Archive Result

19970128GRAABWL02

Tape 25 side A 01/28/97

Welcome to the first Tuesday night meeting in 1997 of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara. Time goes so quick. Without realizing it will be 1998. I believe this is how our whole life goes. Each year goes very fast and somehow we don’t realize how fast. Likewise our life goes so fast. We don’t realize. We keep on thinking that we are twenty-five or thirty, until we suddenly realize that we are sixty. That is what I am experiencing. That is how life goes. Gungtang Jambelyang, one of the great masters of the 18th century, was asked by his disciples to write his autobiography. He answered, ‘

Oh, that is very simple. I kept on thinking that I was a child, a child, a child, for twenty years. Then I kept on thinking, ‘I will do something, I will make a difference, I will do something, I will do something, I will do something’, and another twenty years went. Then I began to think, ‘Now I am too old, I am too old, too old.’ That is how I wasted my life.

I don’t think he did waste his life. The complete edition of his collected works runs into ten volumes. Some editions which put a lot of texts in one big book will only have seven volumes, some that prefer smaller books have ten volumes of his writings. So he got a tremendous amount of work done, he did not waste his life. But perhaps he is giving us a message, showing us how we waste our life.

Today, I don’t intend to talk continuously on the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, simply because I forgot to bring the book. However, I would like to give you a basic background of Tibetan Buddhism. Many of you have been around for some time and know what Tibetan Buddhism is all about.

Since our last meeting, many other activities have taken place, notably the winter retreat. I was expecting sixty to seventy people, but I believe it was one hundred forty. We started with the Hayagriva initiation, which made people eligible to deal with and talk about Vajrayana activities. This was followed by the rest of the Mahamudra teachings which we have been doing for two winter retreats in combination with the lama chöpa. I am sure the words Mahamudra and Lama Chöpa are Greek for many of you. The Lama Chöpa is mainly a guru yoga practice, but it gives you a comprehensive practice in there. It is really a wonderful thing. In Tibet it was so important. I have been told that since childhood. I really began to see how important since I began to talk about it with you for the last three years. It is really extremely important.

Last year Professor Thurman called me and said, ‘I have this contact to write a book called Essential Tibetan Buddhism and would like to know which texts I should use in there?’ So I suggested to him to use the Lama Chöpa. He thought it was a brilliant idea and went ahead with it. Now this book has come out. I don’t think there is restrictions that you need an initiation in order to read that book. When he does not put restrictions it is our gain and his loss. So you might as well take advantage of it and read it.

Basically, what does Tibetan Buddhism really do? There are many kinds of Buddhism, but basically it is Buddha’s way of functioning in life - and death - and the journey to the next life.

You can look at Buddhism as a very sophisticated, mystical mystery. But that does not get you anywhere. When can you look at it as a very solid, grounded and grounding way of dealing with life, death and rebirth, it will make a difference to your life. You can look at it from the mysterious point of view. There are a lot of HUNGs and PHATs and all sorts of things appear. This is there very much too. But at the beginning level, what makes a difference to you, is dealing with your every day life. So when you look at Tibetan Buddhism, don’t look for mystical things but for something that will make a difference to your life, make you a better human being, a little kinder and gentler and a little more compassionate.

Texts that we use for that purpose are for example the Three Principles of the Path, the Four Noble Truths, the Lam Rim, etc,. They all combine their meanings. Even the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, with its own title and written in a different style, has as its bottom line the subject of dealing with your life. That is what Tibetan Buddhism is all about. It is about how your life is functioning, how your thoughts are coming up, how your mind is working, how your emotions are running your life. This is true. Your emotions run your life, rather than yourself running it.

During the winter retreat we were talking about watching the mind. I said that it is the continuation of thoughts, all these different thoughts coming up one after another which are running our life - and the emotions. Particularly in the American life this is true. We have to make ourselves very busy, live according to schedules. From school days on you are being trained. They give you dead lines. Thereafter, when you are out of school, you carry on and make your own dead lines. Then the time is running - you have to catch up with them. The time goes, it is true. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, so it goes. When you make yourself busy and have to catch all these deadlines your thoughts will also run and you will think, ‘I have to this, I have to do that’. In that way it is running all the time.

