Archive Result

Soundfile 1988GROMCOMTalk07A

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Meditations ontheTibetan Path of Love

Transcriber Jill Neuwirth

Date 11/12/2022

(Audio from other side of tape playing over Rimpoche speaking) … a powerful gentleman Ra Lotsawa. And Ra Lo is responsible for bringing a very powerful practice into Tibet from the land of dakinis. A lot of dakinis around here. You know what dakini is. Could somebody give explanation from dakini? Hey! Elena! Here you go! Audience: Can you talk in front of the mic please? Rimpoche: Pass the mic. Okay, this is the maximum. Elena: A dakini is a feminine principle, it- or she, or he- Rimpoche: She, of course. Elena: Well there’s dakas, also. They help us all to understand emptiness and reach enlightenment and be able to help other sentient beings. They appear wrathful. They need the wrath in order to control and subdue all of the delusions, and all of the subtle, really subtle delusions that happen that we’ve been talking about the whole time. Rimpoche: Very good. So it acts as a companion for practitioners. Appears here and there, and works with them. And male form, sort of human form, or a divine form. And it is the companion. It is the vajrayana sangha. And sutrayana, when you look at sangha, you may see only the monks, but in vajrayana the dakas and dakinis are the real sanghas of the vajrayana. That much is, you will know later more, you know, when you read more, hear more, and get into it. Yes?

[0:02:37.9] Audience: (Inaudible) Rimpoche: Yeah, that’s understandable. Normal in sense when you look sangha, they will look a group of Buddhist bikkshus, or the monks, who represent buddha more than four. That is the relative sangha. Did you get? Sangha is the companion to for us to move on the path. Otherwise, if you’re alone, it’s very, very, hard to go through. I mean, the loneliness on the path is more difficult than loneliness on the life. Aura will tell you that more on this probably later. And so- he’s responsible to bring in a lot of important and powerful practices from the land of dakinis. It’s from India he actually brought. It was sealed in the dakini’s land, and somehow they be able to bring it and brought in. He was a great, really great person. Ten, eleven hundreds. At about that time, there’s another great master and his son was bringing a lot of different teachings, too. Practices from India to Tibet. One of them has what we call it, tum ju [0:04:28.1] transferation of soul. It’s not only the transferring of soul after death, but some practice and when you wanted something you can transfer the soul of that individual person, put somewhere else, then that individual gets in there and acts like that person. There’s a long story on that.

[0:04:55.4] And Ra Lotsawa, the person what talking about is, is deadly against bringing that practice in Tibet. He’s totally against. (Audience drops object on floor and interrupts) Totally against. So he asks the- not to bring that in. He said, it’s been not good for Tibet. At that time, Tibetans are very wild people. So he said that practice can cause tremendous problems, so let’s not bring it in. So the other, they’re all great enlightened beings and see their own way, their own purposes. So it is determined to bring it in, you know, now more determined is my business, what you’re concerned. So Ra Lo had no alternative, he said alright, I’ll destroy you through my power. He said, I’ll put it. Anyway, somehow he got that- and the, actually his son has more responsibility, total responsibility, of bringing that teaching in Tibet. The son. And then the father put son immediately in the retreat. Very, very, strong, strict retreat. And he was sitting in the retreat. He’s the teacher of Milarepa, the father is the teacher of Milarepa, famous Milarepa. And one fine morning, he sees a very funny thing. He sees a lot of people, even old people, all of them going, there’s some kind of village fair around there. Sees a lot of people going, I mean, very unusual type of thing, you know, he sees a lot of people going, that son. And he asked them, he said where are they going? They said there’s a village fair. And one of them says, I’m seventy or eighty something years old, and if I don’t go now, I will not be able to see it and I just wanted one last look for that fair, I’m going. And lot of kids going, a lot of people of his age are going, you know. So he said, well, I must go. And he, well, they’re afraid to ask the father. He was very strict and he’s not going to let him go. So they asked the mother, and the mother said okay, then you can go quietly without father’s knowledge, but take Milarepa with you. So take Milarepa with you. So they agreed.

