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19970610GRAABWL20

side A of tape forty-three of 06/10/97

We have been talking about the need to be careful not to fall into the small ditches and so on as described in verse fifty-seven. We have touched on verse fifty-eight, but I think we have to go into it more.

Verse fifty-eight

It is inappropriate to enjoy myself

Thinking that today alone I shall not die,

For inevitably the time will come

When I shall become nothing.

This is true. We always think, ‘Today I am not going to die.’ Next, we think, ‘Tomorrow I am also not going to die and neither the day after tomorrow.’ Then we go on, ‘Maybe also not this week. Not this month. Of course not this year.’ Shantideva is telling us here that we do that very often. And through that the laziness takes us over. We always consider that we will definitely have enough time to purify, since we are not going to die today. So if I am not going to die today, why should I have to purify today? I can do that tomorrow. I have to go to this party tonight, so may be I can do the purification tomorrow. Shantideva is telling us that this way of thinking is not okay. The idea that we are not going to die today is not reliable at all. Shantideva says, ‘Inevitably the time will come when I shall become nothing.’ This time will definitely come. So it is only laziness to think, ‘Today I am not going to die. I will have time tomorrow.’ We always think that we will have time. Here it says today and tomorrow. But in our mind we think, ‘I have a lot of time. First I have to finish all my projects, then I will do purification.’

What is our problem here? Firstly, we are not convinced that we have to purify. We are not even convinced that all our problems and sufferings are coming from negative actions. We may be willing to buy that idea but we are not really convinced. When people are convinced that negative experiences come from negative karma and positive ones from positive karma, they are also convinced that karma is impermanent and can be purified. They have that knowledge and understanding. For us, however, we are not even completely convinced about the basic truth that negative actions cause negative karma. We are thinking about it, we are willing to accept that, we may buy the idea.

but are we actually convinced? Ask yourself the question. The majority of you, I bet are not yet convinced. That tells us where we are. We can read about it and we have to talk about it here, because that is what the text says. It moves on. So we have to move with it .We have to spend time to convince ourselves. Where is suffering coming from? If there is a creator, did he cause our suffering?

Incidentally, I have been able to see the interview with his Holiness the Dalai Lama on Larry King Live (U.S. TV show). It was quite good. In that His Holiness said that there are two basic kinds of religions, those that do and those that don’t accept a creator. Buddhism falls under the second category. Then Larry King asked, ‘Who is responsible?’ and His Holiness said, ‘Myself. Each and every individual person.’

Think about it. If you don’t, then what happens if a coca cola bottle falls from a five story building and hits you on the head? Perhaps you think that is fine. But if you really think you will wonder where that suffering comes from. Is it the creator that made that bottle hit me on the head?

I am giving this example because in Singapore, ten, fifteen years ago, people would drink a bottle empty and throw if off the roof, wherever they were, maybe twenty stories up and chances were it would hit somebody walking in the street. So the City of Singapore had to make the rule that whoever throws anything away will get charged five hundred dollars straight away. You remember, in the sixties, if you wore long hair and a torn shirt in hippie style in Singapore, they would cut your shirt off in the street? That came into my head when I thought about the coca cola bottles falling from the roof. Anyway, if you really look, the creator did not create the suffering. So when, where is it coming from? Who is responsible? Not O. J. Simpson! Maybe O. J. did it. You could temporarily blame somebody else, saying, ‘If he did not do that, I would not have that problem now.’ You can say all this. But the true reality is that we have hurt somebody in the first place and now we are getting the consequences. That is the main reason why we are responsible for our deeds. You will not find any other cause that is convincing and good enough. So it has to be ourselves. In other words, it is our own neuroses which have hurt somebody mentally, emotionally, physically. Then we are getting the consequences back, more intensely than what we have given, because we have collected interest in between. It has multiplied. You are getting more than what you give. If you really look you will find that it is not coming from anybody but ourselves. You have to spend time on it. I may tell you that in a profound way you have to meditate. But what you have to do is you have to think. If you cannot think then that is a problem. If, when a bottle hits you on the head you don’t even care, then you are like a cow. The cows in India are sacred. If you hit one with a car, the people will kill you. Apart from that, whatever you throw at a cow, it will not react. Sometimes such a cow is being decorated, made into a deity and worshipped and people collect money. But the cow does not know. Sometimes they throw everything on the cow, but the cow does not know. We can’t be like that. If a bottle falls on our head we don’t just go, ‘Oh, does not matter’, and keep going. That is not wise, that is stupid. If you passively take whatever is thrown at you under the pretext of patience then you are no better than a sitting duck and then you know you are stupid. On the other hand, if you lose your temper and think that you should go and fight, that is also a sign that you are unwise. So find out where your suffering is coming from and why and how you can avoid it - then you know you are a wise person. That is how you can judge. If you make yourself a target all the time, thinking that it always happens to you and that anyway, you are used to it, then you are just stupid. So that is a very easy way to find out whether you are intelligent or stupid, wise of unwise.

