Archive Result

Soundfile 19900302GRJHNNLK04

Speaker\Location Gelek Rinpoche/ Nijmegen

Topic Karma

Transcriber Yvonne Rogers

Date June 2022

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00:00: Dutch Translation (DT)

00:00:21 You have to deal with the person to person heart to heart. That is important and I will repeat it. A lot of us are either habitual or we are taught whatever the reason might be. We intend to meditate all sentient beings, that you create yourself a huge monster, overpowering all sentient beings like you know, I do know whether you have this or not, Tibetans are used to it, surrounded by us, I am the leader and everyone is around me. I create a huge monster which is overpowering all sentient beings, like little dots created. The dot is the nameless, the faceless that we created.

DT

00:02:25 I am not criticising the meditation and how you do it however our capacity doesn’t catch up to that level, so what happens is, instead of meditating living beings, we have dots. And when you have a lot of nameless faceless dots, and when you sit over there meditating love compassion on them. Because these nameless, faceless dots will not reply you back. And the moment you have to deal with person to person the other side person has a face, thoughts, name and reacts you back, and you never figure it out. But only you can freak out but you become very arrogant, and reacting as though you are a superior being. And this is what we call an ego boosting business. Rather than compassion or love. So when you meditate on love and compassion of course, the books will tell you to take care that one of those dots has a face and a name and reactions. So try to deal with them one to one, and heart to heart rather than dot to do and monster to monster. Love and compassion will come through. Don’t try to create every sentient being together you will get into trouble. Start with nearest and dearest the person that you care for most, and when that is easy you extend it more, you extend your list and that is how practically you should do it. Anyway that is not my subject so I better get on.

00:06:27 So it is already 10 and 11 and I shall give you a break to stretch out.

Audience question- Last night you said you had to change your habitual patterns to create good karma. If you already have good karma why change it.

I did not mean change all your habits and patterns have to change, only change some. Particularly if we have some good habits why should we change it. Habitual patterns and addictions as a matter of fact something good. Last night before I fall asleep, I borrowed a book and I saw a quotation about habitual patterns and I can’t find the quotation this morning. So can we have 10 minutes break.

DT

BREAK

00:09:21 To start with the karma, I am going to use a very simple way and try to explain it to you as simple as possible. Actually, where does really karma business come from. This whole thing about karma business started because of, I mean it is a totally Buddhist terminology and Buddhist information and today of course the karma this is picked up in the dictionaries in America. So it is totally Buddhist introduction.

DT

00:11:22 How it started? And Buddhist practitioners, we started observing our own functioning our lives, of this life, and life after that and life before. Studied very carefully on it.

DT

00:12:20 When it started observing carefully, we find that nature of life is full of problems and a lot of pains. Particularly those that what we considered to be pleasure in life for example like having companionship, building a family, all of them somehow bring a lot of pains too. We look for companionship to bring some happiness. Or every one of us seeking happiness so we think we will will find company, thinking company will give happiness. When you deal with that company and they give you a lot of pains, it is natural not unsurprising. Will all this pains on that even then we hope to have some kind of pleasure and we bear the pains, and bear it and bear it, until we can’t bear any more. So that’s why this famous Buddhist suffering comes in.

A lot of people tell me that Buddhist has a lot of suffering. Maybe true it is too much. Whatever so we seek solution for it. So again those problems we face in our lives are not so difficult compared to problems we will face in the future. When I give a little example of relationship earlier, I don’t mean it is for everyone. For some it is no problem. For some they get divorced 7 times that is what happens.

00:17:15 But some people get good life you can’t deny that but that good life also have a lot of problems too it can never be problem free. Health problems, wish fulfilling problems that is the worst. Because we have our desires so high, you have no idea how high it is. So our satisfaction is so limited. We can hardly satisfy with anything. With the money, with the pleasure, with anything think about it. And you are always seeking more and more and more because we have dissatisfaction in our basic nature.

So that is why problem always. And not only that we are likely to face a much heavier problem in future.The Buddha would say there is a future life but he would also say there is a problem too so we have to take is right.

So when we see those problems and we seek the solution for the problems. When we seek the solution we seek refuge in the Buddha dharma and sanga and we say I cannot help you. I can’t help you What do you do? You can help yourself. How? We talk about the karma. That is how all karma business started. So, I have to talk according to what Buddha said about karma.

00:21:00 So what I told you yesterday karma is more difficult to understand than ….QUERY

So, the actual dharma, when you take refuge in Buddha, dharma and sanga the actual refuge is not a buddha, you are not worshipping Buddha to get better future. We are not praying to Buddha to get better future, the actual refuge comes from the dharma out of these three.

