Archive Result

19901016GRAATNT

Speaker: Gelek Rimpoche

Location: Ann Arbor

Topic: Tuesdaynight Teaching: Dharma

Transcriber: Vincent Wuisman

Date: October 16, 1990

GR: What does dharma practice mean? How about you answer that question? … You come on Sunday, right?... Do you have an answer to that or do you want to pass that to… Ananda!

Audience: …taking refuge…dedicate…. most of all dedicate for the benefit of all sentient beings

GR: OK. Tell me why? Why do you need to take refuge? Why do you have to dedicate for the benefit of all sentient beings?

Audience: […]

GR: You want to add? Or do you have a different idea?

Audience: […]

GR: So, you don’t agree with her?

Audience:

GR: You use the words ‘dedicate for the benefit of all sentient beings’ as motivation, right? Is that okay Jeff?

Audience: You take refuge basically because you need help. You decide that you want to take the path and to clear away all your delusions. A big job.

GR: I don’t know. Robert?

Audience: It is very difficult to answer easily in a sacred place. In the street, when I speak, I have very quick answers, but in sacred space, when you really think deeply what this means, where it really matters for yourself and other people listening than in the street. And to me dharma practice is something that is at first a very popular idea in my mind like somebody goes for new music, or new clothes or a new car, to me dharma practice at first was just a cool thing to do and Now I think I’m starting to realize that dharma practice, whether you were serious or not at first, eventually you can bring yourself to your own liberation and that you’re going to work for the liberation of other people, which seems like an insurmountable path. So, dharma practice is some kind of work, or play I guess [interaction]…That you dedicate yourself towards liberation of yourself through truth and incorporating virtue into your life. Seeing if you can mediate, you can come to an end of suffering. Not just for a little while, but for good and just include many other things, like helping others and so on. And even when you say ‘take refuge’ can include taking refuge. And if you say it includes it then it is going to need a lot of […] of what refuge is and taking refuge to what. You say ‘buddha’, what does buddha mean? Obviously, these are questions that, if you live on this planet for a long time, you actually attempt to time towards these things out and come to deepen and also in time you see how it is to actually do anything. To sum up and you’ve said it before, and I read it: Most of us […] all we do to make this world a better place. It won’t be more than a teaspoon of sugar in the salty waters of the ocean. So, somehow you can come to these deeper realizations and yet with the little successes you have actually experience great joy in discovering something that actually works.

Audience: Do you think you have to have right [refuge] for a right dharma practice?

GR: I think so. It depends… What do you take as dharma… I’m not going to say it okay? Not just now. But I think Robert gave a very good answer today. Really. And I’m glad you didn’t give a straight answer, hèhèhèh. That’s great. Just as good as Steve. Is refuge necessary? Maybe you should go to…

Audience: For me it is hard to say. I don’t really draw a distinction between when I look in dharma practice is just looking in and trying to set things straight for myself and I don’t think of ‘I’m in my taxi or on a bus and I’m doing that and I look at somebody and see suffering or what have you, and it motivates me to sort of clear my head and remember things and to say mantras for them or whatever, I would consider that dharma practice. But then if you’d be to take refuge every morning anyway and then dedicate it at the end of the day, I would tend to think that anything positive that I would do, I’d hope that anything positive I would do would sort of go into the dharma practice category.

GR: Gordon, can you clarify why taking refuge is necessary?

Audience: Ehm…my thinking was that if you’re thinking that you are in a place where there is a lot of problems and you have these problems and you really want to change it, you really have to get to a point where you have a moment of faith that it’s possible to change it. And I think that refuge is involved in that. It’s not by taking refuge in the morning but the act of taking refuge in your believe that you can change it.

[Interaction]

If you feel that your inner situation is really bad and you have a lot of problems and if you believe in samsara and you want to get out of it, there has to be a moment of change in your mind where you believe that it is possible, or you say some way that it’s possible and then you act on that possibility. Seems like to be some sort of refuge that you have to go to before the point where you can act on your will to be free.

GR: Caroline?

Audience: When you say dharma practice you are talking about buddhist practice, right?

GR: That’s a question.

Audience: I guess I still feel you are.

