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Soundfile 19980425GRJHNLVT01

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Jewel Heart Netherlands

Topic Vajrayana

Transcriber Michael Hoffman

Date: 05/12/21 – 08/02/21

(Dutch)

0:00:54.9 Very complicated subject. Very important. Very good. I have a couple of questions from Marianne, I think, about Vajrayana. It is, her sort of questions and suggestions are wonderful, so I like to read what she says here. Uh oh. Did I miss a page? Yeah, I should have the page here. Which one is it?

0:01:41.1 (Audience:) I don’t know…it says Vajrayana Teaching…Lama Chopa.

0:01:50.4 Where is it? Where is it? Just tell me what page.

0:01:54.1 (Audience:) Okay…0:01:54.0 workshop. And then it says four dots, seven in the evening, 7-9 pm.

0:02:19.6 Oh yeah, now I see it. Four dots. The first dot is mid meal Second dot is between personal talk. Third dot is Saturday evening, 7-9 pm, Vajrayana Teaching, Questions on the Lama Chopa, which we have been studying this year. And on the other mantras, on the other matters. Request from Karl to receive lung of Lama Chopa. All right. That’s about it. Okay question on Lama Chopa. But before we go to question on Lama Chopa, I would like to say what is Vajrayana to you? Wrong. Your name is Wrong so that’s why I put you first, Wrong. (Laughs.) Not right, but wrong. (Pause) You don’t hold too long. Let me move to Pieter. Pit, Pieter. Right? Pieter. What does Vajrayana mean to you? Do you have an answer or should I move to another person?

0:03:48.8 (Audience:) For me it’s ah… it’s the essence, it’s the Lam Rim (unintelligible) 0:04:16.8

0:04:20.6 Different than Lam Rim?

0:04:22.0 (Audience:) Another way.

0:04:27.8 Another way means different, right? What are you approaching? What are you approaching? Did she get it, or did you…

0:04:43.6 (Audience:) What he was saying, is for me it is two different approaches on the same thing.

0:04:49.4 I understand that. Oh is that right? What are you approaching, that’s what I’m saying. I heard that, yeah. So I said what are you approaching.

0:05:04.6 (Audience:) (unintelligible)

0:05:19.5 Say it again.

0:05:20.0 (Audience:) I would like to deal with things I need in my life, in a good way.

0:05:35.8 What is Vajrayana does different than Lam Rim does? You know what I mean. If you need a little bit of translation, you put in, otherwise I think the majority will follow English.

0:05:50.9 (Audience:) It’s beyond words.

0:05:51.5 Beyond words. Like what? Give me something to hold. Beyond words means, can be anything. You know. It’s not only you have to answer. Anybody else can answer it. How about you?

0:06:14.7 (Audience:) To me Vajrayana is, making the effort to look at my life from another angle than I’m used to. As I wake up I am usually not …

0:06:41. You’re not what?

0:06:41.8 (Audience:) Not so bright.

0:06:42.5 So bride?

0:06:43.9 (Audience:) So bright, I’m still dull in the morning.

0:06:46.8 You are dull. Are you a dull person?

0:06:49.3 (Audience:) Yes.

0:06:50.3 You’re a dull person. All right. That’s your perception.

0:06:55.6 (Audience: ) That’s my perception, exactly. And Vajrayana, the Vajrayana approach to meditation, gives me a daily, a couple of points in the day, where daily I try to see what the masters are trying to tell me.

0:07:22.6 Masters of past try to tell me.

0:07:24.9 (Audience:) But there seems to be something they understand which I don’t get or can understand. There’s, to me Vajrayana is a couple of points in the day at least where I try to focus on them, and try to get a grip on what it is the masters are trying to tell me, trying to show me.

0:07:52.3 You gave a good answer, it’s an answer from your heart. That’s good. I’m happy. Pit?

0:08:00.1 (Audience:) (unintelligible) 0:08:05.5 It is said to be taking the result as the path.

0:08:08.5 Yeah but what does that mean?

0:08:11.2 (Audience:) You are not satisfied…

0:08:17.3 What does that mean?

0:08:19.0 (Audience:) Yes, that is question for me at the moment. At the moment for me it is that I am recognizing that there are perfect qualities who I can contact with, with my own shortcomings. And I can by my tantric methods, can imagine, my imagination 0:09:01.5 My imagination 0:09:05.2 and see that…

0:09:06.8 [Back and forth about it being okay to allow kids in the building to make noise.]

0:09:23.8 (Audience:) And see that 0:09:24.4 is firmed 0:09:30.1 And that is for me, a possibility, to train 0:09:41.4

0:09:44.0 I think your answer is, half a book and half your own understanding. It’s not half book or half book or not tell you that, half book will tell you it is the result oriented, and it is superior vehicle, and it is quick vehicle and dangerous vehicle and blah blah blah. Okay Corey can I ask you that question?

0:10:10.0 (Audience:) I’m uncomfortable…

0:10:13.0 I’m sorry that’s fine. So I move that to probably, you. Marianne. You know you have been very longtime Vajrayana practitioners. You have been saying your six session yogas, you have been saying your sadhanas, and though normally I advise all Vajrayana students in America and even in southeast Asia and everywhere, I’ll simply say, I say that you have taken initiations in Vajrayana but put your focus on Lam Rim. I always tell the people that. And I think I told you that a number of times, too. But still I like to ask you, what is Vajrayana to you?

0:11:09.7 (Audience:) I think the main point is that I try to make a connection to qualities.

