Archive Result

Soundfile 19870100GRRTOMLOVCOM (02)

Speaker Robert Thurman/Gelek Rinpoche

Location

Topic Vimalakirti Sutra

Transcriber Barbara Ferrari

Date 1/26/2022

10:46:27.1 GR: You know what I mean, what if people said that? It is totally misunderstood. It is too bad if you have to die to often enlightenment (laughs) how are you going to share your experience with others? How does the previous people that offer enlightenment have shared their experience if they are to die? No, you don’t. This is misunderstood, even in India, a lot. Even with scholars, even with the saints they will say Mahaparinirvana (10:46:59.2). Okay, Mahaparinirvana, what does that mean? It’s translated the day that Buddha died. Budda’s death anniversary. They go to celebrate the Mahaparinirvana of the Buddha. The death, putting that as death is totally wrong, mistake. You don’t have to die to obtain enlightenment. You can obtain enlightenment within the life-time where you are living. The question is how? Only through the Vajrayana practice. I said only, within the life-time. I did not say others were wrong. I said Vajrayana is the only practice that gives how to obtain enlightenment within the lifetime. But you cannot practice Vajrayana straight away, particularly in the West. People do a lot of things. Every great teacher, every Lama that comes around or every saint that comes around to initiate, right initiations and everybody goes in, right? Whenever there is the bell ringing, everybody runs, yeah. But I do not know, in the end a lot of times they don’t know what they initiated and a lot of times they don’t even know who is the person, a lot of the times they don’t know in what deity. But then they say “Oh, I have been initiated.” Then I will ask “by whom and in what mandala?” No idea and so and so, what is his name the one who looks like something, something. He was here 2 years ago or something like that, I attend that. I do not know, maybe you developing good merit, but I can say 99.9% are not initiated. 99.9% I’m going, okay? Because to initiate you need to understand. You have to be familiar with the deity. Here I use the word deity, maybe it is wrong. It’s enlightened (unintelligible 10:49:36.8) all this figures and features, what you see a lot of them in Tibetan Buddhism. I even object to using the word of Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism is one Buddhism. Tibet doesn’t have Buddhism. Buddhism came from India. Tibetan Buddhism, then you have American Buddhism, right? So I think just call it Buddhism.

A lot of different figures and all this, you see the Thangkas painting and drawings and different things. They are all representing different manifestations. Why certain individuals, we have certain karmic link with all these different individuals. For their karmic link will click, so when it clicks it works. That is why there are a lot of different manifestations so a lot of people go and this and that initiation because why? They try to click it. You click, it works. It doesn’t click it doesn’t work. So that is the reason. So when you don’t even know what the deity is, you don’t even know what the mandala is, you don’t even know what’s going on, just sitting there participating in the ceremony and some incense being burned, some bells been rang, some water has been drank, something has been bumped on your head that doesn’t mean you have been initiated at all to me. First and foremost doorstep to word of Vajrayana is initiation, okay, is proper initiation.

In order to have initiation, what you really need for the base is the altruistic attitude. That is totally, no selfish interest whatsoever. Totally dedicated for all living beings. Not one or two persons, but totally for all living beings. That sort of mind which is not created by you but automatically functioning within you. That was one briefly talking, I will come back to that, that is what is needed. How does one get that? The root of that is compassion. Compassion is the root of that. If you do not have compassion, you cannot have love. If you do not have love you do not have compassion. When you don’t have the compassion you cannot dedicate yourself for the service of that one or the multione. So therefore, compassion is necessary. Love and compassion is absolutely necessary. Not only love and compassion, but great love and compassion that is equal to all living beings. Not only to your friends, but all of your enemies as well. Not only all your enemies, but all the living creatures including the cockroaches in your kitchen and the mosquitos that bite you in the forest. All of them, you have to have equal compassion and that is possible to develop with us. You can, it is not an impossible thing, but before we develop that compassion we have to develop love and compassion on ourself. If you are not capable of loving oneself, if I am not capable of loving me, if I am not capable of being kind to me, I can never be capable of loving for others and I will never be capable of being kind to others. So the first thing we have to learn is to develop love and compassion on me. Okay, I will stop here. 10:54:51.0

RT: We will reflect for 5 mins on what you’ve been saying.