GR: You feel I am…Okay… So, the terminology of dharma comes from buddhist terminology, right? In that way. But, what about a hindu practice or any other? What we understand out of the terminology of dharma, what do we understand? That is the important point, rather than what the word really means. And on the other hand, hindu also use the word dharmi, instead of dharma they use dharmi too. They very often say that dharmi […]

Audience: … Judeo-Christian practitioners do very positive things as are the Hindus, spiritually practicing and working for their spiritual development. When you classify that further to call it dharma practice that to me implies this is dharma practice and if you’re going to be involved in buddhist dharma practice you will take a refuge. You can do many positive things without taking refuge in the buddha, dharma and sangha. Then, whether or not you’ve done that that morning or prior to the action that you’re taking or the reduction of the negative action that you’re taking at that moment, whether you’re doing your dharma practice on your meditation cushion or do it in between sessions that you go on your daily life, that all comes down to what sort of dharma practice you are talking about. It is all a version of dharma practice but to really be doing dharma practice you would have taken refuge sometime previously. And you would be doing a particular sort of spiritual practice that relates to the buddhist way of doing things.

GR: In other words, you’re saying that the other work, whatever it is: Muslim or Judean or whatever it is, non-buddhist, would be treated as positive works but would not be treated as dharma practice. What do you think about that? Susy?

Audience: I think that hinduïsm believes in dharma as a truth, a way.

GR: That’s where the word dharmi comes in, yes.

Audience: […]

GR: That I don’t know. So… In order to become a buddhist practice the refuge-taking has to be necessary, I think. But otherwise for dharma or dharmi refuge might not be necessary. You’re right on the point…what Gordon was saying: When you need help and all this. There may be a refuge, but refuge might not be to buddha, dharma and sangha. You can say these kinds of things and it is all possible. But we need to understand something, a basic understanding of […]. We all say we practice the dharma, right? I’m sure.

0:18:15.9

But we really need to know what it is. Steve?

Audience: …Cho Atisha

GR: What does mean Cho? Would you use a word without knowing its meaning? What does cho mean?

Audience: …This most venerable master… Lord master, venerable master…

GR: Look in the dictionary. You should. You will probably find like an elder brother, or elder relation. Something like that. In a modern dictionaries might use the word as an earlier reference. But: Sort of personalized, closely touched, sort of linking with a close touch. Not like Rimpoche or precious, not that manner. Cho is close to that, you might find. That’s what cho is. Don’t forget to look. So, then: What does Atisha say, cho Atisha? Atisha is the name anyway. It is important sometimes not to use the word which you don’t know. That’s why I raise the question what dharma is. I really think we don’t know very well; truly what dharma is. Truth…Anyway, dharma is phenomena, right? If you look in the dictionary it’s phenomena. Anything is dharma. If you look in Sanskrit-English dictionary that’s what you’re going to find, for sure.

Audience: truth?

GR: Just anything. Anything existing is the dharma. From the dust to the dirt, everything is dharma in that way, in another meaning. So, you cannot say you cannot use dharma without knowing, but a lot of people use it without knowing. It is sort of common language now. What did Atisha say?

Audience: …if it doesn’t diminish self-cherishing attitude, it’s not dharma practice.

0:23:13.7

Gr: Does not diminish self-cherishing attitude, it is not dharma. That’s a big statement. Would you accept that?

Audience: …useful

GR: So, you say: If it does not diminish (lessen or make weak, right?) self-cherishing…What about the Theravadin practice? Are you going to say that all Theravadin practices are not dharma?

Audience: …meditation…

GR: Self-cherishing… You and I need to have a big discussion about what self-cherishing means. I leave you alone today. What does self-cherishing really mean? Is there any difference between self-cherishing and self-grasping? I think that’s a big point.

0:25:21.7

Anyway, we’ve been talking a lot, but I do not know. And as I told you earlier, I have no answers, okay? So, we share our thoughts here. I mean, to me it is different because I was brought up. Ever since I was a child, I was brought up in buddhist atmosphere and everything buddhist and all this. The surrounding was buddhist, so I have a totally different concept of dharma, which is not necessarily true, in general. Which is not necessarily true of what you think of it, right? For me, with my background, and what I understand of dharma, to me that is totally different then what you picture, maybe.

On the other hand: When you translate dharma into Tibetan what would the word be? What do you call dharma in Tibetan?

Audience: Chö

GR: There you go: Chö. What does chö mean? There are only two persons here that know Tibetan…I’m excluded.