0:11:18.1 That is absolutely true answer. It is true answer. I’m not going to ask you the second question, what is the difference between making true connection by Lam Rim way, and by Vajrayana way. I’m going to save that question. Perhaps I will ask you tomorrow. (Laughs.) So let me ask the same question to Mr. Hopperman. Mr. Hopperman. Or should we call you Sir Ed Hopperman. Make a knight.

0:12:02.3 [Back and forth about what it means to make him a “sir”, followed by unintelligible answer.]

0:12:38.0 Why do you say completely different? Different from what?

0:12:45.0 (Audience:) Different from…0:12:55.8 well-known world. Different from the well-known world.

0:13:01.6 What do you mean? You go to some kind of obscure world, or what? Then, what? What is different from well-known world. I mean give me one example.

0:13:18.4 (Audience:) Yes. When my children born after that, it was so 0:13:30.3 that I had to leave for that same two weeks, I saw all the people like they were children. 0:13:40.5 I really had the feeling so you can see what they do with the child behind it.

0:13:50.9 So for two weeks you thought everybody was your child?

0:13:55.7 (Audience:) No.

0:13:57.7 What are you saying then?

0:13:59.2 (Audience:) I saw people from a very different way. So then that feeling what I had for my children I had for all people, everybody. So that was the first step 0:14:11.8

0:14:15.6 No I don’t think that is Vajrayana, you give me more example, that is not good enough. You saw everybody as your own children for two weeks.

0:14:28.1 (Audience:) No, as children.

0:14:33.1 What does that mean?

0:14:34.6 (Audience:) It is of their age so 0:14:39.8

0:14:49.2 That’s what I mean, that’s what you mean, you saw everybody child nature within that. That’s what you mean, yeah so that’s okay. So you thought that was Vajrayana?

0:15:00.1 (Audience:) No.

0:15:00.6 Then, what are you trying to tell me? The difference, I want the difference. Let’s pass the bucket. Let’s pass the buck somewhere else. You said that’s different, but you did not give me exact example of what difference it is. You said you saw the childness within every individual for two weeks so that was the example of different. Which means in Vajrayana are you trying to see Buddhanature within everybody?

0:15:45.5 (Audience:) No that is a little bit different…

0:15:48.1 Little bit different. All right give me another.

0:15:51.2 (Audience:)What I saw was, it brings a completely different feeling to me.

0:15:58.0 Well what do you mean by feeling? What kind of feeling are you talking about?

0:16:01.7 (Audience:) Feeling of when I saw the other people was the same as the 0:16:11.3 (difficult to hear)

0:16:28.1 So you thought everybody was Ronga Rimpoche?

0:16:32.3 (Audience:) No that isn’t what I said. Say it is family.

0:16:36.4 Ronga Rimpoche’s family?

0:16:38.2 (Audience:) Connection.

0:16:40.5 Do you remember that Ronga Rimpoche business?

0:16:42.7 (Audience:) All the lamas that know 0:16:49.0

0:16:53.5 Okay. Anybody else would like to say anything? You would like to say something?

0:16:59.4 (Audience:) No.

0:17:01.7 You don’t want to say anything. Anybody would like to say, Marianne, sorry I almost said Mary Soeters.

0:17:10.3 (Audience:) I’d just like to say 0:17:11.5 I have opportunity to formulate what I am thinking. Well at first I think I simplify my Vajrayana practices. And I started one year ago to practice, and I still, most of the practicing is just routine, there’s lot of difficulties around visualization. But I insist to do it because 0:17:56.7 time. I have a major opportunity to get a connection, a better connection to the six perfections. And I have the opportunity to make a 0:18:25.6 but to make a how do you say, make contact, a bad copy, to make a bad copy of in myself of all the personalities I as a human being have. The possibility to help myself and further on to be able in higher quality to have 0:19:02.1 And maybe it will help that I still insist to do this every day, to practice the recitations, you understand?

0:19:19.7 I get you. So you are emphasizing with the great hope of transforming yet you’re emphasizing on the recitation and the sadhana. That is the bottom line what I get it.

0:19:34.3 (Audience:) Yes, and in that way I keep the connection.

0:19:41.3 I understand that. That is one way of looking in Vajrayana for sure. So, Lynn?

0:19:59.3 (Audience:) Well I think….

0:19:59.6 I mean you’ve been in Vajrayana a very long time.

0:20:04.3 (Audience:) There are methods to imagine I already have the qualities of the deity. 0:20:14.1 (difficult to hear) and imagine in the generation state still 0:20:49.5 (difficult to hear)

0:21:01.6 Twenty years too quick, right? Do you want to comment? I think you said it very well. Do you want to comment?

0:21:15.5 (Audience:) I think the daily practice makes me a little bit closer to the essence that I 0:21:24.9 (difficult to hear)

0:21:29.8 What about you Finnica, Finnica right? Minke. Finnica is the other one. Minke, Minka, Finnica is the other short hair. Sorry, Minka.

0:21:49.3 (Audience:) Well for me it is trying to 0:22:02.8 (difficult to hear) when I do the sadhana of Yamantaka I more times say it, the more I know I do not understand the logic, but also 0:22:34.6 (difficult to hear)

0:23:05.6 Very good answer. Anybody else have answer? Wrong do you have a second answer? You don’t have. Anybody else would like to say? How about you?

0:23:24.9 (Audience:) I try to build visualizations 0:23:36.7 (difficult to hear)

0:23:44.1 Okay. Did you kick the kids out? (Laughs.) [Discusses kids a bit.] So would you like to conclude something? Or should I go ahead.

