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Transforming negative 19920922GRAAON01

THE HUMAN BEING

Transforming negative into positive energy may sound a bit exciting to normal people and to abnormal people like me it is a rather strange word. But when I sit down and think on it, I see that the whole basic Buddhist teachings, whatever I know, is meant for transforming negative into positive. When I first heard that this title is in popular demand, I said, ‘What am I going to talk about?’ But yes, it is really true, the whole Buddhist teaching is supposed to be for that purpose. 0:05:34.9

I am not sure whether the new ones here, have any background of Buddhism or not. Basically speaking, Buddhism is just like any other religion. People may talk about whether Buddhism is a religion or a way of life. Some Buddhist teachers say, ‘Yeah, it is not a religion in the Western understanding of religion, it is a way of life’. And some will say, ‘If it is not a religion, then what is it?’ All these sort of things we let the philosophers worry about.

When I look into Buddhism, with my background and with whatever I know, the whole purpose is to make the individual a better person, through the practice of meditation or whatever you may call it;through sitting down; through reading; through collecting information, analyzing the information and gaining a better understanding; or through whatever method you pick up. The whole purpose of Buddha’s teachings is geared towards improving the individual.

When we talk about improving the individual, we have to see the difficulties of not improving. Naturally, we see nothing more than our negative thoughts and ideas and habits. All these are the obstacles. Trying to get them cleared, trying to improve that, then that becomes Buddhadharma, basically speaking. So when you say ‘negative energy transforming into positive’ it is not based on the old, traditional terminology that is used.That is why abnormal people like me get confused, but when you really think about it, that is what it is all about. So I don’t think we will have a difficulty talking and discussing that points for ten Tuesdays; we can definitely do that. When doing it, the point is not so much the talking or pouring the information. Whatever little we talk or discuss, you should try to take that and apply as an individual person. You should try to put that into practice.0:09:57.8

The word practice seems to me to be a misleading word. The moment we say ‘practice’ you get a sort of picture of a period we separate from daily life. We say, ‘I am meditating’ or ‘I am saying my mantras’ or ‘I am saying my commitments’. I am not referring to that! I am referring to everyday life. Trying to bring the information, the talk we give here, whatever we discuss here, into your everyday life, particularly when you have to deal with it when you are not conscious, particularly when you are overwhelmed with certain difficulties and trying to use the methods and informations as the way to approach things, that is what the word ‘practice’ is really referring to, rather than a period which you have cut out saying, ‘I am sitting and meditating’.

During the meditation no one will have a problem. Everybody can do well, because the atmosphere is provided and you don’t want anybody around. Right? You shut your door, you don’t want to answer your phone, you sit down and maybe you burn some incense and try to create certain atmosphere made for that purpose, so therefore the problems that you are bound to face, are not likely to rise there. So anybody can really do well in that.0:12:17.8

What we are going to talk here is Traditional Tibetan Buddhist teaching.We are not going to say how great we are, how wonderful we are. That is not necessary. You all are wonderful, and wonderful is wonderful, it is with you and nobody is going to take it; nothing is going to happen to it. But we have to say how bad it is, how terrible it is. And believe me, I am not trying to abuse you when I say that. It is not abusing you, but the thing is this: if we have a problem, we talk about the problem; when we talk about a problem, we say the bad things and if we find the bad things within ourselves, then we try to remove them. That is the purpose. That is why we will talk about difficulties rather than about wonderful, smooth, nice, kind, loving, great – that is what we call love and light. Love and light; if you have it, you have it, it is not a problem, it is wonderful. What does dharma do? Under the love-light there are some difficulties hiding and we try to pinpoint them. The traditional Tibetan teaching tells you: when we talk about these things, it is basically dharma. It is Buddhist information and it is the Tibetan Buddhist way. That is what I know and that I will try to present the best way I can. But it is also recommended -the earlier teachers have recommended it- to use these talks as a mirror. The ladies carry a mirror all the time; they look in it and put make-up on their face and if there are some problems they remove them. Right. Likewise, dharma should be used as a mirror . We look in there and whatever we talk here, we provide some kind of a mirror and say, ‘If any problems are shown in there, you try to remove them from yourselves’. That is how dharma should be used as a mirror. That is how we can help ourselves. That is the only way I know of: recognize the problem and try to remove it. It is not easy. You have to keep on repeating it, but that is how it is supposed to be used.0:16:27.0

