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20000902GRSROTF16

Soundfile 20000902GRSROTF02

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location SR

Topic Odyssey to Freedom

Transcriber Helen Breault

Date November 5, 2020

[Chanting/prayers to 1:09]

Well we’re quite late tonight. But I’m sure you have a number of different questions. Rochelle, go ahead first.

[Audience Rochelle]: How does finding truth by mantra work and what is the guru mantra for and how does one use it in practice?

Rimpoche: Mantra has its power. But I’m not very sure by saying mantra alone whether you’re going to encounter with the shunyata and all that. That I’m not sure. I’m doubtful. Mantra has its tremendous power and it also lifts you up, pushes you through. And it also has a power of purification as well as power of accumulation of merit both, mantra does. I doubt it very much whether really by saying mantra alone you’re going to encounter shunyata. My feeling is 99.99% it’s not. However, there’s a possibility, that possibility, by saying the mantra one may encounter with the yidam. And through that way maybe possible. You cannot really rule out either way. But I think directly I don’t think it works.

Guru mantra is—what did it say?

Audience: What is the guru mantra for?

Rimpoche: Guru mantra is the same as any other mantra. But since guru is close to you so they think it has some kind of more close effects. So people use that. And effects will be, since it’s closer, then they have effects. Effects can be closer. Did you say how to use it? Say it. Just say it. Don’t ask me where to say it. There’s certain ways and means of doing it.

[Talks to audience: Which group is that coming in?

Rochelle: Thirteen, fourteen. Who is the group coordinator today? Kent Porter, okay.

Rimpoche: So what is the questioner’s mind behind that question?

Audience: They were wondering what the origins of the different mantras were, how long they’ve been in existence and where they came from. And then the subject came up of different guru mantras. And the questions was, if there were visualizations or where you would use it in practice?]

Rimpoche: So the mantra origination is from tantra. It’s way long, all the way.

[5:29]

The guru mantras are, it’s also right from the beginning. But then every individual gurus, when they make the mantra, they put their name. Like, in the case of Tsongkhapa, this Migstema is not Tsongkhapa mantra, but sort of mantra prayer. So it’s considered very powerful and important. And in the case of Guru Padmasambhava they have this same thing. OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM. And all those… And they put the name of guru and they translate it into Sanskrit, back from Tibetan. And that’s what it is. OM AH HUM VAJRA blah blah comes in. That’s what it is. I don’t much to say on that. Okay?

Rochelle: The next question is who are the four protectors? Why do we say those prayers? And what is the purpose of each protector?

Rimpoche: Good idea. The four protectors are Mahakala… Actually it is Avalokiteshvara wrathful version. So that’s number one. And then number two is the dharma king Manjushri wrathful version, for wisdom, obviously you understand that. Then, we say Palden Lhamo. Palden Lhamo is again a female… These are more known in Tibet, sort of non-samsaric, very well. Plus sometimes theres a wealth deity called Vaishavana [7:50]. But since we have too many to say I’ve started reducing. These are the protectors sort of commonly by almost every Tibetan tradition, everywhere, every monastery. Even if it’s pure Sutrayana, even then like Drepung they say that. Then the fourth one is Setrabha. [8:26] This is specially connected with me, my personal and Jewel Heart. So we put that in there. These are the four protectors we say here. The purpose of the protectors is to protect. So that’s what it is.

[8:52]

Rochelle: Group One’s question: What do you do if there’s a lot of deep subtle emotional damage that you feel but you want to develop genuine love for yourself because you know that loving yourself first is more important than trying to love everyone.

Rimpoche: Human nature, human mind, buddha nature, cannot be damaged at all. Actually they don’t get damaged at all. And it is a growing thing. It doesn’t damage. However, you get setbacks. Some times quite a setback. But you don’t become useless at all. If you want to put yourself in the category of… I spent a lot of time talking in the afternoon. So, if you’d like to put yourself in that category go ahead and do it. But if don’t want to you don’t have to because nothing is really damaged. The nature is such, you may have a tremendous hard time. You may have great difficulty to forget that. You may have a very difficulty to remove those experiences from your memory. But deeply the human nature is human nature. Buddha nature is buddha nature. It doesn’t get damaged at all. So I don’t like to buy the word “damage” as such. Wounded, may be. But when you’re wounded you can heal it.

