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Soundfile 19940401GRWT3

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location

Topic

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Transcriber Wee Lin

Date May 12 2021

0:00:47.3 It is interesting. Earlier I told you, motivation is what makes the difference. Whatever the motivation will make a difference. If you have a positive motivation it will become a positive activity. To identify it as a Buddhist activity, it is the taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

0:01:21.4 At the heart level of that Buddha is Guru, Buddha is Buddha, Buddha is Dharma and Buddha is Sangha. Actually deep [down] Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is inside, the external [object] is just a representation. The historical Buddha represents those who are enlightened. The real Buddha, the real Dharma and the real Sangha is within ourselves. We have to connect our own Buddha with the historical or external Buddha so that it sparks. We have to connect the external Dharma with the internal Dharma so that the internal Dharma can fully develop and we have to connect internal Sangha with the external Sangha so that it becomes real Sangha. That is how really, ultimately. In Tibetan it is called Day gyap, not du gyap but day gyap, sort of result oriented refuge. That is ultimately what it is.

0:02:59.7 (In the spring of 1994 Jewel Heart Tibetan Buddhist culture and meditation centre was honored to co- sponsor the visit of HHDL to Ann Arbor, Michigan. During the visit HH gave a teaching and transmission on the basis of the Goddess, White Tara. An explanation of the practice was given by Gelek Rimpoche on the following day. These four tapes are recording of those programs. Tape 1 introduces the transmission, tape 2 continues with the teaching transmission, tape 3 and 4 contain the explanation of the practice.)

0:03:41.9 Good morning everybody. Welcome to this little White Tara practice that we want to share with you. As you recall, HH mentioned yesterday that you have had the shortest initiation of the White Tara longevity [empowerment]. In one way it is like a joke and in another way it is reality. I will tell you why and how it is reality. One of the great masters said “(Lame….)” which means if the Vajra master or teacher delivers you, you can reach wherever you want to. So they do not necessarily require to have the rituals done. Besides that, if you look earlier during the Buddha’s lifetime, even those who wore robes, who were made nuns and monks or Bikshunis and Bikshus, even during the Buddha’s lifetime Buddha did not go through rituals. Some of them were made monks and nuns just by telling them to come here. If you looked at those old way, that’s the way and how the Buddha did it.

When time gets worse and become degenerated, then rituals have to pick up because the human capacity could not cope without] that.

0:06:24.3 So since the human capacity could not cope then the rituals came in. These rituals have been traced to the lineage and that is how they came about. However for people with the capacity like HH will definitely not need to depend on rituals at all. That’s why if we look in that way that powerful oral transmission of the White Tara mantra itself, if we know how to take it, that is definitely a White Tara Longevity empowerment.

0:07:33.5 If you look at earlier Indian siddhis, not only those during the Buddha’s lifetime but thereafter those Mahasiddhis or great siddhis, great yogis in India, even long detailed initiations were done by just a few mantras or few things here and there. So we should definitely, in one way not take that as a joke or a humor but should take it as a reality. That’s what I thought I will begin my talk from there because that’s how people may feel.

0:08:28.4 The most important thing HH mentioned yesterday was basically improvement of the human being, making your lives better, making a person a little better and bodhimind and all of those. Since HH mentioned all these yesterday I am not going to repeat that. I am sure people are very much aware of it.

I would like to say one thing here and that is to emphasize on the motivation of the people. Motivation is very very important factor definitely in every body’s life. If our motivation is not good, no matter whatever we do, [even doing] the highest tantric yogic practice will not necessarily become dharma at all if our motivation is not right. I hope it is clear to all of you. If the motivation is wrong, it doesn’t matter whatever practice you do. There are a number of people who had been in the past and today who are sitting hours and hours and hours everyday to try to meditate, say mantras, do these and do that, but they have a problem with the motivation.

0:10:22.4 When they have a problem with the motivation, what happens is, instead of improving that individual to becoming a better person, [that individual] becomes worse. It reinforces the negative emotions rather than the positive emotions. The negative emotions have been reinforced and when that happens, the person becomes more arrogant, person becomes more angry and more irritable and all these even though you have been doing dharma practice or whatever practice you have been doing. But instead of helping, it contributes in [reinforcing] the negative emotions. If that happens then it is actually like what the earlier Tibetan teachers gave as example like using gold for the purpose of brass. You use the gold material to make something which you could have made easily by using just brass. You know what I mean? It is a misuse. So the motivation is extremely important.