The individual being: buddha-nature

Before we go into this transforming the negative, I would like to talk a little bit about the individual being. What is it and what can it do? What can it achieve and how? We try to talk that. Then we try to link up with karma, then we try to link up with Buddha’s teachings of four Noble Truth and that way both the negative and positive will come in there. That is how I plan to spend the 10 Tuesday. Particularly linking to anger, virtue, patience, laziness vs enthusiasm, wandering mind vs awareness along with ……… bit of wisdom……..These are the basis on which we will like to (speak on) for 10 Tuesdays.

However, whatever we are going to talk, negative or positive…we have to talk on the basis of the being, the individual me as a being. It is not so much we need to know who I am and what I am. That’s not the point.The point is: how can we, individuals, really get the negative habits that we have out of our system and how can we pick up and develop positive habit In order to talk that, it looks necessary for us to talk a little bit about the individual.0:19:24.1

I am going to talk to you on the background of whatever Buddhist learning I have. And during this period I am going to talk a little bit about reincarnation too. It is a very controversial thing. As a Buddhist I am supposed to believe in reincarnation. I am supposed to. If you ask me, ‘Do you really accept reincarnation?’ I certainly say, ‘I do’. If you ask me, ‘How?’, I have to put my finger in my mouth, I have to chew my thumb. So I like to talk about that a little bit. Whatever we are going to talk, whether we discuss reincarnation or negative-positive, we have to talk on the basis of a being. That is going to be a little difficult.

I am going to raise a lot of questions to you tonight. If you think it is worth for you to think about it, think about it and when you come back next Tuesday, we can talk about it. And if you don’t think it is worth to think about it, then just throw it in the garbage bin. 0:21:23.4

I like to raise the question: When we talk about a human being, what is it? The basis on which we talk reincarnation, virtuous and non-virtuous functioning, karma, suffering, joy, all these fundamental things, is based on what we call the individual. What is that? That is an important question, I think. Maybe you think it is a silly question, because everybody knows what an individual is. ‘I know what I am’, everybody will think, ‘because I am John’ or Mary or something.

But then: who is this John? Who is this Mary? You may say: John the electrician or Mary the salesgirl. Something you say, like son of so and so or daughter of so and so. What we really do is shifting the gear in between name versus family versus profession or address or gender. That is not going to be the person, but we have to have it to identify someone.

In between all of such things we shift gears and we could not really get to point out who is that me inside, who is so sensitive, who cannot take a single dislike. If anybody looks at you differently, you have so much doubts and hopes, particularly more doubts and you cannot take it. If somebody says something, you’ll be worrying. So sensitive is that ‘somebody' called me inside me. Who is that?

I am sure a number of you’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, I know. The Buddhist answer is: empty. ‘Emptiness’ you’ll say. Right? Certainly emptiness is not me. I can’t say I am not empty; that is trouble for me. I may be empty, but emptiness is not me. Basically what we are so much worried about for being happy and being not happy, what is that?

Also, if we don’t have that me, we totally lose the base on which we will talk about karma, on which we will talk about reincarnation, on which we will talk about improving the person, the individual, all of them, we are losing the fundamental base on which we can talk. So it is an important subject. Think about it.0:25:26.90

At the same time I should also repeat what the tradition tells us. The tradition tells us: we are a wonderful being, beautiful, pure, wonderful inside us somewhere, maybe almost faultless. As a being, a human being, a person, we have some kind of faultless being inside. However, when we react to other beings and when we react when dealing with other things, then that wonderful being cannot really shine out or the wonderful being cannot (come out) when in contact with others. Something else comes in between and so, instead of coming out as a wonderful being to the other person , we get something funny. That funny we are getting, is the experience of anger, jealousy, doubt, suspicion and fear. That is what we really see and encounter when we deal with other persons.