10:54:52.3 Question from audience: You brought up this idea that it’s very important to follow a path, that others follow the path…10:55:03.1-much interference difficult to hear…sometimes I think that it is difficult doing things the way they are today. That sometimes you can go overboard thinking about wearing the right kind of cloths and sitting on the right kind of cushion and eating the right kind of food. I wonder if you can comment on that balance.

Rimpoche: Very happy to do that. That is not at all important. What cloths you wear, what food you eat, how you sit, what color hair you choose is not at all important. I think the most important thing in principle what you really practice. The practice is also another question. In the west, particularly, when somebody has some Sahdana to say, that terminology may be unique for the majority of you here. The Sahdana is a practice, sort of commitment. Once you get into the Vajrayana practice you get certain commitments daily that you have to generate yourself in this form, in that form and included is saying certain mantras and all this sort of things. The practice really means, here in Buddhism, really means how to think. The major practice is way of thinking and a way of living. The way of living is not what you wear or what car you drive or how you live. It is not that. 10:57:19.7 What sort of attachment, attraction and how much you go and how much you control and that is the way of living.

Way of thinking is how much selfish view you generate, how much altruistic way you do and virtuous way and non-virtuous way. So this is the major principle practice. It is not really what hat you wear, whether you are yellow, red, blue, green or multicolor it is totally immaterial. Particularly in 1987 you don’t want to wear a funny dress and move around. You don’t want to bring the traditional, orthodox influence. Buddhism always allows a certain amount of movement, certain amount of change. Buddhism, when it was in India, early India, it gives a lot of room for the traditional Indian culture. Vimalakirti doesn’t do that. That is why he is radical. Others normally do it, in Buddhist tradition they respect the elders, they respect powerful men, they go for the kings, they go for this and that and also to the extent of the male chauvinist practice (laughter) 10:59:21.4 The Indian traditional culture, they give much room for that. That all cut out when they went into Tibet and when it when into China the Tibet and Chinese culture, the big throne, the big bouquet, the big this thing and that thing. The orange becomes the red, the orange guy becomes the red guy, right? (Laughter) Yes they give the room and that sort of room allowed to change. That sort of development gives there, but now in this 1980s, the 70s and 80s is coming to the west. It has to adopt the western culture. Though I am not a monk, but I still have different robes to wear. I purposely do not wear it. I want it to be integrated into the western culture. The laying of the bouquet, building of the big throne with the bouquet decorations, blowing the trumpet, burning the incense and all of this are the cultural influence. We don’t want that, for sure. Even though HH the Dalai Lama, he is the Dalai Lama and even him, he choses to sit on the chair rather than on the throne. He can’t wear like this because he would look funny, right? He is the Dalai Lama so he can’t do that, but he did as much as he can giving up the throne, sitting on the chair and all this. This is the western culture integration. The western people should not adopt the traditional culture of the Tibetan culture or the Chinese culture or the Indian culture. We don’t want that. What for? It is full of garbage. Really, we don’t need that. Especially we do not need the male chauvinist part, really. Buddhist has given equal status, equal opportunity, equal everything. 11:02:09.4 Particularly if you look at the Vajrayana, the women has much more important status than the male does. The male supposed to walk behind the women in Vajrayana Mother Tantra. They are suppose to go around the woman, rather than the woman do the things. The truth is left to right rather than right to left. That is the Mother Tantra. It is the source of all like the earth. So the cultural thing, because in India, traditionally that culture exist so it was overshadowed. We don’t want that part at all in America, for sure. So the cultural part of that we want to cut out, but the personal practice whatever that is you can select it. Buddhism gives tremendous room to move, freedom to choose so you can really utilize that.

Thurman: Okay now we have any immediate question because we are out of time, short one, yes.