Similarly it works with very suffering that we have in life - I am not talking about a little quarrel between lovers and other little things like that. But so many problems, so many pains, one after another - that is where you have to find out where it is coming from. People have the way of thinking, ‘Well, it is my karma, let it go. It is part of life, let it go. It is part of samsara, let it go.’ But no. That is not right. When you begin to look at that, you will begin to find that it is the result of negative karma. You have to find that, you have to convince yourself. Otherwise the whole idea of personal responsibility does not get to you.

We like the idea of being responsible for ourselves. But we don’t really think how it functions. Thinking about that is important. You can either meditate or think about it - that is the same thing. In Buddhism, particularly in Tibetan Buddhism, analytical meditation is much more important than just sitting somewhere. Analytical meditation will give you all your powers.

Again, I am reminded of the Dalai Lama’s interview on Larry King Live last month. At the end of it, Larry King asked Richard Gere who was also there, ‘Is Buddhism a philosophy, a religion or a way of life?’ and Richard Gere said, ‘I think it is all of them. If you think of religion as monotheism then it is not a religion.’ It is, it is a way of life and the way how the individual functions is established by your own thoughts and your own philosophy. Then you function within that. Buddha found the best way to have your life functioning. That is the path he shared with us. Each and everyone of us needs to do that. I can sit there and read all those books and tell you, ‘This is this, that is that.’ Very nice, right? Wonderful. You are happy, you go home and - finished. You have nothing left with you. Maybe you still have the book in your hand, since it is printed and published. Does that do any good? No, no good at all. Why not? Because you are responsible for yourself. If the idea is left in the book, it does not do any good. You have to embrace the idea. Somebody told me the other day, ‘The ideas creep into my life. When I am functioning, I begin to notice that I do things differently, because I think differently.’ That is what you need. The ideas can creep in if you are convinced by yourself - not by somebody else telling you. Then it becomes part of your life.

Once you are convinced that the cause of suffering is negative karma you will not have much of a problem to avoid negative karma. Right now we like to be good. We think negative karma is bad, so we like to avoid that. That much reason I think everybody has. You don’t have any other convincing reasons.

We have a hard time doing the right thing. People find it very difficult to avoid the negative karma, simply because they are not convinced that it can bring much more suffering. If you are convinced you don’t have a problem.

I don’t have a problem to avoid sugar. I don’t care if people are eating chocolate cake to my right, cheese cake to my left and ice cream in front of me. I don’t even have any interest whatsoever. But if I find sugar-free things, my mouth starts scratching. I have been convinced that sugar is bad for me, because my sugar level goes up. So I don’t care if there is a hundred people eating chocolate cake, going ‘Hmmmmh’. True.

It is the same thing for you. If you are convinced you will not have any problem to do whatever you want to do. When you are not convinced you try to force yourself. You insist, persist and push with discipline, trying to impose on yourself. On the other hand you have temptations and attractions. So you are having a battle between you and yourself. Between attraction and discipline which you are trying to impose on you there is this battle.

There is a person here that does that a lot. He wants to be right and good. He is convinced that the negative karma brings negative results. That is why he tries to impose discipline on himself. On the other hand there are all these attractions, responsibilities, temptations. And so he fights between him and himself.

So people do that. Each and everyone of you has that. We fight with that, because we are not fully convinced. We think we are, we like to be good. The idea that Trungpa had was that Dharma practice is nothing but fighting a war. His warrior business may have gone a little too far or maybe it was just the need of the time. He had a number of people in Indian police uniforms, called Dharma guards and Vajra guards and there were even praises going on. It was almost like in a war zone. Maybe he tried to work with the American emotions. These emotions are there because you try to fight within yourself and that is simply because you are not really convinced of the cause of suffering and the antidotes for that.