0:11:51.4 Since we all are fortunate enough to pick up the bodhimind or the bodhisattva mind from HHDL who is the reincarnation of Avalokitesvara the Buddha of compassion. In another word, actually from the Buddha of compassion we have been able to pick up the connection of the bodhimind which is really very fortunate. So if you set good motivation [of bodhimind] and as HH had said yesterday we should definitely encourage that and keep that up, rather than letting it go. So if you do that every day, in my opinion you do not need much mantras to say, you do not need many, even if you can’t read many books, even if you cannot meditate so much, it is good enough. It is good enough, it counts. The motivation and the little effort will go a long way.

0:13:16.0 To correct our motivation is very very important particularly those of us who claim or who pretend to be dharma practitioners and who are willing to work with spiritual path. We must watch our thoughts. Why am I doing this ? Why am I doing this? When you begin to watch your mind saying why am I doing this? and if you think about that and find that the answer within our self is I am doing this because my friend is doing this or I am doing this because it is interesting or I am doing this because I just like to see what’s in there. If you have all these motivations this sort of thoughts, that’s not necessarily great but that’s not bad either. If you can correct that to I am doing this because I would like to benefit, if I can, all the beings, all mother sentient beings. If you can do that, great. Even if you can’t do that [then at least] I will like to benefit as much as possible, I would like to benefit my friend, I would like to benefit the person that I care and I would like to benefit myself. I will like to do that. That much motivation is good. I am not sure whether I can say good enough or not but it is good and you can begin your daily chores and daily activities from there.

0:15:16.4 If you can correct your motivation the first thing in the morning then whatever positive things you do during that day will become good karma. After all we live under the direction of karma which we ourself create, not others. To make it, it is still simple. What I am trying to share with you here today is the first thing what we do in our daily life when you wake up, the first thing in the morning, if you have to look for the coffee that’s fine but the first thing what you do is to watch your mind, watch your thoughts, what your thoughts are. If your thoughts are on how I do my business today, how I will cheat someone or how I will do this and that , that’s wrong motivation. Correct that. You have to recognize and correct that and make it into helpful attitude. Even if you can’t help others but at least help myself and my friend. Even that much will do.

Actually what does dharma mean? The word dharma actually is a Sanskrit word. When you translate that it becomes phenomena. Really. The word dharma in Tibetan is chur. Chur means correction and what do you correct? You correct your thoughts, motivations and emotions. Right?

0:17:10.4 If you really look, if you are practitioner, if you are going to look to ourself. If I want to be a Buddhist practitioner or for that matter any practitioner, what am I looking for? I am looking to correct myself. What am I going to correct? My negative attitude, negative emotions, negative habitual patterns and negative addictions. The negative addictions, that need to be corrected. Make the negative habitual pattern and negative addictions into [something] positive and that is hard. It is not easy. Easy for those of us who preach dharma, it is easy to preach but when you have to practice, it is difficult. True. This goes for everybody including myself. Preaching is easy. You can say it. But practice is difficult. And those of us, even myself I can talk about myself, I can’t talk for others. Even me who have been fortunate enough to be able to take rebirth in Tibet during the Golden period. Really true. It was Golden period, period where in the West referred to Tibet as Shangrila. It is true at that time. It is absolutely true. Everybody in the old Tibetan life, there were always concern for the other people and compassion was born with them.

0:19:27.3 Yesterday HH mentioned that there is some kind of compassion. Maybe that was not [during] a public talk but was talking to the Tibetans. I am confused whether it is public talk or talking with the Tibetans. But he did say to the Tibetans, there was some kind of compassionate thing, something that different [to other beings’] in those Tibetans who were born in Tibet and [later] came out of Tibet. They have that, he did say that. And it was going in my head, that is nothing but that of Avalokitesvara’s commitment of drop that comes out. It is almost like Avalokitesvara’s genes were received by those Tibetans who were born at that period. I have been fortunate enough to be in the later part of that and fortunate enough to be able to go to the greatest monastery, had greatest teachers and had the best training ever possible, particularly in this field. I had that opportunity. Even for me, if I have to correct the negative emotions and the negative addictions, it is difficult. It is extremely difficult. It is not easy, it will not come just like that. You fall back, you try, you fall back again, you try again, you fall, you try again.

