real but it is real to them therefore they suffer. Only by being in tune to that can compassion develop. If we were kept on a temperature of existence that was too groovy we would get too self-indulgent. We would be like Gods at least in Buddhism how Gods are often criticized for floating around and everything is great. Meanwhile there is somebody rolling over on 3 or 4 countries, cities, planets or universes get crunched as they roll over and they don’t notice because everything is great.

The universe in a certain way is what the vision is of the Buddha. Which is an amazing, drastic vision of Buddha. It means the Buddha can’t just change; Buddha is not like God, in a monotheistic notion of god. He doesn’t have total power over everything but has a very great power to transform things out of love to benefit beings. In an educational type of way, but one he has to be educational but finally you have to be enlightened yourself. No one can understand for you your own highest understanding. Only you can understand that. Someone else’s mind can’t come through you and understand it for you. It’s like someone else can’t eat your meal for you. They can cook and serve it, but you have to eat it. They can’t come into you and eat it; it wouldn’t do you any good. They would possess you and eat your meal and you would get nothing. You have to understand yourself. That is why Buddha’s power is limited because you can’t force somebody to understand something. You can only appeal to their reason, insight, their imagination and they have to understand it for themselves. I will stop here and we will come back in the 3rd hour to that. We have to make everything shorter so we can catch up to the schedule since we started late. We will spend 5 mins now quietly and then we will take a break and start the next.

Excellent, Thank you for getting good questions. Q/A section 11:30:03.9

When you say there is no universe or that the universe is just like empty space what is meant as he states clearly often is that in the ultimate sense there is no universe. The fact that there is no universe in the ultimate sense means that there is a universe in the relative sense. This is the difficulty. Now, what is meant by that? This we will come back to again and again when we get to content we will come to it on the 4th day, the wisdom room day. The theory of emptiness and what is known as the two realities theory or the two reality teaching. Very briefly, what this means is the way that things exist to us, say myself an egocentrically diluted person who feels, I feel that I really exist. In fact, I am more existing than anything else. The thing that I am most (unintelligible word 11:31:07) in life is me, I. That is the thing that tells me to go here and there. It’s the most real thing to me. I feel that I that is existing exists in an of itself. It’s not that I depend on things its I feel independently I exist. I have that feeling. I don’t have to think twice about, like Descartes he is like a symbol of that. “Oh just because I think I know I’m here. I’m thinking so there is no questioning that I is thinking. It is just absolutely there. Actually though if we look at anything, if we look at a page or if we are a physicist we look through a microscope we look through an electron chamber we look through any type of equipment to really analyze what’s here and we notice that things just keep coming apart. We notice that there is nothing there is no residue. We get down to individual atoms. There is no undestroyable particle. There’s nothing actually. We end up not having anything in front of us if we look hard or long enough. Then we back and we say well everything is a pure network of relationships. From a certain angle this looks like a book. From a certain degree of vision it looks like a book, but actually we could take every page, every piece of ink, every piece of fiber here, every atom, every subatomic particle and we can’t find anything. So what that means is that the way in which we are seeing things is as if everything were existing in and of itself established by an extrinsic independent reality it contains within it. You really you, me really me. The universe is really the universe. In that sense there’s no universe, there’s no me. In that habitual diluted way of perceiving things sort of rayifying them into absolute entities everywhere. There are almost deconstructed by such a critical investigation, scientific investigation really. Then under that looking of that to find the really real thing it’s found as no really real thing at all. Maybe there is but we just couldn’t find, but since we can’t find it does us no good to say that it’s there. It’s actually a mistake to go “I’m real and this is real” because that’s a false statement. Anything you say is real if somebody else is supposed to believe you have to prove that it is real. If everybody keeps proving that everything is not real then the way we used to say, “I’m real, I’m me. I think therefore I am” turns out to be just whistling in the dark. “I think therefore I am” means if I could look into myself thinking I would get so confused I wouldn’t be able to write the meditations. I wouldn’t be able to be a Frenchman anymore, heavens forbid. A male Frenchman, at that! Therefore, I better stop there and say ‘I think therefore I am.’ I better not look into that thinking, if I do I might find there’s no I, there’s no thinking, there’s no thinker, I might get terribly confused about who was Rene Descartes. What are these subatomic particles and these weird things that are supposedly Rene Descartes in the 17th century France? So I better say ‘I think therefore I am’. Now that’s a very different statement from the absolutist ‘I think’ Je pense, so I’m Je suis suppose to be very French, Je suis, there is no Je.