I have given you myself as example. As a diabetic I know that sugar is not good for me. I used to love apple pie with chocolate ice cream. And that does not draw any more attractions. Amy Joyce (?) doughnuts - I used to eat twelve of them in one go. No wonder I became diabetic, right? [laughs]. Anyway, there is no longer any temptations at all. I am convinced that sugar is not good for me. Likewise, if we are convinced that the negative emotions are not good for us, we will not have that problem. That is the struggle we are in. You and only you can help yourself. That also only if you think that you can help yourself. If you don’t think that, then you don’t think - forget about it. Even if a coca cola bottle hits you on the head you will just say, ‘It is my karma’. So don’t do that. Think about it. If you can think, you can help yourself.

When you are convinced you begin to look. When I have committed all these negativities, do I have to suffer?’ Buddha has kept on saying all the time, shouting, screaming, for 2500 years, that we all commit negativities but that is not the end. Negativity is impermanent. You can purify that, you can become perfect. He gave zillions of examples.

One of them is the clouds. Dark clouds come in. It looks hopeless, but the sky is still there. The clouds move. The sun will shine again. That is one example Buddha gave. You may think it is terrible, the deed is done, you are doomed. But no, it is impermanent, things move, you can change. You can purify.

Another example: Karma is like a white cloth. You can put a white cloth into any color, blue, green, yellow, red. You dip it in and it comes out as blue cloth, white cloth, green cloth, red or yellow cloth. Likewise, our mind is such a thing that whatever you dip it in, it comes out in that color. So even the negativities you can wash. You can clean them in the laundry machine. Unfortunately you have to put yourself in there too! The laundry machine you have is the four powers. It is a square thing, like all the laundry machine are big, square things. You put your things in there and run through the process and come out clean.

Here we are talking about when we can do that and we think, ‘I don’t have to do that today, do I?’ That is where we are. We think it is not urgent. But don’t say that. There is definitely going to be that time where there is no tomorrow for you and me. And none of us has any idea when that is going to happen. That is why it is better not to take the chance. Better be prepared. That is the main message out of this particular verse.

What comes after birth? Living. And after that comes dying. As soon as you are born, it is certain that the end will be death. In the sutra it says, ‘Have you seen anybody who was born and never died? Have you heard about such a case? Have you any doubt or do you have any hope that you could be that one? Aren’t you stupid?’

We talk a lot about samsara. What does that mean? I means that the end is never good, it is always bad. We don’t like that. Even in the movies we have to make the end better. People like that, so the movie makers can sell it better. But the true reality is that the end is never good. The end of birth is death. The end of company is separation. The end of accumulation if exhaustion. Right? Think about it - everything is like that. The end of beauty is ugliness. The end of new clothes is old, torn clothes. The end of a new camera is an old, broken one. The end of a new car is a used, old, crashed one. The end of youth and beauty is old age and ugliness. That is samsara. The word is looking very romantic. People use it easily, but if you think carefully, it means that the end is always bad. So if you are an intelligent person, how can you rely on samsaric things? No one can.

That brings us the next verse.

Verse fifty-nine

Who can grant me fearlessness?

How can I be surely freed from this?

If I shall inevitably become nothing,

How can I relax and enjoy myself?

Can somebody give you fearlessness? I am not sure whether this is the correct English translation from the Tibetan. If it is then nobody can give you fearlessness except yourself. Who can give you deathlessness? I like to say it this way. Nobody can. That is why the previous verses went on about this and the sutra too, saying, ‘Have you seen anybody who never died for millions of years? Have you heard about anybody, is there any doubt about anybody living forever?’ So nobody can give you deathlessness at all.

Therefore how can one be surely free from this? How can you see sit there and do nothing? Your clock is ticking. Any minute you can go, you never know. Why not be prepared. Better be prepared than get a surprise.

end of side A of tape forty-three

Side B of tape forty-three of 06/10/97

Aud: You said about karma that once we have conviction of it through reasoning, we will have no problem reducing negative actions. However, it says in the teachings that karmic functioning is so subtle that it is very hard to recognize. It is said that it is harder than understanding emptiness. So I don’t understand by what reasoning you could gain such a conviction.