Audience: You said that in order to be able to find love for others you have to find love for yourself first.

Rimpoche: I will follow that, I will go 2-3 days on that, okay?

Audience: You use the terms love and compassion. You said you need to have love before you have compassion.

Rimpoche: I will come to that in a few days we will deal with that, okay?

Audience: You say you are taking initiations in Theravada, Vajrayana and Tantriana(?). It sounds as though each are quite separate or the Theravada was separate from the others. I somehow didn’t quite understand what you were saying about that.

Rimpoche: Thank you. Well, I did not make the separation, but people do read that as separate. What I am trying to say is that people who are looking that as a separation is not right. When you look from the higher angle, from the ultimate angle you see them all fit together step to the other. One steps toward the other. When you don’t look from that upper point and you look from the lower point you will only see the first step and you don’t see the second and third step. So they say, this is complete and some comes that is not in here, it is not part of it, that is another part of it. Some people do make that distinction. So my main point is that there is no difference. When you look from the upper points you will see that every step is leading toward the other. Another words, without Theravadan principle practice you can never reach Mahayana because Theravadan practice will give you how to love yourself. That is actually, without that you can never develop love for others which is Mahayana.

Thurman: There is also a historical reason that is very important. Which is that they all developed in India, Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana and then they became kind of separate then they went out to different countries from India. All the time they existed in India, they coexisted completely. Like one Theravada monastery practiced Mahayana teaching and practiced Vajrayana teaching. Some individuals within it and the Vajrayana preserved the Theravada and the Mahayana and they fit harmoniously. When one deity went out to another country without the other branches, sort of, they became rooted there and they began to think that was exclusive Buddhism. Then later historical period began to reject the other parts when they saw them in other countries separately. So the first went out to Sri Lanka and Burma Thailand then found the rest of it, the Theravada particularly. Mahayana went out to East Asia, particularly. Vajrayana mainly only was kept in Tibet. So that third and final when all three were combined mainly only moved a little over to Tibet and then, of course everything was destroyed in India, totally. So historical reasons why modern time the Theravada is in Burma and Thailand and Sri Lanka is very nervous about Vajrayana in Tibet. They are very much afraid of some funny shamanistic and they think it is like this. East Asia is the same.

Rimpoche: And also, (11:07:22.0 unintelligible) Mahayana Chinese.

Thurman: More nervous about the Chinese Mahayana. They say what is this saving the whole world, they must be crazy, you can only save yourself.

Rimpoche: Anyways, thank you so much. I am hoping to do something concrete within the next couple of days next.

Thurman: No, not the next couple of days, at 2 o’clock we begin.

Rimpoche: I know.

Thurman: No we have another 15 minutes. Normally we will have an hour like this 11:08:01.4 discussion about the schedule and format.

11:08:11.5 Thurman: Now in the next 15 mins I want to introduce just a little bit Vimalakirti which we will come back to this afternoon. That is my second target for today after first establishing this sort of miraculous universe transformation. Now in the context of that discrepancy, that tension between the world as it looks to the ordinary habitual perception of the logical, critical minded person such as Shariputra the real magician. Shariputra is a magician, Shariputra is critical minded, he is a saint; he has great wisdom and insight. The way the world looks to him is the rational way it looks, you know, sort of a mess some good parts, some bad parts and this kind of thing. Yet there is a way according to the Buddha it looks to the Buddha which it is a perfect realm. A realm where the Buddha is satisfied that he is doing his utmost out of total love and compassion for living beings that he is managing the environment for their best benefit. How does he describe the whole sutra fits within this tension. He says the reason that he does not have everyone floating on a golden lotus all the time is that it would not be the best for their development. The Buddha’s compassion is expressed, the concept is, at what is called skilled at liberative technique – khob la kila? 11:09:32.7 in Tibetan or paya koshala (sp?) in Sanskrit that is Buddha’s love is not just wishing, you know love is defined initially as wishing beings to be happy. A Buddha’s love is not just the wish an ineffective wish it is that wish that is turned into concrete action which is effective to make them happy. What is it that they need to make them happy. Therefore, this concept that is Buddha’s supreme skill in liberative technique is within that tension within the second chapter introduces Vimalakirti. The title of the chapter even is The Inconceivable Skill and Liberative Technique on pg 20 if you’re looking at the book.

