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20010123GRAABWL

CD of 01/23/01

Let us begin with verse 37

Verse 37

If, when under the influence of disturbing conceptions,

People will even kill their treasured selves,

How can they be expected not to cause harm

To the bodies of other living beings?

In other words, whoever is harming you, that person can be subject of your compassion. When people under the influence of powerful delusions such as anger, then they themselves can kill even the most beloved of their own or even themselves. Such people are totally controlled by ignorance. If they can do that to themselves, there is no surprise if they hurt other persons. That does not mean that they should be given a blank cheque to do anything they want to, because they are out of control. Actually, when you are out of control you do all kinds of funny things. But such a person is not worthy of being an object of anger, but should be an object of compassion. They cannot help themselves. If that person can hurt themselves, their own most beloved body then it is no surprise if they harm others. They are definitely capable of hurting others. Somebody who cannot hurt themselves will not hurt even a fly.

In our normal understanding that does not seem to be true. Hurting others is easier. Hurting ourselves is harder. But the reality is that if you have the heart to hurt yourself you are bound to have the heart to hurt others too. You really have the tendency and capability, except for some little compassion for society, some sense of caring and shame and embarrassment. That may be holding you back a little bit. Otherwise you have the possibility. We call anger and so forth delusions, but in reality they are our negative emotions. When you have a tiny weakness, some weak negative emotions, it may be okay. But people within whom the same negative emotions grow again and again, for them it is almost like they are possessed by a devil. They become helpless. They lose all their control. They are almost possessed by a devil. That is why they can hurt themselves, commit suicide and so on. If you notice that you are under the control of such powerful negative emotions which are undermining you, bullying you, using you as a door mat you may even think that you are very alert and you know you have been warned, but in reality you become stupid. That is because our rational mind cannot function. It does not have the opportunity to analyze the situation. These emotions that have arisen will make you do all kinds of things. They are hurting you. They make you take intoxicants and make you punish yourself.

You may sometimes even feel great, if you can punish yourself. A lot of people do that. I have a big problem with that punishment business. No one should be punishing anybody. Yes, people may raise the question: what about accountability? Yes, this is definitely true and necessary. That does not mean that you are to punish someone or should be punished yourself. That is not right. Whoever you think you have to punish, on the behalf of whoever, in reality you are establishing another act which you will be held accountable for. You will have to settle that account by yourself another time, even though you may think what you are doing is totally within the law or whatever. Yes, it is an act of accountability, but later you will have to account for the same thing which you have repeated again. So it is becoming a continuation of negativity, rather than stopping the negative action. Therefore I always mention I would like to see the prison as places to help people. You have to lock people into prisons for the safety of society. While they are there we should rehabilitate people mentally, physically and emotionally. We should teach them and try to fit them into society, try to make them good members of society rather than lock them up and punish them, take their rights away. All this I don’t buy. I don’t think that is spiritual at all. As a matter of fact, that is non-spiritual. The capital punishment is out of question. Really, this is absolutely creating another negative for everybody who is involved, like the ones who order the execution, who carry it out, who agree with it, who justify it. Everybody collects the same negative karma.

From whatever little I know about the Buddhist karmic system, I can apply the same objections that are raised in our society for abortion. The same things apply to capital punishment. The anti-abortionists say that they want to protect the unborn children. Here you don’t only deal with the unborn, but with living human beings, grown up, breathing the same air. So the same ethical problems apply to them. I cannot see that capital punishment is any different to killing a human being. This is my personal view.

We tend to be somehow possessed by certain theoretical explanations and many of us will be for capital punishment. But that again is what we call ‘The individual is possessed by a devil.’ I am becoming very Christian – sorry. But it is true. There is no other devil out there. You don’t have to look for someone with horns who comes out and says, ‘I am here’. In reality our mind is completely confused and misguided and misinformed. We indulge ourselves in negativity as well as urging others to do the same – in the name of anything.

If you look back at the past century, we fought all these wars in the name of religion. Hindus fought with Muslims, we had Judaeo-christian trouble, we had muslim-christian trouble. We had hindu-buddhist trouble and Buddhist-jain trouble. We also have had hindu-sikh trouble too.