R: I am not talking about the subtle karma at all. I am simply talking about the very rough level. We know that generally negative actions cause negative consequences while positive karma causes positive consequences. I do agree that subtle karma is even more difficult to know than the perfect view. The ultimate subtle wisdom is that of emptiness. Subtle karma is more difficult to understand than that. However, the gross level karma can be understood. You can see the fruit tree. You can see that the seed of the tree generates the tree and the tree gives the fruit. A fruit flower gives you fruit, unless it is a crab apple or something. Even then it gives you some kind of apple. I am looking at that sort of gross level. If you look at that level you can understand better. You have to have some understanding. You cannot just assume things are going to happen. You cannot rely on your feelings or what somebody told you in a dream or what you see when you close your eyes. Just don’t buy that. You have to have some sense of understanding.

I very much like the very grounded Buddhism. I don’t like the Buddhism where you say, ‘I feel it.’ If you have experienced something, that is great. But when you presume that you have experienced something that is not right. When I was in Los Angeles where the Dalai Lama was giving teachings, I saw one of the well-known Western Buddhist teachers. She told me, ‘You have done a great job for Allen Ginsberg. I saw him in the bardo. He is doing perfectly well.’ I just had to look down, I kept my gaze on the ground for a while. Then the conversation disappeared. That sort of Buddhism I don’t buy. It is much better for the individual to be grounded, to have understanding. Whatever your viewpoints and ideas, you should have some solid, strong reason behind that. This reason can give you experience. If you have experience that is fantastic.

I was also talking with some other Tibetan teachers at the same event and told them about what I had just encountered and they asked, ‘Are these people lying to you?’ I said, ‘I don’t think so. ‘Do they really see something?’ Again I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ Then they said, ‘So then, what is really happening?’ We started to pool ideas and try to find out. One understanding we came to was that people imagine things. They sit there with closed eyes, maybe in the middle of saying mantras or in the middle of what they think is meditation. Then they start projecting such an idea. After some time they probably perceive something in line with that projection. Then they are convinced, ‘Yes, I saw it.’ Since they were probably in the cross-legged position while doing their sadhana, they are then able to say, ‘I saw it while I was meditating.’ I cannot believe that these people are telling lies. I refuse to believe it. They are not faking. Somehow they project it, then believe it very strongly and then they say, ‘I saw him in the bardo.’ So please don’t do it. You are much better off not having such experiences. These things are true delusions - not in the sense of negativities which we also refer to as neuroses - but it is imagination, projection. Projections perceived by you in a certain manner, then labelled as vision - that is very pathetic, an extremely pathetic situation. It is almost like you are high under the influence of a chemical. You can see all sorts of things. These may or may not be true. You would not say, ‘It is reality, because I saw it when I was high’. You know you saw it, and you know you were high. That is a true example of real delusion.

This is important. A lot of people are interested in Tibetan Buddhism. His Holiness gave a four day teaching on Nagarjuna’s ratnamala, that means ‘Jewel Garland’. There must have been three - to four thousand people sitting there from morning to evening. Half of them I bet did not understand anything of what was going on. Anyway, they sat there the whole day. It was not even on the week end, but during the week. They started at eight o’ clock in the morning, had an hour for lunch, and then sat again until half past four in the evening. That much interest they have. So it is very important to ground yourself. Do not buy these flying objects.

Aud2: I can’t see how we can arrive at a grounded experience with regard to karma. I cannot experience karma as clearly as you can experience your diabetes. You can talk to your doctor, read up about it, experience how you feel. This is graspable. But for me none of these statements about karma are graspable.

R: Hey, listen! The high level of sugar in my body is the result of the high import of protein or carbo-hydrate. The cause of the high sugar levels are the sweets that I eat. The result of that is the shooting up of the sugar levels in the body. That is cause and effect very directly experienced in a short period. Make that a little longer. The flowering of the trees in spring is the cause of the fruit in autumn. Make that a little longer again. The seed which you saw some years ago on the ground and the fruit which you are getting now - that is the cause and the effect. Likewise, everything happens in that manner. Whether it is extended over longer periods or happens in a short period, whether you see it directly or through reasoning, you will find cause and effect everywhere.

