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19850410GRJHNLIA 2

Audience: (…)

Rinpoche: To learn to recognize ignorance is one of the important meditations, yes. Because all our wrong views, our wrong concepts, according to the Buddha come out of ignorance. When we talk about ignorance, we are not talking about the ordinary ignorance of not knowing something, but about the big ignorance of the totally wrong concept of natural phenomena. Recognition of this and then finally destroying it and then overcoming this wrong concept is called wisdom.

The aim of Buddhism is buddhahood or enlightenment, the ultimate achievement that any being can obtain. All the methods given are focused to achieve that particular aim of the highest enlightenment. It consist of two: the wisdom part and the method part. The method part carries all different activities, like renunciation, love, compassion, building merit etceteras. Wisdom is the other part. The combination of these is what will achieve the ultimate, buddhahood. That is why I said that introducing the ignorance is one of the important points.

Audience: How can it be that all over the world so many people live with wrong concepts? It is so simple just to change your concepts.

Rinpoche: According to the Buddhist thought we are very much used to it. We have ‘meditated’ so much on the wrong concepts, so our mind got used to it. To take our mind away of something we are used to and put it in the opposite direction, is hard. Therefore it is difficult.

Audience: Is it possible to reach enlightenment by Christianity or is it only possible by Buddhism?

Rinpoche: I’m am sure one can achieve it through Christianity, through Islam and Hinduism too, if the methods are properly used. Buddhism, I believe, is one of the methods. But if you don’t use it properly even Buddhism can go wrong. That goes for any one of them.

Audience: Can you tell us more about the relation between the big and absolute I at one side and the sources of anger, rage on the other side?

Rinpoche: Our wrong concept definitely has that very important I, holding you from behind. We want that particular I to be the most important, the most outstanding. We may deny it, however if you go on asking questions, you find you want this, you want this, you want everyone of them. Ultimately you realize that if you go on, you want the most important position, the highest, the best. The whole thing is the desire which we have. We are used to that. You have it, I have it. If you are enlightened I don’t know, but otherwise everyone of us will have it. When you have that desire and you can’t achieve what you want, then you get angry. All sorts of trouble start from there. You also create a lot of problems because of that. You go behind your means to achieve it. I believe, this is our true nature, with or without realizing you go through that. And suddenly you realize that it is not possible and then you say: ‘Wow, I am the most important, intelligent, right and the best one, but somehow it doesn’t work.’ So you sort of completely fall down. This is because of the wrong concept of I. The wrong concept of I builds up a most important imaginative position and you work for it so hard and you also add your emotions to it. Suddenly when you realize it is not going to be achieved that way, you’re flat, you fall into parts. It is all the wrong conception.

Audience: About being the most important. The most important is buddhahood. And in that case....

Rinpoche: Okay. That’s a different matter altogether. If you accept buddhahood as the most important, the I wants to be buddha. The I wants to be the most important. You may say: ‘No’, but quietly you accept: ‘I want to be a buddha, yes.’ But then what? If you say: ‘That is wrong’ I will say: ‘No.’ But: ‘I want to be the universal king too’, well, that may be too much. Wanting to be something more than you can be, is where all the problems start.

Becoming a buddha is different. That is something that can be achieved. And the methods of achieving will give you the best way to clear all thoughts and faults and delusions. Therefore I don’t think it is a bad thing. A lot of people do think desire is bad. I don’t think all desire is bad. You have good desire and bad desire. The bodhisattva desires to become a buddha and that is a desire which should not be thrown out.

Audience: Is that because the I who is having the desire to become a buddha is not the same I as the one who wants to be the most important?

Rinpoche: It depends on what level the bodhisattva is. If it is an arya-bodhisattva then it is the relative I which functions in that way. If it is not an arya-bodhisattva but an ordinary bodhisattva, then it is the big I what we ordinary people have, which functions that way. At the level of the arya-bodhisattva the division comes in; the big I will have been pushed out and the relative I will carry the desire and finish off his job.

Audience: So one helps the other?

Rinpoche: It doesn’t mean the relative I helps the absolute I. No. You simply carry out your work, the I-work continues; not the work of the big I continues but the work of the relative I.

Audience: Does the relative I have more possibilities to reach the aim of Buddhism than the other I?

Rinpoche: The aim, buddha, will only be reached by the relative I. The absolute I will never reach buddhahood, because the absolute I does not exist in reality.

On the spiritual path

As I said the Buddhist teachings are totally based on the experience of the Buddha. Buddha himself had so much trouble. He had illusions as much as we have. Between Gautama Buddha two-thousand five-hundred years ago and ourselves today there is no difference for whatsoever. Yet Gautama has been able to practice; he recognized his problems, has been able to overcome them and has become a buddha. And we not even know our problems yet, we don’t know what is the ignorance, we have a confusion about the I and we don’t recognize it. That is simply because either we have not had the opportunity or we did not put enough efforts; laziness or apathy is pulling us down.

If we take the opportunity today... We have the experience developed by Buddha and his followers and many others and their experiences have been relayed to us. Any practice that we do is sort of ready-to-do. It is almost like a TV-dinner, ready to eat. If we take the opportunity, I’m sure each of us can achieve buddhahood. But if we don’t take the opportunity and we continue as before, we’ll continuously go on.

It is very good that you have a spiritual interest. Why do you have spiritual interest? For a variety of reasons. Most important thing is that there is something to achieve. Most of you know the materialism is not the answer. When the materialism is not the answer, it has to be spirituality which is the answer.

When you look for the spiritual answer you go an unknown road. Please, this is very important. When you go on an unknown road you have to be very careful. You have to know first, to tell you the truth. If you don’t know, don’t try. In spiritual matters some people have a little information here, a little information there and then you try many things, which is sometimes not good. Sometimes that creates problems.

Very recently I came across someone teaching kundalini practice. Kundalini practice is a very high practice, if you practice it properly. If you don’t do it properly, it is simply a physical exercise and with this practice one can get a lot of trouble, too, even the teacher himself. That teacher was teaching hundreds of students every week. And he himself was very much in trouble, he didn’t know how to handle certain energy-movements within his body. That was simply because of following the wrong method.

So anything you practice under the name of spiritual practice, first learn about it. Do not do something of which you do not know what it is! Do not try many things here and there. Try something which is sensible. First learn it and see whether anybody who has practiced it, has developed something. If you follow their footsteps, I am quite sure you can reach the same place others have reached. If you try some strange new combination you get strange-new-combination results, which could be big trouble. Sakya Pandita, a great Tibetan master, has said:

If you try to meditate and think without learning,

you are like a man without arms trying to climb the rocks.

If you try to meditate without learning, it is just like that. What would you think about? I raised the question: What is meditation? If you don’t learn, what are you going to do? Sit idle. So learning is very important. Without learning you cannot think about something. Without thinking you cannot meditate. Without meditating you cannot achieve.

So, learning first. Second: thinking. And then: follow it. And I am sure you will reach. Everyone of us is capable, everyone of us has the opportunity, everyone of us can achieve if any other person has achieved it. The only thing we need is a little more effort and a little more concentration, that is all. So I am sure everybody can reach it.