Sometimes, you may get a phase where you think, ’I am not going to let my thoughts run my life. I am going to be me, I don’t care whatever you people think.’ But then suddenly, something else happens and your emotions will rise, happy emotions, sad emotions. They will put you a little under the weather, as they say, or over the clouds - both. That is how the emotions function. Because our life is run by the thoughts and the emotions we have a lot of ups and downs, we are not very stable and accordingly our moods swing, our whole way of functioning, our whole life is swinging.

Tibetan Buddhist practice is trying to balance that. In the beginning of course we have to continue to let our thoughts run our life. It is not that easy to correct in the beginning. Emotions will swing. But don’t let them swing too extremely. It should be a little lighter than before. Sometimes though, they may even come in heavier. That is reality, it is natural. But somehow you will be able to deal with it and manage and function within that.

You may think that if you do a lot of meditation and say a lot of mantras, you will balance it better. Apparently not. Truly speaking, it won’t happen. Sometimes it will even push you more towards that [off balance]. Particularly the Vajrayana practice will push you more towards that. You know why? Because the Vajrayana techniques will try to cut those emotions as fast as possible. They really push you hard. Basically however, what really balances you is the principles of the Buddhist teachings. You have to be solid there. We will recommend to people to take initiations at the appropriate time. However, we still insist that people continue to focus on the practice that has been introduced in the beginning. That is the only one that will be able to balance you. The Vajrayana techniques, with saying mantras and all this, not only will not balance you, but will throw you off - purposely. They will try to cut those emotions as quick as possible. That is why it is called ‘Quick Path’. So they make you experience them a lot.

So how do you get the balance? This is going to be interesting. Where do all our anxieties come from? Look carefully within yourself. I want you to think about that. I want you to meditate on that. You have to find the answer by yourself, because it differs from person to person. Most of our anxieties are coming from something that we are unable to fulfil, something that makes us think, ‘I am not going to be all right. I am getting into trouble, I am going to get hurt.’ When you talk to people, when you tease them, sometimes they will tell you, ‘Don’t hurt me!’ Think very carefully: The fear of getting hurt is very big within that individual person. Almost all the anxiety in that individual comes from the fear of getting hurt.

Likewise, other people will have different things. Not everybody is the same. Each and everyone of us will have a different source of anxiety. Some people will think, ‘I am not going to make it in my life. I am not going to be famous. I am not going to make it’ Whatever that is. Somebody thinks that they are going to be a failure. There are all these different anxieties. And the fears will come from that. Look at that very carefully. Ask, ‘What is that anxiety, that fear that I am not going to make it?

You may think that you have no problem. But you do. If you are afraid of getting hurt, you do have a problem. But many fears are just a habit of being afraid. There is some kind of desire in us that thinks, ‘I want to be something perfect or extraordinary’. There are a number of people who would like to be the center of attention. Then there are people who do not want to be the center of attention at all, but want to be aside and do everything from behind. Different people have different things. If you look carefully, it is the anxiety that is giving us trouble. It is either the hope or the fear of making it or not making it or going to be okay or not. It all comes in from there. If you look carefully, all our neuroses are building up from there. It is the neuroses that are protecting somebody who is really the big ego within ourselves. Even though you may think, ‘I am the most humble person’, but still you are protecting your big ego in there.

Buddha said, ‘Egolessness is the solution’. That is really true. But for us to get to the point of egolessness is not easy. However, you now begin to think,’ It is the big ego within myself which I am trying to satisfy all the time.’ Every single damn thing that we do is to satisfy that ego. Some people will think, ‘I have no ego whatsoever’, but within that you do have a huge ego problem. People do not recognize that. Each and every one of us, including myself, do have that ego. Even if you think, ‘I don’t care about anything’, there is a big ego at work. The one who is saying, ‘I don’t care’, that itself is the ego. Somebody may say, ‘I don’t care even if they put me in jail, I don’t care about anything’, that is really the ego saying that.