Audience:

GR: What Tibetans eat is barley-flower-mixed doe, that’s called tar, normally. But in certain areas they call it ‘aloh’. So, when they say what does tar mean, they say no, it is aloh. The same terminology you just flip. That doesn’t mean anything. What does chö mean? We say that very often, right: Lama lakde chö. Sanghe lakde chö, Cho … What does chö mean?

Audience: …cutting off… to me: spiritual development….

GR: You were about to touch it but didn’t get it off. The chö is the past tense of chös. Not the cutting chö, but […] it means corrected. The past tense of Chös means corrected. Corrected what? That is really…that’s my background. When I look at dharma: Corrected… Corrected from what? Now it’s easy for you to say, right?

0:30:55.7

Corrected are our usual delusions. Getting away from our usual delusions. This is why we have all the habitual patterns and all this we talk…that’s what really needs correction. Corrections made on the persons relation to the phenomena. The individual and…me and my relation to all existence. I’m not calling it existent beings… all existence. That’s my way of thinking. And corrected from what? If we see a beautiful thing, a beauty, we attach. If we see an ugly, we dislike. This is the relation we build up automatically. We call it natural, insistent, whatever. People like to call it natural; it is…sort of: The mind will function by itself without any indication…instinct…I don’t know if it is natural or instinctual, but what is meant is our usual habit of our response to all the phenomena. If it is beauty we attach, if it is ugly, we hate. Like, dislike. That was the, I would like to call it habit. Long before we were born in this life, we have the same thing going on. So, what does chö? Correcting that, our usual way of functioning, it is trying to correct that. That’s what I get. So, in order to become a buddhist chö, then you have to take refuge to buddha, dharma and sangha. That is the buddhist key. And to become Mahayana chö then you have to have love-compassion and altruistic attitude. That is Mahayana key And if it is Vajrayana chö then it has to have the nature of emptiness and understanding of it and all this and transformation and so forth. That is Vajrayana key.

0:34:42.1

So, basically that is what I get into picture from my background that is exactly how…I’m not Sanskrit expert, nor Pali expert or Hindi either. But the word dharma equivalent in Tibetan is chö. That’s why they write here ‘cee age o with umlaut’ here, That word is the past sense of cho, which is correct. Corrected…

Audience: […] cut…

GR: The main point here is that you try to correct your attitude, your individual relation to all existence. Not only beings, but all existence. The relation of the individual and the existence, which is the basis of our functioning. Our like/dislike, virtue/non-virtue, good/bad, all of them are coming out of our relation with existence. You cannot cut that out because it is interrelated. There is no way you can cut that out. Interdependent even. So, what’s happening is how we function from there. That is the basic relation we build up. Here-there, the whole thing. That’s why people call it wrong view, dualistic, all sorts of things people write, and people talk and read about. We understand how, we don’t understand how and yet we keep on talking and doing all this, but fundamentally it was the relation between being here and other existences. We do have a relation even to this table, right. This is not a being, but we’re related. It feels nice, wonderful and I like to have it. So, we develop attachment even to the table, right? We feel it is nice and beautiful and seeing it breaking we say sorry, we claim it, all this. So, all this is actually a relation, and this is where the beginning of the functioning. There is no beginning, so functioning it is already, but if you trace it, I think that’s where it leads to. And that is where we go wrong or right. And that is the point where we look in. I believe.

0:39:14.8

I’m not an authority I’m telling you, but I think that’s where it begins.

Audience: You say you have to go in and look exactly at the way you relate to everything, is that what you’re saying? I’m not sure if I understand, how does one…Obviously you’re saying that through the spiritual practice this is the way that through the dharma practice or through these teachings one actually looks into the way you relate to all existence.

GR: Yeah, if you can it is great, but I don’t think we really can. We, sort of habitually relate to the things, without making anything specific or making anything aware. But there may not be time or there may not even be…eh, you can’t say wait I have to think, right. It happens automatically. And this sort of automatically relate to all the phenomena is our habit. Not a habit formed since we were born, but a habit we have been carrying for life after life. That’s where the whole thing goes right or wrong, on that point, I think. So, when we correct, when we have dharma or chö, when we correct, I think we correct on that angle. I believe this is the major key. Did you get me now? Is it a little more clear, or am I confused myself, totally?

Audience: I’m trying to get the next…

GR: Don’t push the next one. Don’t try to take the next step but see first what we see.