[0:07:45.9] And he and Milarepa went on horse. And Milarepa’s supposed to be holding his horse, you know, the horse will not throw him off. So they went, and they saw the fair, and coming back, welcoming back Milarepa’s holding the horse. However, they say there’s about thirteen or fourteen different funny birds came and fly almost across the horse’s side. So the horse gets up and throws him off. Not only throw him off, started running, he couldn’t take off his shoe off the, what do you call it- stirrup. So run away. And that’s how he died. And at that time, the mother, at that time they’re trying to look for a some kind of fresh dead body where he can transfer, the father and everybody. Father through meditational power and all this, and they couldn’t find anything, anything for seven days at that period. And the mother said, you are right in the middle of the meditation of a chakrasamvara somewhere. He said, at this level now you transfer in my body, told the son, he said, anyway, I’m going in there, land of dakinis. You transfer. And they don’t want that. So finally, he be able to transfer his soul in some kind of bird called dinundawa [0:09:19.3] and then bird started talking, and we’ve got a couple of books on how the bird relaying, then this one remained rest of his life as bird. But then, Ra Lo cut that teaching out, totally, in Tibet. We have no longer it’s available now. Sort of traditional lineage was cut.

[0:09:43.0] So now he had destroyed a great person in life, right? So what does he do? He has to go to hell realm, for sure, again. Though he may be great. So, Ra Lo said to gone to hell for short period. Period like, you know, the basketball if you hit on the ground and goes down and bumps up. So he went period of that much. So substituted. So you can play tricks on the karma like that. But the thing is, you have to know what you’re doing it. Otherwise, (Laughs) you get more problem. So most important trick for easy for us is become the motivation. But then, you can do something bad and say that, well, I’m doing for the benefit of all sentient beings, you can’t do that.

[0:10:41.2] Some of my old friends who have been studying dharma for quite a long time, couple of years ago, who are engaging- engaged themselves in some business and that also of a very, funny business, contraband business. (Laughs) You know, quick buck business. So what they told me is Rimpoche, I’m doing this thing for benefit of all sentient beings (Laughs) Can you believe it? (Baby cries) There you go! (Audience laughs) Even Nuna (?) laughs. [0:11:27.9] So that won’t work. But not to waste our good works, and to channelize them in one direction is very much depends on the motivation. So that is very, very important. Beginning, motivation, end, dedication. So now, suppose the pattern what we give you this morning, what we did this morning, we can repeat the same thing tomorrow. And this will be your daily if you want to do, it'll be your good daily practice. And we have to add up something in the evening before you go to bed, a little bit of purification, and a dedication, maybe a line or two will do. And I notice among our western friends, sometimes when they beginning motivated, they’re very strongly motivated, oh, I want to do this and that, and this, and that, and one hour’s not enough, two hours not enough. It is, you know it’s so what, there’s twenty-four hours, I can put eighteen hours in it, or eight hours in it, you know sort of people do that. It’s not very nice. It’s not good. I mean, if you can carry on eighteen hours as you did today, if you can without breaking, if you carry on the next ten years. Of course, I mean, great, no doubt. But doesn’t happened. Doesn’t even last a week or ten days or month. So then something happens, and suddenly, sort of get burned out, it’s not good. So beginning, you should go slow. Then, end for the good. It’ll be constant perseverance- I can’t say properly. Aura: Perseverance. Rimpoche: Perseverance. Did you hear what I said? It has to a good- example given there is good river. When you have, sort of, the river flows from the mountain, a good river will not increase much during the rainy season, though it decreases much during the lean season. It goes. Water come from the snow mountains, that’s happens in Tibet.

[0:14:20.1] Or water coming from the good spring. Gives you the same amount all the time. So that river continues for a long- doesn’t go up very much, doesn’t go down very much. And that is the good example of perseverance. And this is example for practitioners to do. To not jump out too much, sort of don’t give up totally, and when you move slowly, then you reach somewhere. And some of our great masters give you the story of tortoise and rabbit competition on going over, climbing over mountain. Tortoise keep on moving thinking he cannot jump. He has to go. Rabbit keep on thinking I can jump up last minute, doesn’t go, doesn’t go. So when it’s too late, and tortoise reach before. (Laughs) So, that is the example. Well, if you have any questions, I’ll be happy- yes? Audience: You’ve explained very well the seven-limbed prayer and most of the mantras that we’ve been saying, except for tayatha gate gate, I’m wondering if you could explain that one. Somebody asked me that, and I begged, I said, please don’t ask that question. (Laughs) This morning. It is the mantra of great mother. The mother of all. Mother of all the enlightened beings. Called the great mother, it’s emptiness. Shunyata is great mother. Bodhimind is father. Shunyata is mother. Buddha is children. Came out of that. Okay? Yes sir? Audience: Even when you’re speaking conversationally, I see you doing mala. Rimpoche: Oh, bad habit. (Laughs) Audience: Do you have many things going on at one time? Rimpoche: Not me, but people can do. There are I people I know who used to do. I never had a sort of teaching, the example what I’m going to give you is this. When I was a kid, very small kid, I belong to a certain group. I belonged to Drepung, a monastery called Drepung. Sort of college called Loseling. Why I say Loseling, because Loseling monks are coming here, that’s why. Coming here. (Laughs) And Lou (?) [0:17:51.9] will definitely tell you better, when Loseling monks and all this. And so I belonged to that category. And even in Loseling we have group called Nyare Khamtsen (?) [0:18:01.3] So I belong to Nyare Khamtsen.

