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I AND ATTACHMENT - 1

19850410GRJHNLIA 1

The subject given for to-night is ‘I and attachment’. Before we go into the Buddhist viewpoints of ‘I and attachment’ I’d like to give you a view about Buddhism in general and particularly about Tibetan Buddhism, because some people have misunderstanding about Tibet in general, about Tibetan Buddhism and also about vajrayana Buddhism.

Buddhism: hinayana, mahayana, vajrayana

Many people moment they say ‘Tibet’ something mystical comes up, a western concept of Shangrila, something very mysterious and beautiful and everlasting, all sort of funny ideas. Well, if I disappoint you I am sorry, but there is no such a thing as a mysterious, everlasting Shangrila according to the western concept of it; that does not exist in Tibet or in Tibetan Buddhism.

The second point is: Tibetan Buddhism is not different from the general Buddhism. There are slight differences among the Buddhist practices, of course. The Buddhism you find in Thailand, Cambodia or Burma and the Buddhism you find in Tibet are slightly different; not because Buddhism is different, but the practice and the way it came from India is different.

Originally, as you all know, Buddha appeared in India. And Buddhism is very much an Indian rather than a Tibetan religion. Buddha was born in India and taught in India. From there King Ashoka during his reign organized missionary activities towards the south: to southern India, then to Sri Lanka, then to Thailand and all these areas of the theravadin tradition. Sometimes it is referred to as hinayana, ‘smaller vehicle’, but people in the South don’t like that name; they chose to be called theravada [tradition of the elders], which is a perfect name for them.

Then another school ran towards North-India and is called mahayana school; maha is big, yana is vehicle, so it is called ‘bigger vehicle’. May be I am wrong, but I really do think that when the first organized missionary type of thing started, they purposely chose not to send the mahayana teachings out. They kept them as a sort of inner treasure, particularly in the monastic universities, like Nalanda and Vikramalashila. You know, you don’t give everything what you have.

Then of course, when the Muslims came to India, the teachings couldn’t stay anymore in Central India, so started shifting from Central India to the Bengal area and further north. That northern school carries the mahayana plus the vajrayana teachings, which are part and parcel of the mahayana teachings. That went into Tibet, China, Mongolia and all northern part. So the Buddhism what we have in Tibet is very much part and parcel of the general Buddhist teachings. There is no difference, except for some later small developments here and there. Basically it is the same principle.

Now the difference between these two vehicles: mahayana and hinayana or theravada. From the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, we look at hinayana as a the basic Buddhist teachings; mahayana has in addition a lot that was not given in the hinayana teachings.

1. The basic hinayana teachings concentrate on the path of renunciation. At that level you are dealing with the problems that you as an individual face, with the individual practice and the individual development. The first things you get, are the problems of attachment, anger, hatred and so forth. Hinayana is directly dealing with that, particularly with attachment. Therefore renunciation is the foremost basic important teaching the hinayana teachings must content. That is something that should not be ignored and one should not look down upon.

2. Our problem is that if we practice renunciation, if we are dealing with the basic individual problems so much, we may develop an attitude of ‘I could not care less about what happens to others’. If one is concerned so much about oneself, one’s own problems and how to overcome them, then automatically one develops some kind of ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude. To overcome that the mahayana teachings come in. They basically teach to be totally dedicated to the benefit of other sentient beings. Mahayana is more being of service to other people than being concerned with yourself.

3. In addition to that there is vajrayana or tantra. The moment I use the word tantra I get a very big problem. If in India I use the word tantra, they immediately understand black magic. If in America I use the word tantra they immediately understand some kind of sexual relation. In South-Asia, the moment I use the word tantra they understand charming other people, harming each other, trying to conquer the other one by some sort of mysterious power-exercises. I do not know when I use the word tantra in Holland, what you will understand. But, I must make one thing clear. When we talk about Buddhist tantra we are not talking about black magic, we are not talking about mysterious things, we are not talking about sex, we are basically talking about a method with which we can overcome our problems, delusions and illusions very, very quickly. It is one of the quickest and one of the most dangerous ways to overcome our problems; quick and dangerous both, advantage and disadvantage both.

What is Buddhism?

A lot of people say Buddhism is a kind of religion. I say no. Whether Buddhism is a religion or not, I can’t really say. What Buddhism teaches you, is a way of living and a way of thinking. It is more or less a presentation of how one should think and how one should live to be able to handle one’s life. That is its major emphasis. Buddhism never, never demands you or asks you to come and pray, nor does Buddha tell you: ‘You have to believe me because I said so.’ On the contrary; Buddha said about two thousand five hundred years ago:

Monks and scholars should

Well analyze my words,

Like gold [to be tested through] melting, cutting and polishing,

And then adopt them, but not for the sake of showing me respect.

