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19970824GRSRLR01

DAY ONE

INTRODUCTION

Welcome everybody here to this retreat. No matter who we are, we are here with a problem. We do have problems — emotional, physical, mental problems. All of us have them. We need to free ourselves. When I look at Buddhism, what does Buddhism offer to people, or to society? Buddhism really offers freedom. Freedom. It is not that Buddhism has some freedom to give to you, it actually teaches how you can get it yourself. Suffering, pain, joy, and freedom — everything is within ourselves. It is we ourselves who can make it, it's we who can let ourselves down. Buddhism gives the way for us to gain freedom; freeing ourselves from our negative neuroses. The bottom line is the negative neuroses, because these bring pain. The cause of our pain is nothing but our neuroses. We are so used to them that we don't even realize we have them. We take that way of functioning for granted. We don't recognize, we don't acknowledge it. Sometimes we even give great credit to having those neuroses, which are in fact the cause of all our problems. Buddha gives us the way we can be free from those neuroses. When you get there, you enjoy freedom. That's why we chose to call this little bookmark [with the 64 steps] Odyssey to Freedom.

10 Odyssey to Freedom

I would like to talk to you about how Buddha gained all these steps. How did he manage it? How did he get freedom? What sort of meditations did he do? What sort of material did he use? This is a very important point. So we will try to talk about that. It has been made very easy by the great teachers, first Atisha and later Tsongkhapa. They have laid out the steps. You know, Buddha's teachings are manifold. The Tibetan version is like a hundred some odd volumes. Somehow they have been made into very simple and easy guidelines for the individual; how you can really develop yourself, what steps you follow, what difference that makes for you, what difficulties you encounter at a certain step or level, how you can overcome them. Then what happens? You automatically transfer yourself to the next step, the next point you have to focus on. That is what we'll try to do for the next seven days, introduce you to all this.

I'm sure you all came with no expectation. I hope you did. But I do have an expectation here; I have an agenda, a motivation here. That is that each and every one of you participating for these seven days, will have at the end at least the basic points clear: when you want to travel from this what I call ordinary level, to the extraordinary, fully enlightened level, what steps are involved, how far you have to go, what will be the obstacle at each step, what will be the antidote at each step, and what subject you'll meditate on. This is what I hope to introduce.

I don't expect that anybody hearing this for the first time will become a master. However, for a number of people here who have heard it a number of times, it is a great reminder, a sort of concise essence that you can meditate on and [that you] hope to get. And new ones will probably get a good idea, some kind of direction, like if you are just thrown in the middle of a field in Fenton, Michigan, at least you will know where to go and how to get to your home. That is my agenda. And I hope we will get there.

In order to get there, we, the teacher like me, and a number of facilitators and counselors we have, we can't do it alone. We will help you, in whatever way we can, but it is very important that you yourself

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are involved. Because if you aren't involved, no one can do anything, no one can push you. It is only you who can do it. You know that. So we need your cooperation, just to help yourselves. If you do that, I'm quite sure we will have a good result: the result that somehow you will feel comfortable, somehow you'll be able to manage through life, somehow you will know how to get to the enlightenment level, or at least how to get freedom from neurosis. That's my agenda. That's my hope.

In order to fulfill that, you need full participation from yourself. Number one, you need some great interest, which I think you have. Otherwise, why should you come here, in the middle of nowhere, in Michigan? You may have good food here, but you have very rustic accommodations, so why come here? To my understanding, you came here to make a difference to your life, or if you like it, I'll say life after life. Actually, this, where we are, is the point. Right this moment is the point where we can make a difference to our lives. This is really the point. Each one of us, when we look at ourselves, we can see the opportunity we have, being able to share in the experience of the path to enlightenment.

Opportunity. Buddhism is not like any other religion. It is the very experience of Buddha and Buddha's disciples, dealing with our everyday life: how they improved, how they became more compassionate, how they compassionately cared about other people, how they could and can take total responsibility for the well-being of all sentient beings, of each and every one of them. It's all based on personal experience. Therefore we call this a 'living tradition'. 'Living' in the sense that it is their experience we get. It's not the books, not the organization, not the teachings. It's not that. The real true experience of cutting down our neuroses and becoming a better, a nicer, and a kinder person — that is true Buddhism. That's why I say we have a great opportunity. It is a living tradition. Buddhism lives within individuals. Buddhism does not live in temples, not in libraries, it's within the individual. That is the important point. So, the opportunity is open, no matter who and what you may.

12 Odyssey to Freedom

Do we have that opportunity again and again? According to this tradition, and experience, no, we don’t. Very simple. Look at yourselves today, and look at your best friends, who have no interest whatsoever in spiritual practice. Compare it. No matter how much you try to bring your friends into a spiritual path, they won’t move an inch. The more you fry to push them, the more they will drag themselves out. That shows you how rare the opportunity is.

Take myself, a Buddhist, and supposed to be a reincarnated person, if my reincarnation happens to be a dog, or cat, or parrot, then what? As a parrot I’ll be able to say a lot of things, as a dog I can bark, but what else can I do, for myself, or for others? The opportunity is limited. Luckily, we are not. If you were not an intelligent person, how much could you pick up? How much could you understand, how much effort could you put in? Very limited. So luckily, we are not. We are intelligent, we are educated, we know how to think, we know how to use our minds, and we know how Buddha used his way and how Buddha got freedom. We have all this. If this is not the opportunity for us to make a breakthrough in our circle of life, then where else do we find it?