So in that sense there is no universe. Anyway, if there was such a universe, there would be no saving it because everything is as exactly as it’s intrinsic reality couldn’t be changed. I couldn’t change. How could I become enlightened if I believe I am I? Then I would be the same old turkey. No change. No relationship to anything therefore nothing could affect it. By recognizing that there is no I in that false way of perceiving destroys, there is a tendency at the first moment of realizing that, to feel destroyed because we are so use to being dilutedly exaggeratedly absolute form of I that when we first find that we are not there we feel as if we are sinking or melting or fainting or something. Actually when we get free of that rigid way of being I we can be much more relaxed relative I. When we get free of the rigid ‘the universe’ then there is a much more relaxed relative universe. Then it’s not a matter of can it be can it be transformed it is a matter of it is always being transformed at all times. If we don’t take responsibility for transforming in a positive direction it will go to hell, literally in the Buddhist world, to hell. I shouldn’t go to long. I wanted to be brief; I’m only going to take 5 minutes.

Audience: Two very quick comments. Marvelous universe we’ll have to choose a different English word to mean one.

Robert: Right, but you have many ones you know. You could say many multiverses but its more fun to say many universes because it jars our notion of ‘the one around that’ type of thing. It opens us up to the fact that it’s maybe way beyond different things and that our whole galaxy, even the big bang exploding and the disappearing things that we all think we are looking at is itself like a tiny little one atom of one pearl that is wrapped in black velvet in a cosmic jewelers shop in some totally different universe. It’s like a little piece of pearl dust in the bottom of his velvet, that’s why you can’t see anything beyond there, it’s all black because it’s black velvet. It emits no light, you know. So anyway, I am going to stop now or would you like to go through 11:37:00.

1:37:19.7 Rinpoche: Okay, number one I like to say I don’t good English, so you have to excuse me. I’m probably going to use a lot of wrong terminologies. Fortunately we have a great professor here who can always help out.

A few more (word? 11:37:52) is love and compassion. As you all know the love and compassion is so important for various purposes, for protection, for development and ultimate enlightenment. Even after ultimate enlightenment, for helping other beings. It was one of the most important projects in the Buddhist way. It is important in the beginning, in between and in the end. Important from the beginning because if there is no love and compassion there is no way one can properly develop. Important during the practice, if there is no love and compassion you don’t have any urge at all. Important at the end, if it’s not there, love and compassion not there, as the professor had earlier mentioned the Buddhas would be remaining chitchat and having good time. So the Chandrakirti says (11:39:35 tibetan 11:39:46) need help.

Robert translating for Rinpoche: He said for the great harvest of Buddha’s the first seed, love and compassion are very important, like the seed of this great crop of Buddha. You think of growing Buddhas like a crop, person’s enlightenment. First, compassion is important as the seed. In the middle part compassion is important like the water and the manure. In the fruition time it is important because it is like the fruit. This is the same text as written by Chanrakirti, he says ‘First of all I bow down to compassionate self before I bow to the Buddhas before I bow to anything else, I bow down to compassion.’ That is what he says.