He says, ‘Look! No matter whoever you are, a disciple of mine, a follower, one of my monks, just an admirer or may be just a spectator, check very carefully what I say. When you try to buy gold, you cut that piece into two different pieces and rub them with different stones and then you burn it in the fire. And when you are convinced it is gold, you take it; otherwise you throw it away. Similarly, whatever I say you rub with your intelligence and you burn with your own experience, you try to check it with your own and with others' thoughts; if it makes sense take it, otherwise don’t.

This is how Buddhism started. So I do not know whether it is really a religion or not. Definitely it is a way of life. For sure. Because its teachings are totally based on Buddha’s own experience. Buddha says he is just like anyone of us; his intelligence is equal to us. By chance he has been able to practice, by chance he has been able to do something and he gained some development and has become a buddha. Somehow we are left behind. Either we didn’t have the opportunity or we had the opportunity but we have been lazy. Laziness is one of the reasons we are left behind. Today we are looking up and Buddha is looking down. Unfortunately. We could be looking down and he could have been looking up.

Whatever Buddha taught was totally based on his experience, like: ‘When I had this problem I applied this as a counter-measure, as an antidote. So I gained this development. And now I became like this.’ That is totally what Buddhism is. When you look into it you find nothing mysterious. It is only about how you think and how you act. Therefore it could be called a way of living rather than a religion.

When Buddha obtained what we call enlightenment... Sometimes in Sanskrit it is referred to as nirvana. A lot of people think that to experience nirvana or enlightenment, you have to die. That is a misunderstanding. Not only people think that, but also they use the word pari-nirvana as a sort of death-anniversary. Referring to nirvana as a death-state is totally wrong. If by obtaining enlightenment, the ultimate achievement, you would have to die, I think it would be too bad. Really. Buddha has obtained enlightenment, he has obtained nirvana within his lifetime and after that for another forty years he relayed his experience. When Buddha had obtained enlightenment, at first he kept silent, because as he said:

Deep, peaceful, perfectly pure,

luminous, uncompounded, and like nectar

is the Dharma I have obtained.

Even if I were to teach it,

it could not be known by another.

Certainly, I must remain silent in the forest.

Lalitavistara sutra, The Voice of the Buddha, ch. 25

He said: ‘I found something like nectar, profound and deep, but if I try to talk about it to anybody, nobody will be able to understand me, therefore I choose to remain silent.’ So Buddha kept silent after his experience. Then of course people came and tried to persuade him and then he started teaching.

As he said he had found development like nectar, profound and deep and all this, naturally the people did expect something fantastic, miraculous, beautiful. But well, the moment he started teaching, the moment he opened his mouth, the very first word he gave us was ‘pain and suffering’. We call this first teaching the Four Noble Truths and the first one is: pain and suffering. He never said: ‘Something wonderful, nice and beautiful’. He only said: ‘Pain and suffering’. There is a very important reason behind this: our nature, the nature in which we are caught, the nature we are brought into, the nature we are all in, is full of pain.

I’m sorry. Particularly in the West a lot of people do not like to hear about pain and suffering. They say: ‘Why should I care about misery, problems, pain and suffering? I rather like to hear something beautiful and nice’. People hate it, but that won’t help at all. Not hearing it won’t help. If that would help, we would have wiped out all problems, but we haven’t. By not talking about the pain, it doesn’t go away, it remains there.

Pains and problems are part and parcel of our life. No matter whatever you do, you can never avoid it, for the time being. I didn’t say totally, but for the time being. Because these are part and parcel of our life. You may not like to hear about it, but in the spiritual path you have to talk about pain and problems. If in the spiritual path people tell you beautiful and wonderful things only, it will not help you at all. If that could help you, we all would say: ‘How nice you are’, paint a nice color and say ‘good-bye’ and go away. That won’t help.

A good spiritual guide is a person who is able to point out to you where the real problem lies. Our problem is the pain. People don’t like that to be pointed out. A lot of people like to hide miseries, hide some of their faults. Hiding won’t help. It has to be pointed out where the problem lies. Therefore Buddha chose first to mention the pain. It’s our nature. Our true nature is pain. No matter whatever you may think, no matter wherever you may be, east or west, south or north, up or down, your life is full of pain and problems. Why? Because of only one reason: we think too much of ourselves. We recognize ourselves as ‘I am the most important’.