So therefore you have the extraordinary world of the Buddha, the world of the Buddha’s mandala if you will, the world of the perfect mandala environment of the Buddha. Then you have the supposed ordinary world seen by the ordinary person and of course the most ordinary thing of the ordinary world would be downtown. The city of Vishali and suddenly we would think the pole of worldliness will be downtown Vishali. Who do we find downtown in Vishali? We find this fella Vimalakirti. So at that time he lived in the great city of Vishali and certainly (chavi?) 11:10:50.3 Vimalakirti by name. His name actually means actually pure fame you know like the television show fame. Kirti means fame, Vimala means pure. So pure fame, stainless or impeccable fame. Having served the ancient Buddha’s he had generated the roots of virtue by honoring them and making offerings to them. He had attained tolerance as well as eloquence. He played with the great super knowlegists, he had obtained the power of incantations and the fearlessnesses. He had conquered all demons and opponents. He had penetrated the profound way of the dharma. He was liberated through the transcendence of wisdom. Having integrated his realization with skill and liberative technique he was expert in knowing the faults and actions of living beings. Knowing the strength and weakness of their faculties and being gifted with unrivaled eloquence he taught the dharma appropriately to each. In order to develop living beings with his skill and liberative technique he lived in the great city of Vishali. He is the layperson and begins to be established in this chapter now as sort of second pole. If there is two poles around which the sutra focuses, one is the Buddha himself, Shakyamuni Buddha himself who is a pure monk who is outside of town, who’s environment is he puts his toe down and shows everything as perfect in a certain way kind of other worldly extraordinary kind of environment around the Buddha. Then Vimalakirti is ordinary, he is an ordinary person. It goes on here he says he goes everywhere, he goes to the cross roads, he goes to the market, he goes to the gambling casino, he goes to the sports track, he goes to the baseball stadium, he goes everywhere and yet he is also presented as being completely manifesting the Buddha’s skill and liberative technique. So in a way he is the same as the Buddha actually and yet he is completely ordinary. He is showing, in some sense, that the Buddha is reaching, spanning this dichotomy between the extraordinary and the ordinary because the Buddha is being completely the Buddha and yet being an ordinary Buddha. A Buddha of ordinariness in a certain way, but as we will see he is very extraordinary and yet he is planted in the middle of this thing. Now, I don’t have time to show this but you see he says, for example on pg. 21 “he was compatible with ordinary people because he appreciated the excellence of ordinary merits.” He was honored as the Indra among Indras because he showed them the temporality of their lordship. That means to say the Jove, Indra is like a Zeus you know head of Olympus as far as Indians go, Indian culture goes. He showed them that even their lordship, their dominance of Olympus, their being the chief of the Gods over the world is temporary. He showed them that. He was honored as the Indra of the Indras. He was already honored as the Brahma among Brahmas because he showed them the special excellence of notice or wisdom. He even made God happy by showing him the virtue of wisdom.

