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Soundfile 19940903GRSRWT_01

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

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Transcriber Wee Lin

Date Oct 7 , 2020

This particular practice is Mahayana and that’s where they have the Bodhisattva vows. To mark it as Buddhist practice they have refuge. Those are the two reasons. Why do you have refuge and Bodhisattva vows there? You can take Bodhisattva vows with elaborated ceremony again like refuge it is much more elaborated than that. I took the Bodhisattva vows a number of times and a number of ways. One way and another way simple like this you can do too. So Bodhisattva vows whatever the ritual you may do as long as it is simple ritual, Bodhisattva vows grow with you. However that doesn’t mean you become Bodhisattva. The mind of the Bodhisattva really grows with you then you become a Bodhisattva.

0:00:54.7 Though people will give you Bodhisattva vows and even give you a name to like Bodhisattva so and so but name is name. It is meaningless. Ngawang Gelek is my name . It is meaningless in one way, in another way there is a lot of meaning. So if I are not a Bodhisattva and if I call myself Bodhisattva Ngawang Gelek it will not do any good to me. I may call myself Buddha , Bagavan Buddha Ngawang Gelek but I am not going to become a Buddha. Likewise if I call Bodhisattva I will not become Bodhisattva. But you can take Bodhisattva vows and then you can grow some kind of vows within you which will help yourself to become Bodhisattva. Actually Bodhimind has two, prayer form and action form.

0:02:02.8 Basically I should introduce to you a little bit about Bodhisattva and Bodhimind otherwise you will probably wonder what that is, what is this Bo bo bo business. Bodhimind and bodhicitta are all one technical name. Is named after a particular thought pattern of a person who has fully developed their love and compassion, grown beyond limit, positive way of going beyond the limit , unconditional and unlimited love , unconditional compassion and that becomes closer to the Bodhimind. Each one of us has compassion. We know it. When we see on the television people are suffering , we will be willing to share anything we have. We will not have difficulty with that. We are happy to give 10% of your salary or whatever , we are willing to do that. I should say income. 10% of your income or 20% or 25% we are happy to write cheques and that shows we have compassion.

0:03:35.1 However [our] compassion has limitation. It is with conditions. Americans particularly have very strong condition. There are two kinds of conditions. One group of people will say “ What’s in there for me ? “ Familiar with that? That is the normal American condition. And then another group of people will say …. ( Rimpoche stopped short ) That indicates its good enough. That indicates we have limitations and we have conditions. So Bodhimind is unconditional and unlimited love and compassion. It’s getting closer but that’s not enough. Maitreya Buddha said Bodhimind really means totally dedicated for benefit of others , seeking ultimate Buddha state. So it is a two prong mind, one prong is totally dedicated, committed to unconditioned , unlimited love and compassion and the other prong is like a vajra type seeking the best tool I can get to fulfill this. That is why to become Buddha level becomes relevant from now on. Not before. From now on, it is relevant. Before, I would just like to be free from the suffering. Seeking freedom is relevant. Now the priority is changed from seeking freedom to helping others, so taking the best method possible. That’s why Bodhimind seeks enlightenment.

0:05:46.5 All the bodhisattvas would like to become Buddhas as soon as they could. Not for their benefit much but for helping others. So using the Buddha level and capability as tool to be able to help others. That is why seeking the Bodhi. That is called Bodhimind. As I told you earlier we can only take vows and hope to praying, sort of prayer form that the Bodhimind may really grow within us very quickly. That’s what we do.

0:06:26.8 Bodhimind will not grow in a person unless the person is very lucky. If the person has lots of negative karma the bodhimind will not grow at all. Negative karma will block the Bodhimind. So you have to purify negativity and you have to make yourself lucky by creating lots of positive work. In Buddhism, one good thing you will find , really is there are tremendous tips in the spiritual path. One of them is purification. Another is how to accumulate merit. If I keep on talking on purification then it is going to take a lot of time. Those of you who have heard , you know. By application of the four powers. Allen has a beautiful way of putting those four powers in Rs.

0:08:03.3 Recognition, Regret, Reparation and non-Repetition. Recognition, if you don’t recognize you cannot purify. So you recognize. Denial is our biggest problem. So you have to recognize. I am not going to talk too much [ on this.] Then regret. If you don’t regret, you will keep on doing it, right? That hunting was very good so let’s go again. We enjoyed. There is no regret, that’s what happen. Then reparation, it’s antidote action. Taking refuge to Buddha , Dharma and sangha, generating bodhimind , sitting in the retreat , saying mantras, meditating , bringing awareness , they are all reparation.

