Archive Result

19900807GRAATNT

Speaker: Gelek Rimpoche

Location: Ann Arbor

Topic: Four noble truths

Transcriber: Vincent Wuisman

Date: August 7, 1990

0:00:00.0

GR: As a [routing], it could have been the meditation week, rather than the way I am talking here. But since the next two Tuesdays may not be in Ann Arbor, so…that’s why we postponed the meditation…

Try to fit in on the…

[interaction]

Also, these Tuesdays, since we opened these Tuesdays for people who like to come for me, it also needs a bit more of explanations and things like that. So, we talk of […] today. Ehm…Since a new number of people have chosen to come here today some of you may have some background of buddhist practice, some of you may not have at all. Some of you may be wondering what I am talking about what they’re saying about it. And also, until we close the group it has become very difficult for me to talk about anything, because every talk has to be carried by itself. It cannot be a continuation, because that doesn’t work. A sort of package by itself. So tonight…Last Tuesday I gave the background of the why and the what and what we should aim, and why it is necessary, the [gift]. We talked that time. And today what I would like to talk, because every time when you people come here, you give that little piece of paper here and somebody starts leading it and everybody will follow and say it. Some people may wonder what it is and what am I saying about it? So, I have to take this thing…

The first verse in that corner [?] ’I take refuge to the Buddha Dharma and Sangha until I obtain enlightenment. By practicing the generosity and other perfections, may I be able to obtain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.’ I’d like to keep it on that subject tonight.

Since you have the background of buddhism, let’s say: When we say ‘I take refuge to the buddha, dharma and sangha’..pfff…I don’t know how to explain here…I have…ehm…when you say these words from the mouth, whether you’re meditating or not meditating or whatever you do, saying things like this, you have to have some sort of… the words that come out of your mouth have to have support. Very strong support, mental support you need it. Mind has to be actively engaged as using your speech, your sound, you’re saying it. Similarly in mental mind should be able to function together. As you do also the body: You sit and sort of focus your body energy and you focus your sound by saying those. And the most powerful thing is you have to have the mental focus on that.

I am going to talk about this. When you say ‘I take refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha’ what your mind will do. What mental support or mind exercise or visualize…In other words: The words that you say have to have a strong mental attitude. What should that be? That’s what we are going to talk about.

0:06:20.8

As a buddhist, we do take refuge to buddha, dharma and sangha. So, the question arises: What is that buddha? And what is that dharma, and what is that sangha? And how do I take refuge and why should I take refuge? That is really the question. So, before we even deal with the question of refuge first recognition: Recognize when we say buddha, dharma and sangha what are those? These are strange words, aren’t they? It’s not English…It’s not Tibetan either…hèhèhèh. But what is buddha, what is dharma, what is sangha, this is an important question. Normally when people say buddha ‘Hey I know who that fellow is. He is some guy in India 2500 years ago’. Or: ‘Yeah I know that little image over there, that is buddha’. I don’t know what your answer is, and I am sure each one of you has your own answer for that. Whatever the answer you may have in your mind, when you say the word buddha, what image do you get? That’s the question. I am quite sure that those who are not familiar, but even if they’re familiar but not been round to long, they probably have some kind of external object, whether it is the historical buddha, or the image of the buddha, whatever it is you’re going to have some kind of eternal object. Ans I am not going to say that’s wrong. Historical buddha…But if you look at an image, that’s not right. That is only an image. It is only representing buddha. Or it should be made of buddha. And it can’t be made of buddha, right? That is somehow not right. But the image somehow represents buddha, the historical Buddha. That’s part of it, but the most important buddha to me, when the question comes, and each individual will raise the question, pointing the finger inwardly, not outward. What we always do, we always put the finger outside, we look outside, blame outside. We always put the finger out. The moment you start looking for the spiritual path it is the time for us to change and try to put the finger inwardly. Try to put the finger on the nose, looking inward. So, most important buddha to me…what is that most important buddha to me? That is the question we have to think about…

