Archive Result

Soundfile 19891107GRFF

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Fear and Fearlessness

Transcriber Robin Trimarchi

Date

0:00:00.0 And before we start, can we take, eh, few minutes silent meditation.

0:00:26.2 Okay. Tonight, I believe the subject is Fear and Fearlessness. Is that right or wrong? Is it right? Thank you. I have to get confirmation; I’d be talking the wrong thing. Talking about fear, uh, I think that we all have it. Um, something which we are very, which we all possess. And which we are very afraid of it. And which will be misuse it. When I look at the fear, as myself, and looking at the fear, how that, how did that come? I see lot of ways and means that we get the fear. Afraid of. Most important things are human beings are build up under a very strange believing system. And certain, I hate to say that, but I have to. And, uh, religion believe, social believe, the family believe, and um, all this sort of believes that you build up a huge …

0:03:11.1 … and then you sort of, then you also builds up some kind of goal and the desire to be climbing over, to be reaching over. I do not know. In social, in religions, in spirituality, even in the sexuality, in all of them we build a fantasy goal and try to achieve it. And you cannot achieve it, but also afraid of losing it. Are you with me, at all? Are we talking together? Thank you. The other day I did mention about the guilt. And it’s very much connected. Fear and guilt are connected. I’m not talking about over excessive usage of, erm, any religions or any other group system. Anything. Isn’t that funny? If you look very carefully in our humankind. And human beings, we get together and make some laws and some structures we make up. We build up, and uh, then we, then we begin to get afraid of losing it. Afraid of not achieving it. I hate to mention one thing here. The beauty. The beauty is one side of it. One side of the coins you have the beauty. It’s nice, you project it, you imagine, project it, you builds up, and you also expect. Expectations we build. I’m sorry, my English is bad. Expectations also builds up.

0:06:13.5 And uh, we enjoy that. All this sort of thing. And then the other side of the coins you try to get afraid of losing it. Sometimes, it’s very funny, it remind me a very funny story. When I was a kid in Tibet, uh, we considered the Nepalese business people in Tibet, and those of the Muslim, ah, group of Muslim business people. We called them, I mean, Tibet is, ah, you have to realize it is very, very strong Buddhist land. So, we called non-Buddhist people are called ‘outer,’ and Buddhist people are called ‘inner.’ Refer them as [TIBETAN], and outer person and the inner person. So, it is, that itself would indicate you how strong the Buddhism is over there. It’s like that. Outer and inner. So, the outer people, the, which we called them the, the, the, some of them Nepalese, some of them made very, very good practitioner. But still, as a group, as a people who called them ‘outer people.’ Right? Outer people. So, Tibetan have a certain system, ah, certain system. They, we build up very, eh, eh, important images. You know, the images. I don’t mean the image of our own image we build up. Actually, mentioning image, image is also one of this point which is related to the fear very much. I’ll come back to that, but, if I get, if don’t forget. But eh, image, which you know, with the Buddha image and this sort of image. And there are fearful, wrathful deities images we build up sometimes. So, call them ‘protector.’ They’re wrathful, fearful. Protectors are, I think I did mention earlier somewhere in this group also.

0:09:03.8 The protectors are always very wrathful because the obstacles from the, the devil side will be very powerful. So, those protectors will be more fearful than the devils will build up. So, it’s very, very, very fearful ones we build up. So, you make it up, right? You make those. And you make those images. And, uh, then you put, I mean, this system, the monastery you put them in corner somewhere. Some corner. So, we don’t have electricity lights in Tibet. We have to think that. Old times, good old Tibet doesn’t have electricity. So, few butter lamps here and there. So, wherever these protectors going to be, it’s going to be very dark area. Dark area. Sort of little dark. Make a very fearful for image. And put it in the dark corner. And then you put a few skulls on top of that. And uh, and then you be afraid of it. So, what the Nepalese traders tell, so that, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You make a very fearful one, put it at the corner, half dark, half you don’t see, put some few skulls, then you scared to yourself. And that’s what Nepalese traders will. We, we call it ‘outer people,’ because they’re non in Buddhism, non-thing, we almost treat them like non-spiritual believer or type of thing. A total atheistic type of thing we treat them. So, they tell you, that’s how you do it. That reminded me. So, we do the same thing. When you build ourself, you know. We build some kind of beautiful gold, beautiful image, I remember it now. We build image. Remember this talk started with identification. Okay. I purposely the first day, I let identification go something loose.