11:14:05.3 Vimalakirti is as completely bridging into the ordinary world the Buddha’s skill of liberative technique among the ordinariness. You have the tension of ordinary and extraordinary and Buddha is sitting out there, he is ordinary to because he is being a monk in regards to the ordinary but he is still extraordinary if he can put his toe to the ground and turn it into this and that. The ordinary world is restored by him left there and he says well, but actually even downtown even where you find a businessman, a merchant, a politician there is this Vimalakirti who is completely extraordinary in the way as extraordinary as the Buddha yet being among the ordinary. Now in that context Vimalakirti having being presented like that he is also presented as being completely able to transform everything too. Therefore they say, at that time out of his skill and liberative technique Vimalakirti manifested himself as if sick. That is the very literal translation, this is what Rinpoche was talking about in regard to Shakyamuni Buddha. He was saying Shakyamuni Buddha’s deeds of being in the temple, being in the palace and marrying then renouncing the world, then obtaining Buddhahood, then teaching is all kind of an act he said, remember? It’s theatrical, kind of a drama actually 11:15:21.1 (tape cuts out)…pg 22 he says “friends, they say oh poor Vimalakirti, oh your so sick, are you okay how are you and so forth. He’s an old man, he’s a bit old and he says “friends, this body is so impermanent, fragile, unworthy of confidence and feeble. It is so insubstantial, perishable, short-lived, painful, filled with diseases and subject to changes. Thus my friends, that this body is only a vessel of many sicknesses wise men do not rely on it. This body is like a bowl of foam unable to bear any pressure. It is like a water bubble, not remaining very long, it’s going pop. It dies very quickly. It is like a mirage born from the appetite of the passions. It is like the trunk of the plantain tree, having no core. Alas, this body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons.” Shantideva made a famous thing about the body as a kind of machine, rather dreadful kind of image. We’ll be looking at this for several days. “It is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons. Like a magical illusion consisting of falsifications. Like a dream being an unreal vision. Like a reflection being the vision of a former action. Like an echo being dependent on conditioning. Like a cloud being characterized by turbulence and disillusion. Like a flash of lightening being unstable and decaying every moment. This body is ownerless, being a product of a variety of conditions.”

In short, he uses the occasion of his sicknesses and people feeling sorry for him to try to wake people up to the completely useless nature of the ordinary, egocentrically occupied body. Now that is pretty radical, he is very radical. This is very radical, why? How many of us like to hear this? How much of our lives do we spend over our bodies? How much do we spend on the cosmetic, on the medicines, on the clothes, on exercise, on massage, on this therapy, on that therapy. We are out there jogging every day. We are trying to eat power foods. We are trying to do this and that. We are feeding it all sorts of things, the body. What is the body going to do in return? It’s going to die! Very shortly. No matter what we do, it will die very shortly. In between we feed it all the power food. What is going to make out of the power food? That’s what Shantideva called it. He called the body a shit machine. Excuse the vulgarity, but in fact all of these things are just going to make dirt, manure. 11:18:11 The body is filled with, if the manure is going to come out a certain time of the day, it means it is full of it all of the time anyway. So why are we polishing so much? People will spend a hundred dollars for a small little bottle of perfume. So Vimalakirti is being a bit radical, not because he is being mean, not because he wants to take away the cosmetic industry and the pageant industry and all other things and people’s vanity about their body or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s big biceps and so forth. Buddha is not trying to, the point is, it is a waste of our lifetime. Most of us spend our whole lifetime fussing or 90% of our effort goes into fussing over this body and it falls apart anyway. Look at America, people in the rest of the world they are jealous of America. They feel Americans are so happy eating six steaks a day and six hamburgers and forty-three different things and Americans are getting what, cancer out of that, arthritis out of that, or heart disease out of that. Obesity, like me, I include myself, out of that. So the body is a very unpleasant, unsubstantial, difficult thing. Vimalakirti is bringing this total, realistic thing right at the beginning. 11:19:31.4 He wants people to encounter that. Now don’t despair because at the end he says this “now friends” he says after he really gets them depressed about it and Rinpoche when he mentions about love yourself, your going to find out that love yourself means first realize that your normal sense of yourself is an illusion a little bit. It is like leading you, the reason you are having a frustrating time is because we are chasing the wrong things. This body will let us down. It is not a reliable thing to put so much investment into. You can’t take it with you. Definitely. It becomes a pile of dirt. People burn it because it smells so bad within a few hours of dying. It’s like garbage.