So, this is a great opportunity; not only to break through the circle of life, but to totally eradicate our neuroses, as well as even the imprints of the neuroses. We have the opportunity, the capability, especially through the help of Vajrayana. We are not talking about fifteen lifetimes, we are not talking about a number of eons, we are talking about the short space of a human lifetime. Within twelve years, or even within three years we can achieve our spiritual target. Such a method is there, in our life. And we have the opportunity to take it.

Learning — analyzing — meditating. The first way to take it is by learning. If you don’t learn, you won’t know what to do. Right? Especially in the West, I noticed, the moment you use the word ‘meditation’, people think of sitting cross-legged, adjusting the body structure and all this. You watch what another person does, and you copy it. But then, what can you think of? You don’t read other persons’ mind. Probably most people don’t have much to think about. So you try to avoid thinking. And then they will call on you to remove all your

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thoughts, or they may say, 'empty your brain'. Whatever. The point is, you can empty your brain, that's fine, but you have to fill it up with something else. What do you fill it up with? That you have to learn. Without learning, you cannot do anything. But when I'm emphasizing learning, I don't mean you should be scholars. We're not talking about that. We're talking about being individually capable of traveling through the passage. That means you may not know so much detail, but you can still manage yourself, if you are thrown in the middle of nowhere.

We lost a number of friends in the last two to three years, like Lex Hixon and Allen Ginsberg. Then I began to think it is much better to have something for each and every individual, something you can think of, you can meditate on, and use as your daily practice, so that it builds up, and takes its own place. That's what we will be trying to do here. I hope we will be able to do it well.

We need your participation a lot. Number one, you try to pick up the information. Number two, you try to analyze it. And number three, you should meditate on it. These are the three steps: learning, analyzing and meditating. Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa tradition, says that analyzing is considered as meditation. Not only considered as meditation, but as the most important meditation. Why? If you can think about things and concentrate on them, you can know whether they are true. Don't rely on somebody else to tell you something is true. You should know it, and then when anybody else says, "Hey, you're wrong," you have a strong conviction, "No, you are wrong, excuse me." Doing that will make a difference to our life. The way and how we'll deal with our neuroses will be totally different. That is what follows on learning.

Organization of the retreat

We start the day at seven o'clock in the morning with coffee, tea or miso, and then we begin the Tara meditation on 7.30 and it goes until 8.45. Breakfast is then from 8.45 to 9.45 followed by personal time from 9.45 to 10.30. The first teaching will be from 10.30 to 12.30. In that we try to give you the information. That period we will utilize as

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teaching, almost traditional style, except I don't use a throne; I don't want to sit in a big throne and become a big fat master. So, a very simple place to sit, and we'll give you teachings based on the steps, true to the tradition.

The afternoon session, from 2 to 4, is the discussion groups. What we're trying to do is, have small groups with a facilitator. The facilitators and counselors are very nice and wonderful people, who have studied with me, and with other teachers for a number of years. And each and every one of them is capable of functioning by him- or herself.

Each group will not be bigger than ten, so that people can talk, and share, think about the subject, discuss what you have picked up in the morning, raise questions, talk about anything that you need to know within this practice. How can I do it? What steps should I follow? All this. The teachings in the morning will be the main subject of the discussion in the afternoon. I don't want you to go here and there, because that will defeat the purpose of the group meeting.

Also, we would like to keep every group together. You know, some people are very shy, they take time to come out and express whatever they want to. That's why we try to keep the group together so that you will know each other well, and be on first name basis so you can share your problems without hesitation. At the same time, the facilitators will rotate. So we strongly request people not to opt out of their group.

Now the group discussion: what you are going to do is strengthen what you have picked up in the morning, in this smaller group. The group facilitators are capable of guiding you. So you can ask questions, discuss, they may suggest reading materials to you, or all sorts of things.

Then if some people would like to talk privately about different things, can also go to counselors. Counselors we have on a one-to-one basis.

I requested the facilitators and counselors to give me a one-line statement of each of the points in this Lamrim structure. Many of them have responded, others have been so busy. But we put together what

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we have in a little booklet, available in the store. So, essence statements and outlines are available. They are so helpful.

I tried to make this what I call 'laundry list' or 'shopping list'. The reason why I did this? Traditional Tibetan teachings always have three of this and five of that and then eight sub headings, etc. So for a number of years, my friends, particularly editors, have been telling me that the worst thing you can do is two of these and five of that and eight of that. So, we sort of tried to make a breakthrough. You have the total path available on this little bookmark, so that whatever you are doing, wherever you go, you can carry this. You can use it for whatever you're reading, any story book. You'll see the statements, it will remind you. And if you want to spend four or five minutes, just before going to sleep, you can think about them. Hopefully, it serves a purpose in that way.

And whatever the groups have discussed, if you have even further doubt on the subject, or if you have any further difficulties, we will bring them in in the evening, to the bigger gathering. We can share our thoughts on that, and hopefully be able to clear the doubts, or misunderstanding, or whatever is there. As the bottom line, in the morning we will emphasize learning; in the afternoon discussion, and finally in the evening guided meditation. All this will bring you easily to being able to do it by yourself. It tries to make you independent, so you can function by yourself, without depending on anybody else, not even on a book. That's what we hope to achieve.