I am the most important

You may not like it, you may not think I am telling the truth, you may not like to accept it, but think about it: you like to be the best; you like to be better than your neighbor, you like to be the best in your class, you want to be more famous than the others, you like to be the best person. All this leads to ‘I am the most important’. That is the very basic problem we have.

But then, if you search: ‘Where is that I, the most important one, the great dictator?’ I am quite sure you’ll never find it. It is very difficult to find it. Yet, we think we are the most important one. I am sure I do think I am the most important one. We have a saying in Tibet:

When I see my father is fighting with others, I would like to see that my father wins. But when I have to fight with him, I would like to see that I win.

That’s it. Whether you like it or not, we really feel: ‘I am the most important’. From I we develop my. From there we develop my friend and my enemy. My friend I love. I love him or her, because he or she is my friend and I must help him or her because he or she is good to me. And my enemy I must harm, because she or he hates me. Attachment and hatred are developed from here. They don’t come out of the blue sky. It is a wrong thought, they are based on, for sure. But in that wrong view, that wrong concept and wrong understanding, we travel. Therefore whatever we do is creating pain, with or without realizing. Not only it is in the nature of pain, but also we again create causes for more pain to continue in future. This is the job of I. Everybody has that. This causes very much trouble.

You have to recognize it, you have to find it, and then find a way to deal with it. The most difficult thing is to find that I. You can’t find it. People will say: ‘Well, of course I’m there, I’m inside somewhere’. But where? Are you the same as the body? Or separate from the body? The same as the mind? Or separated from the mind? A lot of people do not think the body is I, but most people think the mind is I. According to the Buddhist thought the mind is certainly not I, because mind has a lot of divisions, so the I would have to have divisions. There are many points here. I do not like to go into this just now, because it may create more confusion than help. Basically with the I the basic trouble comes in.

Whether that basic thing I does exist or does not exist has been a matter of a big discussion between two great philosophers called: Nagarjuna, the famous Buddhist philosopher, and Shankaracarya, a Hindu philosopher. Shankaracarya accepts that the I exists. They call it atma. I can’t say much because I don’t know very well what Shankaracarya taught. The Buddhist point of view is Nagarjuna’s thought and that says: ‘That I does not exist independently, from its true nature’.

Independently, that is the main thing. There are many different Buddhist thoughts and theories and many different levels of thinking about in what way the I exists, how the I functions, how my will function. Ultimately Nagarjuna’s thoughts are considered to be the best on this point.

Suppose I tell you that the I doesn’t exist, that I am not existing. That doesn’t mean anything to you, it doesn’t help you, it doesn’t make you understand it. You have to find it by yourself, thinking very carefully, analyzing, putting in various reasons and thoughts. Hearing that the I doesn’t exist, doesn’t help you, because it doesn’t convince you, it does not make you understand the object of wisdom, and it does not make you understand the opponent of the wisdom, which is the cause of all pain. It needs its own little exercises, which you have to do You have to find it.

Because of a wrong conception of I, we have a lot of wrong thoughts. I don’t know how it functions among us here tonight, but many people really do carry wrong concepts. Take life. Of course, life is important; I’m not going to say that life is not important. But people do consider it more or less the only thing. People consider security the most important thing, something to be built up in one’s life, something to hold on to. These thoughts are there because of the wrong concept of I. Particularly security is a field onto which we hold very strongly. Savings, the money, we hold as very important. We say: ‘When you need it most, you’ll have it.’

Truly speaking, the day you need it most the material security will not help. That’s for sure. One of the Tibetan spiritual masters has said:

Even if you have food enough for hundred years,

that day you have to leave with an empty stomach.

Even if you have clothes enough for hundred years,

that day you go alone and naked.

That’s true. When I said: ‘The day you need it most, I didn’t say it openly, but it is the day when you die, the day you have the most sorrow, when you need most. That is the day, naturally, that all material things will let you down. I do not know about the spiritual things. May be it helps, maybe not, who knows? It is supposed to help, I am sure it helps. Material things, for sure, do not help.

We consider our body very important. We are very much attached to it. We care so much about it. It is born with us, but even that we have to leave behind. Even though we were born together, the body lets us down; so on what else can we depend? All the securities you built up will let you down on that day. You are going alone.

That is our main situation. That is the major pain we have. Whatever related matters we do, suffering and pain is part of it. Dissatisfaction. We won’t be satisfied with things, we have to change all the time. And of course dying and taking birth are in the nature of pain. It is our part and parcel. All that is because of the wrong concept of I what we have.