Naturally we always make a judgment on other persons by saying, ‘Ha, this person is so afraid’ or ‘This is an angry person’ or ‘It is a very jealous person’, all this. We sort of quickly make a judgment on the basis of what we experience with the individual, and think that is really right. We encounter, we talk, we have a little bit of dealing, then we make up our minds and we decide, ‘Ha, this person is an angry person, this is a jealous one, this one is trustworthy or not trustworthy.” We form our mind and we quickly judge the person and put him in a sort of compartment. We try to do that. We can’t say it is totally wrong, because we do present ourselves that way. 0:28:41.4

We have a beautiful nature within us, but when we encounter with others with some kind of fear, doubt or anger, the other person will confirm, ‘Okay, it is an angry person’. Somehow we do give that quality instead of giving our true nature, the wonderful being which the Buddhists named the ‘buddha-nature’. That is the true person, who later becomes a buddha. That is me. My buddha-nature is me. It is not separate from me at all; it is me. That is the being who, if I become a buddha, – which everybody is supposed to become – will be that buddha.

According to Buddha everybody should become a buddha, and when you become a buddha, it is the being within ourselves, that becomes a buddha. That we call buddha-nature, or we call it the beautiful being inside. It is that one.

However it is unable to function now. Tibetan teachers will give you different viewpoints here. I am not going in detail on them, but I should mention something. Some teachers will tell you, ‘It is the true nature, it is wonderful, fully in there, however it is covered up by the delusions’. Tsongkhapa says:

The beautiful nature of the being is there but it is not matured.

Tsongkhapa says it is not mature, rather than saying it is covered by the delusions. It is covered, no doubt, but why we cannot react to the other beings with this beautiful nature, is because it is not matured. Tsongkhapa says it is not matured, some teachers say it is covered; that is a philosophical problem. What is really happening is, some beautiful thing which cannot be conveyed to other people, so the other people have to judge me as an angry person or whatever. That is what the other persons will judge you because you have been reacting with that.0:31:47.5

When we talk about improving, do we have the potential? Can we really do it? Is it possible? We say: the potential is there. Buddha said so, the potential is there. The older teachers will say: it is a matter of improving, but it is there. Like Tsongkhapa says: it is not matured, it needs to mature. When it is matured, what will react to outside is what you have. That is what it is.

Therefore Buddhism goes almost too far and says: everybody can become a buddha. Because you have the potential in there, you can go as far as that: becoming a buddha. That is of course a long term, a long shot. It is true, the Buddhist teaching traditions have a habit of introducing: our goal is to become a buddha. That is a long shot. But what we need here is improving, and go closer to that as much as possible. That is what I take as my goal: to go closer to that as much as possible. If you reach there by chance, lucky! But if you don’t reach it, it is okay; you can go as close as possible.

So the basic question rises: can the individual such as that be improved? Definitely it can be improved. Our personal experience tells us that we can definitely improve. Right? I don’t think there is any problem with that.

Is there a limit in how far you can improve? That is another question. We can see that we can improve. When we established that the individual can improve, it is basically the important point to keep.0:34:22.5

Then the question comes: how? And what? That is a little bit of a big thing we have to talk about. That is the question of negativity and positivity. From the religious point of view you have to say: virtue and non-virtue. All these questions are dealt with thereafter. First and foremost: there is room for us to improve, it is possible for an individual to get better. That is the main thing.

Therefore it is worth to put in our efforts. It is worth to take the trouble. Otherwise there would be no point. If we are not going to improve ourselves, what is the use of doing all this? It is not easy. Even putting in ten Tuesdays, i.e. twenty to thirty hours out of a busy American life, is not that simple and easy. But the point risen here, says: it can improve the individual. So then it is worth to do this.0:36:06.5

Recognizing the negativities

To improve the individual, the question comes: how and what?