Audience: Making up for damages .

That is repairing. On top of that generating bodhimind is topmost, understanding of emptiness and generating bodhimind is topmost repairing work. Even beyond hundred thousand Vajrasattva recitation and all these. Bodhimind is top.

0:10:00.8 In Bodhisattva charya avattara it says such a powerful negativity cannot be overpowered except by bodhimind. So repeatedly it is there in Bodhisattva charya avattara or Bodhisattva Way of Life, available in English. If you read it you will see it in there. That is one of the top activities. So we do it every day. We will do it every morning . So today’s morning begins now. We will do it every morning. So repairing is there, and you have to generate regret. I will not encourage people to have guilt but regret. I don’t know English. English is not my native language but somehow I try to understand what I like to understand. Guilt will be somewhere where you are stuck , you cannot get out of it. You can do nothing. But regret, you regret what you did and you can get out of it. I regret and then I go on and move on. I regret, I repair it and then I go on. I don’t have to be stuck there. Ok? That might not be right in English language. But I am looking from the Tibetan angle and try to use the words with that sort of interpretation. It might not be right in the language.

0:11:47.4 Guilt you don’t need it. Did you say right ? Thank you. Guilt you don’t need it. Nothing is permanent. Please remember that. We are impermanent, all our deeds are impermanent , our karma is impermanent , everything changes every second. Ok ? It is changeable so nothing is permanent. Even the permanent fixture is impermanent. We have to go back to the dentist all the time. Either they do a good job or make a mess out of it, we have to go back. So nothing is permanent, even those permanent monuments will also go. When there is earthquake they fall down also when there is lightning. Even if there is nothing but year after year they change their colour etc. It is impermanent. There is nothing permanent, we are not stuck. Buddha was not stuck, he went out and he said hey there is a way out. That was the message Buddha gave. That was the experience Buddha had. So guilt is not called for. It is uncalled for. However regret is needed. If you don’t regret , “let’s go back to hunting again”, that is the idea.

0:13:37.6 Then if you regret you don’t want to do it again. Example given here in the teaching is three people went to a restaurant , ate the wrong food , one died immediately , one got sick and about to die , the third person had no problem at all. However the third did not have peace of mind. For he saw that one had gone, one was going , nothing had happened to him yet but he was sure something will happen to him, so he ran everywhere , [did everything he could], washed his stomach , colon cleansing or whatever he had to do, he did everything. Everything whatever he had to do , went to doctor , do whatever, had injection etc. The thing will come is there, you will not leave a stone unturned. Because you saw what had happened to two others , you are left [unaffected] by chance but you may be going next. So who knows , so like that sort of regret. If you have regret , you will not go back to that restaurant. That is automatic. The non repetition is automatic. That is the purification part.

0:15:10.7 Next one is accumulation of merit. The best way with little effort we can have big yield. What can you do? Rejoice, that is the answer. Really true, rejoice is the answer. The Buddhas have found that. In the Bodhisatvva charya avattara the Buddhas thought for eons on what’s the best way , easy way and quick way they can help. What practice can we do? They came up with the Seven limbs or Seven Branch. One of them is rejoice. Rejoice is risk free investment with lots of yield. That is really what it is, risk free investment. You have no risk and lot of yield, triple yield. So Buddhas have recommended rejoicing. What does rejoice do? It will overpower the jealousy. We have lots of jealousy. It is true with us. For no reason, we get jealous. If somebody is doing something good we will say oh so and so doing good , yes, yes, yes BUT….. will come out. The but will follow.

If somebody doing something good, great, I am happy , if I can help I will help , if I can’t help I will really rejoice, great. { if we do that] we will gain lots from that. But our habit will not allow us to do that, we will say huh, so and so is doing great, wonderful but she has agenda , blah, blah , blah will go. That shows the jealousy. Rejoice overpowers jealousy. So we have this negative pattern set up with us , true. If you rejoice and put a full stop we get lots of benefit. But we don’t. Deeply we get jealous. And we have to say one way by mouth , put on face saying very nice but…. That’s what it is. So the Buddha’s message over here is said, cut the but out! ( laughter) Sounds funny. Cut that “But” out and let it go.