0:41:31.9

I think that word chö, which makes sense to me, you know, the dharma, for me it is from a language borrowed. Even dharma, forget what religion or whatever it is…even buddhism is borrowed language for me. But chö, somehow, I can relate to that word. I can get that word I can see what that word really means, what message it carries. And that’s what I ‘m trying to share. It is not something looking mysterious, something secret. But it is something how we relate to all existence outside. What do you think? And that includes existent beings, right? The articles are secondary, but the beings are more important. How we relate.

Audience: When the Hindus say that dharma means truth, they mean the difference of the way things really are, or the isness, distinguished from the way we perceive it. And trying to come closer and closer to perceiving it and accepting the way that they are without attachment and without delusion. Very, very difficult. And that’s what they meant. What makes it complicated, we were talking about it earlier tonight, that these words like truth in our language has six different meanings by itself. And what I found though that the more I do meditation and go inwards and sometimes being able to stop that loose ego for a while, then I ‘m able afterwards and after I have been here for a while, I’m able for a couple of days, I’m able to see things more just the way they’re there, without attachment without imbuing them with qualities that they don’t really possess. And to be more comfortable with just being. That’s why I come here.

GR: Great. But then if you go a little bit more beyond that you’ll see even more. I don’t think that what they are and what they are not should not concern much. I think you can still see a bit more behind that.

0:44:27.7

I think we begin at that level. That’s where we really begin. When we correct, we correct at that level and whether we are going to go right we begin there and make a right move and if we go wrong, we go wrong from there and make a wrong move. I believe that is the point. I think dharma or chö or correction, these words push around a little bit, but they’d really push us on that point. See what they are is the major point. That is the truth part of it. And we don’t see it. No matter how much we think but we don’t see it. No way. We will see the shapes and forms, we will hear the sound, we will feel the texture. We will do all this, but we don’t see it as it is. We don’t. We have overexaggerated and underexaggerated, so many of them we can clip them out and we may be able to see it. Even then I don’t call it seeing as it is. No way.

Audience: What I meant for myself is seeing the illusions and the way the illusions arrive, not all of it. I’m very much aware of being at the beginning, but because of seeing the illusions not getting so attached, and I’m talking at a very basic level to what we’re going towards. Everybody is saying we have to look at anger and how anger arises. So, I go to work, and everybody is angry with everybody, and the dean accuses me of losing something really important and the old me, if I hadn’t been to that lecture before I would have thought: ‘O this is terrible, and I have to defend myself and at least look like I’m trying to find this object.’ I would go into this chatter, mind-chatter, and I would have imbued everything with an importance that didn’t exist. And because I had meditated the night before there was just a point of just stopping and then just seeing this is what’s happening. There’s all this activity going on, people running around and being still in it. Being still in that activity. That’s what I mean. Not really seeing like the dean for what he really is but just being able to stop so that I don’t go running into an emotional upheavals and chatter and imbuing this thing that turned out to be really minor indeed and imbuing it with a lot of importance that it doesn’t possess. That’s the lever where I’m on and that’s where I am. It’s very good to be here, because in the old days I’d all get caught up in this stuff and it’s better not to have that.

GR: There’s a danger in that too. I must warn you too. The danger in that is that it’s getting lukewarm for everything. ‘Nothing… doesn’t matter. Whether people get upset, doesn’t matter, that’s their problem. I’m not going to interfere with that. I’m not going to play with you. If people get happy, that’s their problem. I’m not going to work with you too.’ That’s also a possibility. I’m not saying you are, but there is the possibility of becoming a lukewarm.

Lukewarm is a problem. The hot must be hot, and the cold must be cold. They cannot be lukewarm. So, you cannot lose the hot and the cold. Then you lose the fundamental. It should be lukewarm. But hot should not be burning you, the cold should not be freezing you. That is the point. Hot should be hot, cold should be cold and cold doesn’t freeze you and hot doesn’t burn you, that’s where we have to look. And make sure it doesn’t become lukewarm.

0:49:38.7

Some of the great meditators will lose that point. The hot and the cold lose their value, and everything becomes lukewarm, comfortable and then, no matter how much you say, it doesn’t really make sense. They always find a way of looking some different way. That is going to become a problem The positive has become too positive, and the negative becomes… Persons that look in positive point become always positive, positive. No matter how negative it may be. I’m glad I got the ticket but I’m not… That is the true positive point of it. That is another thing.