0:10:16.2

The moment I’m saying, ‘The most important buddha to me’, it sounds like some kind of idea of more buddha’s, or one buddha…To me the most important buddha to me is my future buddha. That is the most important buddha to me. Historical Buddha? Great! Shakyamuni Buddha, wonderful. Thank you for showing us the way, but most important to me is my own future buddha. That goes to each one of us, ourselves. When we are looking for our spiritual development what are we really looking for. I’m looking for becoming better. I’m looking for, ultimately whatever the best stage we can achieve. I’m talking from the buddhist point of view, from the buddhist background. To me spiritually, whatever you can achieve as a being is the buddha stage. We call that total enlightenment, we call it total liberation, liberated stage or awakened stage, but to me: I like to be buddha, to be able to develop fully at the buddha stage. That is the highest spiritual achievement one can achieve and that’s why I am looking for it, that’s my goal, that’s my aim. When you work in the spiritual path, we should have an aim. Why are we doing? What is your aim? Otherwise, we do anything, because there is no goal when you reach it you can’t do anything right? When somebody says, ‘Do something’, yes, you do something, that’s right. ‘Poor the water on your head’, I will poor the water on my head. Somebody says ‘No, don’t put the water on your head, wash your feet with water’, all right…you wash your feet with water. Because there is no aim. I’m just giving you examples. When somebody says: “Oh that’s good. Walk on the fire!’ Great, we walk on the fire. Somebody says ’No, no, no, we should try to achieve how to fly!’ Without a machine, you know. Oh, we’ll try that. So that’s when you don’t have a principle and you don’t have an aim, you’ll do anything. So, all your energy is not going to be focused. All your energy is going to be scattered all over. I call that Flying in the Air. It’s not bad. I am not saying it is bad. I have very my way of talking, but I’m not saying it is bad. What I am saying is you’re scattered everywhere. There are hundreds of different things. If you look at different ways of doing it, there can be million different things and if you try everything you may not even have the time to do them. Time will go.

0:14:11.4

What I am trying to say is: If you have an aim, then you can focus that and you can channel all your energy and you can aim for it. Right? The same thing, if you have a job somewhere and when you have an aim to reach, you can focus on that direction. It is very similar to the spiritual path too. You have to have some kind of focus. For me buddhahood is mine, it may be a very long shot. However, that’s my aim. So, therefore my future buddha became very important for me because that’s what I aim for. So, when I say ‘I take refuge to the buddha’ the historical buddha is only a representation, but I am actually taking refuge to my own buddha. This is very important point. You’re not going to go up there…you can’t do that…but that’s not the main point. The main point is my future buddha. It is very important. Each individual human being, as we are, has definitely a very pure, wonderful, pure nature, which Buddha called buddha-nature. Buddhists call it buddha-nature. Because it’s buddhist, right. If you’re not a buddhist you may call it whatever: God-nature or whatever. But it is the pure being within each individual. But in ourselves we have that buddha-nature. I like to call it buddha-nature, because I am a buddhist.

0:16:22.6

I do have a problem calling it something else. It’s a little uncomfortable. I don’t know why, but…Anyway, buddha-nature, each one of us has buddha-nature, but that buddha-nature is very inactive, actually not active at all. It is sort of sleeping like a baby, infant buddha. Infant buddha we have within ourselves. And if that infant buddha, not even infant…really it is a seed, like a seed within us. Like a seed of fruit or flower. It is seed level. It didn’t even start growing. Seed level. So that is the most important. Try to bring that seed to be able to bring a fully developed, grown, fruit or whatever it is. To bring that is the most important work for me, my spiritual path. When I work with the spiritual, means I have certain aims, certain rules. I have certain object and I have a certain way of going. The base what I’m going to be working is my buddha-nature. This seed that I have, that is my base. The result is what I’m looking for. That base, the seed becomes a fully matured and full-fletched buddha. That is my result. Base- result, okay? Base here is that seed level of a buddha nature, and my result is fully matured and become a full-fletched buddha. That’s the result.