Aud1: But you have to distinguish between experiential understanding and logical understanding. These are two different phenomena.

R: For me it is the same.

Aud1: Yes, I know. But generally...

Aud2: I can follow your reasoning. But for me that is still just thoughts. It is still in the realm of the books on the shelf. There must a different kind of understanding then that connects me to an experience and causes some real change.

R: First you have to understand it logically. That will make you feel and experience it practically. If you don’t have the logical understanding first, you will never be able to gain the understanding of how it works. The logical understanding is the first goal that we need to have. That will give you deeper understanding within you. The way that happens is like this: It creeps in. You don’t really see it coming. It is not like ‘I see it coming and now I got it. I am changing totally and I am becoming yellow.’ It changes bit by bit and creeps in. It is made stable within you by logical understanding.

Aud3: So the conceptual understanding sets the stage for the insight to emerge?

R: That is right. Without the conceptual understanding nothing can take place within you. It has to be a conceptual understanding which can withstand powerful logical objections. That is the main point. Right and wrong has to be judged by whether it can stand the test. Normally people say, ‘Who knows whether this is right or wrong, but I go along with it.’ But right and wrong is tested by powerful logical reasoning. If your reasoning can stand against that you are right, if it can’t then you are wrong. So the conceptual understanding is the first step. You see whether it can stand the test or not. Then you go further into it. That provides the base. So it is three or four steps. It is not like picking up knowledge about mathematics.

Aud1: I still want to make a distinction. In many cases it works exactly like you have just said. But other things lend themselves more easily to direct experience. For example, if you get angry and you sit with that feeling for a while you will honestly come to the conclusion that this anger gives you pain and difficulties. It is experiential more so than logical. And I find that people get confused as to what kind of approach they should use. They think that they have to logically analyze karma and that is confusing. In one of these ten day - Vipassana retreats you can watch your thoughts arise and pass and you will have some experience of that which is not based on logic. There are teachings that can further support it but it is direct insight into how the mind works.

R: To tell you the truth, we have all the experience of negative delusions - we are experts in that. But we don’t have any experience of positivity, because we don’t know it. So that is the distinction that I see. The negative things - we can see them, we can watch them. Then we will know them. It is very hard for us to experience any of the positive antidote actions. People say it is beautiful and wonderful. They say they like it and enjoy it. Sure you like it but you have no idea what is the head and the tail of it. But what can I say when people tell me that? I can only say, ‘Good, good, wonderful.’ I cannot say, ‘To hell with you.’ Thats what it is.

Aud3: How can we be sure that what we see is correct and not deluded?

R: Ninety-nine per cent of what we see is deluded. Ninety-nine point nine per cent is truly deluded.

Aud3: So how do I know when it is not deluded?

R: You don’t because you don’t have that experience. I am being honest with you. I am sorry to be so abrupt. But we virtually don’t have undeluded experiences. Now the ratnamala teachings come in. Every perception, every projection, everything we say, is connected with ego projection, with ego manifestation - always. That is why it is delusion, blandly speaking. People don’t like to hear that, I am sure. But that is what we have. That does not mean that everything we do is wrong. We do a lot of right things too. Our human mind and our human intuition is saving us. But give yourself a little opportunity and watch yourself and see what consequences come up. Look at the anger. How does it make you feel? How does that make your mind look like? I often give the example of your mind being like a clean, clear glass of water. The moment you dip your muddy finger in there to wash it, that clean, clear glass of water becomes mushy and moody. I am purposely using ‘moody’, because we are talking about mind. We can clearly see that. As I said before it is an experience. There can be no one who can doubt what that does. It is true, because we are experts on anger. If we are not experts on anger there is nobody else who is or for that matter attachment, jealousy and ego-grasping. We are all experts in that.

However, positive things we cannot really get that very well. But our human intuition is our great savior, as is our education, our intellectual knowledge, the understanding. We have that capacity. These all help. Don’t think you have wasted years going to school and university. Even in the spiritual context you have not wasted your time with that. It gives you a tremendous amount of a solid pillar behind you to put [your spiritual structure] up. The way educated people approach this and the way the hillbilly Tibetan nomads approach it is very different. That is why intelligent people can pick this up and then it makes a difference in their lives. The intellectual capacity is helping them. It is a tremendous spring board to help you to pop up.

end of side B of tape forty-three