Actually, what the Tibetan buddhism really emphasizes. Somehow in the Western way of thinking when you apply it on Tibetan buddhism is: Always try to balance. Every single point, wherever you look, the major point is that they try to balance. Balancing becomes so important. The moment you lose balance you are off the track. Balancing the suffering and the pleasure, the good and the bad, the positive and the negative. I think that balancing is really important. Because if you’re over-positive the negative makes no sense. And it is totally losing one side of reality. If you’re over-negative you’re making everybody miserable. That’s losing the other side. So, it is really important to balance it.

Audience: It’s like balancing on a razors-edge. It’s really, really hard to do.

GR: It is hard to do! If it was not hard everybody would have done it. And our problems are not being able to balance it. What we were talking about in the beginning: Our relations with, not with beings, but with every existence, are right or wrong because of going off-balance.

0:52:48.9

True, we attach because off-balance. We hate because we’re off-balance. Yeah. When we’re off-balance, in English we use attachment exaggerated, anger exaggerate. We say that, right. What does that mean. We’re give a picture of something, what you wanted to see in that is more than what it really has. Right? So, that means the individual is thrown off the balance, again. From that angle we can even say the chö corrects the balance. The chö/dharma corrects the balance. From that angle we can say that. I don’t mean, if you ask any Tibetan does chö mean balancing? Nobody will say that. They’ll say its’s craze, who told you that crazy thing? But if you look from that angle, I think it is. Really. If you disagree with me, fine. That’s definitely within your right. If you want to argue with me, fine. I can defend my own. That’s not that difficult for me.

0:54:47.0

I really believe… I sort of keep on thinking that from the western mind angle of it, it is always balancing. Really. From wherever you look: From the beginning level, even from refuge-taking, even from meditating on the suffering, up through the enlightenment level, it is balancing. You can’t go this much, you can’t go that much, you have to be in some kind of center, you have to go. So, it always balancing it. The moment we lose the balance, we’re off the track. Even for a concentrated meditation we have to balance. We have to balance, not too much, not too tight, not too relaxed. Again, you have to balance in between that. Or you have to balance that going up or down of the object. If you have a problem of wondering you have to put it down, if you have a problem of sinking you have to raise it up. Again, that’s balancing. And emptiness is [the] balancing-point. It definitely is the balancing-point. It is the point of balancing that you find. That’s why you hear that emptiness is not empty. If it’s empty, you’re going on one side. If it’s existing, you’re going to another side. So, it’s balancing point. Even the bodhimind, the love-compassion, is balancing-point. When you lose the balancing point, then people start raising me questions. Very often people say: Yeah, it is very good that I’m here to do that, but wouldn’t that be against my commitment of servicing for the others? Wouldn’t that be a little bit of my self-interest over others. Things like that I hear. Again: They’re losing balance. They don’t know the line. Yes, love-compassion, altruistic, for the benefit of all sentient beings, but not at the expense of the individual either. So, when you lose that balance, then again that’s what’s happening. When you become more and more a great bodhisattva then your balance is going to be shifting more and more. Do you know what I mean?

0:57:54.8

Yes: At the beginning level your balance-point is here: I can give this much, but I can’t give this much. Then, if I give this much my balance will lose. Later, when you develop you become balanced over here. Then your balance can be moved here, can be moved here. The bodhisattvas, for them, like a buddha in the form of a bodhisattva could catch the […] and feed the tiger and make the tiger to leave. That is the balance for that guy! But it is not balance for me. I can’t do that. The balance point will change with the level where you are. I do not know, from that angle, if you look, that’s what it is. Even on the meditation: If you meditate too much suffering and if you don’t do any meditation of joy. What will happen? We know that very well. And if you have too much joy’s, everything is wonderful and you don’t have suffering, what happens? We know that very well too. So, it is the balancing-point. The word chö, correcting: What do we correct? Officially we should say: Correct our way of handling delusions. Not letting the delusions handle us, we handle them. That’s again balancing. So, I will say for practical purpose, but I would go to the extent of saying chö means correction of balance, even. Correct what? Correct your balance.

It is, we are the basis on what is happening the positive and the negative, virtue and non-virtue, is the one, the other two are playing on us. So, the forces we want, what we have to do is to play with that. It’s interesting. Just thought. Maybe I’m misleading you, hopefully not, but I think it is. Never thought of looking from the balance angle, right? But when we go through like this it goes through all the way. And then there are so many angles. Today we look from the balance-angle only. If you look from the angle of the balance every dharma practice has to be balanced.