0:19:09.2

Now the question is, how is the path that I take? So, the base, the path and the result are the three foundations that one works with. When one looks at the base, don’t look outside. Look within ourselves. And see, try to find a deeper being of that true nature, buddha seed, buddha nature. That is what we’re trying to work. And what are you trying to achieve? Make it fully matured. How are you going to do that? Then the path comes. By developing it. How do you develop? What do you mean by developing it? Two ways: Though we have a true nature within ourselves, true buddha…and it kind of functions. It is like a dry seed. And a few days ago, a month ago I have this [yacht??] over here and there’s some kind of empty space. It was completely dry. And you can see now the grass growing outside. So, I wanted a field like that and then somebody told me you have to buy seed. Okay I went and bought seed. The seed was in a plastic bag, right? I kept it for a while down there and nothing happened. It is in the plastic bag, the dry seed. So, one day I had to open that and try to throw on the ground over there and put some water and then the rain fell. And now you can see the green going down there. So, the seed, if there’s nothing happening, it is like in the plastic bag. Nothing happens. So, we also have a little plastic bag sealed inside so nothing is going to happen.

0:21:46.1

So, Hahah, what do we do? Remove that plastic bag. We call that inner removing obstacles. It obstructs, right? It cannot grow. So, removing the obstacle is one important work. And even if you just take it out of the plastic bag, if I left it downstairs, I ‘m sure it is not going to grow. So, we removed the obstacles, but we have not given the right condition. The condition’s not right because the grass doesn’t grow on the cement floor. So, the condition is not right if I left it down there. So, not only you have to remove the obstacles but also you have the conditions right. For the right conditions it has to have some dirt down there, there has to be some kind of water down there. If there’s no water again the condition is not right. It's not going to grow. So similarly, what we have to do: One, we have to remove the obstacles. Two, the conditions have to be right. That is the path. Base, result and which is going to bring that result over there? How are we going to bring them together? It’s the path, which is removing the obstacles and creating the right conditions.

0:23:50.0

Is that clear, now? I hope so anyway. So now the question is: What is this plastic bag, which is obstructing? What is that? The plastic bag, which is obstructing, that doesn’t let the seed grow, it is three major things: Anger, attachment and hatred. These are the obstacles that we have. Removing that is really important. Whether it can be removed completely, best, or reduced, fine, or attempt to reduce, acceptable. That is the true spiritual working. Is that all? No, it is removing the obstacle. You also have to make the conditions right. So, what are the right conditions? You have to have love, compassion and altruistic. So those are the very very basic things. Basically, that is how you are going to bring you future buddha in life in active life. So, when we say, ‘I take refuge to the buddha’, here. Means I’m trying to bring my own future buddha to a full-fletched buddha. That is really the main thing. When you are not able to do that and when you need help, you may turn to this historical buddha which is representing all the enlightened beings over there. You may turn to it. However, that is really truly, that is your own future buddha. Nobody… really from the outside it is very, very hard to help. It is only me; I can help myself. Which is far better, and we are capable. How am I going to help myself, to work on my base? Try to bring the result on that by clearing the obstacles and making the conditions right.

0:27:24.7

We look into ’I take refuge to buddha’, That’s what technically in Tibetan buddhism is called ‘result-refuge’. It is not only a straightforward refuge, but it is result-oriented refuge, which is more important than that of normal, conventional…. Normally we may introduce: Go to the buddha, bow down and say, ‘I take refuge to the buddha’ and this and that. That is normal, but then the result-oriented you look into yourself. You can do all of them together also. ‘I take refuge to the buddha’; here you have to think your own future buddha and bring to that your full result level and you heard how. But that’s not enough. We go more. To dharma. Refuge to buddha…dharma. Dharma…What do you think dharma is? Dharma is the teaching, it is a book, it is the sayings blahblahblah. All sorts of answers you get. One of the great Indian ancient sages called Vasubhandu, in his Abidharma, metaphysical books, he has mentioned [Tibetan]: Buddha dharma has two: The technical dharma and the absolute true dharma. The technical dharma is the information, what we call buddhism. What is it? Really a method, information as how this base is going to give that result. The information throwing on that is truly buddhism, right? That information is referred to as the technical dharma, but the true dharma here is that infant, result seed, whatever it is, making it become a baby, growing it up and become a teenager and becoming a full-fletched person. That is what we really call spiritual development. That is true dharma. Did you hear me at all? Probably I overshot.