0:21:17.0 Even the negative karma has one good quality and that is to be able to correct, to be able to purify, that is the good quality of the negative karma. Are you with me? Good. So even negative karma has good quality so we have to take advantage. Dharma does that. Dharma means correct, correct your negative addictions. What is negative addiction? Our addiction for anger, addiction for attachment, addiction for being jealous, all of them we do have them. Whether we deny or not, we do. We also have a wonderful nature of human being within us, the basic human quality. The human being is a wonderful nature. That will become a Buddha later according to the Buddha. That is our ourself and that is wonderful. However just now we don’t share the wonderfulness of ourself with others. Instead of that, we share cold shoulders with others, don’t we? We do share cold shoulders. That is our problem. Why do we do that? Because of those bad habitual patterns or addictions. You don’t have [to be] attacked, the moment you get some kind of sense that they dislike you, what do we do? We immediately raise our negative emotions and [strike back] like a porcupine. We do really get ready for that and that is our problem. And that is the sign that we also have bad habitual patterns and negative addictions.

0:24:07.7 We also have compassion with us. I told you earlier we have a wonderful nature. I did not tell you the details. Whenever we see anybody suffering, we feel it. If we don’t see it, we may not feel that much. But the moment we see it, we feel it. Right? When the television shows us people get killed, people suffering, every heart moves because we have seen it. Right? Everybody. Even those we consider to be bad persons, they will also feel it. They don’t mind contributing a dollar or so here and there for relief. They would like to share that. That is indication that we do have compassion in our heart deeply. That is the indication that we have good nature. So we do have good nature, bad habit both with us. So what we try to correct dharma, correction, we correct the negative ones and let the positive ones shine out. That is the real meaning of dharma or buddha dharma or Buddhism within the individual.

0:25:48.6 It doesn’t matter whether you worship Buddha or you worship anybody else. It really makes no difference. The essence of Buddhism is correction. Correction of the negative habitual patterns or negative addictions make them positive. ( Tibetan quote) Once you get used to it then it is easy. Whatever you do, it becomes easy. People who find it very difficult to get up in the morning, will not wake up in the morning. Of course in Tibet we can’t do that. When we were in the monastery during that period you can’t do that. There were teachers and residential teachers. I remember I used to sleep at night facing up like that which is not supposed to but I always do that. Then I used to fold my legs up and have the knees standing. When I don’t get up on time, my teacher who was staying with me will hit [my knee] with a little stick. So I always say with pain on the knee, I will wake up with that. That was old Tibet. That was how we were trained. You can’t do that in America unless you do that to yourself. But somehow if you forcefully make yourself get up early, then you can change that [habit of not being able to get up in the morning.]. Then after a little while that will no longer be a problem. It will be your usual habit, people will even apologize saying, I am in habit of getting up in the morning so I can’t sleep anymore. People do that. So that simple little habitual pattern has been corrected.

0:27:59.0 We see that, right? We always see that. Just like that, every emotion that we have, we can correct them. The correction into the positive way is the real meaning of dharma. That is the real meaning of dharma. You don’t have to say I am a dharma practitioner, I am this, I am that. If you are holding on to your name, you are holding for recognition of being a dharma practitioner, in my opinion you are not. There is a problem with your practice.

0:28:45.0 Perhaps a few of you have noticed that in Jewel Heart, I have never encouraged people to stand up, folding their hands together and bowing down. Sometimes it almost become difficult, time like yesterday [in the presence of HHDL], I may have to tell people to do that, otherwise they would not do it. And I also do not encourage people to carrying mala and wearing all these types of things. I don’t. Why? Dharma is inside, within your heart, deep essence of the human being. We have to practice there, you don’t practice outside. You don’t do that outside. It is not external thing, it is an internal thing. That is the reason why you do this. Correction also has to be done internally by ourself, not externally like plastic surgery type of thing. That is what other people do. That is the essence of dharma and what HH shared yesterday is that.

(end of side 1 )

0:30:33.3 Audience : To help people, like you can be angered that things that are going on in Bosnia or something like that and if you use that [in a] positive way to create positive change then it is ok. You can use it [though] it is not be used negatively. That was the impression that I got whereas in the Bible it states that anger in itself is definitely a sin. I was wondering if you could elaborate or clarify that to me a little bit.

Rimpoche: Well to tell the truth, I don’t recollect that. Did he [HH] say that yesterday? He did say, ok. I don’t recollect. I was listening in the Tibetan and did not really listen much in English part but don’t really recollect. But in my personal opinion, anger of course can used in a positive way. It is definitely way and how we can use anger in positive way. That’s called transformation of anger. The anger transforms and become one of those five wisdoms. That is their way, that’s the thing. A person like HH has no problem with that. As far I am concerned and at my level and at our level, I don’t about everybody, some are great persons so they can do it, but at ordinary person’s level, to use anger [for something] positive, maybe for a short period here and there we can achieve some short time goals here and there. That is positive and can be achieved. But if you look at the long time goal, anger is not that great at all. Not only it is not great, the negative karmic consequences that anger brings is tremendous. So I normally say anger is extremely expensive. Whether we can afford or not that’s what I always say. Anger is extremely expensive. It costs us a lot. Lots.