0:24:10.1 (Audience:) I want to conclude I can’t say. But for me it is in the Lam Rim, I like that very much. I feel it is on the level of my everyday functioning that I can reason and try to change things, and that’s helpful.

0:24:31.6 In Lam Rim.

0:24:32.0 (Audience:) In Lam Rim.

0:24:32.8 That’s what I want to hear, that’s good.

0:24:35.6 (Audience:) At the Vajrayana level, I do not get in touch with it very much. But I have, the kind of hope, I feel the kind of hope, that when I get into the understanding mode 0:24:51.4 when I get to know more about how these different images give the different qualities that it comes to another level of my being, and it might well be a level that goes, that might have a longer life than my daily personal life has 0:25:13.6 It will do something on a deeper level.

0:25:24.8 Good. Is anybody angry with Vajrayana? Is anybody angry with Vajrayana? [Some cross-talk.] All right, anybody irritated with Vajrayana? Sometimes you are.

0:25:50.9 (Audience:) Because it is a promise, like I learn that now, it’s an opportunity to transform my negativity but it’s so far away.

0:26:06.3 Well you don’t know, you don’t know it’s an opportunity.

0:26:10.7 (Audience:) That’s the irritation. It’s an everyday confrontation, but how very hard it is.

0:26:18.6 That’s an important point you raise. You don’t know if it’s an opportunity. You really don’t know it’s an opportunity. You presume it’s an opportunity. You’re told it’s an opportunity. But you don’t know it’s an opportunity. True. A lot of people get upset. A lot of people are angry. 0:26:41.4 You remember Brenda from Chicago? Is it recorded? It’s okay it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter because I’m not going to say anything wrong here. You know, Brenda is very good, wonderful in Lam Rim, she can probably write a Lam Rim by herself. And she almost did write a Lam Rim book in Jane Houston’s name, she wrote Jane Houston’s biography and Jane Houston’s books, she’s a ghostwriter, she almost wrote Lam Rim in there. She was very good. But she was angry, not angry, she was upset with Vajrayana. There’s also a woman named Jane, do you meet? Used to be Jane Wood, she changed her name to something else, Tamara, Tomara or something, and that’s one. She was extremely upset with Vajrayana, and she left completely for about a few years. Completely. And she only came back about two years ago or something. So, there’s sometimes, that’s the reason, Vajrayana is difficult because people really get a big frustration. Even Marianne just saying right now, Marianne Soeters is saying right now, when you look at the Lam Rim you can see it, you can think it, you can reason it, you can understand it, you can do it, undo it, make difference. With Vajrayana you think maybe you are connecting with a different personality within you and the different level within you, which is longer than our own life, but maybe be able to connect with you. And that’s a very good statement, maybe you made the statement a little polite way, maybe you really feel honest in that way, whatever the reason might be, and ah…that is sort of how Vajrayana really functions within the individual.

0:29:17.5 However, Vajrayana is not dealing with our personal life today. Is a misunderstanding. It’s definitely a misunderstanding. As much as Lam Rim deals the Vajrayana deals. Certain portions we don’t deal in Lam Rim but it deals in Vajrayana. Certain portion of the life which we don’t deal in Vajrayana deals with Lam Rim. Now for example, what does Vajrayana really do? And what is the rules and regulations of the Vajrayana? Let’s talk this way. What is, you know, if you are looking at normal Sutrayana, Sutrayana, what is our, what is the object that we discard? Or what is the subject that we embrace? You know what I mean? So when you look at the subject what we discard or object what we discard [it] is the negative emotions and what we embrace, the thing, is we are embracing a good, a positive emotions. So when you are looking at Vajrayana, Vajrayana is presuming, presuming, that we have already discarded the gross level of negative emotions. Vajrayana already presuming that. You know what I mean? You understand ‘presuming’, they’re thinking it’s already discarded. So therefore they give you a different subject or object to be discarded. And that is ordinary perception and conceptualization. You know, like I am Wrong, I am Eileen, I am John, I am Mary, I am Corey, I am Ann, I am this, I am that. All this type of ordinary perception and conceptualization is the subject to be discarded.

0:31:52.8 You know in normal, in Lam Rim -- did you get me? (Audience: What is discard?) Discard means throw it away, throw it away, you know, what you don’t want it, discard, you have a card picked up, throw it away, discard it. Vajrayana try to get rid of all this ordinary perception and conceptualizations. You know what I mean? In other words, the Vajrayana would like to have a pure vision perception always. Pure vision perception always. So we like to say...(Pause). When I met Khyentse Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse who a died a couple years ago, Khyentse Rinpoche,who died a couple years ago. When I met him, I interviewed him for the All India radio. So he said in the interview he goes on and says every male are Avalokiteshvara, every female are Tara, and then nothing is impure, every tree is, every wind, every leaf movement is telling you emptiness, all this sort of normal very much propagated in Nyingma tradition, and he keep on saying that on the radio all the time, he keep on saying it. So the true reality in the Vajrayana, the perception is they always try to perceive and receive everybody from the pure point of view, rather than the negative point of view. That’s including yourself and everybody. That’s why you have deity visualization, and deity pride has been built up. You know like this morning we’ve been struggling, and say pride is terrible and this and that. Now here even if we try to raise the pride up and say that deity pride is the one. So in the Vajrayana the object of what you really want negated or discarded is the ordinary perception and the ordinary conceptualization. And that only is relevant, that is only relevant to us when we cut it down, those negative emotions. Over we are beginning to transforming, then it is only relevant for us from the practice point of view to making the shift from the ordinary perception and conceptualization to extraordinary perception and conceptualization.