Then on the opposite side, ‘I must protect myself, I must do this, I must to that, I , I, I,‘ etc, that is of course another way of looking. So basically, all the anxieties and all problems that we face is coming from that ego. Buddha gives us the information, ‘Everything is impermanent, it changes.’ This is the reality, it is absolutely true, it changes. Our thoughts will change, our mind will change, our body will change, our friendships will change, our feelings will change. Everything changes. It is impermanent. We know that truly. We experience that all the time. Really true. But we are not hooked up properly. If we are hooked up properly, that is the answer. The big ego, that is the answer for it. Changing, impermanence. Who are we protecting? What for? How long? All this, it is impermanent, it is changing. Recognizing the impermanence of things, mind, thoughts, people, everything. That will help you not to be subject to that ego control.

This is part of Buddhism. That is what they give you. And it is reality. Wherever you look, whatever you do, it changes. But somehow we don’t realize that it is going to change. We try to protect, we try to hold.

These things are the most important at the beginning level. It is not so important how you sit, how you pray. That is not that important. You have to look at your life and see how impermanent it is, how fragile it is. Look and think. That is the most important. In one way, if you think about meditation, then there are a lot of mystical things. Like in the Zen tradition. How they do it - is tremendous. There is a complete ritual involved. There is this wooden thing coming down from the roof top. I went to the San Francisco Zen center and I was taken to the upstairs director’s room and two minutes before they went out, they beat that wooden slap with a wooden hammer. There are so many important rituals and everybody is sitting down so completely seriously - all these serious people. And then this joker came in.....[Rinpoche is talking about himself] and this joker was told to follow certain rituals, and I made mistakes on every one of them. Finally I was able to sit down and begin to talk, and I started to talk straight forward, as I usually do. At first everyone was so serious, but then some began to laugh a little bit. Half an hour to forty-five minutes later, everybody was laughing. All seriousness was gone! The truth is, if you do meditation very seriously, it has its value and its importance. It makes a difference to some people. If you make it casual, like us, just wear blue jeans, T - shirts, that is also okay. What you really need to do is think. Thinking is meditation. Analyzing is a more important meditation than concentration. Concentration is a power. It is capable of giving us mental relaxation. It is also capable of giving you a very important level of mental equipoise. Yet all it does is suggest to the individual, ‘Yes, this way, not that way.’ The individual is not convinced. But analytical meditation is thinking. Put yourself right in front of you. Put your thoughts right in front of you. Think, analyze how you function, what makes you do this.

A friend of ours, two weeks ago, asked, ‘I don’t know what to do now.’ I said, ‘I tell you what to do. Would you like to listen to me?’ He said yes, he would. So I said, ‘Go to the next hotel and sit in there for three days. Analyze what you have done for the last five years. Write your own journal to yourself and think and analyze.’ Three days later that person called me and said, ‘I can see exactly how my habitual patterns are functioning.’ So I said, ‘No, you don’t.’ He thought that after just three days he could figure it all out!

But the point is you do have to see how you function. If you let your life be run by thoughts after thoughts, the only thing you can do is pull back and observe how the thoughts have run your life, what reasons they have used, how they pushed you. Then you have to do it in the opposite or in a different way. That is how you can make yourself perfect.

A few days later, I talked to the same person and he told me, ‘Now I am like an eleven years - old child. I don’t know what to do.’ That is probably getting somewhere. When you think you know, you probably don’t. When you think that you are like a child who does not know how to function, that is the beginning of opening. Our life is run so much by thoughts and emotions. If you pull back, it makes a difference.

The total difference that is made to your life comes through analyzing. Some professors are now beginning to call it ‘Inner science’. Whatever that means. Some other professors are criticizing them and call them crazy persons. But whether it is inner science or not does not matter. It is the way how to handle your mind. That is how you handle your habitual patterns. It is Tsong Khapa who emphasized so much that people need both, analytical and concentrated meditation. Analytical meditation will give you the answers about yourself to your satisfaction. You find the answer. And once you have found the answer by yourself, no one can change that. Otherwise, at first you will believe suggested things, but then someone will say, ‘Oh, that is total bullshit!’, and then you will think, ‘Oh yeah, maybe!’

We have a very interesting Tibetan story. Three people get together. It is sort of a conspiracy. It is about how even a Brahmin’s goat can change into a dog.