Rinpoche: So we take that first. We pray we bow down not to individual person but to the great compassion. Many of you are very familiar with the Tibetan Buddha’s and many of you are not, but things that we are discussing this morning, particularly the universe and the pure lands all these are revealed (?) 11:41:32 of compassion. Why? People need the love and compassion. Love and compassion will not only produce harmony and enlightenment within one individual, but it will also produce environment, the whole universe. Actually, if you hold onto the Buddhas universe, whatever the beautiful jewel land it is really purity of the personality. Each one of us individually, every one of us individually are entitled to be a Buddha. Every one of us are eligible to become a Buddha. When we become a Buddha, we not only become ourself as individual single human being as a single Buddha but you also born root, whole universal, whole environment and even to the extent of certain purities. Another words the purity of that part would not only be purified individual person but all the universes together within your environment. When you talk about enlightenment, the word enlightenment in English conveys some kind of meaning, I believe, and to a certain extent certain people utilize this enlightenment so cheap at the level of circus Samadhi, at the level of concentration power, at the level of some harmony in the mind, they refer to this as enlightenment. I think it is too easy to use it. It is a misuse of that meaning. Enlightenment here this morning, whatever we have been talking with your permission, I already said that because all the universal is a part of individual enlightenment. When Buddha put his toe down and showed everything beautiful, this is the true environment. The purity of the Buddha’s land. When you purify, you don’t only purify your individual but the whole environment together. That’s why you can understand how difficult enlightenment is. They build that also, professor had mentioned this morning, every different universal things you see together like a multi-media production. You had mentioned that sort of multi-media showing together. You see all different things together. What do we understand beyond that? At the back of that it gives you the idea, a little bit idea of enlightened mind. The mind of enlightened will not only (garbled 11:45:29) focused and concentrated on one thing but simultaneously, whether you concentrating or not concentrating, you’re focusing or your not focusing you see everything together. Like a TV production, this is a clear example of how the enlightened mind works.

So therefor, a few people who thinks they are enlightened they can fool themselves if they have bad feeling of all different happenings of various different, let me use the word universe because that is the only word available to me. Not only happening in various universes but what had happen and what will happen or (garbled 11:46:49.8) together for various individual people, really a (garbled 11:4:56.2). That’s looking at one (garbled 11:46:59.6) all. That was the enlightened level. Not only the purity of the mind, but the purity of the universe or environment, and not only seeing one single thing clear, not only seeing one concentrated power, but all over all everything. That is slightly, a little bit idea that we can understand of enlightenment.

Otherwise a lot of people use enlightenment a lot of easy ways these days. You know what I’m talking? Enlightenment has been introduced by a Buddha in the Buddha’s field other than something you can object, the object that you can obtain, where you go. It is so important when people work in the spiritual field particularly in blind part, spiritual field is blind part for most of us and when you go into that blind part it is so important, you should at least know where your are going. Why you are in it. If you go in and somebody goes blind there, you go cause somebody said so, it is the way, you never know where you are going to land. Forget about the time you have wasted but what are you going to achieve? It is questionable. That is why it is so important to first choose where are you going, why do you want that? We have a lot of different understanding of spiritual, particularly in the west. Every single thing is spiritual. It is not dealing with the mechanical. That is a bit too much to me. Whatever it is whether you call it spiritual, it doesn’t matter, you call it anything I don’t care but when you try to achieve a result at least it seems (doesn’t finish thought-stopped to make sure whomever was not getting water on Thangka 11:49:57.8)

So Buddha, all those entities, the first thing when you are going on the spiritual path, the first and foremost (garbled 11:50:23.7) and Buddhahood or enlightenment. That is sort of like ‘hey this is where you can go’ and when you (garbled) that you can use things like that, your universe will be like this, your environment like this. That is where we have this whole in the morning.

11:50:48 Now the question is how to go? How do you reach there? A lot of people talk a lot of things, a lot of ways. There is a lot of different ways, I don’t deny. It is also very important to follow a certain path which a lot of people had followed a lot of people went and a lot of people reach in that place so it is safe. Otherwise the spiritual path is an unknown path, you never know where you going to reach.

Even the Shakyamuni Buddha that we call the present Buddha. The professor had described this morning the thousand different Buddhas and Maitreya is the future Buddha and all this. So the Shakyamuni Buddha we normally refer to as a Buddha in this period. The prince, born in India and had a worldly life, married, children and finally give up the kingdom and finally went into the forest and meditated and obtained enlightenment. Why did he perform all these acts? According to the Mahayana 11:52:52.6 it is the Buddha showing the way. It is performing arts, another words. Though he had obtained enlightenment very long ago that is sort of he is taking the office in charge of that period so that is why he did it. It’s like people who are qualified and enrolled to be executive but they are there. Somebody to be in charge in the certain period so this Buddha Shakyamuni appeared in that way.