0:35:18.0 As Pit Sutra, Om Pits has said earlier, I cannot leave the uncle out, Om Pits, so I been introduced you to as Om Pits by Helen, you remember? (Audience: Yes I know.) So I cannot leave the Om out. As Om Pit says, it is result oriented, and he said it as book answer, whatever it may be. Result oriented means whatever you are working with here you are truly presuming that you have already done the preliminary work at the Lam Rim level where you are recognizing the negativities and work against them and you are already in the position to already can be overpowering them. So therefore that result oriented level of bringing everything as extraordinary, so otherwise every human being cannot be Avalokiteshvara or Tara, they can be Tom, Dick and Harry is there. So that is the how the Vajrayana way of working, number one. It is pure perception. I don’t want to say pure imagination. Because it is not really imagination. It is pure perception. It perceives everything is pure. The land is pure. People are pure. You are pure. Body is pure. Mind is pure. Speech is pure. Everything is pure of pure. The sort of really essence of everything, perfect. And that is the Vajrayana projection. So what Vajrayana really do is project that on everybody. And excuse me one minute. And when you are projecting that on everybody, and that projection is become indestructible, indestructible really meaning, really meaning, is become of it. Not only I made myself pure. I made you pure, too. So that pure projection of mind cannot be destroyed and it becomes true. And that’s why vajra. Vajra means indestructible. And yana, vehicle. Such a vehicle will deliver you.

0:38:22.8 So that’s how I look at part of Vajrayana. It might not be a very conventional way of explaining, but that is the essence of the Vajrayana, one moment word Vajrayana use it, I will see the method, I will see it functions in that way. And that’s why, in Vajrayana, saying sadhana becomes important. Because in the sadhana, what do you visualize? Yourself in the form of a deity. And that also, not just a flap flop deity, but with all process and procedures and you will be able to arise as a full-fledged deity. And every sound becomes a mantra. Every being has become pure. Everything is uncontaminated offering which brings joy and pleasure and bliss and all of those are because the Vajrayana’s main essence is the pure perception. And that’s why the negativity which you cut in the Vajrayana is not the anger, attachment and hatred but the impure perceptions. Impure perceptions. Ordinary feelings and ordinary conceptualization is the main trouble that we struggle [with] in Vajrayana. And that’s why Khyenste Rinpoche goes and said every man is Avalokiteshvara every woman is Tara and every sound I hear is om mani padme hum (laughs). And he’s not crazy, you know. But that’s exactly how it functions.

0:40:28.0 Okay, Om Pits first.

0:40:30.5 (Audience:) Yes you are telling this on the level of perception, but isn’t it that 0:40:37.6

0:40:43.8 Yes that’s a different question.

0:40:45.5 (Audience:) Then you are starting with imagination, and on that you build perception.

0:40:51.7 You are absolutely right. I haven’t even come to the training point. I just simply give you the picture of what really it is. And then, Arn, you want to talk now or you want to wait for a little while.

0:41:05.3 (Audience:) This is my question.

0:41:07.1 Yeah. Not Ann, Arn, right?

0:41:12.8 (Audience:) Having realized emptiness…

0:41:15.6 What do you mean? Have or have not.

0:41:19.6 (Audience:) Yeah, having, if you have realized emptiness, my question is, is it important to have realized emptiness just from having that realization 0:41:32.5 being able to have pure perception. What’s the connection between the two?

0:41:39.9 You just said it. The emptiness in the essence of bodhimind, or bodhimind in the essence of emptiness is the fundamental basis for the Vajrayana. The moment you open the guru yoga, Vajrayana, up, you have the guru lineage prayer and then the first words you say Om subhowa shudda sarwa dharma subhowa shuddo ham, which is, what did Allen say? Nature’s pure, everything is pure, naturally pure that’s what I am. So when you are saying that, you are talking about emptiness. Emptiness is the total, the foundation, the building has a foundation, and all this foundation is what you build on is the foundation of the emptiness and, emptiness and…bodhimind. And bodhimind is the essence of emptiness or emptiness in the essence of the bodhimind is the groundwork, is the total groundwork of Vajrayana building. Or Vajrayana pace of the Vajrayana thing. So, when we are looking at ourself and knowing what Vajrayana really is, the question arises, each and every one of us will say, am I a Vajrayana practitioner? You may be a Vajrayana practitioner, because Vajrayana practice been introduced to you, so you may be try to copy it, you may be a Vajrayana practitioner, but you’re not Vajrayana yet, and none of us are Vajrayana. What we do, what we’re doing is now the question of the opportunity she was talking about. I don’t, we don’t know yet, but we are told this is a great opportunity. It may be true. It is maybe absolutely true. So we try to pick up that opportunity and we almost copycat, copycat the Vajrayana practitioners how they did, we try to copycat that.