And when you look at dharma, you should not look for the external dharma, this is one of the most important point. People always overlook of miss something here. When you are looking for the Buddha, dharma and sanga, look for MY own future buddha, MY own dharma and MY own sanga. This is the real thing.

00:23:05 We are not so keen dealing with the historically Buddha and historical dharma or we are not so keen dealing with the external sanga. We are interested to deal with with our own future Buddha, little baby Buddha within ourself, and our dharma, that is the major concern.

Actually, so how do we feed our baby Buddha? Through dharma and what is the dharma, karma. My karma is my dharma. My karma is my dharma.

Dharma practitioners, very often so we have to dress slightly different, we have to act slightly different. That is NOT dharma at all.

00:25:40 So, that’s why taking karma seriously is one of the four signs of the Buddhist. One of the signs is taking karma seriously called QUERY

So if we do not have karmic thing very carefully handled, no matter wherever you may be, learned or sage or yogi whatever you might me, dakinis, yogis, it is very much possible that your future can be very bad.

For example, when Adisha, in the great ….QUERY…who had brought Buddhism over Tibet and Adisha was following his guru. We call guru Lama in Tibet. Adisha was following his Lama QUERY…so suddenly he turned back and looked back and he said look down there. If the people are not careful with their karma, look down there, these famous names, so and so and so and so, are all falling into the hell realm.

00:30:01 Another incident, it is one of the most powerful highly developed scholar who really brought the tradition QUERY over to Tibet. QUERY is so powerful that no one can compare. No one can challenge him no way. With the various important reasons for future of a lot of benefit of making Ralo went away with 13 Boddhisattvas. I am going to tell a horrible story. Including some of the QUERY. At the time when Ralo finished Milarepa was holding QUERY. The reason why Ralo destroyed QUERY is had brought teachings from India and what you can do is spread the teaching. You can meditate over here and you can transport the persons soul up and you can get into the soul of the other body and act like him. So Ralo made a decision saying this is not good. It has some benefit but after you wonder who is who. So he decided to cut that out. He appealed to if you allow your son to spirit lift this is going to be bad and please stop. And he said who are you telling me what to do. So Ralo appealed again and Maria ignored. So Ralo said if you don’t stop I am going to have you within seven days. Within seven days he died being thrown off a horse. Milarepa was holding the horse and he fell off and hurt his skull and died.

36:14 So Ralo used to say Tibetan including I have destroyed 13 bodhisattvas and I will not go into the hell realm this is my special. But in the end it did not turn out to be true. Even Ralo went to hell realm but so shocked. In the traditional teachings we had difficulty explaining this. Nowadays it is this football and basketball that people play that’s what it is.

So Ralo went to the hell realm the period of when you throw the ball and touch it and that was it. OK did you get the story? Now what is that story telling you?

Number of things but I would like to emphasise on 3 main points

One - Buddhists have hell. A lot of people think Buddhists don’t have hell

Two - The hell is not so once you go down there that means you remain there. So it is not permanent. It is impermanent it is changeable.

Three- Even you may be great Boddhisatva or whatever you may be you have to commit and honour the karma. Even Ralo had to go to hell. Even if it is short, hell is hell.

But on the other hand, the bouncing of ball not necessary short period of time. It always have some kind of exaggeration all the time.

00:40 50 It is not only the Buddhist literature it is all literature, has a fantastic way of exaggerating. Yes. So that shows how important the karma is. If you don’t pay attention to karma and if you are a very strong meditator of deity, Vajranya practice and pay more attention to karma what happens. When Adisha was in Tibet he received a visitor from India his homeland. This visitor happened to be a ghost. Looks like a devil, acts like a devil and he had come there. And he knew Adisha in previous life. He started talking to Adisha and said what happened. So this fellow is meditating all the time. He looked like a devil manifested in that form. He has tow horns and a tail. As possible. Why - they have to have someone more powerful to conquer than that. So this fellow came and looked like that. So Adisha talked to him and he said just because this fellow is not paying attention to karma, he keeps saying mantras alone, so that is what happened. So any day you find, you are saying something that is fantastic powerful, and if you don’t pay attention to karma, you really get into trouble.

So funnily Adisa gave him some gift and sent him back to India. If you keep in Tibet it will be bad for future of Tibet.

So I’m not going to tell you more of these stories and Im going to cut it here and tell you

The karma is so sudden and if you are not careful, even the great Boddhisatvas, the karma will catch you and you will pay.

00:46:37 ENDS