1:01:25.4

It was what buddha taught, buddha experienced, went through it, but he didn’t say balanced, right. He provided all of them: Not too much this, not too much that. Why? It’s balancing. Normally what is happening is our delusions and anger etcetera are so strong that the opposite of it is sort of pushing one side completely down. Like self-cherishing is too strong for us. So, all the bodhisattva things come and completely smash it in that manner. But on the other hand, they definitely told you the balancing of it. We didn’t look from that angle. It is very interesting. To me at least. If you look at dharma from the balancing point of view. I believe that will make people to ground too. Be able to see as it is and be able to let it be. It’s there and just be there and be able to use it. Anyway, maybe I’m wrong…or maybe not. It’s for you to think, at least.

Audience: More like integration than balance. Because sometimes, when I think of balancing like hot and cold, balance would in some contexts mean lukewarm! But if you mean integration…I’m just a little bit confused with balance.

GR: I thought I made it quite clear here. Not exaggerating, not under-estimating, not too much, not too little, everything has to be done on that way. Even meditation. Integration: Where and how you integrate is also a very balanced way. Or how you look into it: When we look at where do we get attachment. Tell me, how do you get attachment? We know that; we explored on that. How do we get attachment? We look at some nice young guy and I say: Hey, I’m gonna attach on that. I’m going to fall for that person, right. How would you do that? You’d say: Oh, he’s beautiful, he’s tall, he’s young, he’s strong, what else? Nice, kind, understanding me, special person, go on and on and you build up. And the more you build the more you fall into it, right? And certain qualities will definitely be there, but not as much as you projected on that. So, you’re over projecting it, which means you’re losing the balance.

1:05:08.7

Audience: …. lukewarm…relax and everything is okay…trying to help…what you can do in that situation instead of sitting back…

GR: I forgot, recently somebody told me, one of us here, somebody whose mother or somebody was sick and dying and the daughter goes there and says: You’re going to die because you don’t eat right and this and that. Wasn’t it something like that? Didn’t eat right, something. A very strange thing: The person is bound to die, maybe in at most two days, and instead of going through, giving help, she says: naturally you’re going to die, you ate the wrong thing, you smoke, you drink coffee, you did this and that so naturally that’s what you’re gonna get. That is… the person maybe expressing truly, but somebody says ‘you can’t do that. Did you do that?’ ‘Yeah, but I can’t tell her a lie, I tell her truth.’ That’s again off the balance. Is it too extreme? What purpose will it serve. What will that help to give a long lecture to a dying person. Probably she’s going to die, and it becomes some kind of thing we think during the time of dying, or following thereafter we see: Of course, by all means. It is not that the lecture was given twenty years ago ’what you did is wrong’. So, somebody who’s bound to die, and we keep that, from the viewpoint of being true it is a loss of balance.

A lot of those things are there. And we do have a lot of problems. So yeah, I can do this. This is my benefit. However, I’ll be cheating it, maybe. I may be taking advantage of it. I may be doing this, doing that. That is again off the balance. In other words, normally we say ‘where you draw the line, right? But actually, where you draw the line is where the balance is. That’s where you draw the line.

1:09:27.4

That’s where you draw the line. Normally we say, ‘Where do we draw the line?’ And we don’t know. So now it is clear: Where the balance is, there we draw the line. If we’re losing the balance, it’s not. For example: Say I wanted to help but the person is not willing to accept that at all. Totally irritated. So that doesn’t make sense. ‘Or think that way!’ and another way comes up and he gets more irritated. That is again you’re losing balance. That’s how much you go, how much you don’t go. Of course, we’re committed to help, to service, to benefit and all this, but also you have to limit. The limit is the balancing point. I think that is very important to recognize.

Somehow, from one angle we look, and I really thought about it, and it is really: a lot of balancing points in the teachings. I didn’t look, this fellow, didn’t look from the angle of balancing. Really. I thought ‘Oh, that’s knowing, that’s what the Buddha said, that’s what the book says, that’s what my teacher said, that’s what I did. And then thought: Why do they stop here? And I thought: The balancing point. If you look from the balance angle, I think we begin to judge where it goes. Okay?

1:11:37.4

Anything else?

What is it? Is it hot? Why? What happened?