So, we have a few incarnate lamas in Nyare Khamtsen and one very old lama, who doesn’t give much teaching, who sits very quietly all the time. Sometimes looks very short-tempered sometimes. Always irritated somehow. That’s why I never had sort of teachings from him. He’s a great, great person. So whenever I see him, he got like a probably five or six different malas like this. And every time he goes like this, you know? (Moves beads on mala) He’s talking or doing something, like that, you know? It goes up to here, and then he counts, counting on this side and then goes and count this side, then he changes mala and gets out another one, and goes on like that all the time. He may be talking, he may be eating, he’s going somewhere, and doing some different pujas and all this. I have no idea what he says. No idea. And I’m little kid, so sort of, I used to go and listen to near his mouth. When I go close to, he says, om mani peme hung! Om mani peme hung! He said that, you know? (Audience and Rimpoche laughs) And that’s what he used to say. And then he goes, I’m just definitely not om mani peme hung, he’s saying something else. He would do that. And this Rimpoche never sleeps. Never. All the time he was up. So he has a few attendants (Laughs) No, I’m not going to tell that story. (Audience laughs)

No. And he’s sort of, his personality is sort of slightly sort of irritated and a little strict. So his attendants are thought always have to be around all the time. And so they- they can’t be around all the time, you know, they have to take charge and do all sorts of things, you know, outside. So he’s up day and night. (Laughs) So he used to sit near the window, you know in Tibet, it’s a house, the monastery house are big. You can almost on the window where there’s sort of window it is, the walls so big, you can even sleep on that, can put a bed there and sleep. No cement, right? So it has to be very thick walls. So you always sit, sort of climb up and sit on the window. So they used to put little tables and things like that in the bed (Laughs) And the windows are- (Inaudible, laughing) [0:21:14.9] They put pillows and blankets, tables under the blanket so it looks like they’re sleeping there. (Laughs) Anyway. So he never go to sleep. And whole night he’s saying mantras and doing something. And he will tell you all sorts of things what’s going to happen in your life, all of a sudden, you know? If you ask, he won’t say nothing. But all of a sudden he said, something, something, something happened, something, something, something, happened. You know, sometimes he’ll tell all sorts of funny story. Last night I was sitting on the window, something happened. That spirit came, that spirit gone. This thing went upstairs somewhere and took something out, and you know, in the Khamtsen, the group where I belongs to, the incarnate lamas, and we the Gelug, the Yellow Hat system, monastery had slightly different than the Kagyu and others had. Kagyu and all this, the incarnate lamas have total say, and total decision they make. In the Gelugpa tradition, the Yellow Hat sect, we cannot do that. They give you all the respect and all the advantages possible, but the say will be the senior ones. Like Native Americans have the seniors, we have seniors. So the monks who become senior, and the top seven seniors have always the final authority, and that’s called collective. I don’t know how many years, like if you’ve been fifteen years or something, then you become a member of the group who makes the decision.

[0:23:02.0] And then among- they’re maybe like, you know, in my particular group, we have about five hundred monks in Nyare Khamtsen alone. So I think there are about thirty or forty seniors are there. But out of them, seven, the top, they’re all old, something like eighties, all of them around eighty, within eighties. So, there’s one very strong man. Very, very, strong old man. He has a nickname called Bullhead. (Audience laughs) Bullhead. So the Chunza (?) [0:23:41.4] Rimpoche, we’re all scared of him, you know? He would just sit there like this, but if you don’t behave properly, he will squeeze you, totally (Laughs) So we all have to scare. Chunza (?) Rimpoche, quite a- you know, I’m a kid, but Chunza Rimpoche is about, sixty at that time, but he’s scared of this fellow, too. One morning I went in there and Chunza Rimpoche says, Yango’s dead, he’s almost dead. That is the Bullhead. He’s dead. I said, what happened, Rimpoche? He said, he’s gone last night. What? He said, last night some kind of funny spirit came, he said, I thought I’ll stop, said, before I realized he had come here went upstairs and took Yango and left. He said, Yango’s dead. And I took it literally, Yango is dead. And just before I was telling somebody, Yango’s dead, he walked in! (Laughs) and I been say to Chunam (?) [0:24:55.9], I said, you tell lies. I said, Yango’s not dead, he’s there! He said, oh, you’re stupid, he tells me, you’re stupid! (Laughs) So I show him, and within seven days he died.