0:11:07.1 So, where does identification really comes in, we build up something, what do you call it, beautiful. A beauty. Either you build up, or you buy it, or you paint, or you do something. And you admire it, don’t we? We identify it, we admire it. I’m talking about articles, right? We identify it. We also admire it, we look at them. We admire it. And after some time, we identify with yourself. It’s becoming your identification. You’re identifying with that. A lot of people do identify with those things, don’t we? Many of us do. Many people do, not everybody. I don’t everybody do it. Many people do. Then similarly, we also identify ourself. Ourself, we build our image. We build up the most beautiful image of it. We wanted that to be this qualities, and those, all of them we bring it, and we project it on it. And we build that ourselves. We build our partners in that identification, image. In that image. We build our partners, whether it is wife or husband. These image that we have, we build up tremendous important image, we build up. And we try to make it. And when we can’t become that, in reality you’re separating individuals even. And you go and fight, call, do all this because you’re, it doesn’t become the image whatever we have drawn to that. Try to force the person to be image what we’ve both drawn. And try to tie yourself to the image what you have drawn. We do that, from the top executive level to the, whatever the level it is. Everybody does that. This is our problem, actually.

0:14:02.1 This is image we draw. And then when the image is drawn, and then you have that picture in your head, which you’ll make it, and probably don’t even, don’t even have that at all, but you also have the fear of losing it. Everybody’s afraid of losing something. Losing that image we build. And why we are afraid of losing that image. Because we identify ourself with that drawn image. This is our basic confusion number one. We are totally, ourself is confused on that. And we follow with that as though nothing has happened. As though nothing has happened, we do it. And we don’t see our problem. Because this is the beginning, beginning of the problem. And then the fear will do all sort of terrible things to the individual. Because you’re afraid you do all kind of things. Whether it’s individual, or whether it is group, group like us. Like us. If we are threatened, we may do it. If we are afraid of it. Everybody does that. The fear has done terrible things to the mankind. The war, the wars that we fought. World War I, II. Is fear. The fear brought the war. All this terrible things that happening everywhere in the world, where did that come from? It is the fear that make it.

0:17:02.2 Israel is afraid of losing itself. Totally. That’s why they are protected. Whether it’s, what is that other fellow? The, where there’s an occupied land, what you call it? Yes, it’s the Arab one. Yes, Palestinian people, they’re try, they’re afraid of not having a base at all. That’s why they’re afraid. Whether you’re Israelis or the Palestinians. Or whether you’re Tibetans or the Chinese. The Hindu, Muslims. All of them are afraid. They’re afraid of, the fear made them drive to a miserable thing. Individual, collective, totally. In short. The war between the nations, to the family core, was brought by fear. Which has done tremendous damage, terrible things, to the mankind. And if you look very carefully, really very carefully, deeply, really deeply, many of them don’t have much basis. Certain belief system, certain view, so you’re afraid. You see a lot of people will tell, ‘I’m afraid.’ You ask them, ‘afraid of what?’ They don’t know, it’s simple as ‘I’m afraid.’ Losing something. Losing not much, but the identification. Identification is not much. The image that you have drawn of yourself, your companion. Everybody.

