Archive Result

19901030GRAATNT

Speaker: Gelek Rimpoche

Location: Ann Arbor

Topic: Tuesday Night Teaching

Transcriber: Vincent Wuisman

Date: October 30, 1990

GR: Well, you have been, some of you are, been coming on these Tuesdays for some time, and some of you coming for the first time. Some of you are leaving the Tuesdays open for people to come in and just see to be in here. So, we are getting very different things on the Tuesday. Ehm…

Most important thing that we are trying to do here is that we are trying to get individuals acquainted with the practice of the dharma. Not much of dharma itself I guess, as it is. But we try to get mostly ‘Why is it necessary?’ to have a spiritual practice. Though, everyone who comes here do know some reason, somehow, that they need to be connected with the dharma and we’re trying to talk mostly here about Why it is necessary. But many of us who are here is a spiritually oriented person, so therefore definitely there’s a reason why you wanted to be acquainted with the spiritual practice and want individually to develop something. You think you probably know the reason, most of us. However, if we begin to examinate very carefully within our mind, the ground on which we wanted to have a spiritual development also we have to see how strong it is. I think these are important. A Lot of people do like to have a spiritual development and want to do something but they’re also looking for some kind of easy way. Who does not want easy way?

0:02:38.2

Everybody wants easy way, no doubt. But however, some people think too easy way. Something like that, like a normal church in this part of the country, this part of the world. What they do is: They go to church and say some prayers and that’s about it. Something like being nice and good, kind guy or person. So be happy about it and that’s about it. They think ‘Well I’ve taken care of my spiritual part of it.’ I think that some people I crossed think that way. And a number of others doesn’t even care. That’s totally different story. But those who care will also have a limited feeling like ‘Okay, on Sundays I go there, whenever I can, and say a prayer and that’s about it.’ That’s a very good thing. I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s a good thing. No doubt. But the question rises to me: Is that enough? Is it enough? So, to so many people, they try to make it enough. They say: ‘Well that’s what I did and that’s what I can do and that’s that. And that’s taking care of my spiritual needs.’

0:04:25.1

So, that rise the question probably: What do you mean with spiritual development? What kin of development are we looking at? What do you want? There must be a little problem on that. Perhaps I don’t know what the Americans say ‘spiritual development’ I do not know what they have in mind, maybe. But to me, I was born in Tibet and brought up, when we talk about spiritual development, we’re talking about something really big. It’s serious business. Not a simple little thing that one can just go to a place of worship and say a few nice words or feel that you sort of connected. Is that sufficient? To me it’s not sufficient. Why? To me the spiritual means something you have to develop within the individual. It’s not a singular thing that sort of hits you on the head and then you’re blessed. It’s not. It’s more than that. That may help, but it’s much more than that. Much more so, it sort of constantly grows within the individual. When it is constantly growing within the individual it, sort of, fights back the obstacles that come on the way of growing the individual development. So constantly fighting back or protecting the individual from getting influenced by the obstacles.

0:07:13.5

Obstacles to develop one individual to better or higher spiritually, is number one: Within us is anger, equal to that is attachment, equal to that is hatred. Buddha called them the three poisons. Normally when we get influenced ourselves through this, the addiction of the anger, attachment, is so powerful that it almost overpowers an individual completely. All the time, by one thing or another. When we observe our life, when we are mixing with society, socializing with different people, or when we are sitting by ourselves alone, when we are retreating, almost all the time, if we observe very carefully ourselves our pure thoughts and pure beings’ expression is very, very limited. We get so much influence of either anger or attachment. Too extreme of either one makes ourself very unhappy and uneasy. Which normally, what I notice here, our friends call that ‘Going through hard times’.

0:10:20.3

The hard time…is definitely given by ourself to ourself. We all know it, but we can’t help it. Even though ourselves give it to ourselves. Why can’t we help it? Because the root of that, there’s either attachment or anger. If it is anger at the root, anger moving, the main engine, the people get a long face. Doesn’t matter to whom you’re angry, to another person, to the individual. Many people nowadays are getting angry to themselves, to himself or herself. That anger somehow influences the individual. Makes it very uneasy, almost so uncontrollable that you have to scream. Some people go beyond that, unable to sleep, unable to function, all of them.