0:33:39.2 ( Quote in Tibetan) Even Buddha said if you are angry at a [being who is] spiritually higher developed than you even for a single minute it can cost you the virtues that you have accumulated for a hundred aeons. So that way it is extremely expensive. For me, if I have the anger bill even if I were a billionaire I will not be able to pay for it. So I try to not to collect the anger bill at all. That is what I know.

0:34:29.2 But in Vajrayana practice there is a method of transforming anger to a positive way. All the Yamantaka tantras and all of those are usage of anger into positive way. But that really needs lots of training and the person needs to know exactly what you are doing. Whether you are transforming attachment in the wisdom positive way or transforming anger in wisdom positive way, you need to know exactly what you are doing. If you don’t, ( Tibetan quote), the earlier Indian Buddhist masters gave example for this. If you do not know how to catch the poisonous snake and if you try to catch it, you will have a problem. And just like that, if you do not know how to transform those negative emotions properly and if you [try to do] it, it will have problem. So for us the everyday person, on the ground basic human being , if we don’t handle those, it is very exciting and very mystical transforming my negativities into positive, wow, it is great but it is difficult. It is easy to say, again very difficult to do. That’s what it is. So what normally I do go this way. But it is true, anger brings positive too. When people sees what’s happening in Bosnia or somewhere, people gets angry, upset. When they get upset and angry, it sometimes provokes a positive reaction. I think that is definitely possible, I am not denying and specially when HH said it is possible, it should be possible. But it is difficult.

0:37:04.7 Audience: Rimpoche, you are talking earlier about the importance of motivation. I was wondering if there is a difference between a motivation that is pure that is merely consciously contrived and a pure motivation.

Rimpoche: Ya. Thank you. It is a very important question. It is absolutely true there’s a big difference. You are correct. Artificially corrected motivation and motivation that is good that is really coming [from within] has a big big difference. But truly, the motivation that I would like to help all beings whatever I could is not going to come to a number of us automatically from what we normally say from deep down in your gut. It is not going to come out at all. It is hard to come out. Deep down in the gut you always think ultimately how is it going to benefit me. The Americans are open persons, you will say what’s in there for me. So that is normally what you have deep down in the gut. It is hard to come. However, the way and how you correct that, even if you change that motivation artificially with or without reasons. If you correct with reasons convincing yourself then it becomes more powerful. And if you don’t have reasons convincing yourself but you just want it to be positive or if you just want look like a positive person, with that sort of attitude you try to correct, it will help. And once you keep on correcting [your motivation]every day, like when waking up in the morning, it will become that way. And then it will take ground and become stable then become stronger and finally it will become from the deep down in the gut. And that is, I believe how you go, really that’s how you go. That is called training of mind. Whatever you may talk, that’s how you train your mind, that’s how you train yourself.

0:39:42.6 Audience: Good morning. I’ve been listening to the dharma of encouraging people to have good actions and positive actions and thoughts and abstain from negative thoughts and negative actions. So what would be the principle or guidance for an untrained mind to recognize the positive and the negative elements.

Rimpoche: Thank you. If I understand correctly, how do I recognize whether I am having a positive thoughts or negative thoughts. Is that right? If you are untrained mind, yes, true, that is the difficulty. That is absolutely difficult but ignorance is not an excuse in the karmic law. True. It is natural law, the karmic law, ignorance is not an excuse at all. The earlier great masters when they tried to lead the disciples in practice, what did they do. They lead them in three steps, three most important steps which are learning, thinking and meditating. Learning was so much emphasized, not only it was so much emphasized, ( Tibetan quote). The earlier masters, not like us, we are so busy we can hardly spend two three hours, they spent year after year, month after month, day after day so what they do is they emphasized so much on learning. They gave the quality of the leaning saying it is the light which drives away the darkness of ignorance, it is the best wealth that no one can steal from you and it is the best friend who will not let you down when you are buried under heavy emotions or difficulties. That tremendous amount of emphasis on that.