0:18:15.1 So rejoice the activities of the Buddha , rejoice the activities of the great people , historical or even living today like great persons like Mother Theresa , His Holiness the Dalai Lama and so and forth. And rejoice in them. And anybody, like your next door neighbour , the downstairs neighbor, the upstairs neighbour and your companion if they do something good here and there, rejoice in all of them . That is the benefit. If you rejoice in activities of those who have higher spiritual development than you, you will get half the benefit. If you rejoice in those who are equal in spiritual development , you will get equal benefit. If the person is of lower spiritual development than you will double the benefit . Let them work , you sit there and watch and rejoice , you will get [half the benefit], equal benefit or double benefit. So why not take advantage , take it. It’s so simple. It is only a matter of a little adopting a little bit of way of thinking , that’s all.

0:19:52.8 First is taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Second is purification , third is rejoice, fourth is generating Bodhimind. Do repeat after me.

“ …. Not a shimmering mirage … it is now … “

That is the quality of authentic practice, it has to be highway which leads to the city of joy. It should not be zig zag road and don’t to jump on too much short cut, that is another thing I would like to warn. If you try to go after short cuts, some short cuts can lead you into swamp. That is a problem.

Audience : Concerning appreciation. Can there be a full appreciation of this ( inaudible ) without monastic, certain number of people become monks and nuns?

Rimpoche: This is the question I have with Tricycle, Helen and I kept on saying “Ya” and Helen kept on coming back saying if that is so how that will happen. I would like to , it looks like if you read the Tricycle interview, it looks like I am against Monastery , it almost looks like that. But that’s not it. The root of all Buddhism lies in the monastery tradition, absolutely. Do me a favour, if anybody reads Tricycle and if [anyone] thinks I am against the monastery , please tell them I am not. Please do me a favour. But one most important thing in Buddhism and particularly Tibetan Buddhism, even from the tradition in old Tibet even very long time , there are two systems, Nagpo… ???? polite way of saying bald headed [referring] to those of Monastic tradition who shave their head, so in the polite way they called it Umdum in other word meaning bald headed guys or bald headed persons, not excluding nuns and those who are Vajrayana practitioners who wear the white dresses.

0:23:51.1 Why? It is not [about]the group. The main point is Buddhism lies within the individual. Buddhism does not depend on temples, Buddhism does not depend on group, Buddhism does not depend on organization, it remains with the individual. The purpose of Buddhism is not to have a big organized place or something like Macy’s place that you get in New York city. Not in that manner. It is to liberate each individual, to help to serve and benefit each and every individual if you find it is useful to you. Again the useful here is not looking at the usefulness of having peaceful mind. That is useful but that is very little. [What we want is ] actually overpowering our negativities , anger , hatred, jealousy , attachment and above all ignorance. And if you are making dent on our thoughts , behavior and emotional problems arising from those influence, then it is helping you. When that’s happening, Buddhism is within you. So Buddhism really remains with individual rather than collective organized manner or organization or all these. So your disorganized bunch of people together or just a few individuals or well organized group wherever it is , it depends on the individual so therefore and when the individual has the opportunity, the individual should appreciate that.

0:26:56.9 Sangha has two, relative sangha and absolute sangha. When you don’t have absolute sangha, the relative sangha will substitute. The relative sangha is more than four or four fully ordained Buddhist Bikshu and Bikshuni. Of course in America every dharma centre would like to call those who take refuge as sangha member. That is fine and one of the difficulties in Jewel Heart to differentiate between who is member and who is not really lies on that. Every Sangha member should be the member but where are you going to draw the line ? So that’s why we remain in a little bit of floating [position] on that. People raise the question very often but we don’t have a black and white answer on that. We don’t want to be like the American Express card type of thing. If you have the card , you are a member and membership has been filled. We don’t want to do that . At the same time., this is actually what we have. The true sangha is again individual who encounters with emptiness, who see the emptiness, true reality. If you become arya you become sangha. And sangha also can be individual as well as group, both ways.

0:29:05.5 Audience: (Not audible )

Early Tibetan Buddhism , earliest is Ningma tradition, Sakya tradition and Kagyu tradition. If you look at Kagyu tradition the founder of Kagyu is Marpa Lotsawa. If you look at the Sakya tradition you have the five great masters of the Sakya, three white and two red. Three white are lay persons. The lay people have absolutely equal opportunity . You don’t miss a single opportunity , except if you are monk or nun, the monastery will provide you the atmosphere where you will be in a very condusive atmosphere and that’s all. Lay people will not have that. And that can’t be help . Otherwise opportunity wise you miss nothing. I would like to be the lay person’s spokesman of Tibetan Buddhism ( laughter ) Would you support me ? hahahaha. But at the same time you have to have respect to the celibate monks and nuns.