0:44:23.7 It is almost like the sixties. In the sixties, people in the west introduced meditat[ation] So they will sit cross legged and put your hands down, hang this way. Whoever depends whoever the guru comes in whether it is from India or Burmese or whomever accordingly so you do different things and we meditated for twenty years. And by late eighties and early nineties, we begin to know, hey, that’s not only the meditation. Meditation means more than that. We have to analyze, we have to concentrate, you have to bring awareness. We know that in the west, right? Likewise here, in the Vajrayana we are right now at the beginning level of you copy this, copy that, sit like this, sit like that, have incense, have a gown built up and sit for awhile and then move again once and be the one gown and move a little bit and sit for awhile and move again within same position in the Vajrayana, we’re at that level. And that doesn’t mean we don’t have opportunity. That doesn’t mean we’re not good. It means we’re trying our best. We’re trying to get to the point. (Brief pause.) Mainly, the sadhana. So what are we trying to do with the sadhana? The essence what we’re trying to do is trying to compare with our life, the life what we have today, today’s human being, with the five senses and the principal mind. Right? We have five senses. We have eye that see, ear that hears, nose that smells, tongue that tastes, and the body that feels. This is our five senses. And these five senses, their message of whatever it is, their contact, whether you feel good or whether you feel bad, whatever it might be, we’re sending that message to the principal consciousness. So the principal consciousness enjoys or dislike it or reject or accept, that’s what’s happening, right? Right?

0:46:58.3 Similarly in the Vajrayana we try to project these five senses to accept, to accept only joyful ones. So you’re discarding now, not good ones, you’re discarding, you’re telling them, accept the joyful ones. And you’re also telling our own, ourself, think when you die, what’s happening, think, when you sleep. If you don’t understand when you die what’s happening, so when you sleep what’s happening? Think, when you’re dreaming, what’s happening? Think, when you wake up, what’s happening? So compare that, sleep and the death and the dharmakaya. So if you find out what is the difference in there, as far as your perception is concerned, what can you figure out? And that is, that’s why somebody mentioned, who is it, Inka or somebody, three kayas who said that? Oh that is Elaine (?) said, so that’s why, that’s why that as dharmakaya and the bardo as sambhogakaya and birth as nirmanakaya, becomes important. And not only important but almost the essence of the Vajrayana practice at the development stage level. This is the real Vajrayana, nothing else. This is the real Vajrayana because it tells you your personal life and within your life when you fall asleep, when you dream, when you wake up—and deal with this, and try to compare it. In the Lam Rim level, yes, you’re already talking about awakening stage. When you wake up, what you’re talking, what you’re thinking, how your emotions are functioning and they don’t tell you how when you sleep, how’s your emotional things happening, what is your busy with it. When you’re dreaming, what, how busy you get within your dream and all this. Not too much in the Lam Rim level.

0:50:03.8 But in the Vajrayana they bring all three together. The awakened state, and sleeping state, and dreaming state and bring them together. And make a sort of compact compact, complete compact, both. Not only complete but it’s compact. Compact package which sort of gives you normally how to function when you’re waking, how to function when you sleep, how to function when you are dreaming. And it’s very difficult to deal with our own ordinary mind because we don’t have the awareness of sleeping. We don’t have awareness of dreaming. We do have awareness of waking state but we don’t have dream and sleep. And that’s the problem.

0:51:06.4 (Audience:) (Unintelligible question/comment)

0:51:14.2 You can learn and train. You’re not going to be, it’s not going to happen to you the moment I say ‘Work at sleep period, work at dream period’ nothing you will be able to do. (Comments to audience about kids coming into the venue.)

0:51:38.9 (Audience:) (Unintelligible comments)

0:51:45.5 I don’t mean the dreaming, during the daytime you are daydreaming. I’m talking about the dream when you sleep. Yeah I’m talking about that dream, not the daydream.

0:51:56.3 (Audience:) Yes I understand that. Does that include dreams you remember?

0:52:06.6 I’m including all the dreams, whether you remember or don’t remember.

0:52:11.0 (Audience:) (Unintelligible)

0:52:16.2 How can you what?

0:52:17.3 (Audience:) (Unintelligible)

0:52:19.5 Hah, I believe first you have to turn your awareness when you awaken, and second you – and that’s why Terab Tulku does dream workshop. It is on the basis of Vajrayana, there are books available now in English translated by what is his name, Glenn Mullin, called Six Yogas of Naropa, in that you have the dream yoga of that.

0:52:47.0 (Audience:) Dagyab Rinpoche is teaching that next month, Six Yogas of Naropa.

0:52:52.2 Oh good, very good, then go ahead and attend it. Where is he teaching?

0:52:56.7 (Audience:) (Unintelligible)

0:52:58.0 Oh very good. That’s good. So, if you go there you’ll pick up more on that. Six Yogas of Naropa, that’s very good. Normally he doesn’t do that sort of teaching in Germany. Right? So that’s good he’s doing it. Six Yogas of Naropa. Then, okay, that is one stage. Then you don’t have to, you don’t force yourself to recognize the dream, you don’t force yourself to do this. You just do your sadhana, you just do your sadhana, and that’s good enough for you to push. To have to continue. Somebody said to maintain the connection, to have continuation and all this, that is the sadhana, the sadhana does that. By doing so when you cut down your negativities and then you gain the positivity, and that very positivity will make you open. That is, I believe the Vajrayana is working in that way, it is more the same thing you do in Lam Rim too. Even in Lam Rim you meditate, you think and you become familiarized and you become more awareness and you understand better and you can perceive, and you can project and you can function. The same thing in Vajrayana, you understand better, you become more awareness and all of those and that makes very good thing.

0:54:44.8 And the retreat the six yogas he’s going to teach with all exercises. Because Dalai Lama teaches six yogas he doesn’t teach the exercise. He sort of dropped the exercise out. And I hope Dagyab Rinpoche will do all exercises.

0:55:00.5 (Audience:) It’s only three days, four days, three and a half. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning.