[0:25:08.1] It was time to go like that. So Chunza Rimpoche does all this sort of funny things. And now I realize, it is my last contact with him, I didn’t know. It’s before I left Tibet. Before Chunza Rimpoche passed away. And one day he came up to the monastery- normally he lives in Lhasa, not in monastery. Whenever he comes up, he tell all these things to us. And he came up and he got a big, nice, huge room in a house for himself in the monastery. But he said, no, he wanted to stay with me. And that time, I have two house in Drepung. One is a huge house, three story, and there are all sorts of things. I was not allowed to stay in that house because I will not behave properly or something. (Audience laughs) So I have a small house up there again, up in the back of the monastery somewhere, it’s small. And the small house which has only the upper portion is belong to us. There’s a staircase we go in, and there’s right and left. The left is the toilet. The right, you get into kitchen. Okay, there go one monk sitting in that kitchen. Then from the kitchen you walk into another room, and my teacher will be sitting in that room all the time. All the time, okay? (Laughs) Twenty-four hours, I mean, really, he is there. But I was told later, when I got older, I was told that sometimes he’s not there, they put a pillow in there and put his robe around, so I think he’s there. (Laughs) Sort of walk quietly without looking carefully. (Laughs) So then you have to go in another room, that’s my room. And that’s all. So Chunza Rimpoche wants to spend the night there. That room is also not that very big. It’s sort of, sitting back cross like this and one, like two or three beds, I think. Maybe four beds, just that sort of type of thing. And so somehow I remember, you know, I’m small, so sort of I was put with one bed with Chunza Rimpoche. And Chunza, then I notice he sits like this, you know, at night, he sits like this. And then my bed was put here and he sits like this whole night. And you wake up in the middle of the night you hear this pak, pak, pak (Sound of beads clicking) going on, you know? He stay there seven days, and all the time this goes. And during the daytime it goes like this (Fast clicking of beads) every time he change something. I never, I had no idea what (Inaudible) [0:28:20.8]

But later, for a couple of years ago in Dharamsala I was talking to Rato (?) [0:28:27.9] Rimpoche, one very senior Rimpoche called very, very, now one of the top available there, Rato Rimpoche. Its Radu Chor Rimpoche. So, one conversation, I just said talking about Chunza Rimpoche and passing away of Chunza Rimpoche, and all this sort of thing. You know when he had passed away, he had a lot of interesting friends, you know, friends, he doesn’t mix up with the intellectuals at all. That’s another character (Inaudible) [0:29:01.9] He always mixed up with the- neither he mixed up with the well-behaved Geshes and monks, he doesn’t mix up at all. He has always had funny friends, you know, friends who like to play around and joke around, and gamble a little bit here and there, maybe sometime drinking little bit of wine and chang which not even allowed, and things like that he had. And he had one Chinese friend called Tayu (?) [0:29:32.5] And when he died, Chunza Rimpoche died, and Tayu was not around. Almost all the people around. And during his funeral, at the time of the funeral, Tayu arrived at the funeral. He went somewhere else. Sort of, it took him to get back like couple of thirty, forty days. So he just reached at the funeral. He said- his body was committing. And they build stupa in the old system, they build some kind of stupa like this, body is there, and accept whatever they leave, they leave there. Something not come out, it’s very hard.

[0:30:14.2] Unless it roll down from the below. It is very hard to come out anything. So when Tayu came up, there’s a suddenly something pop up, pop! Something came out, because- actually he had given all his friends something or another of his practical practice thing, some has given his malas, some of them giving his bell, all sorts of funny things, you know, all his usual friends who comes around, plays with him, jokes with him all the time, you know? He had given something or another to everybody except Tayu. And Tayu arrived and said, something came out from the fire. And piece of skull from here fall off and it has letter ah written on it, clearly written on it. That came on his lap, so nobody can question to whom it belongs (Laughs) for landed. So, that’s what Rato Rimpoche relaying that story to me. And then I said, what did Chunzu Rimpoche used to this (Rattles beads) all the time, he does, all the time. He said, what Rato Rimpoche explain me, he said, he had read a very important mantra called Yamaranza. He said, some billion times. He said that, he reads, from his heart center, the mantras at the heart center you put. So the individual person in here, that’s what we’re talking yesterday that blue hung, reads all this. And that’s why the (?) [0:31:54.8] going, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak all the time. That’s how worked with the- that’s how it worked with Chunza Rimpoche. So the answer to your question, I believe it does happen to pure or great person, not me, I’m bad habit. If I have the mala in hand it will go for. Well, it’s been very long answer, so I better hand it over to Aura, otherwise I have to do something or will explain it and you can- you should really discuss your feelings and things like that, whatever you want to discuss.