0:20:02.9 The parents draw the image of the children. They try to get to that level. They drive you crazy. And when they, when they, when they, when they become a teenager they say ‘I hate my mother, I hate my parents.’ And I was, why should they? Because they been crazy, crazy to achieve, you may be doing best from your point of view. But you try to, you projected certain image there. You try to drive that other human being towards that image. And you’re afraid that human being may not turn out in the shape and image where you draw. And that’s why you drive him crazy. And then, of course, afraid of damaging your soul. That is the biggest fear people also carry, right? So, you look very carefully to all this. Look deeply into it. Really deeply into it. When you’re deeply into it, when you look really deeply into it, it is our confusion, our ignorance, which is really making, projecting all this. These are all result of ignorance. Nothing else but the ignorance. Ignorance of not, it’s not really ignorance of not knowing, but ignorance of wrong knowing. Ignorance of wrong projection. Ignorance of wrong image. Which is really making all this. What is wrong if you let it be what you are. Let it, what’s wrong if you let it be what they are. We don’t.

0:23:00.0 We don’t let people be what they are. We don’t let ourself be what we are. That’s why we’re driving ourself crazy. As long as we’re not making, creating bad karma, to me, it is nothing wrong with let it be what you are. If you can let it be what you are, and if you’ll let people be what they are, it is beauty. It might not be the beauty what you project, what we think. What we have, again, distorted image of beauty. See, these are the everything I mention to you tonight. The identification, the image, the fear, the beauty, all of them the side of the coins. Because ignorance is the middle. So, we don’t see that. We don’t see it. Started tossing it up, either one tail or one tail or one head has to come. We don’t see the ignorance. If you really see the true ignorance, no, sorry, the true nature, then there’s no fear at all. There’s no fear at all. As matter of fact, last night we’re talking about the t-shirt. Right? We’re talking about the t-shirt. Said that they wanted to put something there. Originally, people thought, maybe I thought, we should put Om Ah Hung. So, then, somehow, I couldn’t shut my mouth, I said, Om Ah Hung is the, some kind of mantra sign and this and that. It might not be what I want to wear, but something. So, they refuse to put, I mean the people, some of us saying that they don’t put. But they wanted some words.

0:26:02.3 So, we been thinking and suddenly word came. [TIBETAN] In Tibetan. Everybody think. Which means, what is it? What is it, I forgot. Truth transcends, what? Fear, that’s it. Truth transcends fear. So, that’s, that’s really work. That’s good to be on the t-shirt, if it comes out. (chuckles) It might not come out. If it does, that’s what it’s going to be. Not in English, but in Tibet. Truth Transends Fear. And that’s true. If you really see the true nature, then there is no fear at all. This is simple way, I put it. If you want a complicated Buddhist way, there is much, eh, more I can put it in. Because true nature is what? (Name)? What is true? [asks students] Come on (name). What is it truth? [student response unclear] Well it’s better, I don’t even know, what is it? [student: truth is suffering] Truth is what? [student: suffering] Suffering. [student continues: unclear] Truth is suffering. I don’t know I’m going to agree with you or not. Are you all going to agree with (student)? Huh? No. See. [student: I don’t need anybody to agree with me. (Laughter)] There must be truth of suffering, but I don’t call it truth is … suffering is truth. Actually, speaking of suffering. I do not know whether the word of suffering is very suitable or not. That does not necessarily mean I’m going to agree with (name unclear), who would like to use problem as, ah, suffering.

0:29:01.5 I don’t think that either right. Because that becomes too light. But what, what is it? What is that we have? Really, what do we have? I think we have a lot of sorrows. Everybody, don’t we? The rich, the poor. The educated and uneducated, whatever, there are no uneducated in America, actually. So, anyway. But intellect, and whatever. All of them, we all have a lot of sorrows. I’d rather choose to really mention the word what Buddha used, dukkha. It’s, I think truth isn’t sorrow as we experience. So, the sorrow is with everybody. We experience. We go through it. So, to have the sorrow, truth is sorrowness, or what? Huh? Well to have it, to possess it, is, is a truth. And that is not necessarily true nature. I think the nature of truth is really goes down to nature of emptiness. So, nature of void. When you see the nature of empty in there, emptiness, then there is no question of seeing fear is gone, totally. When you see the true nature, you don’t have a fear of losing is gone. You see you lose nothing. Either you lost everything, or you lose nothing. So, you’re not afraid of losing. I think that’s what it really is.