For that we come on what I call delusions. With that word I am basically referring to anger, attachment, hatred, fear, laziness, a wandering mind -incapability of concentrating or thinking I call a wandering mind- and ignorance. These are the sort of categories that I -in my limited English- refer to as delusions. So whenever you hear me constantly talking about delusions, please remember I am referring to those kind of things.

What makes the individual not very good? Those delusions made us not good. Right? You don’t want to be an angry person. Anger doesn’t do good at all. Laziness doesn’t make you good either, and so and forth with each one of them. So there is room for us to improve those delusions.

How are we going to improve? We have to recognize them. I think that we really have to iindividually recognize them. We have to recognize. I am talking totally on the individual, don’t think about it in general, think about you, the individual. It is important to recognize our delusions, our anger, our hatred, our jealousy, our ignorance etc. It is difficult to, but this is the very important step: recognize.

Actually we all know it, but we like to show off a little bit. We have to remind ourselves that we have these problems. We do recognize anger, we do recognize jealousy, we do recognize all of them, but we do not recognize – each individual, point the finger on yourself – as my anger, we do not recognize my jealousy, we do not recognize my ignorance, because we like to deny it. I like to deny that I am angry, I like to deny that I am jealous, I like to deny all this. If I keep on denying I have anger , I am not going to recognize at all.0:39:41.6

So it is important to bring the individual into such a state of mind where you can really see your own faults. I don’t think we have to see our good qualities, we will always see them; we will not only see them, we will exaggerate them a little bit, we are good at blowing our own trumpet. But it is difficult to see our own faults, so we have to bring our mental state to such a level where we are at least able to acknowledge our own problems. And then try to handle them from there. Are you with me?

As a matter of fact our problems are quite big. Our anger is quite strong, our delusions are quite powerful, we are almost experts. If you like to accept it, we are expert on anger, jealousy, attachment, we are. Actually we are at the peak stage of that development. Really. When we improve it means ( these delusions) go down. The anger comes down and then try to go the other way round. That is what it is.

Our anger, hatred, jealousy, all of them are also reinforced by our habits: our habitual way of functioning. We don’t have to learn to act according to the anger. We know exactly what to do; without putting any effort we can do it. So simple. If we have been told ‘Booh’ we are quick to use the f-word. Right? There is no problem, we don’t have to think about it, we straight-away say it. That is our habit. If somebody is saying something bad to us, we don’t have to learn to get angry, we don’t have to go to the therapist and ask, ‘How do I get angry? we don’t. We learned it and we are automatic on that. That is what I mean when I said our habits will support or reinforce the negative things that we have.

But if we have to not get angry, then we have to meditate, we have to go to the counselor to learn how not to get angry, how not to react in that way. We do need to learn that. We don’t have to go to the counselor for how to get angry, how to react badly. It shows we are experts. I don’t have anything against counselors, but it tells us how we are well-trained in that. That is why I said, ‘We are experts on those’. 0:45:12.1

Buddha’s way, what Buddha said is a great way to go, is: going against all our usual habits. If somebody tells you, ‘Booh’, you have to learn how to sit there and not only artificially smile, but really truly laugh and not get bothered. A lot of people can easily artificially pretend not to let it come to them. You may get so angry, but you sort of just sit there and show no reaction at all. A lot of people do that artificially, too. But what Buddha really encourages, is: really not let those things attack you. That is something which you have to learn and which you can do. When I use the word learning, don’t think of university learning from the blackboard, I don’t mean that. I mean practically you can learn how to do it.

A very interesting example Ram Dass told me once. I like that one and I often use it. It is a very good example. When he was at Harvard University in the period when they had those trips. For one of his trips he had miscalculated the day. It was a Jewish holiday, the Jewish New Year, and he was supposed to go and see the family. He was not out of that trip yet, but he had to get up in the morning, shave, He said he managed shaving without cutting himself, stepped into the car and drove his car. He said the steering wheel was just like snakes. However he managed to get home without any problem. Then the dinner was served. He was sitting just across his brother. He said suddenly he noticed little arrows shooting out from his brother’s mouth and coming towards him. A lot of little arrows were coming out, one after another. So what he did, he picked up each one of those arrows and put them on the plate. That is the point.