[0:32:38.7] (Rimpoche and Aura discuss what comes next) Aura: Okay, Rimpoche’s going to be preparing with the Tara practice, preparing himself so that when we start working with Tara later on today that the environment will be set and created for that to take place, and so while he’s doing that, he’ll be doing that here. We thought it would be a good opportunity to have a discussion and find out how people felt about yesterday or if there’s any questions to discuss. And I also wanted to spend some time, probably a little bit later, talking about what we’re doing in Ann Arbor and other places that we know about, and New York, and to give Lulu an opportunity to talk about the Loseling and things like that. So for people when they leave here, if they want to make contact, that they know how to do that. So are there any questions, comments? Yes? Audience: (Inaudible) [0:33:45.0] Aura: The tapes that we took are the ones from Ann Arbor. They are available and if people are interested, I think we could probably- Rimpoche: They said they want you to repeat the question. Aura: I was just asked whether the eight tapes that were taken during the time when Rimpoche gave a more extended teaching on the seven-limbed practice were available for people. And I was saying that, yes, they are available, we just have to make additional copies, because I think we already sold all the copies that we had. So if people are interested in that, I think the best thing to do would be to, either give you the address of where we can be contacted in Ann Arbor, and then we you get back, and we get back to our respective places, you can send us a note or call and we can work out an arrangement about it since I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to get copies made and what the exact procedure’s going to be. So that’s what I would suggest. But yeah, they are available.

[0:34:52.2] Audience: (Inaudible) Aura: Sure. People have pen and paper? We can be contacted at- (Discussion of whether to write it in the board, gives 508 Cherry Street and Crazy Wisdom addresses and phone numbers, and Ruby’s contact information. More information is given about availability of other tapes of other teachings. Audience asks for book recommendations. Aura lists various titles) Aura: One of the books that I would highly recommend is a book by Geshe Rabten, called Treasury of Dharma. And actually the other books by Geshe Rabten are also very good. There’s a book, Echoes of Voidness, which has a very useful discussion of emptiness in it. And another book by Geshe Rabten called the Essential Nectar. The Essential Nectar is a very step-by-step delineation of the lamrim practice, and it’s very good, but it’s a bit drier, and it’s not as readable as like Treasury of Dharma might be for people, and is also an excellent book and contains most of the essential points. So I’d recommend this three. I’d also recommend Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trungpa’s book, if people are familiar with that, which is an excellent book. (Aura spells name for audience) He was the founder of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado and he died a couple years ago, but was one of the first major Tibetan Buddhist teachers to share teachings in the west. (Spells it again for audience) A couple other books I recommend would be, The Bodhisattvacharyavattara, which Rimpoche mentioned. Maybe somebody could write that on the board. (Spells it for Jim to write on board) and that’s by Shantideva. It’s a translation of a teaching on the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. It’s excellent. It also can be a little bit harder to get into because it’s written sort of in a traditional prose form. It’s not like a chapter discussion, it’s more like reading prose that contain teachings within them. That’s really great reading especially since a lot of the focus here has been on the development of love and compassion. And he goes through in detail the six bodhisattva activities that Rimpoche mentioned yesterday like generosity, morality, perseverance, so there’s a detailed examination of those six activities in the book. And there’s a book that goes with it called Meaningful To Behold, which is a commentary on the Bodhisattvacharyavattara by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Audience: Isn’t that The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life? Aura: Yeah it's the same book.

[0:43:03.1] It’s called Bodhisattvacharyavattara, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Yeah. And the one last one that I would suggest along these lines- there are so many books coming out these days, there’s really- I mean, could give you a long list. And in fact, if people do want a long list, and they live in a place where they don’t have access to a lot, I mean, I own a bookstore, and you could write me at Crazy Wisdom and I would be happy to provide you with more specialized information concerning what aspect of Tibetan Buddhism you’re looking at because there’s a lot of more tantric, sutra, there’s various ways. Audience: Do you have a catalog? Aura: No, but I’m probably going to be developing some sort of mail order system, but I don’t right now. Yes? Audience: Snow Lion’s newspaper is very good. Aura: That’s right, Snow Lion’s newspaper is great in terms of listing different books with short explanations of what the books are about, all the lists that they have. And then there’s Wisdom Publications, which also carries a lot. So there’s those two. Some of the books I recommend like the Bodisattvacharyavattara that comes directly from India, and I’m not sure if Snow Lion or Wisdom distributes it at this point or not. And another book that comes from India that I would recommend is called the Anthology of Well-Spoken Advice, Geshe Ngawang Dhargye.