0:55:13.0 (Audience:) He thought he would do meditation…

0:55:17.1 Yeah he will do the meditation, but whether he will do the physical exercise. You have to do the physical exercise like that of female dog, like that of this, like that of that, also the things there. Good. (Pause, mentions enjoying eating grapes.)

0:55:51.3 (Audience:) The teachings that Rinpoche is giving, are they the same as Tulku is giving?

0:56:00.9 It...Tulku doesn’t give that as a teaching. He gives that as an exercise. The way I think he’s taking out of there. Yup. Okay. So.

0:56:19.8 (Audience:) I have something. Does that mean that by studying and practicing Lam Rim, you are building your basis, or work material, in order to work better with Vajrayana, some kind of push?

0:56:40.2 Can I…Say it again?

0:56:42.0 (Audience:) Is it true that in the Lam Rim, by practicing Lam Rim, studying it, that you are building your working material for the Vajrayana?

0:56:53.1 No.

0:56:54.9 (Audience:) Because you said it is fundamental basis, and in Lam Rim you work on foundation, bodhimind, and you work on trying to get wisdom, with emptiness.

0:57:05.7 No, no. No. The purpose of the Lam Rim is not to have emptiness. It’s not. The purpose of the Lam Rim is not to understand emptiness. If that is so, you got it wrong.

0:57:24.8 (Audience:) I’m trying to clarify that.

0:57:27.4 Well it’s not. Emptiness may be one of the essences in there you get it. But the purpose of the Lam Rim is not to bring emptiness to the individual at all. Purpose of Lam Rim is, to understand reality. When I say understand reality, you may think the reality is emptiness so therefore it is… No, I don’t mean that. To understand our own situation, our own life, our own karma, our own future life, possibilities. And question of whether you can be free or you cannot be free. When you realize you can be free then you say can I help others? So these are the essence of the Lam Rim. Rather than purpose of learning emptiness. When you really complete Lam Rim, with the exception of the two last paramitas, then you may be beginning to be able to touch the first path out of five paths. So without Vajrayana vehicle, for us to be able to go the level of enlightenment is absolutely impossible. Absolutely impossible. We’re looking for some kind of 100,000 lifetimes, so it’s impossible. So that’s why somewhere at that level, with a little understanding of emptiness and a strong bodhimind, then we become, we enter into Vajrayana. That’s why whatever we do, right at this moment, we take initiation, we say a sadhana, simply keeping our commitment, simply keeping our connections, and so, which we are, that’s why I say everybody you may take the initiation, you may say your sadhana, put your focus on Lam Rim and that’s what it is. The moment you become a Vajrayana, we’re talking about totally different stuff.

1:00:05.9 But luckily, there are a couple of Vajrayana books now available in English. (Pause.)

1:00:17.1 (Audience:) What books?

1:00:24.4 Well you got a couple of them, you have Yamantaka teachings available, you have Vajrayogini teachings available. You have Lama Chopa available. Lama Chopa is very interesting It is the sutra and tantra combined together, it comes in. It is really the mixer. The mixer in between. In one way. In another way it is the transition. If you look from the different direction it is a transition. If you look from one direction it is mixed. If you look from another it is a transition level. So transition level, so that is why it is very very good to be able to look, even if you look at Lama Chopa, if you look in that, the essence of the Lama Chopa again, is emphasized on the Lam Rim stage. Even you look in the Vajrayana, at the end of that or everywhere they will bring you a 1:01:23.8 and then the pure perception and all this, making offerings and so on and so forth and all this, are back almost the same as the usual Lam Rim level. Except offerings be much more emphasized in Vajrayana than at the Lam Rim level. So where and how we’re doing is not very different than what we are doing, but where and how we’re going to get it, is different. In other words, you know this three kaya stage development. Death as dharmakaya, you have the death process and all this meditating and all this, you do the same thing in the development level, and you do the same thing at the completion level. You don’t have anything additional on the completion level to do that. You’re doing the same procedure again and again, and as it becomes more refined, the result what you’re going to get it, is much more refined one. It is the same procedure. Not a different procedure. Here a little bit here or there or there but not too much. It is the main thing. And what you’re getting is different. And that is the Vajrayana. Believe it to me. Now of course question comes – what is mandala?

1:02:54.4 Okay the drawings that we see is definitely not the mandala. It’s a mandala drawing, it’s a mandala picture. It is either a thangka or picture or it is three dimension or whatever it is, it is the diagram. It is the again, projection and picture, not actual mandala. So the actual mandala is really what is supposed to be, purity of yours. You know, you are working hard. You are trying to cut out all attachment. When you cut out all the attachments, that will become something in the mandala. When you cut out all the anger, it will become something in the mandala. And when you have mindfulness it becomes something in the mandala. When you have this four, this 37 wings of the Buddhadharma, there is a tape available, I did that a long time ago in Ann Arbor, 37 wings of the Buddhadharma, that’s like five powers, and five faculties and all of those. And each one of those will become a piece in the mandala. In other words, mandala is nothing but that our accumulated positive merits that has become environment in which you can enjoy. That is the true mandala. It is a deep palace that’s not built by the rocks and bricks and wood. And then we will say, we’ll hide behind the words. We’ll say, ‘It’s wisdom nature.’ So nobody will ask what do you mean by wisdom nature. So actually what it really is, is the positivities that we have accumulated. And that very accumulation becomes that. Instead of buying a glass door, and you have buying glass and wood and making door, it is one of the positivities, it becomes -- like mindfulness, it becomes the eastern gate, and the five powers become the southern gate, things like that. Each and every bricks, there’s no bricks, but each and every walls, of all five different walls, and each and every one of them, is the merit that we accumulated and now has become materialized and become extraordinary palace for you to enjoy.