The point is: when we learn or when we develop, whether it is through a meditative state or through a practical practice or through chemical effects, what we need to learn is that those arrows do not hit us, do not cause pain, so that we don’t react. Are you getting my point? This is one example that people can relate to. When we improve individually it means: at that sort of stage that arrow doesn’t hit us, that arrow doesn’t stir our emotions, that arrow will not make us either cry or react or both – all sorts of things we normally do.

Buddhism is supposed to provide that, but it is not so easy to get it. In order to get to that stage, you’ll probably try ten times or maybe hundred times, but you will get there.0:50:18.8

What did we establish tonight? Two things: there is room for improvement and we have to acknowledge our problems.

Questions and answers

Audience: How about fear? Can we transform it?

Rinpoche: I would recommend you to read a book written by Chögyam Trungpa, called Shambhala. In there is a chapter: Fear and fearlessness I think Trungpa Rinpoche has provided quite good information on that.

Basically, all fears are not necessarily bad. Certain fears are good. For example: if there is a danger in the street and you pretend to be fearless and you walk down, you’ll be the loser. There is no point in doing that.

On the other hand some people have unnecessary fear, just of something. You get so afraid that sometimes you can’t sit in your own house. I noticed people turning on the television, just to have some noise going on the whole night. People do that, don’t they? And they need to turn the light on all the time, because they are afraid something is going to come out of the darkness. These are totally unnecessary fears. They could have been caused by something during the childhood period or it could just be simple imaginary fear. You are almost afraid that somebody is going to come out of the closet and grab you.Mind you, today’s television entertainment doesn’t help you much on this, it adds up quite a lot. These are unnecessary fears. 0:53:48.9

I don’t think there is a thing that can transform this type of fear. Looking carefully in it, seeing deeply inside and recognizing there is nothing to be really afraid of and giving yourself that suggestion over and over again, is one of the ways that helps.

In the Buddhist tradition they give you emptiness as the answer. When they give you emptiness as the answer, it is a ‘catch-22’ answer. It is a true answer, because if you see it you know that there is truly nothing really existing in that. There is no reason why you should be afraid of it. But you don’t see it. It takes time, it doesn’t give you immediate help, but it really helps you to look into it. I just remember what word Trungpa uses, ‘It is not getting rid of the fear, but going beyond the fear’. Going beyond the fear sounds very nice. It is true. But how? That is the thing. Then again we come back to the point of true understanding. When you look carefully, when you really see it, then it helps. It helps. That is one direct way.0:55:57.4

If you are working through the ‘seven-point mind-training’ [Tib. lojong], then the way to look into and handle the fear is totally different. That may not be relevant here. I don’t think fear is a thing you can transform. Whether fear is by nature virtue or non-virtue is a totally different issue. Here we look from the angle of how it affects the individual and how we can get ourselves a little bit free of those fears.

Being fearless is great. However, you must not misunderstand the fearlessness. If you try to be fearless and walk in Detroit street when there is trouble, it is not fearlessness, it is stupidity. Really, you get hurt, so why pretend ? On the other hand, being afraid where you don’t have to be afraid, thinking that in your own room some kind of ghost is going to come out of the closet, I think is stupidity, too. But people have that, they can’t help it.

Audience: On a T-shirt it says something like: truth transits fear.

Rinpoche: That is true. If you know the truth, then there is nothing to be afraid of.

Audience: Is that emptiness?

Rinpoche: Not necessarily. Whatever the true reality of anything is, if you really know the truth, there is nothing to be afraid of. All fears come from not knowing the truth, so we imagine all sorts of things. We even are afraid of ghosts. If we would know the true reality of ghosts, we would know ghosts are afraid of us – if there are ghosts. On the other hand, being afraid of somebody going to attack you is reality; it is also true. We just can’t escape that, because the environment is such you have to be alert and aware. Awareness can help you. You look at fear as a big thing, but if you examine things very carefully, then you see what it is. Thank you.0:59:49.2

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