0:43:01.3 So actually learning is the key to this. When I say learning is the key to this I don’t mean you have to become a scholar. You don’t have to but at least you have to know what is negative and what is positive which incidentally as a human being we do have good intuition. We do know somehow good or bad though it is very hard. Who really know what is good and what is bad. It is difficult. However we do have human intuition which will somehow tell you these are negative and these are positive. During our normal talk, I used to say, if you look from the Buddhism point of view they have ten negative karmas and of course automatically ten positives. It is almost corresponding with the ten commandments in the West. And I used to joke and said perhaps Buddha had telephone conversation with Jesus Christ so made a decision between east and west religions and came out with similar thing. We know that was not the case. That means the basic human intuition will give you some kind of message to certain level and they will bring you up. That is the quality of the good nature the wonderful nature of human being within us. We will know that. And that can be made more powerful by learning and then thinking, analyzing and meditating. Actually you change your habitual pattern, you change all your addictions by these three steps. Basically that’s it. Dharma means correction of habitual pattern and correction of addiction. How do you do it? By these three steps. As simple as that.

0:45:31.8 Audience : Will there ever be an end to samsara for all sentient beings and if so what will exist then.

Rimpoche: This is important and a very very old question. Extremely old question. As far as I know that question was raised two thousand five hundred years ago. A group of people asked Buddha, will there be end of samsara. You know what Buddha answered? Do you know what the Buddha’s answer for that was? Buddha kept silent. (laughter)

(Tibetan quote) And that I know, in Tibetan. And I do have this, when they asked the Buddha, is there total end of samsara, Buddha kept big silence and when Buddha kept big silence that’s why the learned people and very brilliant people recognized that the Buddha is all knowing. That was what the old old Buddhist sutra said.

0:47:10.9 But when I got to India and one day when I was attending a seminar in Delhi there were a number of professors from Delhi University and particularly from that of Buddhist studies, there was a very dramatic professor called Myeshotivary. He was very dramatic whenever he spoke. In his lecture, when he was talking on that question , is there end of samsara, he said, “Buddha kept silent,” and made a [drasmatic] gesture and then kept completely quiet for a while. That sort of struck me on how the Indian Buddhist scholars make a big deal out of that. Actually really truly speaking, Buddha’s real answer is theoretically speaking there should be end of samsara. That is theoretical. There should be end of samsara because every sentient being has the wonderful nature which we called technically buddha nature. That is Buddhist terminology. We do have buddha nature and that buddha nature is a growing nature. That growing nature of the buddha nature will become fully matured one day. So when that day comes and then all the sentient beings will be free from samsara. That is the theoretically, should be possible. That’s theoretically speaking. Practically speaking, the question does not apply in general. The question is applicable to the individual. So what do we do? Do I have end of my samsara? Will I be free of samsara one day? The answer is yes, definitely yes. Why? Buddha and me, if you compare us, I will not say 2500 years, but if you compare it 3000 years before, my nature and Buddha Sakyamuni’s nature are equal. Buddha himself said that. Equal. As much as I was intelligent, Buddha was that intelligent, as much as I was stupid, Buddha was that much stupid at that time too. True.

0:50:29.4 (Tibetan) So what made the difference? The difference is the diligence, the diligence of correcting the individual, the dharma correction, correcting that diligently. Diligently making correction made the difference. That is the key for us. So diligence is extremely important. Laziness is the most difficult problem that we have to overcome. It is very hard and difficult, the laziness. You can only overcome that by diligence. The laziness is very easy to take over, very easy. We do have a lot of different laziness. The eastern laziness is different than western laziness, I have notice that. True. The eastern laziness for me is if I get a very comfortable place to sit down, not like sitting on chair but a comfortable place, sit down with crossed legs, with nice cup of tea and quiet place where I can read nice book, I will not get out of that, people will have to pull me out. That’s my laziness. True.

0:52:09.1 The western laziness don’t have that problem. Every westerner will get up mostly, get up early morning and then got a cup of coffee and they run. They run through out the day till you hit the bed. You run. The running is your laziness. It is called busy lazy. That’s your laziness. People try to avoid what you are supposed to do, you do create a lot of deadlines, you do create lots of these things, make yourself absolutely busy so that you don’t give opportunity for you to think or to cope with difficulties or problems that you have to cope and think. You will not give yourself the chance you run. That is the western laziness. If you can overpower the western or eastern laziness by a perfect diligence then you will definitely become a Buddha. Your samsara will definitely be ended. Because lots of others did, why not us? What is wrong with us? Nothing. It is only our habitual pattern which or negative addiction that is standing in between. Thank you.

( end of side 2 )