0:13:14.3

That sometimes, may be able to help if you have a strong attachment. Strong attachment sometimes moves that up. Because the effect of the attachment pushes the person up. The affect of anger pulls down. In reality ultimately both of them pull down, however, it looks one pushes up and one pulls down. I was talking to somebody a few days ago, and out of the conversation suddenly somebody said: ‘Oh, it needs to be loved and cared.’ So, I started to think what needs to be loved and cared. Was it you I was talking to? No. Somebody told me. I think it was on the telephone. She said: It needs to be loved and cared. That made me think and stopped me for a minute. What do you mean by that? And I began to realize sometimes attachment balances the anger affect. It does. It balances the anger effect to the individual. And anger balances the attachment. But in reality, both make the individual suffer. Not only suffer. The suffering part is no big deal. That’s always part of life and it’s there. But the big deal is, it destroys one’s peace and creates a lot of different karmas. And destroys the peace, that is really very … […] Not only that. It also pulls the individual away from his spiritual development. That’s the worst part of it. Pulls away from the spiritual development. That’s why these are called obstacles

0:16:12.4

Now the question is how we can handle those. And that’s the biggest problem too. This is not an easy thing. Especially when somebody is going through under the pressure of anger or hatred or even attachment, it is very difficult to apply antidote on that. It is very difficult. Buddha always provided antidotes. Always. But it is sometimes very difficult. When you look at it, when you ask, when you read Buddhist texts, talk to the teachers, they will tell you what the antidote of anger is, they will tell you it’s patience. They will tell you it is very clearly written it is repeatedly stated. It’s a true fact. However, when you have to tell a person who is very angry and upset ‘patience is the antidote’, probably you will get another slap across the face. They get angrier and it’s very difficult. And we, even knowing for ourselves patience is the antidote, but I try my best to keep patient, but I can’t do it. That’s the difficulty people experience. And when it’s strong it is very hard to be patient. So, what do you do? How does patience work against anger?

0:18:22.7

When these sort of, the reason why I am talking is that the minute you stop saying your mantra and Migtsema and open this book, I found one word in there and that’s where I started. That word says: “When the delusion is very strong within the individual, the individual should not try to apply the antidote.’ Should not…So though the antidote of anger is patience but if you try to apply it on there it’s very hard to do that. So, what do you do? The first, priority recommended, is to reduce the power of these delusions. Reduce the power of anger. How? Anger is burning much more, so how can you reduce? When one individual is so angry how can we reduce the anger? You have to find a balancing point. Something to balance it. Whatever it takes. Balancing

0:20:55.6

I’m thinking of something else, but I should not be saying it here. Whatever it takes to balance you should try to balance. And the most practical way to do that is first to recognize and try to be aware of it. Try to recognize that you are angry. Or try to recognize that you are influenced by anger. It will take a hell of a time, but the moment you recognize the unnoticed burning, powerful power of anger, there is immediately, put some kind of control over there, some kind of block; the moment you recognize, and you will notice the burning power is reduced. You’ll feel embarrassed or…two of them. You see, if I behave in this manner how embarrassing it is. I’m creating bad karma. This is bad. Using oneself as a reason and acknowledging. Or using others as a reason. If I behave like this and other people came to know about it, how terrible it would be. If you use either one of these reasons, both of these will work. It is not a great thing, but it works. Why it is not a great thing? Because you don’t want to project yourself, your ego. You don’t want people to judge you as an angry person. You don’t want people to look at you [like that]. You want to protect you from those sorts of things. So, it might not be a great reason, but it helps. Not only for anger, it helps for all our wrong behavior. Any wrong behavior, you say: Why, If I act like this it is not good for me. Sometimes you feel yourself a little bit embarrassed and you have to put your head down a little bit. So, that helps.

0:24:06.7

And the moment the burning power, anger or any other thing, using these two things…Is it clear to you?... When I say using oneself as a reason or using others as a reason, I am saying this because in the Tibetan tradition they divided these two. The direct translation into English would be: One is called Shame and the other is called what?

Audience: both are shame

Gr: In Tibetan they are divided into two. They call this separate mental faculties. It makes a very important point. It sounds funny when you say it in English, but it is used as a very important faculties to protect oneself from those powerful anger, attachment, hatred, as well as unnecessary gossip. I think in English it probably is more or less ‘I caught myself while I’m doing that’ That’s the expression you use. I noticed people using that. I caught myself. Or you say, when I give reasoning, the person acknowledges and recognizes. So, When we’re doing something wrong, sometimes we catch ourselves. Without anybody else telling you you’re doing wrong. Sometimes people will try to tell you: Look what you’re doing. Can’t you see yourself? And then you begin to get it. On this principal embarrassment was used on top of it. In that principle, catching yourself and our mind can sometimes be very funny, so suddenly you realize ‘Oops’ and you sort of embarrass yourself. You do that. I’m sure you all get that. I do. Think of the funniest thing and then get yourself embarrassed. You get that. And it’s a little embarrassed because nobody knows, only I know. But if somebody else knows about it you’d be more embarrassed.