So why he did all this? I do not know if the Buddha really had a huge additional thing here, a long thing and all this as much as a painting show or it might not be really that much, to tell you truth. I do not know whether that going to be handsome or ugly. I mean, it is symbolic there is meaning beyond. There is a flagship, may not be bad as regulated. All of these are there, but why he did all this? Why did he get involved in the worldly matter, get married, produce children and then left and meditated and then declare himself enlightened and started sharing his own experience of all this? That’s to show the millions of people that will follow him afterwards. So one individual human being, I as a one individual human being who can do this and if I can do that then why not you can do that? This is the major purpose of the Buddha’s, I call it act. It is an act, performance, drama, Buddha’s drama. This is to show the people one individual can do it, if I can do. It is true. It is definitely true. 11:55:51

Particularly it is true with the Vajrayana practice, this maybe a new word to a few individuals, Vajrayana, what we call Vajrayana practice. If you look into Buddhism you will find Mahayana, Theravada, sometimes they will refer to Hinayana, but they don’t call it Hinayana they prefer to call it Theravada, lets call it Theravada, makes no difference, then the Vajrayana or Tantrayana. These are the three yanas in Buddha’s field. It is very interesting if you look at it. People with Theravada practice, pure, 100% rigid conservative Theravada, if you look at them they will simple see the teaching levels of the Theravada, that’s all. Which means, at the Theravada level the principle practice of renunciation. The principle object that you can obtain is arhat. How do you describe arhat?

RT-11:57:20.1 Sainthood.

GR-Thank you. They will never tell you that you can obtain enlightenment. They may tell you enlightenment, that is an English word, right?, but they never spoke English (lol), I believe. Buddha has an extra ordinary quality, that is the enlightenment quality. That is the enlightenment quality like the professor to quote that mighty projection of the video or whatever. Similar to that speech, Buddha may speak in one language, individual over here and different individual dialect that is the extra ordinary qualities. These are a lot of extraordinary qualities enlightenment has. When you become enlightened you will have the same powers to do it. When you speak in one language they will hear in different dialect, French, Spanish whatever it is. So that is why one cannot say that Buddha never spoke in English, but it was never recorded. So anybody can use any technical name in the English language that doesn’t mean we are talking the same thing. So in Theravada level that I am talking is what they call Arhat level. Just beyond the samsaric or the circle of the life, just beyond that, outside that is the ultimate achievement. They will introduce that as achievement and whatever they taught will be on how to achieve that. If you look at teachings, books or talk to a, let me call it a conservative Theravadan then they will not see the Mahayana, the one step beyond, the bigger larger love, compassion and altruistic –the professor told me to use the word methayanic(laughs) activities. They don’t accept, they don’t see.

Now you go look at the Mahayana, pure Mahayana practice. Why am I using the word pure? Because I am not mixing with the Tantra, not mixing with the Vajrayana. They will achieve ultimate achievement is Buddhahood, enlightenment. They will achieve these as in the step. Theravadan is a step to go into the Mahayana practice. Then they have one more step to go. You have one more beyond that you have enlightenment level which is eligible to every human being then there is more practice then that of renunciation alone there is love, compassion or methayonic activities in other words are there you see?

12:00:46.5 But one single little point there, the problem is when they see that, yes it is achievable but it is very very far away and a lot of years you have to put, a lot of efforts you have to put, eons and eons you have to take, ten (? Bumis? 12:01:07.3) each one of them a lot of years and lives but eons. With the exception of the (bau-oom? 12:01:20.6) and the (? Churva?) there is one bodhisattva churva and (?pak-bau-oom?)Pak-bau-oom is able to…how do you say it?

RT: the bodhisattva always weeping his name was

GR: Yea the bodhisattva always weeping. Always weeping because thinking of the suffering and pain. Always weeping and here the tremendous Guru devotional practice to his master. That is called Bodhisattva Churda.

RT: (? Dharmogata? 12:01:42.7) was his name.