Audience: It is not just celibacy, there are 200 over things.

Rimpoche: That is true absolutely true. That’s because that is the normal western way of looking. There are actually253. Unfortunately I was expert on vinaya rules. The five subjects I studied in monastery were Prajaparamita, the transcendent wisdom , vinaya rules and the metaphysics. The best subject for me was the vinaya rules. Unfortunately if you know the Vinaya rule well you will see all the loop holes too. If you have any questions on this come to me. ( laughter )

0:32:02.0 I will tell you a story. There was a friend of mine , a friend cum teacher called Serkong Sechu Rimpoche??? who worked with the Dalai Lama . A couple of times in the west. I am sure some of you know, Serkong Rimpoche. He was in Daramsala. It was not so long ago, I think was early 70s or around then. There were a number of Italians who had become monks and nuns and they have been planning all sort of funny tricks. You are not recording, are you ? Remember yesterday I told you, if you put gold in the ear , it will move, dust in ear, also move, there is no difference between gold and dust. So you need intelligent appreciation. If you have just blind faith, that’s not good . Then you won’t know what is good and what bad is. That is not recommended. Intelligent appreciation is perfect faith. Good faith is necessary, I don’t think Buddhism cut down faith. But not like western normal Judeo Christian’s. I shouldn’t say because I don’t know anything about it but I am presuming it looks like sort trying to encourage blind faith and that’s not good.

Audience: It’s faith everywhere

Rimpoche: Is it? But intelligence is necessary. So anyway , in Buddhism intelligent faith [is needed], intelligent in the sense that whatever you are doing , whatever you are studying you have to be convinced the path is capable of delivering whatever goods you want and once you see that, then follow faithfully. That is important. If you don’t have that faith, nothing will grow. That is the kunchok dalala ?? there is one sutra called kunchok dalala. They tell you that this intelligent faith is like a mother, without mother you cannot give birth to children. If you don’t appreciate and if you don’t have that, nothing will grow. It will be like a seed that has been roasted or over burnt. If you have roasted seed and try to grow wheat out of it or corn, it is not going to grow.

0:35:20.4 So we have this seven limb prayer and we now go over to the Migtsema. I don’t want to say so many [ migtsema] . You chant Migtsema three times , that will be good and then chant the short one which we do at the end which is not very good. We tried to avoid [doing that] unless you are really in a rush. That’s the easy way. But if we chant our normal old way three times, that will serve the purpose. Lex has a very beautiful translation of the Migtsema besides this. I meant to write down and have it available but never did that and I hope if you could write it down. If it is ok with you and I will make the copy available for everybody. At least you know what you are saying. The first time I heard Lex chanting the Migtsema that way in open centre, it gave me goose pimples and made me feel great. So that was the first time when I heard Lex saying the Migtsema.

I insist to say the Migtsema in Tibetan. One reason is normally when we try to translate everything possible so that you know what you are saying and you can meditate and think about it. But the Migtsema is the Manjushri appearing in form of sound. Actually it is praise of Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa himself wrote this and presented it to one of his teachers called Lama Umapa. Lama Umapa edited it by putting Tsongkhapa’s name in it and gave it back to Tsongkhapa. The main thing is it is not only a great mantra which is presented to a great master, great beings presented to each other but actually it serves as living Manjushri. That’s why the sound is very important. I am not sure if you translate it , you may not have the sound. You have great meaning , makes lots of sense to you but you may be losing the sound. All the mantras in Sanskrit that have been translated, we don’t say the mantra in translated form because [we may not have the] sound. That’s why [I want the mantra to be said in Tibetan]. It seems to be only me who is insisting to say Migtsema in Tibetan.