[Interaction]

So. When you practice the dharma, not only do we look how to meditate, how to say mantra, how to sit. But we also have to think how to balance. And then the level of balancing changes. Did I tell you: Earlier we had a problem, even a person like me: Take generosity? Example of generosity. If you have to give an extra shirt to somebody it will pinch. So, our balance is at that level. And afterwards, it doesn’t matter, you can give everything. Doesn’t matter, give it all. That doesn’t pinch you. That means your balance has moved up. And after a little while the bodhisattvas don’t have any problem to give their body or anything. When I say give the body, I don’t mean give the body and give blood Hahahah or let the tiger eat their body or whatever. In that manner. If you look into the Chandra Kirti, he has said: To those bodhisattvas who are giving their life and body.’ In that manner’. It’s just like for us giving a piece of green vegetables to somebody. Equal to that level they don’t have that much hesitation. Which clearly shows the individual capacity has moved. When the capacity has moved, the balancing point has moved. For us, if we have to give life and cut a knife here and feed the tiger, it is not right. We don’t have that balance yet. Whether we say, ‘The person has reached high level’, The person can be balancing at a different point. Isn’t that funny? It is. Really. That’s what I thought. The point of the balancing has been shifting from the giving of a shirt to giving a piece of flesh. The feeling of the individual and the capacity of the individual shifting. For that individual’s balancing point has been shifting.

1:15:40.5

Did you get it?

Audience: I heard what you said. I’m not sure I understand that a bodhisattva can give more, their balancing point is vaster, because it gives them less suffering.

GR: They don’t have a hesitation to give. And that doesn’t lose them much.

Audience: …experience hesitation, then, are you…

GR: Not to give. Not to give. Yes. That’s the point where you are not to give.

Audience: …change your mind?

GR: Then you change your mind, that’s fine. The point of hesitation is the point of where you give. You know generosity is the cause of becoming wealthy and rich and all this. However, the moment you have hesitation it doesn’t work. However, the moment you hope [for return], it doesn’t work. So, that’s where you draw the line. You hesitated, and that’s that. And if you break through, change your mind and break through, that’s great: You moved a step forward. That’s what it is.

1:17:38.1

Not because giving is great. No matter how much you…you have to give, give, give, no! That is losing the balance. Really, I mean it. That is losing the balance. And when you lose the balance, it causes another different reaction afterwards. Instead of helping it will become something else, harm even. Then you stand: I did, did, did, did, did, but nobody honored me, nobody acknowledged this and that. And all these things come up because the balance is lost.

1:18:42.3

[Interaction]

Audience: …imbalance…giving… receiving

GR: For receiving there is no problem Hahahah! As long as you keep receiving, you keep receiving! Hahahah! For giving there’s a problem. You know why?

Audience: … giving … […] Limitations

GR: Yes, we have limitations. Limitation of what.

Audience: …at the expense of …

GR: Yeah, that is the point. But to some people it is not going to harm at all, but even then, they don’t want to give. ‘Oh, I’m giving too much. It is not going to harm me at all, but I’m giving too much’. So, they have a giving problem. But they can receive. There’s no problem there. Why

Audience: … doesn’t take any energy to receive.

GR: Why?

Audience: Why does it take energy to give?

GR: And why doesn’t it take energy to receive?

A: When you receive, you’re passive.

A2: What if you receive something you don’t want?

A: If it’s something you don’t want you put some energy into that.

A3: …continuum…

GR: Receiving that what you wanted you’re getting, so you don’t have to put effort. But giving is, you have to cut it out, so you have a problem. I do not know if you have to have energy or not… for giving. But then somebody is telling you ‘It’s enough!’, somebody’s telling you ‘No!’, inside. That is the problem.

A.: No

GR: How do I make this more clear? Your question is very clear, no problem… In giving we do receive a limit. The limit is not the material limit of what we give, but it is the limit of our attachment to certain things, or money, or whatever. We have a strong attachment. That one is the one that holds back the individual. So, you have to fight with that and that’s why you have to put much more energy on it. For receiving it is building it up here, you don’t have to put that much energy in it. As you said. That’s just because you like grabbing it.

1:23:23.9

But on the other hand, receiving also has a problem. If you receive beyond your capacity, it is not right. Not right in the sense that you have to, you owe them. Even if it is totally given, you owe them. You will pay in your future lives out of your flesh and blood. That is not that easy, huh?

Audience: Sometimes receiving isn’t easy at all. Like the person you try to give all this stuff and he gets more and more annoyed with you. Or they don’t, they won’t receive what you’re trying to give. Maybe in some circumstances they should take it, in some circumstances they’re right not to take it.