In India they have different castes. The Brahmins are a very important caste and if people of a lower caste touch them, the Brahmins have to run to a field of kusha grass and sleep there overnight. They think that they are then purified and come back the next day. That is the culture of the caste system. The Brahmins in India will not touch any food before having a bath. They will also never keep dogs around, because they consider them to be very dirty. But they keep goats. Gandhi had goat’s milk all the time. Somebody told me that he took his goat to London for the round table conference. I am not sure if this is true, but if you know India you can almost believe it. Goats’ milk is supposed to be pure.

So three thieves got together and tried to work out how they could steal a Brahmin’s goat and make a good dinner out of it. It would be a difficult task to get that goat and they thought for a while until one of them said, ‘Why don’t we tell him that his goat is a dog? Then he may chase it away!’ They decided to try. The three of them positioned themselves in three different corners of the town. When the Brahmin passed the first one, he shouted, ‘Look at this Brahim, taking a dog around with him!’ The Brahmin heard this but thought, ‘What a stupid man, can’t even figure out the difference between a dog and a goat.’ So he walked on. After a little while, another person said loudly, ‘Look at his Brahmin, taking a dog with him!’ People started looking and the Brahmin got nervous. He thought, ‘Surely, this is a goat, not a dog!’ He looked at his animal to make sure that it was a goat and thought, ‘Of course it is a goat, what are they talking about?’ and walked on. Then the third person shouted, ‘Look at this Brahmin, he is taking a dog with him!’ Now the Brahmin panicked and thought, ‘Oh my God, it must be a dog. Get out of here!’ and he chased it away. So that is how the thieves got that ‘dog’ and had a nice dinner.

So if you are not certain through your own understanding, then somebody can suggest to you something else and change your mind and you lose your understanding.

Another example was given by the earlier Tibetan masters. When you put a prayer flag on top of a high mountain and the wind comes from the East the flag will be leaning towards the West and flap in the wind: Padapadapadapadap! When the wind changes and comes from West, the flag will turn round and go Padapadapadap!, flapping in the wind in the opposite direction.

If that happens to the individual he or she will lose their principles. That is why in the spiritual path to have principles is very important. To make your principles important and stable, it has to be you who has found the actual principle within you. That can only be done by analytical meditation, not by concentrated meditation. That is why analyzing the things in your life is so important. It is simply thinking that will make you understand. Not only will it make you understand, it will also bring clarity to you. When you have understanding and clarity, then you concentrate on that. Then it will become like what the old Tibetans used to say, ‘Butter over meat’. Does that mean anything to you? Probably not. It is very rich.

Aud: Like the icing on the cake.’

R: Thats it. Thank you. What a different culture, right?

When we continue with the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, we will talk about Chapter Two which is about purification. That is one of the most important points in the daily practice. Normally, before the session we start with some prayers.

end of side A of tape 25

Side B of tape 25 of 01/28/97

On the Jewel Heart Prayer Sheet, you have some mantras, for example,

OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA

I talked about that in detail for a whole winter last year, so I am not going to go into it now. However, in brief it means Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond, Completely gone Beyond. This is called the mantras of the ‘Essence of Reality’.

The next mantra is

NAMO GURUBHE NAMO BUDDHAYA NAMO DHARMAYA NAMO SANGHAYA

That is taking refuge to Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Here you have to think that Buddha is not the historical Buddha, but your own Buddha within you. You are going to become a Buddha in the future, hopefully very soon. Actually you have the Buddha nature within you and you try to make that immature seed level - Buddha into a mature Buddha. That is the most important thought here, rather than bringing in the historical Buddha and trying to pray to that. That is also one way of doing it but more importantly you have to connect your own future Buddha within you.

In the same way Dharma means the spiritual development within you and Sangha the spiritual community that works with you on your own development.

The next mantra is

OM MUNI MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNIYE SOHA

This is the mantra of Shakyamuni Buddha who has overcome the self - destructive neuroses, the delusions and even the imprints of delusions. That is why the mantra says Maha muni- big victory.

The next mantra is

OM MANI PADME HUNG.

This is the famous mantra which everybody knows. Nowadays you can even see it on MTV. So I don’t have to explain it [laughs]. It is the mantra of Avalokitesvara, the mantra of compassion.

OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA

This is the mantra of Tara, the feminine principle of Tibetan Buddhism. There are a lot of explanations available for that. We have transcripts available.