GR: (Dharmaogata?) That is his Sanskrit name. So I use the Tibetan or the Sanskrit, it’s Greek to most of us, right? (laughs). But anyway, he has such a devotion and where ever the ?Churda? giving teachings, Padma always goes and cleans that area, he dusts that area. He carries the water and starting throwing the Buddha dust down, where ever he giving teaching. One place he could not find any water at all and the time come, it was almost time for his master to start so he started cutting himself and using the blood to put the dust down. That was a very unusual, record breaking in the pure Mahayana style that he would be able to offer up to the 7th bumi at one go. That is unusual, record breaking (?word? 12:02:56.0).

So then the Buddha introduced Vajrayana on top of that. Those are intelligent people, people with understanding. Inquisitive minds like what we have, the intellect yet capable, decisive. For them in addition to the two other yanas, the Vajrayana was introduced. The Vajrayana quality is the quickness. In pure Mahayana where you take 7 eons can also cover here almost 7 minutes. That sort of method is introduced in Vajrayana or (?Pontrigiano?12:04:00 In the west, particularly in this area, America, I mean, a lot of misunderstandings. A lot of people with think, oh, that is black magic. Something that you do in some other places, I don’t know. Some people may say oh, that is not black magic it has something to do with sexual religion. All these are misunderstandings. They are not ignoring the Vajrayana and its quality. You’re not ignoring it’s good activities, really tremendous benefit. Tremendous method it gives you. The method that they use is beyond our imagination in Vajrayana, really. It is a meditation, it is a practice, but using all sort of every possible means. Using all our minds, using all our energy, use all our elements, even the elements of environment. All the help you can get, everything is utilized. That’s why it is quick. It is almost like riding a blue cart; you know…12:06:38.8

RT: pull up cart

GR: or a jet plane or a rocket, yeah it is like that. It is quick. It is possible. It has been possible in our normal, physical world. If you ride a horse, how long you take to reach here? You come by car, faster. You come by plane, more faster. You come by rocket, much faster. So it is possible in the physical land and it is also possible in spiritual matters. What ever is possible here is possible in the spiritual path. Whatever spiritual path is possible is possible in the physical path. Truly, Buddha has describe 4 powers are equal. The power of mantra, the power of Samadhi-its concentration power, power of material and power of enlightenment. They can do the same thing. Ever lasting is a different question. They can do the same thing, almost.

So the Vajrayana really gives the quick matter to the object what you introduced as enlightenment. Now that is fine, wonderful, great. Can I become a Vajrayana; can I practice Vajrayana, like that? No, No way. If you try to do that way you get into trouble because Vajrayana is dangerous. It is like licking honey on the sword. You know what I mean, the honey on the sword? If you lick that you may get the honey or you may cut your tongue. Similarly in the Vajrayana is the same way. You cannot attack it. If you try to take it up straight away it is dangerous. The preliminary for that is absolutely necessary. Absolutely! So that’s why if you look at now in America today, in the west or where ever today in 1987 or 8 whatever it is, 1987 every thing is open. If you look at it no Vajrayana person who understands true Vajrayana will never reveal the teachings of the Theravada, never. No Mahayana person who can understand and read practice will never refute Theravada, they may refute Vajrayana, they may object Vajrayana. They will never object Theravada. You understand why? Because then the Mahayana will have an understanding, not only an understanding, he knew the path, the important, main object, whatever we’ve been taught is absolutely necessary for one individual to go through that. So they can never refute that. One Vajrayana chap will never be able to refute Mahayana because he or she knew and understands that is the path you have to go through it as preliminary. The Mahayana may object Vajrayana because he or she doesn’t know if that is crackpot or really is that the way to go or no.

Similarly the Theravada may object the Mahayana because he or she may not know that is the right path because your limit is that. Beyond your world you don’t know. So therefor the Vajrayana really shows that I am talking with my own experience. Really shows the clear path of all the Buddha’s teachings. All three yanas, all are not contradicting. It is the focus for one individual to offer enlightenment. Branches are different matter altogether. It is meant for a few individuals who does not really want to practice this or that 12:11:08.4 they have a different way. So, quick path, way quick how fast the fastest you can go to the enlightenment is only through the Vajrayana practice. When I say quick I mean it within our lifetime before we die. We can experience state, state that we are talking. That fantastic universal what you describe 12:11:50.6 end of audio file.