0:30:50.6

So, the true dharma is trying to bring that seed within us, what we call buddha-nature, bringing that up. By obtaining spiritual development. What is spiritual development? Cutting of those negatives. When you cut the negative, you get positivity within you. Each one of these positivities within you is your spiritual development. You can’t look at your spiritual development: Someday, all of a sudden, there’s an external hit on your head and they say “Hi, that’s what it is, you made it”. That doesn’t work like that. Though people do have some kind of external glimpse. The glimpse of seeing beyond our comprehension. Which sometimes you can see through your karmic power. Sometimes you can see through your meditational power, a little bit. Sometimes even by using eh…. some people have seen by using Acid and so and so. Persons like Ramdas, you know. They get, through various helps, glimpses outside. But you can not stay there. You can not hold on. It is simply showing you, giving you the information. It shows you it is there, but you cannot remain there because you did not achieve. You did not obtain, your obstacles have not been cleared and your conditions are not right, so therefore it doesn’t last. Though we, fortunately enough, we get a glimpse work from time to time to different people. And the people call it anything. Thet call it what? External experience, outside the body experience, close encounter of the third kind, whatever. I saw a movie once.

0:33:18.3

So anyway, these are the external glimpses that indicate it is not only what we see here and do. We’re fortunate enough to be able to see that. Which is indicating us that it is there. But we can not remain there because we did not get it. We did not achieve. It is like watching a movie and sometimes you become the movie and become the hero and do all these kinds of things, right? And till this is over you enjoy being there in a way. But in reality, you’re not. Very similar to that: You’ve been able to see it, able to encounter it, almost become part of it. You may feel it and you do all this. But it is not yours, so you don’t be that. The moment the lights are turned on in the movie theatre it is reality again, right. The same thing is happening with us, because it is not. So, what does the spiritual do? It makes it real. And how do we get that real? By gaining the positivity of cutting the negative. By cutting the negative you gain those positivities. And that is solely build on the individual. Build more, more, more…And then become a solid foundation. And within the solid foundation when you move it, it becomes real. Really true. It becomes true. Otherwise, it is false, like building a castle on the ice.

0:35:23.0

And when it is hot the ice will melt. As similar to that, when you have to build a solid foundation, which is cutting the negativities and building the positive, that is building a solid foundation. People become solid. You landed on the ground. You grounded. You built a solid foundation. Otherwise, you’re not.

In other words, what I am trying to tell you here is that dharma is nothing but spiritual development which is nothing except cutting the negativities. If you cut the negativity, you get a positivity within you. These positivities are, one on top of the other, build a solid foundation. That’s what it is. The only external thing […] we see out there, is a glimpse. And these fancy things become habit if we build on solid foundation. If we don’t build a solid foundation we’re lost. By karmic power, by blessing of people, by presence of some great person, by whatever, some kind of…by chance…Some buy […], we get that sort of glimpse, but we can not hold it.