1:06:05.6 Inga, say, say.

1:06:06.7 (Audience:) When you don’t have so much merit, then you can’t build it, your mandala?

1:06:13.1 If you don’t have so much merit, then your mandala will be missing some doors or some walls, and maybe some part of roof. It doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen that way. You know why? Because until we have good enough merit we cannot become enlightened. And when you cannot become enlightened, we cannot have the mandala. So that is what it is. I’m just joking to say there may be no door, no window, no roof, that is I’m joking. Yeah. And not only that, you know this mandala has five walls, five walls, right? So each one of those walls has to be certain accumulation of…So basically, basically what really mandala is, is your own creative collective positive karmic taking a physical three dimensional, useful shape of a house and garden and boundary and protections and even retinues, are all, it is naturally your own, now we use the word, manifestation. But that is exactly what a mandala really is. And who described what a mandala is totally different question. Totally different question. So Yamantaka has a four square house with sort of a Chinese looking, it almost looks like that Chinese restaurant on the water down there, you know when you go toward Uttra in the middle of nowhere. But now there’s lots of things round, right? Lot of buildings been built so you no longer see the Yamantaka mandala there (chuckles). But anyway, joke. So that is the, I think, the square roofs and all this are traditionally mentioned. Traditionally I believe, if you really look into the tantra it says roof with some kind of standing. Then of course the Tibetan culture and Chinese culture will add and make them look like Chinese temple roof, and have all these hangings and banners. Hangings and banners are there traditionally, but then a lot of the Chinese architects rather these central Asian architects come in and made it look like that. It’s probably exaggerated point, I can’t say exaggerated point but it’s probably added up. Added up.

1:09:20.7 And the traditional tantra will talk about the roof with some kind of special mark. You know even if you look at the old European culture, everybody even these what you call it, either Napoleon or… or the Roman kings, Caesar, and in that period you see that tents they have something extra they put on the top, indicating extraordinary and most important. And luckily they’re not here today, you know, if we have airplane in that time they introduce the object to who we use, you can 1:10:10.2 the most. But at that time it worked, right? So they have this extra thing to show and I think the Indian tantra, the tantra from the Indian translation will say your extra marking of main palace and this and that. But not necessarily where we draw today. It’s very similar to the Chinese culture of temple roof which Tibetans picked it up and have those golden roof or whatever and that type of thing is my type of added up. But the measurement of the mandala is a tradition. Originally the same measurement and from here to here this much get it, doors this big, from this pillar to that pillar is this much is measured, not in our measurement, in the measurement of the yidam whoever you are meditating, of that fist, fist of this, they measured five of this, or ten of this or ten of this, that is done according to the yidam’s fists. So the measurements are originally there the decorations are slightly decorated. And I believe that is truly what a mandala is.

1:11:30.0 And then you know the word ‘mandala’ really means center. The center of the universe. Center of all existence. And for me, for me I am the center of the universe. I am the center of all my existence. Now I’m talking about Vajrayana. Don’t bring that into normal thing. And if you do so then I’ll be crazy. But in Vajrayana I am my own creator. I am my own creator. And I am the center of me. Because I came in. And I plugged in, I connect you I connect you I connect you I connect you I connect you and you and you, and you connect me. So for me, I am the center. And when I disappeared. And when I disappeared, and you don’t connect me because I’m gone. So you no longer, you cease to be the center of the universe. So basically mandala really means center. Center here means center of body. Center of the mind. Center of sound. And it is the center of all existence. So for my existence I am the center. So we normally say in Buddhism we don’t accept creator, we don’t accept, what you call it, mono…monotheistic god and all this and that. But when you look at the Vajrayana each and every one of these yidams is creator of its own mandala, and own everything. So when I become a Yamantaka or Vajrayogini and I am the creator of my Yamantaka because my Yamantaka I created, nobody else posted. I earned it. So it’s my own creation. So I create my mandala. My mandala is my positive karma shaped in the form to serve me, to benefit me, for, in that form. That’s why it’s all my creation. So in Vajrayana, that’s the… you are you own creator when you become this and that yidam, may not necessarily be now, could be now, too, if you really look deeply you could be. And I hope it’s not too much anti-Christian, but that could be. That could be, you are your own creator. Because we go to the point you are responsible to yourself. We don’t say you are the creator of your own. Because Buddha says you have no beginning, you do have end. So that’s why. But in Vajrayana, you are your own creator when you become that yidam. Not only your physical form. But also whole your mandala, your own creation.