0:32:00.5 How to get to that point is to be close to the truth, whatever you can, however you can. The first step to let it be what we are. Really. That I really mean it. And each one of us, every one of us, we don’t like, we don’t let ourself to be what we are. We don’t let our friends to be what they are. You always project, and then, then you push towards that projection. You dive towards that. And what you going to gain out of that? You even separated the human being from there. Actual being been separated. Because projection becomes so strong. The image becomes so strong. You forget the human being. Don’t we say, ‘I thought I know you, but I guess I don’t know you at all.’ Don’t we say that. Of course, you know. You been number of years together, definitely by that point you know it, but suddenly it’s not meeting your projection. The image. That brings sorrowness, also. Your image you don’t meet, you don’t match. You bring all sorts of things, candidates, in it. Try to picture it over there. Try to focused the image, what you’ve drawn, on that. You bring lot of candidates, put it on there. The pictures doesn’t match, so it’s out of focus. Even already in focus, you also put off the focus. And that’s how we get it. It is source of our problems. Source of our sorrows. There’s no doubt. I mean, we, we, we came to the point where the fear really done the most horrible thing to the individuals. And it has done the most horrible thing to the mankind. And if we don’t take care ourself, it will continue to do it.

0:35:05.8 And in addition to that, as I mentioned to you, all our belief systems will add up on that. Make you feel guilty about it. I told you I don’t believe guilty, earlier, didn’t I? That’s the reason why. That’s reason why I am nonbeliever of guilt. I mean, not guilty what you feel guilty of. I said, I’m very much a believer of regret. It is must. But I don’t carry the guilty, what the, the American’s guilty. You know. Something unrepairable damage to the soul, or whatever it is. And I’m nonbeliever of that. That’s, this is the main reason why I said that earlier. Even the religions believe maybe you feel that way. Very strongly. Whether it’s Christianity or Buddhism to a certain extent, Hinduism, or any -ism or -mism, or whatever it is, all of them make you to feel that way. It is the misuse of the human tragedy towards driving certain projection towards that. We’re afraid of going to hell, we don’t do it well. We are told truthful whether it is in Christianity or Buddhism. But only difference is the Buddhist hell is not a permanent hell. It is impermanent hell. Otherwise, Buddhism will tell you to go to hell, too. I mean you (chuckles, inaudible). Yeah, they’ll tell you that. And if you don’t do that, you create non-virtuous, and now your result of non-virtuous is, ah, you’re going to go to hell. Yes. But though, there will in between that, there is all that you can purify it. In Christianity you say, you seek forgiveness or something, right? Don’t you say forgiveness? Yeah. Ah, Buddhism you say you purify. It’s almost same. Hindus will say the same thing, the Sikhs will say same thing.

0:37:59.4 And I don’t mean the founders of the religions, and the great masters, great practitioners have misused that. But I mean it. Some people who really want it, everybody should do good, so they project something good and say you have to do that good. And how best way we can push them? We tell them, if you don’t do it you going to go to hell. So, you’re afraid of going to hell. Use the fear again. But when I’m, the way I’m saying it sounded like as though you don’t go to, there’s no, sort of, bad karma doesn’t give bad results, I don’t mean that at all. Bad karma definitely gives bad results. That’s true fact. It’s a fact, not an idea. But way and which some people present it, it’s being a way of misuse it, for totally, for sure. There’s no doubt. So, we must transcend beyond fear. I learned the word ‘transcend,’ means ‘going beyond,’ last night. (chuckles) You try to translate, or what? Yeah. You must transcend beyond fear, do you say beyond fear, or transcend fear? Transend fear. In other words, you must go beyond that. Way to go is, try to get close to the truth. As much as possible. And way to get close to the truth, is,8 be what you are. Don’t project, don’t build up image. I’m very grateful to this Nepalese trader because that reminded, that remember the image. So, that’s why I remember the word of the image, how we, it really builds up. Image. And identify. We do. We draw something. We identify ourself with that. You become, you like it. You look at it. You look at it, you didn’t like it you correct it, you look at it. You correct it and you become that. After some time, you become that. And that’s not right. You can’t become that. You must draw the line between.