[10:51]

The healing is only actually, you have to give your own cooperation. A) Willingness to heal; B) Trust and belief to yourself to be able to do it; and C) You really have to do it! So without giving, submitting to the doubt, without submitting… I’m not saying people did not have a bad experience. Many do. Many do. The childhood suffering. All kinds of things. And even nothing happened in childhood and then somewhere else something happens. People are involved in all kinds of things. They do. I mean if you really look very carefully the people who are involved in some kind of cult system and if you look at them very carefully how sad and how terrible it is. How miserable. And it’s really terrible. And then of course people who’ve been abused as children, equally miserable, equally sad, equally bad. Even then your nature is your nature. Your buddha nature is your buddha nature. It doesn’t get damaged. Whatever damage you think it is, it will be like a cloud. It is a temporary thing. Temporary thing made the person incapable of handling. It is a temporary hit, setback you have.

[13:10]

And then of course it’s a different way of looking. Here in the West the bad thing sometimes at the childhood or the young people—they get sexual abuses. That’s really bad. Sometimes you get beating, get beat up. Then you considerate that’s bad. I did get a tremendous amount of beating. You have no idea. I got beat up all the time. But not beat up in the western sense. But I’ve been punished, punished with lashes; not grounded—with the lashes. The worst times they will tie you between the two pillars, the hands up this way, legs down that way [demonstrates], you get it. Even worse than that they will put you upside-down and burn your incense in there. And all these robes come down, do. Or you can get thrown in the water in the tank in the winter in Tibet. So you do that. And I did not notice any damage. Maybe I’m stupid but I don’t. And then if you look at people over here and I’m sure they all got good beatings. I don’t think there’s anybody here you didn’t get beating. Maybe [?inaudible 15:07] No. [15:13 Tibetan] Maybe Trakpa-la [?] got a lash. But then I’m sure [?inaudible] didn’t get it, this one didn’t get it. But the rest of us I’m sure.

[15:33]

So, but somehow I think, I don’t know what it is. I don’t know. I told you, sometimes even I got beat up badly. I couldn’t ride a horse. I had to stand on a horse because if I put my butt down it sticks, you know. And then you have pain. So you have to stand up all the time horse riding. Forgotten it’s gone. It healed. There’s no wound left. So whatever it is. And all these things happened.

It’s also I know you’re not going to like it, what I’m going to say. Many of you won’t like it. Also, many of them you built up. “Oh, yes, I’ve been wounded. Oh yes terrible. How bad… Oooh yeah.” Then you reduce down yourself and make it very small. I don’t mean the beating…beating’s bad, no doubt about it. Sometimes our own mind will add up. Remember I gave you the example two days ago I told you, the example of the fat lady in the picture. And the cat and all this. Have no effect to the person for hours. And when suddenly someone else reminded, it all becomes terrible, you know. It truly tells you it’s bad. And then we also add some more. It’s definitely true. We also adds up more.

[17:45]

On those beatings they get during the Tibetan monasteries are not very light. Sometimes they’re very heavy. For example, what did I do? Maybe I didn’t memorize properly or something. Something happen, Khen Gyume Rimpoche [18:06], you that little books are holding that little wooden staff. [?inaudible 18:13]. I don’t know, I think he was going to hit me like this [demonstrates] and I jumped up or something happened. Somehow I got hit over here [demonstrates]. The same thing where I hit this time. You know, I’d been seeing two suns for about ten days or fifteen days. All this happens. So no big deal. That’s what the Yungzins [18:40] do. [laughs] [18:59 Tibetan.

[19:10]

Anyway, it’s a joke.]

So I don’t think it damages that much. But, then you know we’ll make it much more too. Elaborate and goes much more. And we acknowledge, we believe it, we trust. And everything goes wrong in life we blame on that too—which might have truth in it; might not have truth in it too. But I do notice you do get sort of a little bit of habitual there. Because I used to receive a lot of those beat-ups. So when I started teaching it was sort of habit I would hit. It becomes a habit. I got these big malas and I would hit on the head, a couple of them. And one of them was in Delhi. When I saw him later I was embarrassed. By that time I had already starting teaching by fourteen, fifteen. So I liked to hit. I had a habit of hitting. Wherever he’d get it, wherever it’s available, hit it! That is the habit. And I also noticed that I, you know, I had a lot of those little dogs in India. And I used to hit those dogs to because that is the habit. And later I realized and then completely stopped. Sort of without thinking it becomes habitual, you hit it. You say it and hit. Say it and hit together. That’s sort of thing there. That’s not really damage anybody. But you know my beatings that I experienced and probably the beatings that, I don’t know much about Sonam but, beating Tukden and Longden [21:28] and all these people experienced probably no comparison. Theirs much more severe, much more. No comparison with what I got, really. And I’m sure Sonam did not come easily either. To be able to become the chanting master I’m sure a lot happened, like it or not. [21:57 Tibetan]