11:20:22 Famous Buddhist Theravada meditation, a very important one, which you have to be very careful with because it can make you too depressed. You visualize your own body as a corpse in front of you and after you spend serval days sitting like that you see the stages of decomposition. This will get you quite depressed. In fact, when you look in the mirror and you see a little zit or something, you won’t mind! It is basically not compared to yourself once you start to decompose after you died which unfortunately will happen to all of us. Which is what Vimalakirti is pointing out. However before he gets everybody to depressed Vimalakirti points out right away he says, “friends, the body of a Tathagata, that means a Buddha, a being who has become enlightened is the body of Dharma. Born of Wisdom, born of notice. The body of a Tathagata, a realized Buddha is born of the stores of merit and wisdom. It is born of morality of meditation of wisdom of the liberations and of the knowledge and vision of liberation. It is born of love, compassion, joy and impartiality. It is born of charity, discipline and self-control. It is born of the path of the ten virtues. It is born of patience and gentleness. It is born of the virtue planted by solid efforts. It is born of the concentrations, the liberations, the meditations and the absorptions. It is born of learning, wisdom and liberative technique. It is born of the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment. It is born of mental quiescence and transcendental analysis that is vipassana. It is born of the ten powers and so on. It is born of conscious awareness. Friends, the body of the Tathagata is born of enumerable good works. Toward such a body you should turn your aspirations. In order to eliminate the sicknesses of the passions of all living beings you should conceive the spirit of unexcelled perfect enlightenment. The will to achieve such a body.”

11:22:10.6 So another words, luckily, if it was just a matter of this body, it would get really dreary and disturbing. In fact Buddhism is often misunderstood as being very gloomy and suffering oriented because of the first noble truth which is that all is suffering. The body is like useless. It will rot under us. No matter what, we shouldn’t exaggerate our attention to it which if you really inventory your own living we do exaggerate our attention to our body. We really fuss with it. All the time. Different things, males have some ways, females have other ways. We totally fuss over it all the time. If it were just that the Hinayana, the Theravada, the fundamental teaching of coming to really take stock of what ones doing with ones life. If it were just to say it all the suffering, if it were just to say it was all miserable, it’s all unreliable like a bowl of foam, like a machine, like manure and so forth then that would be depressing. The first noble truth is only the first. The third noble truth is the cessation of that suffering. The fourth is the path to the cessation of that suffering. The second is the cause of that bad situation. So there is always a positive outcome. The reason, Rinpoche for example mentioned about the Tantra and about the thangka where you develop a divine or a deity body even in a major practice 11:23:36 , but then he said you can’t touch that though, remember he did. The reason we can’t touch that is because with our normal vanity about the ordinary body if we mingle onto it some big idea we are a deity and were doing thangka and we have been initiated now that were so great this would just be a way of rationalizing our normal attachment to the body. The reason we can’t touch that is we can’t become free to re-envision something and achieve that body of a Buddha until we have rejected entirely our normal attachment to the ordinary body. We have seen through, and we are not supposed to do that because it is moralistically good that we should do that. We are doing that because that is the reality of the ordinary body. The body that is egocentrically clung to by the egocentric person is a body that is impure. It is a body that is unreliable. It is a body that is involuntary. It drives us, we don’t control it. It controls us and it leads us to the grave. When you reach the grave when you are just clutching after this thing then you go beyond the body, your spirit goes off clutching onto nothing. That is why people have agony when they die and that is why they are so freaked out. They have been clutching onto their body and it’s extensions like their bank account, their house and their property and their car and their shirt. Then they suddenly can’t like move their mouth, their fingers and they totally freak out much less their bank account. They are thinking about all the money I’ve been saving, now I’m dying what is going to happen to it. Now my hands, I’ve been polishing them and manicuring them, what is going to happen. My hair was cut. I had new hair implanted. I had a dye, Grecian formula. I had body surgery. It’s all gone to waste now. Thousands and thousands of hours of concern for just nothing, trash. Then they are going to freak out when they die. But if one has dropped that investment of that attention and invested in the body of generosity, in the body of patience, in the body of wisdom, that you don’t lose. Then you are happy there with your wisdom, generosity and patience so you give up your body, so what? You are ready for anything. Those are the kind of people who can eat candy, you don’t have to die, but could die happily with a smile on their face. There are many who do, of course. That is not so impossible.