0:41:10.6 You appreciate, definitely. You can watch at it, look at it. Or you can, you can buy the beautiful antique piece. You can give as much as money you want to pay for it. You can look at it, you can appreciate it, but you can’t become. There you must draw the line. You better let be what you are, and just let it be whoever what they are. Getting little bit closer to the truth. And if you go beyond that, you’ll see the true nature. Look at true nature. Nature of emptiness. It’s not easy to see. Nature of emptiness is, if you started looking to empty, and then try to look at Buddha told the nature of the, eh the, the, the real true nature is empty, and you started looking for empty, you’re not going to find anything because you look for empty, you’re going to find empty. You’re not going to find emptiness in that. And if you really wanted to look to the emptiness, you look for existedness. Existedness you find emptiness. If you look into the empty. Your way to look to the emptiness is looking through the existence. Existedness means truly look what you are, where you are, what you are. Look through that angle. It sounds like, when you look at it, sounds like, I mean if you are a traditional old Buddhist fellow, it may sound like very, very funny, cheap talk. But, not so much technical involved. But if you really look carefully in that, it is very deep Buddhist meaning involved in that. A lot of people misunderstand this true nature. Nature of emptiness. Totally misunderstand. They always look for something empty. They’re going to, they think they’re going to find emptiness by looking in the empty. What you going to find emptiness, if you look in the empty you find empty. What else? What you going to find in empty? Nothing. So, you look for existence.

0:43:59.00 When you see the existence, then you really see the emptiness. Emptiness is related to the existence. You see the emptiness through the existedness. You cannot see emptiness as empty. So, seeing through existence(ness) is truly what it is. What it is all nature about it. Without projection. Or without those beautiful image that we have drawn. Of myself, my wife, my husband, my children, all of them we have drawn lot of image over there. And you try to match that image. This is our biggest problem. If you let it be, let it go, all of them. I mean that’s why we say, we say very often, ‘let it go.’ What you have to let it go. We say it very often, don’t we? Let it go. Let it go what? Let’s not project. Let’s not draw image. Let be what they are. Let be what am I. Try to see that way. Try to get close to that. Then you can transcend fear. Not only you can transcend fear, you can transcend ignorance. The ignorance is hiding there, too. All our problems. Ignorance, this is biggest shelter for the ignorance. Because I wanted to be the best. So, what is the best? This, this, this, this are the best. Buddha said this, this are the best. Jesus said this, this, this are the best. So and so said this, this, this are the best. So, I want to be the best. So, this is how we draw ourself. So, the ignorance get the best shelter over there. You don’t see. That’s how they project you, up. These are the good words we use so many times, let it go, let it go, let it go. Everybody says, ‘I do not know what you let it go.’