GR: That’s true. But I’m just simply looking into the point where somebody gives money… You have to give money because they have a problem. If you have to receive money, people don’t get that many problems of receiving money. They don’t appreciate, but that’s a totally different question, totally. The person is looking for something but when you give you give with hope of receiving reciprocation, or some kind of attitude or gratitude. And then the giving has gone wrong. Totally. Buddha’s main point is {Tibetan]: The main point of giving is not hope of returning, not hope of getting back anything. That’s what you do.

1:25:43.4

Anyway. That’s also the balancing point. Even receiving… you were right. Receiving also has a balancing point.

Audience: You said that when you feel that tinge, don’t give. But, what’s the sign on the receiving?

GR: Well, there is no sign. You have to see if you can digest or not. Digest. [Tibetan] Very funny in Tibetan, but I don’t think westerners will understand. I don’t know why. It says: A peacock can go into the forest and take certain poison. And they digest and it is good for them. But if a crow goes there and eats the same poison because the peacock ate it, the crow dies. Does that make sense in the West? A lot of people told me that the peacock doesn’t eat poison. A lot of people told me. Really. I think I mentioned it once and everybody looked at me and laughed: ‘That doesn’t do here!’

Audience: …peacocks are able to eat certain things that are poisonous to other animals. I’ve read that that’s true.

GR: You might have read in the Tibetan texts Hahahah. But anyway, we have a very strong point and that’s where we draw the line. The peacock and the crow…that is the line where the receiving points is, actually.

Audience: The other part of the story was that it’s actually the brilliant colors of the peacock…

GR: That’s from a different angle. Result of the poison, yes. [Tibetan] The peacock’s beauty is the rejuvenation of what the peacock received out of the poison. They get that beautiful. And if some people didn’t get the poison, they don’t get the big…It is the male peacock right, who puts this thing up.

Audience: But the point that you’re able to digest, take in and transform non-virtue into virtue, right?

GR: Transform is a different question. Question of digest. The moment you cannot digest you have to pay. You pay out of your flesh and blood of your future lives. I’m not talking about business. Business is totally different. I’m simply talking about give and take. You call that ‘the limit where you don’t pay on flesh and blood’. Maybe, but you may be able to pay in a different way. That is the difference. There you can digest. But whenever you give, you created karma of giving so therefore you will collect in the future. [Tibetan] The buddha has recommended the karma to take rebirth as a human being. The next immediate to that is the generosity. Buddha recommended because if you are totally poor like the Indian coolies, the American poor are not poor. They’re not poor. They are acknowledged as poor because they say it’s poor, but it’s not poor at all. Look at the Indian coolies and you’ll know what poor is: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, cold or hot, raining or not, standing on the railway station, running after every person and carrying unlimited amounts of weight, three, four, five boxes on the head they carry! Those who’ve been to India have seen them, right? And even on top of that, people shout: ‘Get this way! Go that way!’ They shout at them. And when they are tired and want to sit, they’re kicked! And then they get it over there and put on the train. They will give you two rupees for it. And you have to say: ‘Oh it’s too little’ and they will give another more. And that’s what you get: like 10 cents. And that’s what you do 24 hours a day, 7 day a week, from the day you become a coolie until you become sixty of seventy or you collapse. That’s what you do. That is really poor. Compared with that, American poor are not poor at all, they’re rich! Really. It is your karma, the American people’s common karma. It is the result of your previous generosity, collectively as well as individually. That’s what has happened. It is.

So that man over there has no time to sleep, no time to do anything, no time to practice. No time to do anything. Then, Buddha said, when that happens and there’s no opportunity, pleasure, happiness, therefore generosity is the first priority to follow immediately after the cause of having a human life it should also have the generosity work in there otherwise things will not work. [Tibetan] That’s the reason…

1:34:00.3

So, let us summon up. We talked of dharma. Dharma here means actually correcting our individual approach our relation to all, whatever it is. If you are exaggerating: turn it down,

If you underestimating: Raise it up. Try to approach as it is. It is not easy. Our way of approaching anything should not have the influence of anger, attachment, then we see better. What we approach now is a […]-approach, from influence from either this or that. Correct that. That is the main point. That is the real dharma and that’s the beginning point and that’s where you’re going to end it also. Look in that manner. That’s that. Thank you.