So, we have to stop because it is the lunch break, but I just want to introduce this on my own notion of schedule this morning…discusses plan for the rest of the days teaching.

11:26:17.1 Teaching resume with Rinpoche.

Rinpoche- I was talking this morning in order to develop the good compassion and love for other sentient beings first it is necessary to develop love and compassion to oneself. I guess that what I am talking am I right? If that’s so I have to try to prove every statement that I made. So I will go furthermore because if you are, it is one’s own experience. If you find difficulty loving yourself then there is no way your can develop love on others. That I don’t have to prove because if you experience it yourself, you try to think yourself and if you find there is a way which is not capable of loving yourself and yet you can love others, it is impossible, you cannot. On the other hand, people may argue, they say well loving yourself is a narrow, selfish interest and we are not supposed to be narrow, selfish interest. We are supposed to be open, Mahayanic person. How can we have a narrow, selfish interest? You may think that way. You may even argue that way. That way is not practical. 11:29:00 You may say it is my word, but you would not be able to express it through action. So here, what I am trying to tell you, is that action oriented main practice, how it is principal one human being to go and do it. That is what I am talking. So, it is really not feasible.

The first step in Buddhism, the ABC of Buddhism, what you really have to look do is look to yourself, looking in. Maybe you use slightly different terminology, but it is so important to look in and observe ourself and our own way of thinking. Our own approach to every different matters. Our own approach to, okay that maybe samsaric maybe a Greek word. Wordly, let me call it, right. Can I use that, wordly. 11:30:19

Thurman: Cyclic, cyclic life.

Rimpoche: Okay. That’s Greek to me, hahaha. Worldly pleasures. You have to observe what attitude one takes when you see the worldly pleasures, when you look at the wordly harmonies and pleasures. See what attitude we are taking. That is so important, we automatically have a desire to be involved, to develop to get better and that we always have. Everyone of us in here, though we consider ourself spiritual oriented person or persons who are bodhisattva oriented or total dedicated for others are not narrow, selfish persons but dedicated. All this claims whatever you might put in if you look to ourselves what you really find is that we are clinging on some kind of pleasure and even power. That is what you are really doing. You will find that. If you don’t believe me, you check with yourself. You get answer within you I don’t have to prove from outside. So that was the attitude we have. First, clinging on worldly benefits. For eastern people I will go on some money and some wealth and this and that. In western, may not be so much as money and the wealth as the eastern people do but you still have your own way of clinging on certain security. That can be anything. We cling on to a lot of security. It can be money, insurance (laughs), relationships, all this we cling on everything. So this our true nature, that is the true way that we are. We really don’t have to look very far where our spiritual level is. We don’t have to really find out what level my spiritual level is because we can clearly see ourself clinging on those. This is the level where we are. 11:33:46 It is important to recognize first where we are and what we are. I don’t who we are, that is beyond. That will be wasting our time. If we try to say who we are I can talk about it on hours on who we are. I’m John. I’m David. I’m not. I’m this and that. Your professionals, your name and all this finally I don’t go for that. So that is not important who we are, we have to be somebody. You may not be David, you may not be. Really, just think about it a name is a name it is a label. You are identified by that and that is good enough you have to leave it there. Don’t go beyond that. It served the purpose of identifying, okay? Acknowledging yourself and others. If you go beyond that you cannot acknowledge anymore. I can prove to you that you are not David. I can if you want me to, really. I can go prove that you are not David, but it doesn’t make the point. Don’t go beyond that, it is too extreme at this moment. Maybe later you may, but this moment it is not so important who you are, but what you are is very important. Where you are is very important because this is the first step you have to take in the spiritual path. 11:35:33

We are now at that level that we are clinging for security. Even what we call it a spiritual oriented person we are here, right? We may be a beggar, one step higher than those who don’t care for any spiritual path, who doesn’t even think about it. We may be a little better than that however we are not very far, we are just next door. We are still clinging on those things. That is the level that we are. From here we have to proceed now.