[22:08]

He said you have to drink a lot of cold water in the morning and use the [?22:10 inaudible] and blood will come out, isn’t it. And he said, “Yeah, a little bit does.” It does. It’s true. May be the old-fashioned very severe way. So the moment I got the opportunity to be able to resell, so pow!, here you go, thanks to the Chinese. [laughs]

Anyway so this is the… I don’t understand very clearly. I don’t want to criticize because I’m sure people have much more understanding than that. But if you look at, the one thing I do know, it does contribute tremendously. The problem may be, I don’t know, 60%, maybe 80% or 50%. The rest of them we contribute to. And that completes 100% problem within the individual.

[23:27]

Rochelle: Is it possible that by practicing Tonglen I create serious physical or mental problems for myself?

Rimpoche: Oh no. Oh no. Certainly not. Definitely not.

I don’t know anybody. If you do it correctly. If you don’t do it correctly then I’m not sure. If you do it correctly I don’t know any single person over a thousand years of the Tibetan Buddhist history anybody who created mental or physical problem by practicing Tonglen, no.

Rochelle: Do you have any advice for any of us who may return to family or work situations with those who may not be sympathetic to Buddhism?

Rimpoche: See, every day, I talked to you, right from the beginning is the advice. There’s nothing new to add up. But on the other hand, family is extremely important. If you want to be Buddhist and the family is acceptable you can say, “I am a Buddhist.” If the family is not acceptable you don’t have to wear the Buddhist suit. You don’t have to wear Buddhist hat. Be a good person. Be a kind person. Be a compassionate one. You can meditate if you want to. All meditators do not meditate. All Buddhists do not meditate either. That’s what you can do. And don’t push it. Whatever you like, do it. Don’t make show biz. Don’t make it a big issue. Do it very simply, especially don’t try to be so serious in the family. Whatever you’re behaving normally every day, do the same thing. Don’t try to be, “Oh no, now I’m Buddhist I can’t eat meat.” Or you know, “Now I’m a Buddhist I have to meditate.” You know, make something new in the family to identify yourself with that sort of being a Buddhist. If you do that it invites reaction from the other members of the family. If you want to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha you don’t have to shout and yell and keep on chanting. You can just simply think of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—think “I’m taking refuge.” That’s not going to bother anybody else. I think somehow you have to really adjust it as gently as possible. And do not create any situation where the family members feel uncomfortable. Particularly if they know about Buddhism they won’t be that uncomfortable. But if they don’t know anything about it they worry. Because they love you, they care for you, so they worry that you might have joined some kind of strange cult system or something. Who knows what they’re going to do? You know, the people worry. It’s obvious. People worry.

[27:37]

So that is sort of your special responsibility—making them feel comfortable. And don’t show that you are different. Don’t try to be so serious. Just be relaxed and aware of negative and positive karma every action you do. I think that is the most important point dealing with one’s life. That’s what you should do. Don’t worry about it. Okay? So I mean that’s my simple little suggestion. Buddhism does not really have a sort of card-carrying members. So you really don’t have to do that.

And also don’t have to have altar and this and that. Do not try to create altar if the family is not happy with it. You can have a picture of Buddha or something. Don’t make it as altar. Make it as convenient anywhere. To your mind you make that altar. To family it’s a decoration. It’s fine. But don’t put it near the toilet or something or on the table or underwear hanger or something. Don’t do that but you know just make it as comfortable as possible. I think it is very important to do that. Though traditionally they tell you, you have to put up there and prostrate and burn incense, burn candlelight, make offerings. You know, mentally you can do all this. Because you really have to live with family so you have to be really careful with that. Do not invite unwanted anything for this. Then you have a problem.

Tony: Rimpoche, when you explained the refuge vows today you mentioned that one of the most important refuge vows is not to take refuge in spirits, that actually they say “other spirits.” But you definitely said not to take refuge in spirits. They would like you to clarify what you mean by spirits. There was also a question about the same vow regarding if after taking refuge you decide to practice a different religion do you get a downfall from that?

[30:22]

Rimpoche: The spirits I mean just like ghosts. That type of strange spirit they try to enter in human form or they, you know, like tree spirits, water spirits, and rocks spirit. That type of countless things available, you know those. But in the developing nations it’s much less. I don’t know what happened to them. They’d probably been cleared with the bulldozer. [laughs] The developers might have cleared them already. Whatever the reason is, anyway less. I think it’s also traditional advice. Traditionally there’s all kind of variety of different spirits. And people do worship them. I think they’re talking about that.