0:47:05.3 The true ‘let it go’ means that. Let go that. That doesn’t mean you let go out of the house, or you let it go, uh, all this, really let go is that. Everything’s better. Will become better. You will find peace. You will lose fear. However you built it, right? You build up, ‘oh, this has happened, so that then this will happen, that will happen, that will happen, that, that, that, that, that.’ You have all this, all this things happen [tape cuts out for a second]. Well, it happens, happens, what? Not going to cut, nobody’s going to cut your neck. The sky’s not going to, on you fall, head. Things you can handle it. You will much more peaceful. Buddhism also tells you that. The essence in there comes that. Look for the truth. That is essence of wisdom. What does wisdom mean? Try to tell you the truth, try to push you to the truth. They don’t draw projections. And that’s why it becomes very difficult to explain sometimes. There’s no projection, there’s no image. There’s no diagram. There’s no form. There’s no shape. So, how can we drive towards that? How can you draw? I guess I’m running, run out of talk. I don’t think I have anything more to say. If you have any questions, I have no answer, but we can discuss. Don’t think I have answer. I don’t have answer. That’s the truth. If I have answer, okay, now I’m not going to go in that. (Laughter. Pause.)

0:50:08.0 Guru is another one to, to develop here, too. Yes. Anyway, okay, not going to talk on that because, may I say, if I have answer. Yes, sir. [student #1 question: are you saying that in general, it would be better for us, or we might have a little more peace if we don’t try to project an image of what we should become. We just see what we are?] If you can see what you are, is it great, no doubt. But I’m afraid whether you can see what you are, really. No. But I don’t think it is so important to know what you are or not. But I think it’s important to let it be what you are. Don’t try to project something and make it. But that does not mean, again, that does not mean you should improve and make it a better person. Again, the question, the definition of the better, again, differ. I don’t mean the better in the sense of our projection better. But better in the sense of having a good karma. Karma. So, in that way I think we should. That does not necessarily mean we should not make ourself karmically improved, okay. That may be the right language for you. [student asks to repeat his last sentence. Side talk] uHukkKarmically. Better, better. Did you hear me? Okay. I don’t know whether I have answered or not, let’s see. We’ll be happy to share your thoughts, really, yeah. [student talks about the guru not having the answer, that’s true it the student or others don’t question it …

0:53:00.6 [student continues: in the sense that there is no question if you’re just there. Is that what you mean? And if you’re not there, questions arise.] No, what I’m try to say, I’m try to be denying to be guru. Okay, really, truly speaking. I’m try to be deny to be authority. That’s what I really mean that, that’s what I mean it, I don’t have answer. Okay? If you ask me, are you a Rinpoche? People calls that, and I’ve been recognized that, I cannot deny. Are you guru? I will deny, I’m not guru. So, that’s, that’s what I’m try to say about, to be truth. (chuckles) [student continues: … the answer …] I don’t know what the answer is. Huh? [student #2: there is no answer unless there’s a question] And I didn’t even get the questions. (chuckles) [student #2 continues: … I see a couple of problems – one problem is – until one reaches a certain amount of enlightenment, one has quandaries, questions or quests within oneself.] The questions will continue until the ignorance is completely disappeared. There is bound to be a question. The questions will continue. But the answers are not necessarily you have within yourself, or, not necessarily somewhere else, that somebody else can give you. Sometimes you get answers within yourself, sometimes outside you get. It depends. It really depends. If you cannot also say, all the answer lies within you. Lot of people like to say that. Lot of people do say that. But I’m afraid of saying that. Why? Because if all the answer lies with you, you must be enlightened. So, maybe some of the answer lies with you, you don’t see. Some of the answers you may have to get from outside. Some of the answers you may have to learn it. That’s I think it really is. [student: even if the answer is outside of you, if you can’t recognize it, we have to be able to recognize it yourself, so, again, the answer is still inside of you. But even if you’re enlightened yourself, others around you suffer, so there’s still this relationship of …]