So what is the recommended? I have a very, very small, short text that the professor was kind enough to translate, number one. Number two, print it and publish it and number three circulate it this morning. That was a very very, short text. Very short in the words, but very vast in the meaning. Really, very big. Probably a sutra that can bring whole complete path from this ordinary level to the level where the well, after the (?11:36:58) level you can bring all the paths are in this short little two pages. That is very important.

It is very relevant again we have Manjushri here. It is the Manjushri’s text. The Manjushri you got this morning all the explanation so I’m not going to go back, but one thing you have to know is these things, these deities, yiddams are not like Buddha Shakyamuni type of thing who was born a human being and developed and come out. Manjushri is normally called the embodiment of the wisdom of enlightenment. Another words, all the enlightened persons, all the wisdom put together and take a form which is Manjushri. Become another person type of thing, plain language. Don’t quote me on that because I’m using a language that is trying to communicate. If you try to debate with me I will not say that. I will say something else (laughs).

So Manjushri taught this to Tsonkapa. Tsonkapa was founder of, this morning we were talking about the yellow hat and all this, the yellow hat sect. Manjushri taught this to Tsonkapa. Very, very short, concise. It’s called Three Principles of the Path. There are paths. Paths mean road, right? Road which is leading from our ordinary, to this level where we are spiritually, to the level of enlightenment. Another words, it shows how to go. It is sort of a road map. So out of this road map, three most important things to emphasize. The three are the low level are common. When it is the low level we call it common. Common means something combined jointly. It means if it only lower level, that means if you are going to the higher path you may not need it. If you are going to the higher path, why would you have to go to the lower path? Even if you go to the higher path you have to go through it because the principle of the lower level so we call it common with the lower level. Why do we use the word “common”? Without that you cannot go to the higher path. That’s why it’s common. So, the most important path of the lower level or theravada teaching almost is the renunciation. Renunciation, that word may be a little scary to you. 11:40:26 You have to renounce everything in a bowl, no. Don’t get scared of my word, okay? I will it explain it to you, but renunciation is the most important practice of the Theravadan. You cannot escape without that so that was the one, the first principle of the path. That is the renunciation.

Second, is the Bodhicitta or the methayanic (?) 11:41:03.6, the professor calls it, anyways whatever it is. It is the altruistic mind, attitude, dedicated yet seeking enlightenment for yourself, no. By yourself for others. So that sort of, briefly is what I am telling you what bodhicitta is and that is the second path. That is what he refers as, what is it?

Thurman: Methayanic spirit of enlightenment.

Rinpoche: Methayanic spirit of enlightenment, that is what it is. That is the second important path. Third one is emptiness. Famous Buddhist theory of emptiness. In Sanskrit they call it sunyata. These are the three major principles of the path. There may not be time to go through details however, briefly we will go over it. So, one day I would like to tell you one thing. It is very important for spiritual talk, to remember. There is a difference between entertainment and a spiritual talk. Of course you all know that, right? What does that make difference to you? It depends on how you utilize that. If you treat this as an interesting, strange way to pass your time just sit there and watch and listen then that is almost like entertainment, right? It may be better to go and watch a Johnny Carson show (laughs)

11:43:24 On the other hand, when you try to use that as the spiritual path, your not using that as the Johnny Carson show so when you try to use that as a spiritual path. To utilize that you must look in. You have to look in. You don’t focus on me, I’m external. I’m talking to you. I’m telling you all sorts of things and practically I will tell you bad things. I will not tell you the good things. If I try to talk to you how wonderful you are, how beautiful you are, how great you are, you clap, I clap, you go home, I go home and no problems have been solved. You waste your day. You waste your money and everything. We may enjoy the environment, that doesn’t matter. On the other hand, if you use this as an inside, looking in which is reflect. 11:44:29.8 End of tape…