1:15:00.2 And so therefore you have to have that dualistic point of the pure Yamantaka mandala or sort of somehow what a person called Yamantaka somewhere would Buddha introduce. And I’m having a duplicate of that, of my Yamantaka palace. So in one way there is separation. In another way there is no separation. So this is important, to notice. When you look at the beginning, you have a huge thing here, and you say, there is no separation, but you have another thing here, right? So now when you look in the computer and every drawer that you come in, every drawer that you open, you created a whole existence in that. So it is also within that, and when you put it in, it is in there. Now what the computer does not do, it does not show you as oneness. But it can show you how it walks in, and each individually you can open it and see how it is functioning, in the computer. So, the scientists will be able to definitely show us without contradicting, how it becomes oneness later, from the computer I’m quite sure we’ll be able to show you that. So it is possible, yes, oneness and yet, that is separately functioning. Remember the story that Milarepa was talking with his disciple Rechung, and Rechung thought I’m now better than my teacher, Milarepa, I went to India and I have a great deal of teaching. So then Milarepa suddenly produced a storm, a thunderstorm, and he himself is hiding in the yak’s horn. And Rechung got totally soaked, and couldn’t catch his clothes together, and cold and shivering and suddenly hears Milarepa singing. He’s looking around, couldn’t find, finally little yak horn in the midst of the dust, and saying the yak horn did not become smaller, bigger, and Milarepa did not become smaller, and sitting in there. How it is possible to imagine, unless we know how computer works. Right? So the old Vajrayana work will definitely prove by computer, one after another it will be proving.

1:18:00.6 Did I talk too long or too much or off subject?

1:18:04.2 (Audience:) Perfect. No.

1:18:09.2 One Marianne says no, and one Marianne says perfect. I’m just joking, okay? Maybe I should call off, what time is it? Ten to nine. That’s good. And so thank you for taking interest in Vajrayana, but we will talk more. And right now to tell the truth, you all have been introduced to Vajrayana but don’t think you are Vajrayana yin, because you know, true Vajrayana yin will be like Milarepa who can get in the horn without becoming yourself smaller without making the yak horn bigger. So I mean, four, eight, about, what, ten or nine, yeah ten or fifteen generations, Tibetans keep on saying that, keep on reading the Milarepa business, but no one can imagine, how it be possible in our ordinary mind, now thanks to the computer, maybe thanks to the Microsoft, or maybe we have to thank Bill Gates (chuckles). Oh by the way all this nine or ten American states going to sue Microsoft to not to release Windows 98 or something, they’re going to block it. (Laughs.) They think Microsoft is making too much money so they better block it. So, that’s my joke. The reason they really want to block that I don’t know, whatever, could be money business, what else. So anyway, so that because of that now we can imagine how it works, right? It’s possible. Even you look in the microfiche film, if you look in the microfiche film, there is the whole collection of the library of congress, Tibetan books, that many of us put together and mainly a guy named James Smith, worked in Delhi for years together, and tens of thousands of Tibetan volumes been produced in microfiche which is something like a little less than hundred films. And each one of them you can throw in the project. And I mean this much preproduced, right? And each one of them you can throw in the picture and project it, you can read thousands and thousands and thousands of pages. So all of them are possible because that we don’t even have to learn in the spiritual path who says, but even the scientific part will tell you that’s how it works. So it has been true, it has been functioning in that way. It’s been possible.

1:21:12.7 Maybe I better shut up. But, until you get properly in the Vajrayana your major focus must be on Lam Rim. You take Vajrayana teachings, think about it whenever you can, keep your commitment. If you keep your commitment, it is unlike, unlike Lam Rim, the Vajrayana says if you keep your commitment you will be liberated by simply keeping your commitment 1:21:49.7 (Tibetan). Within this life or the future or bardo or at least within eight or sixteen lifetimes you’ll be totally liberated. And that’s there. That is the one, that has no logical reason, nothing. (Beeping sound.) That must be me.

1:22:14.2 (Indecipherable audience comments, with beeping sound.)

1:22:29.0 Any effect as we expect it to be. Okay, just keeping your commitment is good enough. I bought an alarm clock today so that I can work out tomorrow morning, so that’s the one. (Everyone laughs.) This morning if it hasn’t called me, I would have been asleep when even Fred comes. I would have been. You know I’m not going to wake up at all. So called and called and phone ring ring ring and I can hear very far away a telephone ring ring something very far away. Luckily he didn’t hang up. So Carole called last night. And I talked some but then after a little while she called again, and I didn’t even hear this morning when I called from her she said she called me four times last night. I did not even hear. Even hear. But that would be like three o’clock or four, but I was up like at two and then went to sleep. So tomorrow I have alarm so I woke up.

1:23:41.9 (Audience:) Rimpoche you talked about the three kayas. And, but, I have a fear of dying. What do you think of that?

1:23:55.0 Nothing. (Pause.) People should be afraid of dying. You should be afraid of dying. Should be afraid of dying, why not. If you are afraid of dying you will prepare. If you’re not afraid of dying you do nothing.

1:24:19.3 (Audience:) But you can also get stuck.

1:24:22.7 No no no, you’re not going to get stuck. That much you know. That much you know. You’re not going to get stuck. People will get stuck of afraid of dying and stuck is the person who really doesn’t have any Buddhism and that of Tibetan Buddhist knowledge, they do that. Allen Ginsberg, when first came in for a couple of years, almost except the last year of his life, is always afraid of dying, always afraid of dying, but by the time he died, he was okay. He even told me, he said ‘Oh yeah I’m amazed at how calmly I took it.’ He said, ‘I helped the doctor.’ He said, ‘Doctor came out with the long face, couldn’t say anything, so I told him, cancer?’ He said, doctor says, ‘Yes.’ He said, he himself said ‘Incurable?’, he said, ‘Yes.’ So, that he made him very easy, so he said, ‘I’m amazed how calmly I took it.’ So don’t worry about it. It’s better to be afraid now than then. Okay? I will not tell you that in a group like you know a new group or a non-Vajrayana group, but in Vajrayana I can tell you that. Okay? Good night.

1:25:52.7 (Audience:) Thank you.

1:25:53.8 Thank you very much.

(End of audio file)