0:27:55.1

These are the two most important reasons you can use to be aware of your own behavior. But this is not going to help when you’re angry. No way. It is impossible and think ‘I’m going to kill that person, or something’ when you’re jumping on that manner, it is impossible to use those reasons. But sometimes you can catch yourself and sometimes your mind can influence and get that. And the moment you recognize you’re angry or you’re making gossip, or you’re lying, or you are influenced by strong attachment, so you’re blinded, all these sorts of things, when you notice that, the moment you notice you’ll be able to pull back. And the moment you pull back and noticed, that power of anger or these delusions is almost gone. And then it is a subject. You may be able to apply the antidote. For example: The direct antidote for anger is patience. But it is very difficult to apply patience. Even if the anger power is 50% down. So, what you do is you apply love-compassion. Love-compassion for the person who you’re angry at, or just avoid that and think of somebody else and try to develop love-compassion attitude. The love-compassion attitude, the moment you are able to think about that it will balance a little more and then the anger power will be again reduced.

0:30:12.9

That’s how you…I mean this is very, very difficult. But that’s how you handle this problem. And then the patience…you have to apply when you’re not angry. When you think, you are going to get angry, then the patience should be applied as a sort of precaution. As well as every day you sit, when you’re not angry. All these antidotes you have to use every day. You have to have some kind of acquaintance. It should become part of your practice. And if that becomes it begins to influence your mind. When it begins to influence your mind, you’ll begin to notice: You should have gotten angry, but you did not. In normal circumstances I would be breaking the plates, throwing them against the wall. But I did not. I really didn’t get angry. I felt the funny and I looked at it. I’ve seen it as an interesting thing. Something like that, people tell that, very often. This has become possible because of your practice. Your practice of the patience when you’re not angry, effects your mind and your mind becomes much more tolerant than usual and that’s how it is pushing the anger power away from you.

0:32:19.0

Similarly, the attachment, similarly ego. All of these antidotes you apply when you’re not influenced. What do we normally do here? Especially the American people… They always look for solutions when they are under pressure. You’re not interested to find an antidote for anger until you recognize, and you feel the pain and pinch of the anger. You’re not interested. You don’t care. But when you feel the pinch of the anger then you begin to care and look for antidote solution. And then you get a little better and you forget! That’s why we lose our control all the time to the delusions. I call them delusions because we are unable to protect ourself. Number one: We don’t care when we are not feeling the pinch. And when you feel the pinch very hard and you look for solutions, the solution may not work very well. Because of the power of the delusion. It may help but may not work very well. Then, say you find a little help and that pinch is reduced a little bit, then we forget about it until another attack comes. That makes us loose control over the delusions. So, the person who is interested in the spiritual path and the person interested to make oneself happy, even, normal practice should be when you are not being influenced by those, normally normal practice should have love-compassion, patience, and seeing the faults of the attachments. If you have that part of your mind as a daily practice, somehow your mind, you yourself are very well informed. After all what is meditation? Meditation to you people it might be very mystic and very romantic. A little mystery about it. However, to me it is nothing but getting my mind used to a certain way. That’s really true. Wherever you look. People may make it very secret and make it very mystical and a grand way. People do present it like that. But what you’re really doing is taking the mind in a certain direction and letting the mind get used to it.