0:39:23.1 During the chanting of Migtsema, you have [in front of you] this supreme field of merit in the form of Lama who is inseparable from that of your yidam and all living Buddhas , all gurus inseparable in the form of Tsongkhapa or whatever form you have. Physical form is representation. It really counts when you move from the heart. So whatever you have, it doesn’t matter. I am not sure whether you can have your girl friend’s face or boy friend’s face. Maybe that may not work but as long as it is a respectable enlightened form, whatever you have, that is fine. I don’t mean others are not respectable. Then light and liquid comes from [supreme field of merit], purifying all our negativities in general and particularly whatever ….. you have, purifying that and you become pure. Earlier I meant to say when you have the four immeasurables, may all sentient beings be free and all these, during that period you can meditate light going out of your heart , reaching to all sentient beings , just by the touch of the light from your heart, all environment becomes pure and inhabitants become perfect beings. You can do that, it is great exercise , great Bodhisattva exercise actually. This is called result oriented practice.

0:41:39.3 Tara practice that is page 24. When you look at page 24 the first thing you have is the refuge and generating bodhimind , namo guru bya, namo Buddha ya namo dharmaya namo sangha ya and Tibetan Sang gye cho dang etc. I have a couple requests from a couple of different people for different things regarding refuge. There may be confusion so I would like to clarify a little bit on the refuge that we talked about yesterday. One of the advices for refuge is not to jump over Buddhist images, text and things like that and people who are unaware of that are jumping around. There is a request to clarify on that. And there are two other requests. I would like to clarify on the refuge to Buddha dharma and sangha. This is important point, so I would like to clarify on that. Refuge is like taking medication. And Maitreya Buddha had compared that [to taking medication] in the Uta tantra neni… It always goes together, refuge and Four noble truth. Normally Tibetan do talk the refuge , when I said Tibetan I mean traditional Tibetan masters. I don’t mean the street people in the Lhasa street.

0:44:10.3 Traditional Tibetan masters compared ourselves with patients who got sick. People who got sick are looking for some help. Likewise we have trouble of delusions like anger, hatred etc ( lost audio for a while ) Remember [about not] jumping over books and images. That way it cuts down on the negativity.

0:45:10.2 Since we have already taken refuge , let’s jump over. Today we will do in Tibetan. This is a shorter form of longevity practice. It was written by one of the great masters called Pabongka for his manager for him to say daily. And the manager requested for a very short one. So that is truly how it is. And he made it in the form self generating so as lots of us here do not have the full initiation , I change from self generation into front generation.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. Even if you can’t think of all the [syllables] you just think they are there. They are living [syllables], like living with life. It is almost like generating steam. When you have steam and when you remove the cover you get condensed water on the cover. Just like that, they have a lot of condensed nectar which is essence energy ,spiritual energy , life energy , strength, all of those and sort of overflowing and then light radiating. If it is front generation then all of those are coming from the Tara dripping. When they come from the Tara don’t make it like a drop of water coming , don’t be very stingy. It is coming in huge [quantity], maybe far bigger than the Tara’s body that you have in front of you, huge like snow storm. You are quite familiar with snow storm in Michigan, in that way, very strong it is coming. The Californians have a lot of those fogs. but with life, millions of them. In that manner you can think. The snow storm is better. So in that way. Comes and dissolve to you purifying all our negativity in general and particularly that of killing karma. Light and nectar from the White Tara come to the crown if it is front generation, comes from the crown and the white coloured light and nectar push down the negativity in whatever undesirable colour that you don’t like. In that manner it was pushed down and when it comes down you can almost see the gap like when pickles settle down on the lower part and the oil comes up. In that manner it pushes down completely out of your system , away from the lower doorway, including from the toes and everywhere and not only away from you but push down a million miles under the earth. That’s what we will concentrate on. Maybe we chant a little bit for a while and then we say the OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA

0:51:26.0 You may sing a little. Nectar and light coming through and purify all negativity in general and particularly killing karma etc. You have to visualise from your body and think that you become pure.

Now next, the colour of the light and nectar will be yellow. After purifying, build up the prosperity. The yellow light and yellow liquid come through the body of the Tara and this time it is not going out , but building up the longevity , prosperity and whatever you want to build up and so in that way. You may not chant , you may say it now. Will be easier. If you visualize that is important. In Vajrayana, visualization works, ok ? OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA The life, luck, fortune to be able to complete spiritual practice, lucky enough to develop bodhimind and complete the bodhisattva practice and become a Buddha, quality all rebuilt.

0:53:10.4 Now the next one is the colour from the yellow gradually change into red colour. And the red represents power. Power to be able to accomplish spiritual practice, complete spiritual practice, accomplish your goal . It is not ordinary power to overpower individual or anybody but it is to be able to fulfill your own deeds and what you are supposed to do. OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA.