The moment you have a correct conception of the I, then, I believe, every single pain will stop. Then, according to the Buddha every single functioning thing is revised. Because what we call samsara is the circle of life. That circle is very much continuing. That circle cannot be cut in between. Only at the level of this ignorance it can be cut. The moment you cut the ignorance the circle starts functioning the other way around, so it stops. The moment it stops, the pain stops. That is Buddha’s view of the wrong concept of I.

That’s all I have to say tonight. If we have any questions we can discuss them now. I made it purposely short, because when we exchange ideas and thoughts it is much more meaningful. Who would like to say something?

Questions and discussion

Audience: I listened with great sympathy to your lecture and still I have a rather obvious question. It always struck me as a little bad obstacle when listening to Buddhist lectures, that in a certain way a deal is made to the I. You have to get rid of the illusion of the I. Now the I is supposed to be the motive or causal agent to get rid of the illusion of the I. It strikes me as rather paradoxically. If the I is appealed to in the exercise of getting rid of the illusion of the I, then who is the I that is supposed to do the work?

Rinpoche: That is a very important question. Actually when we talk about the I, are we really talking about one I or are we talking about different I’s? That is one thing you have to think about. When you talk about the I being the cause of all trouble and when you talk about the I coming from the previous life and functioning here today in this life and going to the future life, are we talking about one I or are we talking about different I’s? This is the question one has to raise first.

The I which has come from the previous life, which remains here and will go to the future life, that I may not necessarily be the object of I-lessness. The ordinary understanding of I and the philosophical understanding of I, are again two different matters. So each one of these different thoughts and ideas have its own object of I.. The I that is the base of trouble and the ‘I am living, I am going’ are two different I’s.

The ordinary I, which is just existing, just able to function, exists on the combination of body, mind and – most important – the name, given to a correct object, by a proper authority. I exist on the combination of that alone. That is the relative I, which functions. And the I that is the base of all trouble, is the absolute I. So the work has to be done by the relative I. The relative I may not be the agent of the delusions and illusions, but the absolute I is the cause. So the absolute I has to be destroyed by the relative I.

The relative I is the I which is functioning. And the absolute I is the I which is the base of all trouble. The division is not based on the object. It is the concept, the point of perceiving, the presentation of the I, that makes the difference. Again, I don’t think there are two I’s. The division has to be made on the concept of recognition only. That’s why it is a hard point.

Audience: So it is rather a conceptual division that makes the problem here.

Rinpoche: Yes.

Audience: What is the definition of those different I’s?

Rinpoche: You cannot make definitions of these I’s. Only from the perception point of view you can make a division. Our mental thoughts project many different things, this is why the whole thing is referred to as wrong concept or wrong view. Why is it wrong? Because in reality something may not exist at all, but we project it, we conceptualize. I believe we do that even more at the moment we begin to think about it. The moment we begin to go into it, we project more and more of these types of I. I know it is very difficult; it is something which has to be cleared in a gradual process. I don’t try to say ‘It is something to feel, but you cannot experience it’. No, I am not saying that. But I think gradually it becomes more clear. One just cannot say this exactly.

Audience: If the conception creates different I’s, the conception also can have the different I’s disappear, also the only one that does remain.

Rinpoche: Which will be the relative I. The relative I is not the object of emptiness. Emptiness is being empty of the absolute I. The absolute I doesn’t exist, so it is only projection. If it would exist we would be able to recognize it and when you can recognize it you can present it, so when that is the case it cannot be empty, because it is there. If it’s there it can’t be empty. Since it is not there we project it, that is why our mind is all wrong concepts. A wrong concept can disappear by a proper understanding.

Audience: What is the reason that all conceptual I’s are there and that the relative I is not a conceptual I?

Rinpoche: What you mean by conceptual again?

Audience: An I which is created by conception.

Rinpoche: The relative I is not a I which is created by conception.

Audience: Why not?

Rinpoche: Because the I created is a big, big thing that doesn’t depend on anything, that dictates from its own nature. The relative I doesn’t do this. The relative I just depends on the combination of three things. The absolute I is the object I which doesn’t depend on anything, which is only based on our recognition and in reality is not there. This is the Buddhist view, in particular Nagarjuna’s viewpoint. It is very important. You have to remember this:

If things are existing relatively, that should be good enough to be able to exist.

If absolutely something does not exist, it is not good enough not to be existing.

This is the basic thing. I am sorry if I confused you more, but that’s what it is. Relatively existing is good enough to be existing and if absolutely one does not exist it is not good enough not to exist. Okay? I’m sorry, it is tricky.