Now the second part is if after you take refuge if you decide to drop, you drop. There may be a downfall from the Buddhist rule point-of-view but there might not be downfall by nature of being negativity. You know, the downfalls are divided into two categories: you’re breaking rules, so you have a downfall; or you are, by nature, by virtue the action is negativity. If you decided to do something else, you drop you drop. I don’t think it’s by nature negativity’s there. By breaking rule you get downfall you get downfall. So what a big deal? You’re leaving anyway.

[32:42]

Tony: On that subject, after taking refuge is it possible also to study for example Christianity? And sort of take refuge in Jesus Christ? Or study Judaism?

Rimpoche: As long as you think Jesus is enlightened being, sure. If you don’t think Jesus is enlightened being but because I like Christians too, so I like to take refuge here whatever it is. Then maybe it’s not right. But if you think Jesus is enlightened being and take refuge to enlightened beings it’s okay. That goes with both Judeo-Christian tradition anyway.

Tony: There was a question that asked if you could explain where does the big, bad ego come from originally? And then they go further to say, that actually every part of our body evolved for a specific purpose. So our eyes, our nose…

Rimpoche: This is a very important question. I dealt with this a number of times, but I may talk tomorrow. [33:45 Tibetan]

[33:59]

Tsongkhapa says, all the sufferings—I think I mentioned here yesterday or something—all the sufferings are coming from the ignorance. And one who sees the ignorance and one who can reverse can get everything reversed. Chandrakirti says [34:23] the first “me,” then “my” and then goes in this well. Zzzzzzr down but very hard up. Remember? That’s exactly what it is. Where does the “me” come from, first “me?” I think now it’s a habit. Habitually we have that. We’ve been carrying that life after life. I think that’s what it is.

Tony: Does it ever serve a positive purpose?

Rimpoche: I think I answered that yesterday too. Yeah, yeah, I did answer Kevin’s question at that level. I said, yeah, I don’t think this negative thing that’s referred to as ignorance, we’re borrowing word “ego” but sort of egoistic point of ego. It’s almost totally creator of negativity, what we are referring. Even we might as well call it dancing marikpa [?33:56] or dancing or something. It is the total creator of negativities. I don’t think that particular ignorance produces ever any positive at all. But sideways side you have a pure “me” produces everything. I think I talked that last night. It was the last question, right? Before Steve’s.

[36:30]

So I’m going to refer you back to yesterday’s, whichever group it’s coming from.

Tony: This is the last question. The difference between arhats and buddhas, and they want to know if you need compassion to get to the arhat level. And what is the difference between the emptiness at the arhat level—I know you’ve spoke a lot about this before— versus the bliss/void of a fully enlightened being.

Rimpoche: Emptiness from the arhat point-of-view, Mahayana point-of-view, Vajrayana point-of-view is the same thing. Bliss is the Vajrayana particular thing. It’s never even talked about in Hinayana or Mahayana sutra level. It’s Vajrayana stuff. To become arhat you do need compassion. You really do. Tremendous compassion’s there. But you don’t have a greater compassion. If you have a greater compassion, if you have a boddhimind, when you become an arhat you become a fully enlightened Buddha. That’s the difference. Did I make it clear? I don’t think so, but for those who have heard they have heard.

[38:04]

And I’m going to close here tonight because it is quarter to ten and I’m supposed to do something that’s too late for tonight. I’m not going to do that. What is it?

[Audience: inaudible

Rimpoche talks to audience. I’m sure tomorrow there’s lot of people who have to leave. Is there anybody who has to leave before twelve. Would you raise your hands? You have to drive all the way to Indiana. Tomorrow is big driving time. It takes a long time. So you have to go earlier okay.

I’m thinking of doing the Tsongkhapa initiation tomorrow, so breakfast is over what time? Do we have Tara meditation tomorrow morning. Maybe we should change a little bit. Let’s not do the Tara initiation in the morning so you can do your personal stuff, whatever you have to do. And then have breakfast. And say, about 10:00, instead of 10:30, we may be able to do this initiation. And they hopefully, like usual, it may be over by twelve. And then we do the smoke puja and lunch and then we close. So just like usual that may be the best way to do.]

[Audience: Discusses plans for packing up etc.]

[43:11 Migstema]

[44:48 Tape ends]