0:56:14.2 I don’t really, if you’re enlightened yourself, I don’t think you have, you have, eh, you have relationship, um, to sorrow at all. As long as, if you are, if you are enlightened, you’ll be free of sorrows. So therefore, I don’t think that you can, can, you can say there’s a relation. And maybe contact and connections, but not relation, person, personal. [student #3 question: Western thinking is emphasizing positive thinking, visualizing what you want to be, what kind of future you want, what you want to accomplish, and seeing yourself there and moving towards that, the sets of goals, that kind of thing. It seems at odds with Buddhism to some extent, and you seem to saying that tonight. It’s better to not have these goals, don’t project yourself …] I did not use not to have goals. I did not, I did say, I didn’t, maybe I did not clarify. I should clarify it clearly to avoid the misunderstanding here. The question of the beauty, the question of beauty is the one what I have in mind. So, we project certain thing as beauty. The human beings, the look, the, the, the look, the character, the way of talking, way of functioning, way, certain things we project. You know, we draw certain image. I’m not necessarily pointing out, saying that goal of enlightenment as such a thing and don’t drive toward that direction. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that certain usage of, natural usage of beauty, certain image that we draw toward people.

0:59:01.9 I’m talking about our daily life, everyday practice. Everyday life. We draw certain beauty image and then you drive the person, including myself, self, into that to fit that picture. [student: so that’s like the image of right clothes …] Image of righteous. I think you’d say the righteous. Image to be the right. The right clothe, the right hair dressing, the right make up, right way of talking, right whatever right is, you know. Drawing that, consider that as an, a view, right way of thinking, which is very important. Right? And draw them as in a picture, and then, then you, you imagine that as beauty, that’s image you have drawn.

1:00:01.7 And then you identify yourself with that, you identify your companion with that, whether it’s man, woman, whatever it is. As you identify with that, and you drive towards that direction. Okay. Now, one minute before I go. The, having the goal as a Buddhahood over there, and enlightenment’s there, and practice in saying ‘let it go’ goes slowly. Actually, it is one of the spiritual problem, too. What happened is some people draw this image, and wanted to get over there and drive, drive, drive, drive, and then after some time you get, get tired completely, I’m not getting anywhere. Okay. You thought there is no objection. If you have long term goal over there, and uh, alright, along term over there. And it is actually, according to the Buddhist true thought, it should be goal-less goal is there. It’s goal-less goal. That is really called goal-less goal, okay. Goal-less goal should be there. And that’s long-distance goal. There’s no problem. But problem really lies here when you draw a image here and try to push that. This is a problem. Even the spiritual practitioners, we say, ‘your eyes should be looking for very far away.’ And you completely relaxed. Don’t we say that all the time, we say that all the time. Image of eyes looking very far away mean goals should be far goal. That’s goal-less goal, over there. Which something we should not be pushing and identifying now. I’m sorry, which one (name) or (name)? [student #4 comments: just the idea, I mean, where you are right now. And having that contentment, not contentment but …] I was not talking, yeah, not so much of the Buddhahood as goal. I mean, if you lose Buddhahood as a goal, we’ll lose principle. Right? We cannot do that. Yet, if we have closeness that, you drive yourself crazy.

1:03:01.7 And which doesn’t give you good result at all. [student #4 continues: so, the idea that you identify with ahead, then we don’t have anything to work with right now. And that’s where it becomes very difficult and confusing] I mean, examples that I am giving you, I’m giving you, are the, like pictures, furnitures. I did not give you the, the, like a Tara or the, the, this thing and that thing. I did not give you that as an, examples. I give you the drawings, pictures, furnitures, all this I've given you. So, because the people have the tendency of becoming of it, that is the closeness of the, the beauty you set up and identifying. [student #2: but I think there is a little bit more middle part to it, though, because even though you have this long-term goal of enlightenment or Buddhahood, there’s also more, I think, shorter goals that we have within. You know, you might have a goal to, you know, like reduce your anger. You have a goal to recognize your anger, and then to watch it and become aware of it and not to get angry, right. That’s a goal that we have, that some people may have] Okay. Well, I, that might be, that might be a goal, but you’re not becoming of it, right? It’s not your image. It’s not your identity. Okay. It may be your something you try to achieve of it. But eh. That’s a good question, that’s question. Cannot. If you become anger-less, the anger-less cannot be your identity. [student #4: But you could, that’s one way, you could think like ‘I’m a person who doesn’t get angry, I’m a person who does this, this, this] Okay. You’re right. You’re right. I’m the person who does not get angry, I think that very often. I’m sorry she said that. I do think that. (chuckles) But, but that, that does not mean I’m identifying with the, with the anger-less. I don’t identify myself with the anger-less. I do acknowledge I don’t get much angry. But I don’t identify myself with anger-less. If I do so, I’ll be over exaggerating myself. I’m not anger-free, no. I could get angry. I could get angry. Yep. I’m not anger free. I don’t get angry much, but eh, that means I don’t identify myself with the ‘anger-less me.’ Then I’m, could be exaggerating. Even you don’t get angry, I don’t think you ident … you know, I have trouble of becoming that.