Next is wrathful activity. Spiritual practitioners always has to be kind and compassionate, however not to be a subject of bully by anybody. If anybody tries to bully you, you don’t have to take it. You have to be strong too. You have to be strong, no question. You don’t have to be bulldozed by anybody else, you don’t have to submit [to anyone]. You have to be strong and sometimes you need the strength to be strong and that is wrathful power. The colour of the wrathful power is dark blue. So the same thing. From the Tara the same light and liquid but colour change into that. OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA.

Next is multiple activities. It is the green colour. That is the different things you do. It is very effective for the Americans because you have to do all sorts of things everywhere. So multiple activities, sometimes peaceful, some for prosperity, some power, some wrathful , we have all of those different thing and they did not really categorise in that manner , different things , everywhere to do. So the multiple activity and Tara has very special one on this. It is green colour and that’s why the Green Tara is there too. ( quote in Tibetan ) OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA.

0:56:08.2 There are a number of things I would like to do. There is protection realms [meditation] , common and uncommon both in this Tara practice. I would like to do one common protection realm today. It is actually common but slightly uncommon in between. So what I would like to do today is those of you who have Tara as front generation, you yourself and Tara, all the light [will be] coming out from the Tara’s heart. Those of you doing the self generation you get light going out from your heart from the life mantra. Light radiates out of your body. Those doing front generation , from the Tara it is easier to come out. The light radiates from your body and goes upper and lower part and goes out of your body to whatever the length of your body is, this form a circle round . It looks like almost like this, like this, sort of light comes. One forms base of light , the other forms the roof type of thing, one like an umbrella down and one looks like umbrella up. Then sort of close together. HH Kyabje Trijiang Rinpoche normally said (Shapte kacha…) Like some kind of Tibetan hats they wear, [like these] funny hats join together in that manner. Two of them join together in that manner but big and open and light nature. And at the joining point you have ten swords. Those who are familiar with the ten wrathful deities uncommon protection realm in Yamantaka mandala, it is very similar to that. Ten swords going round and each of those letters OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA, ten of them so equal to ten swords. Swords going round. The letters are in reality the mantra and it is double edged sword standing. Any obstacles coming through , you can turn that thing but don’t do it. It is sort of protection, just leave it there.

0:59:09.2 !,2,3,4 then repeat a couple of times, you will understand better. So let’s do that protection realm first. OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA.

Meditating together is Vajrayana style. So one has to learn that. Normally meditation means people would like to keep quiet and do nothing. Here you say the mantra and meditate together. That is very important, it is double power. When I say obstacles, you don’t have think that the obstacles are coming from outside. Obstacles are basically our negative karma and their results, our emotional and illnesses etc, these are the obstacles. And protecting from that. But internal obstacles we also get external contact. Otherwise you will think why you are putting and locking them inside, like locking the thief inside and lock the door? No, it is the basic , the internal negative emotions when they are contacted from the external aids, then it is pull up. Just like we try to get spiritual aid from the external and try to build [up], similarly the negative has same faults. It is very interesting when you look in this modern way , nowadays we are thinking of it. It is a battle between the negative and positive thing within our self. That is really what it is.

1:01:05.6 I would like to do little interesting thing here which is according to the first Dalai Lama. ( Inaudible talking ) I might have to say to the Tara ( jigche ….) In the Tara praise by the First Dalai Lama, “ Just by remembering your body alone and you protect from the eight fears and all other ignorance oriented evil obstacles, delusions and imprint of delusion and one who protect from the fear of delusion and imprint of delusion and ignorance activities and specially great eight fears. Just by remembering , meditating your body , and she has the power to protect and therefore I call on you who had gone beyond the power and the capability. Earlier we talked about the power, I try to tell you it is not overpowering somebody but it is the power that one will be able to help that. That power of Tara has gone beyond .

1:03:40.9 So what are the eight fears. Actually I call them eight nightmares of the spiritual practitioners. It is not really the fear of what we are afraid of. It is not that people are afraid, it is the influence. A lot of people are afraid of what’s happening and what’s going to happen and have no idea what they are afraid of but they will afraid. Some people cannot sleep if you turn off the light , some people cannot sleep and have to have television yelling the whole night otherwise you will be afraid that somebody will come out of your closet, or somebody jump out from under the bed and you know they make sure there are no monsters under there and all these stuff. We have that right from the beginning we have that fear but we are not really looking that kind of fear but these big eight nightmares.