0:36:56.2

That is my dharma here: Gaining positivity by cutting negativities. Very simple. That’s what it means when I take refuge. That is the true refuge. The true buddha is what I am going to get. But external buddha is simply a guide. It is not a refuge. The true object of refuge is the real true dharma, because that is really what works within you. Whether it is a result buddha within ourselves, that’s now at seed level. It is there and very inactive, so it is almost as if buddha has not been there. But if it’s not there, we lose the total capability, which is very, very, bad. Not great. However, we can’t do anything. It is very, very in […]. Being incapable of doing anything. If you look at the historical buddha, that is an external thing that we can bless or whatever and that’s about it. But what you can do is within you, the true dharma. Therefore, the true refuge is the dharma. Each individual what you really work with is the dharma. I hope that’s clear about that.

0:38:41.8

Sangha, the third. You have to do that. Work with the true dharma it is very good, but if you have to do it all by yourself it is very hard. You need support. You need help. You need consultation. You need inspiration. You need information. You need a person to be able to talk. Exchange ideas, to be able to work together. That is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, it is very hard. So therefore, the group of people working together, sharing of ideas, that is the true sangha. But also, the true sangha within the individual. When I see myself, when I’ve been able to see the universal truth, true nature, when you see that I become a true sangha. No matter where I am. Man, woman child or […] whatever I’m. When I see the true nature, I become the true sangha. Lower than buddha but it becomes true sangha. Until then the group represents. In buddhist tradition: The followers of the buddha like monks. A group of monks are representing the sangha. But people putting their effort in there, working together, sharing ideas, pushing the same aim, is the sangha. So, you take refuge, we seek help. And I take refuge to the true sangha which is when I see the true nature. The true universal truth. The buddhists call that emptiness, okay? The true nature, the universal truth is emptiness.

0:41:18.1

Emptiness is not empty. Though we us the word emptiness. It’s like a zero. Zero in calculation is not empty. It becomes …a number of zero’s make a thousand, a million, billion. So, it’s like that. So, when you say ’I take refuge to the buddha, dharma and sangha’ next time, you should have an idea of looking within you, recognizing our true being as true nature of buddha-nature. Buddha-nature part of me, and dharma that spiritual development, bring it up and sangha seeing the true and the buddha finally seeing the complete full-fletched buddha. When you look that way it becomes a very good refuge. You say the words ‘I take refuge to the buddha, dharma and sangha’ It not only becomes words, but also have a meaning, the mind working together. When you put your body energy, mind energy and speech energy together it makes a difference. It works. It really works. It becomes powerful. Even if you have only one, it sometimes works, but when you put all three together, it works and becomes powerful. If you do that it is the right way. It makes sense. And it gives you your spiritual goal and it gives you the brief idea of how to achieve. It gives you base of what we are. And all of them just by these three words when you say, ‘I take refuge to buddha, dharma and sangha’. That itself will give you the total of this base level, result level and reaching and also taking refuge within individual’s future buddha, future dharma, future sangha and that really makes a very powerful, strong and worthy of spiritual attainment.

0:44:09.4

Then, taking refuge may be not enough. You also need love-compassion. If you don’t have love-compassion it is not really great. It is good, wonderful but not great. Everybody can do to be good for everybody, right? Even the ants on the ground try to do best for themselves. You see them running up and down all the time. What are they running for? They try to do something good for them. They try to collect the food, try to bring whatever, where-ever they have to take it. They try to multiply. Always. And everybody knows how to do good. To do good to ourselves, everybody knows. Except we human beings are not that great hèhèhèh.

0:45:27.9

But even with that limited view we try to do our best. We try to do right, right? So, the ants do their thing and we as human beings have to be better than those, right. Self-helping, trying to do something good for themselves even ants and skunks. I have a skunk living down…you know. They always try to do best. They go out, take food and go underneath… make a big hole, from this corner to that corner hèhèhèh. They do that. And they know how to protect! Somebody told me I should throw some [..]ball in there and they would go away. So, I did throw a mothball and a few of them…they got a tremendous smell out. So, they know how to protect, even the skunks do. They know how to help themselves and how to do that. So, as a human being we have to be better than that. Better than that means: Sharing our love, sharing our compassion. Using compassion-love and altruistic. Love, compassion and altruistic attitude. Doing that that makes us different than the others… If you just do it as helping ourselves alone… the skunk does that too.