1:06:02.1 That’s really is. My trouble, I can appreciate it, I can look, I can enjoy, I can really appreciate everything. Okay? But I have a problem of becoming that. I think that is where the problem really lies. I was talking to other day, somebody, uh, the person’s not here tonight so I’m not going to mention the name, as identified themselves so much with big mirror somewhere, and one day the mirror broke. And keep on crying all the time. And the grandmother comes out and says, ‘it’s only a mirror, don’t cry.’ (chuckles) But for that person its identities lost. The big mirror drop and broke. [side talk] [student #5: how do you balance that letting be, and not trying to project an image …] I don’t think it’s a balancing, I think it’s drawing a line. [student #5 continues: well, the other side of it seems to me to be, or it could be mistaken for becoming complacent. And just, you know, I don’t care too much about this, or I don’t care to much about that, and sort of, not really becoming …] Enthusiastic about it. I don’t think so, (name). I think there’s a big difference between you’re taking interest, you’re checking, being very enthusiastic about it. And appreciating it. But becoming of it is much more, I think. I mean, I still have a problem, to tell you the person that I’m talking, I still have a problem of projecting the American’s view of, view many of our friends have to become that thing, right? Really become of it. But I can see the problem, but I still have problem myself to really to understand and getting to it. Because I could never become of it. I can admire anything, really. The beauty, anything. Paintings, beauties, anything, whatever it is. From the purple sky to, to the 19th century furniture, oh, I’m sorry, 14th century furniture (chuckles, inaudible). Really, I can appreciate it. But I can’t become of it. [student #5 interrupts: … attached to it, I can appreciate this beautiful thing therefore it makes me a better person ….] Yeah, no, you can attach to it. You can attach. Yeah, you can attach to it, but you cannot become that.

1:09:05.7 And you can’t cry just because that furniture broke. Because you see that you’re (?). You can’t go on and sulking all the time. [student #5 continues: I see a problem in myself with going from that kind of identification to just not caring about it at all] Yeah, I think it becomes, Yeah, I think it becomes too extreme. Either you go to extreme, either this way, or you go to extreme that way. So, I think the middle path’s needed. [student #5 continues: well, it seems like you almost have to go the other extreme in order to find where the middle is] I don’t think so. I mean, I think, I’m sure you can appreciate. I don’t think … I’m sure you can appreciate lot of thing, but you don’t want it to be. Or you don’t want it belong to you. See, I think here you can draw lot of lines there. [student #5 continues: I guess what I’m referring to is image, self-image, or public image, or image at work kind of identity that …] Yeah, this is, this is really a problem. It is a problem, but I think you can think of it. You can think of it. You can lot of things to let it go in there. And you will be much more peace. I tell you that, true. Yeah, really. And yet, you don’t go to, to extreme either. Definitely. I think that is definitely true. I think I’m getting too late, I’m sorry. Tonight, I have to close here, I don’t even know what is it. Ah, it is getting quite late, and because we do have a lot of announcements to be made. And uh, there a number of things, and then we begin with, eh …

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