1:04:56.1 I should really continue this. ( Tibetan quote) Tara has also protection. What does Tara protect. From the illnesses and infections and obstacles, untimely death, bad dreams, bad signs , so all fears. Tara is specially protecting , sort of recommended and outstanding yidam to be used to get protection from the fears. That is the basically the second verse.

Now begins with the eight fears. ( Tibetan quote ) So the first nightmare is pride. The first Dalai Lama was jumping over to the pride first. This is interesting thing. He gave you a picture of how pride works. It is like a lion. The lion king, according to the Tibetan mythological story, the lion thinks he is king of animals. So what do they do, they sit in high places like mountains at the corner of somewhere where they find their own little big cave and where they can hide and think that he or she lion whoever may be is superior and better than anybody else around.

1:07:23.3 ( quote) He or she is superior and better than anybody else. [Just like us]. All these superiority, we like. That’s why we have this white supremacy for a long time. Some people like it. People now are aware that that’s not right. Anybody tells you that you are superior , you are special, people like that.” I think I am special.” What happens is you are feeding the lion, that’s all . If you look in history Hitler did this. He said we Germans are special persons and we are better and Jews are bad, they are down. They do that just to feed their lion. So lion become more powerful. And it is everywhere. The Chinese do that too. They will say the Hans are better than others. The Han Chinese will do that. And Tibetans will do the same thing if they have opportunity. So that is everywhere. So what happens is, if you have American pride, and that’s fine but [not when] what you do is opposite and you look down on others. The lion will think, I am the king and the best so I can beat up anybody who comes around or overpower them. So they think their claws can jump over and kill anybody, just like that.

Pride is one thing. We do need pride. We don’t have to put our head down, heads up. Didn’t Clinton have something called heads up ? You can put your heads up. Tibetan Buddhism , the Vajrayana Buddhism, Aura was telling me couple of years ,when talking to Aura, what is this positive religion? and she said I am not seeing any other more positive religion than that of the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. I said “ How come ? “ “ Imagine you think you are fully enlightened beings and walking around. What’s more positive than you want them have. “ It is true. So that way the pride of being deity and clarity is recommended, those who are doing Tara practice [meditating] yourself in Tara form, you should during this practice maintain that you are Tara, pride and clarity should be there. That does not mean you are Tara. Don’t go on television and say “ Ya I am god. “ Don’t say that, ok ?

1:10:21.9 But the pride, ya , why not. But along with the pride, insulting others , looking down on others, like what the lions do. That is the pride problem. What we want is we want to get the problem out. We don’t want the pride to be reduced but the problem of I am superior , others are worse, I can overpower them or kill them or do whatever. You know the lion ‘s claws are big and they can just [do that] , even the cats can. You can see that? That’s what it is. So that part we have to cut out. And this is one of the nightmares of the spiritual practitioner. So the practice what you do is the same.

Light coming from the Tara and you collect all your pride as sort of a little darkness at the heart level, the light comes from the Tara’s heart or if you are in the Tara’s form, they collect them in somewhere at the corner of the place and light shine from the mantra and it is like when you switch on the light, darkness in the room disappears, in that manner. The light comes from the Tara and [ the darkness] disappears, gone. That is the first one we will do. OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. Maybe we should chant. Now you have to think this is Vajrayana special. It’s been cleared, you are free of it. You have to think that way.

1:12:25.8 Now the next is the ignorance. The First Dalai Lama used elephant ]as example]. That is wild elephant. ( quote) He refer to the elephant that is not tamed, wild. You know those elephant trainers , if you look at them , they use some kind of iron hook and hit at the back of the elephant’s ear and they will turn. Those who have been to India they will see them all the time. If you tame them, they are very useful. When there is no truck the elephant will carry far better than trucks so that is very useful and powerful. But when it is untamed it is harmful too. So awareness of our consciousness and acknowledging are like that of that iron hook and awareness and acknowledging is the one, if you don’t acknowledge you deny, right? These are the main keys you can use for meditation , you can use for transforming negativity and these the two main keys within our self.