In India there is the so-called sikh religion. I don’t mean they are sick persons. It is these people wearing turbans and they are all called Singh. Actually, originally the Sikh religion was part of the Hindu religion. The Hindus were non-violent, but they had a lot of problems with the Muslims. So the ten Sikh gurus came and they created a militant section of Hinduism to challenge the Muslims. That was the beginning of the Sikhs. That is where the Kalsar tradition has come in. The Sikhs were the fighters who protected the non-violent Hindus against any violence from other traditions, including the Muslims. They also fought the British, not as a religion, but as the British. About two hundred years ago, the East India company came in and began to control everything. The Sikh tradition was born to challenge all these. Unfortunately today it does not work that way. Today the Sikhs fight with the Hindus, the Hindus fight with the Muslims. It is unfortunate. Originally, that was the purpose of the ten gurus, from Guru Nanik to Guru Bajan Singh. Now it is all upside down anyway. Perhaps that is what the degenerate age is.

So a lot of violence and war has taken place in the name of religion. People are ready to make sacrifices in the name of religion much easier than for personal purposes. We know that very well. There are a number of people who won’t spend money on themselves, but they are great philanthropists and benefactors when they can do something for the religion.

From the Buddhist viewpoint, engaging in violent action, for the sake of whatever, is violence. Anybody who engages in violence against themselves or others, Buddha likes to call them ‘Possessed by devils’. Maybe you haven’t heard it that much in Buddhism before. You probably heard it a lot in the Christian tradition. But in reality Buddha also calls that ‘possessed by devils’.

Verse 38

Even if I cannot develop compassion for all such people

Who through the arisal of disturbing conceptions

Set out to try and kill me and so forth,

The last thing I should do is to become angry with them.

According to the Buddha people who do that are possessed by the devil. Why should we be angry with people like that? They are no longer under their own control. They are totally controlled by these devilish delusions or negative emotions. Lets say for example your own spouse suddenly becomes crazy and starts throwing plates at you, hitting you, breaking everything in the house, with no idea of what is going on. Would you become angry with your spouse? Would that be appropriate? Or would you understand that this person is not straight in their mind? Figure it out for yourself. It is the same thing with all angry people. They are not under their own control. They are very much intoxicated by the breath of the devil.

Buddha’s advice for the Bodhisattvas is never to get angry under any circumstances, not even if people threaten you, try to hit you, pick up a hammer as large as a mountain and hit you on the head. Even then you should not get angry, but maintain your patience. But in our case, all we can do is say, ‘I hope I will be able to do that. I shall pray that I will be able to do that.’ We can’t really do it right now. We can just pray.

Actually, the mind of harming and hurting, will not come up just because you want it to. It does come up when the conditions are right. Are you with me? When the conditions are right and the moment you think you want to hurt or you think you are being hurt, suddenly the negative emotions pop up straight away with the maximum capacity you can take. You will literally be shaking in your body. This is just because the conditions are right and the thought has popped up. If the conditions are not right, even you think hard that you want to hurt, nothing will happen. When the conditions are right you don’t have to say that you want to hurt, but it will just happen. So naturally, if you get hurt, it is all because of the causes and conditions. Who created these? I myself. It looks like somebody else has created the trouble, because we only see the conditions. The conditions are coming through another person. You think, ‘This person wants to hurt me and he did this and he did that.’ We think like that and get ourselves totally mad. The reality maybe totally different. The other person may not even want to hurt you at all and did not even think about it. He happens to be doing whatever he is doing. Perhaps he may not want to deal with you even. Who knows, what the cause may be? But we like to interpret their behavior as a deliberate act of meanness against ourselves. That is how we make ourselves mad.

The individual under the influence of negative emotions is totally helpless. Oneself, and likewise the other person too. The great Indian pandit Chandrakirti said,

When you look carefully, this is not the fault of the individual human being. It is the fault of the delusions. One should analyze this carefully. If you are an intelligent person, you should have no confusion about the source of anger. You should know whether it is the delusions of the person or the person himself.