Then comes the invocation, ‘Oh Protector of all beings’, etc.

Then it says,

I bow down with body, speech and mind

Now this is important. This is the start of the seven limb prayer. On the prayer sheet you will see seven lines, each starting with ‘I’. In this case it is not the ego-boosting ‘I’, but you as an individual who can do what you can do.

‘I bow down with body, speech and mind’. Why should you pay respect to somebody else? Because you do respect somebody if you admire their qualities, if you understand their qualities. That is common with everybody. You respect somebody, because you like the person’s qualities. If somebody says to you, ‘You better respect me, otherwise I am going to shoot you in the forehead!’, you will probably bow and do anything, but in your heart of hearts you will say, ‘Shit!’, right? So you respect somebody because you appreciate their qualities. The reason you body down to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is because you appreciate their qualities and you also like to have their qualities. That is probably the most important. You say, ‘I bow to you, I respect your qualities and I would like to have those qualities.’ We are not saying, ‘You are superior, I am not superior, therefore I am bowing down to you.’ Rather it is, ‘I admire and like your qualities and that is what I would like to have.’ That is really how respect comes.

Some Tibetan Buddhist centers, wherever you go, they will tell you that when the teacher comes into the room, you have to get up and you have to bow down. In Jewel Heart we don’t. We try not to do that. When we began with Aura and Sandy, I said, ‘Lets not do that at all.’. You know why? That is forcing you, making you stand up and bow down and you don’t know what for. You may think it is Tibetan custom and culture. You think you are trying to be nice and fit in with this culture. The person receiving the respect probably thinks that you are very devoted.

That happened to me when I visited one center. There was on older lama who has by now passed away and he told me, ‘These Americans are so great. They have so much devotion. The young Tibetans never have that.’ I asked him, ‘How do you know that?’ and he said, ‘Well, they bow down and do all this’ and he was convinced of it. He was a great guy, a rinpoche and teacher. He began his tour in New York and a number of people followed him all the way from Vermont to Hawaii. I said to him, ‘Let me find out [if the Americans bow down out of devotion]’. So the next time we went into a room and everybody got up and bowed, I said to one elderly lady, ‘What are you doing?!’ She said, ‘What, did I do something wrong?’ and I said, ‘No, no, no.’ I asked another person, ‘What are you doing?!’ and that person said, ‘I am trying to be nice to that guy’. The third one said, ‘Isn’t that the Tibetan custom?’ So afterwards I told that lama, ‘Do you see now?’

So that is of no use. If people really like you and appreciate your qualities and recognize that what you tell them makes a difference in your life, then they gain respect for you. That is what I noticed. Why do you really have respect for somebody else? Because you appreciate that person’s qualities and you would like to have those qualities. In other words, you are really building up a mentor for yourself, how you would like to become, how you would like to behave, how you would like to be seen. In this case here you see the qualities of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and that is what you would like to be.

The next of the seven limbs is offering:

I present offerings, both actually arranged and mentally created.

The next is ‘

I purify all deluded actions.

That is very important. We do have a lot of negativities. We also have a lot of positivities. Don’t think that we only have negativities and are dirty and filthy. Don’t think that. We have a lot of good qualities and wonderful things. We equally have negative karma with us too. And every negative and positive karma we have is impermanent. The negative can change and the positive can also change equally. One of the ways to change negativities is by purifying. If you purify you become pure. If you wash dirty clothes they become clean. We do have negativites and we purify them and become pure. In our basic nature there is no dirt there. It is only the deluded karma which makes it dirty. So you can purify it. Purification is one of the important points. Whether or not we make it on the spiritual path depends on two things:

· Purification

· Accumulation of merit or luck.

In the Bodhisattvacharyavatara we are on the chapter of purification and will keep talking about that. Each of us has to purify themselves. Nobody else purifies for us. It is ourselves who will make a difference to our lives, nobody else. The bottom line is: We are responsible for ourselves, nobody else. Therefore we make the difference to ourselves, nobody else.

So this is basically the Jewel Heart Practice we do before teachings. You can pick up this sheet and do that practice at home by yourself. Do it nicely, with all your rituals or without any rituals - it does not matter. But do it and that will make a difference.

end of side B of tape 25 of 01/28/97