Awareness is very helpful. I too have a personal experience. I am a diabetic. And I do check very often and sometimes I don’t like to know so I don’t check it and when I leave it out, after sometimes you check you have a surprise , it is sometimes way down, sometimes way up. So awareness if you have it is always good and useful. That is my experience. Awareness and acknowledgement is like that of hook which train this elephant. Elephant that is not been trained by those tools and not only that, if that elephant took lots of alcohol and is drunk, you not only have untrained elephant by also drunk elephant. So likewise our mind which is not been trained by awareness and acknowledgement and when in addition to that , if we have all these different attractions and attachments and sort of quite drunk , and anger all these because of that we got confused. All our confusion comes because of that. The elephant , drunk and not trained and then got lost and so go anywhere wherever they can go, right. That sort of elephant. In India that happens all the time. Some crazy elephants come into villages and run through the field and jumping over the people. That’s what happen.

Because of that confusion we go on the wrong path. So that elephant being drunk and confused naturally goes in the wrong way. Wrong path. Then they will show this harmful tusk. That is the ignorance. We have people talking about dualistic mind and all these very high sounding way but really what is dualistic or not dualistic what really happening is the confusion we have. And the confusion is something you can’t help . Even when you talk to people one to one , you think they understand as it is clear but somehow people get confused. That’s because of the ignorance. So that is [just] our small little thing. The big thing like wisdom part and compassion part we get lots more confusion on that. Even refuge , people get confused on this. It is because of the ignorance influence we have. Like that, that’s become like elephant . That is the interesting metaphor the First Dalai Lama used for this and it is very nice. Now we don’t the elephant but we have to clear the darkness of the ignorance within our self.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. Light comes from the Tara and clear all our ignorance.

1:19:01.7 Next is anger. This time it is fire. There is no animal here, but fire. ( quote ) Even though it is fire, you have useful fire and there are certain fire you don’t want. This is unwanted fire. When you don’t have awareness and acknowledgement but have mean feeling , manipulating feeling, idea of manipulating , idea of mean things . these are called the undesirable air. The First Dalai Lama called this the undesirable air. Because of the undesirable air how we behave is wrong behavior. That’s what we do. Because of the agenda or because of your own desire we give cold shoulder to different people. That is the result. Actually these are the signs, external signs of internal being’s quality. For the good ones there are signs called sign of unreturned. That means unreturned in their sign of not returning to samsara. It is their sign. And the bad sign is the sign that will show out. No matter how much you pretend to be good and no matter the other half part will show out. The other half part [of ] what we have will show out. These are the signs that we have internal difficulties shown externally like giving cold shoulders , being mean and all these type of things we do when we deal with people. These are the signs that we have.

1:22:12.3 That’s the wrong behavior with smoke coming out. Out of that smoke screen, what do you have? There is anger fire. Within that smoke screen is a powerful fire which can burn all our positive karma. Recently we have lots of fire in Colorado and 14 people got burnt. So just like that. All these trees burning could be natural process so don’t worry about it. Example we are giving you here is fire burning all the trees there, likewise the anger power burns all our positive karma. The fuel of our anger is our positive karma. When you have that then you show the sign of violence outside. That is the sign that you are showing. That is the smokescreen. When there is smoke, we know there is fire, right? When there is seagull standing and lying there for a long time you know there is water. This is the positive example the earlier Indian scholars gave. And bodhisattvas will also have sign like this, the sign they will show. Here we can use the opposite direction, same thing where you see the smoke there is fire. And there is smoke screen of violence coming , it is signal that there is anger in there.

And what is that anger doing? It is burning our own positive karma. Consuming, reducing them into ashes. That’s what it is. That’s why it is nightmare for spiritual practitioners. You keep working, building and building and all of a sudden, anger fire comes and zup [it all] goes. Is this nightmare? Of course.

So we need protect from that. We have to protect that by awareness, [ like awareness of ] seeing how much sugar I have. Likewise, awareness and when you are angry , acknowledge. If you go, “ I am not angry but I am blah, blah, blah, urgh urgh urgh ” People do that. So don’t have to think about the fire now , think about anger and the cool nature nectar and light coming from the Tara’s body and purify all. The cool nature, patience nectar , the awareness nature of cool light, soothing light and liquid that is strong and powerful and can reduce all the fire.

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. This short period you have to think we are free of anger.

Conclude with Vajrasattva purification.

1:27:19.4 One of the advice is to make offering of whatever you eat or drink. If you keep on doing that every day, it really builds up. It is nothing, it is very easy but it builds up. But then you know some people would like to make a big show out of it. When you come late you have to bring and you said you are doing something, don’t do it. That contributes to the lion. But group sit together and that is very nice and you alone you just say quietly, don’t make big show out of it, don’t feed lion. Feed yourself.