0:36:34.1

To me…normally people use the technical term for meditation, all these positive points, right? But you can also do negative meditation. A friend of mine is a very daily politician in Ladakh. He was a minister and chairman of a syndicate. A very, very, poor person, when he first joined politics and now, he has multi-million dollars and probably became the richest person in Ladakh. I know him. As a person he is very nice. There is one great teacher called [Pagula] Rinpoche. He’s very good. Excellent. The Indian prime minister Nehru when he wanted to develop Ladakh he didn’t know what to do so he asked [Pagula] Rinpoche to meet in Ladakh and becoming Ladakhi representative in Kashmir government and later in Indian government. Nehru brought [Pagula] Rinpoche into politics. Rinpoche standing election and all these sorts of things going on. And Salom Onjeh (that’s his name) was the person who was planning behind. So, he’s a politician. Once he told me: When Rinpoche was starting at first because of Nehru, he was so poor he didn’t have any clothes to wear. And they had to go to various places to make campaign and all this. He used to dig in the ground and put himself in the ground! That’s how he said he’d keep himself warm. And he gave me the example of some birds that do that. They dig in the ground. And Ladakh is very cold in the winter. Much colder than Michigan. There’s no heating system at all. So, he used to dig in the ground and sit in there at night. Then he told me: As much as [Pagula] Rinpoche, is sitting inside, praying, saying his mantras and doing his commitments and teaching people dharma, that much I sit outside and plan the projects! Really, he said: [Pagula] Rinpoche is sitting inside, saying his mantras, taking hours and hours, that much I will sit down here, and I will concentrate on how I will speak, how I will ask Rinpoche to speak about it and how to approach this or that person. He said: I will think on that and meditate on that! Rinpoche meditates on the Buddhist practice, and I meditate on that! And that’s true…So he has become perfect about it. Really: The most shrewd politician! Never defeated in election. He meditates on his political activities and as much as Rinpoche meditates… He works with Rinpoche, right? Because the political party made him work for Rinpoche. Rinpoche is Rinpoche in Ladakh. People have high respect. And this fellow can be able to manipulate whatever here and there, so Rinpoche spends hours a day sitting inside and doing his meditation and prayers. And he sits in the next room, planning how to do his politics. He told me: As Rinpoche sits in there I go and sit in the next room, close the door and meditate, how to do the politics.

0:41:32.3

He doesn’t even know how to say properly Ohm Mani Padme Hum. I mean, he can say that, but…he doesn’t know what it means. Nothing. But then he sits there hours meditating how he will do. And het gets success. So, meditation, nobody used that term and then, sort of introducing it today. Always make meditation is something very important and secret style of thing, but it depends on why you use it. It is a kind of technique. The technique that makes the mind getting used to it. Bringing on certain ways. You may say: Is this hypnotizing? No. That’s definite. But mind getting used to it, in certain directions. That’s what it is. And when you’re getting more and more used to the right direction, you’ll be more and more comfortable with that. And when you become more and more comfortable in the right direction you become discomfortable. You develop dislike in this comfort, to the other side. So that’s what it is. So, similarly, and that’s the principle, you apply anything as far as I know. That is the basic principle. That is key. To really applying, really whatever. So, if you want to treat people from certain wrong ways of doing it. And that’s what you do. Right? If you want to treat alcoholics or drug addicts, you have to make the people see to get to the other direction. I was talking to two ladies, yesterday morning, who came to visit. They said they were doing the drug treatment and I asked: “What do you do?” Substance abusers you call it here, right? I said, ‘You just cut them off of it and don’t give them at all.’ Hèhèhè. That’s not the way to do it, I know, but I’m not in the position to tell them. In Thailand they will do totally different. In Thay monasteries they treat the substances abuse-people. They have some really funny grass, herbs better, to give them. It is grass actually. Our friends had some of this tea as a grass-tea. It is grass. Totally grass

Audience: Roots

GR: Oh yeah that’s right. Kukicha is root, right? Hahahah. Or either you drink grass, leaves or root, that’s what it is. So, they have some herbs to give. And that herb somehow makes the people sick tremendously. Sick. They remove all their rights and bring them to the monastery. Or they come voluntarily to the monastery. Or they’ll take of their rights, and you have nothing to do. Thay take off everything, even clothes, identity, everything. Then they really more or less abuse you completely and make you do all sorts of funny things and then give you that thing to drink. And it makes you sick. Terrible. They throw up like anything. All these people throw up. Wauwawah! You see fifty people at a time, there. They make you throw up for ten, fifteen days. And they try to get everything out of your system completely. And after that they don’t even want to touch it. They don’t even like the smell of it. They go to that extend, to do it.

So, that is another way. Again, they’re doing it and making forcefully make it to dislike it and introducing to the other side and letting it get used to it. So, whether you do dharma or politics, whatever it is, the way is to bring the individual closer to the point. What you want it to do. And adopt that part of you, that’s what it is. The meditation really meaning: Bringing closer to the point. Getting it used to it, to yourself. And then taking effect.

0:46:52.7

It sounded that I made meditation very cheap. But it is. You can meditate on a very important subject. You can meditate on emptiness and develop seeing the true reality, or you can meditate on your enemy and develop your anger to the ultimate power, or you can meditate your girlfriend or boyfriend’s face or body and develop ultimate attachment. That is attained then. Very simple. So, spiritually you use that technique at bringing yourself to the betterment. Seeing the faults of anger, seeing the faults of attachment and seeing the benefit of non-anger, anger less, attachment less. Seeing it clearly and then bring yourself close to it. That is spiritual meditation. Spiritual upliftment Spiritually bringing yourself closer to the higher level, whatever you may call that.