[Interaction]

0:47:37.4

To make it better than that, is the sharing of love, compassion and altruistic. To make the altruistic attitude possible you have to have love and compassion. I’m not going to talk about love and compassion today. I think that will be too much information, so I reserve it for the next time. True love, true compassion… if you’re able to develop that and share that, bring that into action, that helps to bring your baby buddha become active and it will become like a miracle grow. So, you use miracle grow and your flower starts growing right? Similarly, if you use love-compassion and altruistic attitude it makes flower your result Buddha much faster and greater. It’s like miracle grow. Through love, compassion and the altruistic… and they are interlinked: In order to have proper altruistic attitude you have to have true love and true compassion, then it will automatically work. But that’s for next time.

I suppose I have run out of whatever I had to say. I’m finished. Become empty hèhèhèh! So does anybody have a question, or… I would be happy to…yes?

Audience: Dharma is translated as what?

GR: Dharma is cutting through the attachment, hatred, jealousy and ultimately ignorance. The ignorance is the real cause of all. Ultimately cutting through the attachment, jealousy, hatred and ignorance is true dharma. When you do that, you’ll see the universal truth. When you see the universal truth, your true dharma is developed within you.

Audience: You said absolute truth means emptiness

GR: Yes. That is the universal truth. Emptiness.

Audience: There’s no truth…

GR: I don’t have the power to go on anymore. I’m running on empty Hahah. You know, a lot of people talk about emptiness. Emptiness might not be empty at all…Sort of briefly saying: There is no inherent existence. Empty of true existence. Almost the way you look at impermanence. That may give you a little idea. If everything is permanent it is fixed. You have no room to play, to modify, to develop, nothing. But since it is impermanent, which means changing, we have room to move anything. Since it is changing it is not fixed. It is not truly existing as we see it. Solid. It’s not. It changes. This is brief. This may not be a good explanation of emptiness at all, but it gives you a closer idea. When we look at it, it is a sort of big solid thing standing there and we say: A person. We see a big solid person standing there. Looks as though nothing is going to change. It is permanent. But it changes. The look will change. The nature will change. Ideas will change. Personality will change. The friends will change. The enemy will change. Everything changes, right? So, it is not really true solid. Brief idea. But I am sure it is an issue for much later, much, much, later.

0:53:34.4

Audience3: How can a person cut through ignorance.

GR: Well, leave the ignorance for a bit. A person can cut through anger, a person can cut through hatred, a person can cut through attachment. It is harder to cut through attachment rather than anger. Anger is easier to cut through, compared with attachment. So, when you can cut through all these you definitely can cut through ignorance too. And when you become fully awakened, fully enlightened, when we cut through ignorance. Definitely. When you find the universal truth, the ignorance within us is totally a useless state. Though you may not completely get rid of it, but it becomes totally useless. At this moment we have a very happy, able, ignorance going. Every single thing that we have to run and pick up and work hard and get it, because of ignorance. Once that is removed, everything becomes clear.

That’s cutting through. It is not impossible…

Audience4: You said losing ignorance automatically grows the positive. But if I get rid of the weeds in my garden, I also lose the flowers.

GR: I didn’t use that example, but if you get rid of your weeds the flower will definitely grow better. The energy on the ground is equally shared by the weeds and the flowers. When you take the weeds out the energy goes into…Even if you look at one flower: If you have the old flower that’s gone out, right. If you don’t remove that a lot of energy goes in there, right? So, then the next flower will be smaller and weaker. If you remove those old things, the flowers become bigger and brighter, because all energy goes there. So, it is not the negative-positive point of it, but if you channel energy properly directed, that is really a true example of it. It makes a hell of a difference for the flower!

[Practical issues]

Migtsema singing

Okay I suppose…Now, what’s happening? Those people who come for a one day retreat we looked through and couldn’t find any Sunday in September, so we decided to have one Friday evening.