That’s what it is. The important thing is recognizing. What brings what? And what is good for ourselves and what is bad? And how do we know? That is the tricky part of it. We don’t have that much wisdom power within us to be able to judge what is right and what is wrong. Very hard. So, we look back, look up to the previous… After all what does historical fact mean? Historical fact means, show you what you can do or what you cannot do in the future. Right? You did all learn these lessons. All the blahblahblah. That is historical facts try to tell you how, to guide in the future. Our experience of the past… mystic or correct, is the guidance for the future, isn’t it? Is there something wrong with that? I don’t think so. That’s exactly what we do, right? We don’t call that history; we call that experience. ‘I experience this’ an ‘according to my experience’ we say, right. Making it sound different. But you can also say, ‘According to the history I went through.’

Audience: School of karaknath…

GR: Oh… So, this is what we do. We look at a person like Buddha., or a highly developed spiritual person. What they have done. What they have experienced. What their experience is and taking it down and try to make best use of it. Because we don’t have sufficient wisdom to be able to judge everything. So, we look up to whoever it is, doesn’t matter, share their experience, bringing it down and try to get ourselves acquainted with that, trying to bring to that direction. Is there any problem? Make life simple. That is the spiritual way to go. I try to make it simple. Not trying to make it very…. I may lose certain value of spiritual practice by not having ornaments and so, but bottom line is this. Bottom line is that. Did I make meditation very cheap? I made the spiritual cheap hèhèhèh and what else? Hahahah. Personal experience made into history hèhèhèh. I’m sorry…I better go away now. Hahahah! I made everything change!

Audience: There is a far more structured…there is a class and meditation lessons.

GR: I’m not talking about classes. I’m just talking about basic, totally, the whole idea and concept and how to apply. So then there come up questions like ‘How do you do?’ Then you can bring on all those things. And actually, buddhism carries a lot of pure buddhism and also a lot of cultural too. The Indian culture, Tibetan culture, Chinese, Mongolian, you name it. And this cultural baggage, not cultural garbage, comes with it. So, somehow, we have to be intelligent enough to cut those out. I don’t think you want a lot of cultural baggage. So, I tell you right, straight, the essence of it. I guess that’s enough for tonight. If you have any questions or…

Audience: What is the antidote of ego and attachment?

GR: Ego … bringing yourself in humbleness. Humility. In other words: if you keep thinking ‘I know everything. I read everything. I have information, everything. Then your ego is definitely going to boost up. Definitely. If you make yourself humble, no matter how much you know, keep on telling yourself ‘I’m a student’ I’m learning.’ That way that helps. Not only it helps to reduce your ego, but also helps to bring more knowledge and quality within us. The earlier masters have given an example. It is very interesting. They say: When spring comes, where does it begin to get green first? Is it on the lower parts or on the high mountain peaks? Naturally, green comes at the lower part. So, then they give the example [Nayge Tibetan] If a person has a lot of pride and ego-boost like this. And when you have a lot of quality, up like this. And if you have to pour a quality of water, they cannot sit on that. It is going to go out. You’re not getting any…did you get that? So, because you completely boost yourself up therefore no quality can go into it. They also give another example. It is the crops. When you look in the wheat field, the straw that carries a lot of wheat always sort of hangs down. And when they are standing up like this you know it doesn’t have much in it.

0:57:27.9

Another example is the elephant and buffalo’s: When they eat, they eat a lot. They get filled up with good nourishment. But they won’t make noise. When these little birds eat, they eat seven grains, and they go kiwikiwi everywhere! These are the examples, there are a lot of them, given by the previous masters. That’s that.

And then the kids…When they learn first, when they learn a few words to memorize. And when they know that they go to the monasteries to the gatherings when they start saying prayers the kids who know few words, they really make their top voice and say it. They can almost overpower everybody. But then, people who know more, they won’t shout that much and when they go deeper and deeper, they will be more quiet. These are the examples, there. So that is pride. What was the other one you said?

Audience: Attachment.

GR: Hm. [Hora] is the against… In palette… I somehow have the picture… The Thay tradition have it very funny: People who have a lot of attachment for their body, what they do, they keep them under water, it looks terrible, take pictures, send them around, to let them see what is inside. That is horrible. Anyway, attachment is something of you having a strong desire for having it. And then seeing the faults of it, whatever the faults there, if you see it… A small little attachment is not bad. But excessive attachment and these sorts of thing, are really not good. So, seeing the faults of it will reduce the desire for it. That’s I believe how you work about that?

I guess that’s about it. So, thank you.