This is the conclusion Chandrakirti draws from this verse and perhaps also from the next two verses as well.

Verse 39

Even if it were the nature of the childish

To cause harm to other beings,

It would still be incorrect to be angry with them,

For this would be like begrudging fire for having the

Nature to burn.

In other words, if you get burned by fire, how can you get angry with the fire? If you stop putting your hand into the fire you won’t get burnt. But if you put your hand into the fire, how can you get angry with it? It is the fire’s nature to burn. If you open the door to the delusions, their nature is to hurt you. If you deal with the negative emotions of other people, you are going to get hurt.

If you get angry with the fire for burning you, you must be stupid. It doesn’t serve any purpose and does not mean anything. Other people will think you are crazy.

Negative emotions by nature will hurt whoever comes in contact with them. If you are angry it will hurt. If you are dealing with somebody who is angry you are going to get hurt, for sure. Even though the individual does not intend to hurt you, still you will get hurt, because that is the nature of their delusion.

Verse 40

And even if the fault were temporary

In they who are by nature reliable,

It would still be incorrect to be angry,

For this would be like begrudging space for allowing

Smoke to arise in it.

Lets say the smoke is temporarily filling up space. You can’t get angry with space for allowing smoke to develop in it, can you? Some stupid person is filling space with smoke. You certainly would not get angry with the smoke or with the space. If you get angry you would get angry with the person who caused the smoke. Just like that anger is temporarily being exhibited in the space between you and me or whoever you are fighting with. Getting upset with that would be the same as getting upset with space or with the smoke.

These are different ideas of how to deal with your anger. Each and every verse is trying to give you one reason or another, one example or another. Actually you have to think about the totality of all of those. Do not think of the verses separately, although we may be reading them separately. The message given to you is in the totality of the whole chapter. It is telling you how you can deal with anger. What can you think about when anger is rising within you?

Actually, when very powerful anger is rising and your body is shaking, you can’t think any of those things. You will just get more angry. That is our human nature. If you recognize that you are very angry, you are expected to just relax. Think about something beautiful. Go and see some nice place. Take some fresh air. Don’t over-relax by other means though. You know what I mean? If you do that it will take you down into the deep ditch called depression. Don’t under-relax, just do it right. Take a walk in the fresh air, sit down quietly under a beautiful tree, watch the beautiful snow or the birds, the deer that come up, watch the beautiful river, the hill tops, and so on. If it is in the evening, when the sun is setting, stand on your toes, relax your hands completely, breathe out and let all your negative emotions go down with the sun. Do that 21 times. Turn around, breathe in fresh air and see how you can help yourself. Don’t immediately check whether your anger has gone or not. Don’t look too soon, that would be like trying to raise the subject again. Don’t do it. Just relax, go about and go and see some friends, have dinner. However, don’t over-relax.

We often behave in the extreme. You get so upset and then you want to relax. You can’t relax, so you take intoxicants. That includes drinking, smoking and all of those things. Then you become a little bit funny and it takes you down into the hole.

A number of teachers in Tibet, great masters, when they wanted to calm down and relax they would go for a picnic, either in the high mountains, sitting in the cold breeze, overlooking the mountains, or they would go down to the bank of a river, sitting in the shade of a tree, having a nice meal and relaxing, just looking in the water. They literally applied these things. They are helpful and they are not extreme. They are limited. Sometimes they would go for three or four days or sometimes even for a week. Luckily they didn’t have nine to five jobs and didn’t have to worry about whether it was Monday or Tuesday. Those were the good old days. I am just sharing with you what they used to do.

Verse 41

If I become angry with the wielder

Although I am actually harmed by his stick,

Then since he too is secondary, being in turn incited

By hatred,

I should be angry with his hatred instead.

This is the famous Buddhist example. If somebody slaps you, don’t get angry with the person who is slapping you. It is not the person who is hitting you, but only his hand. So you should get angry with his hand. Then you think, ‘I am not stupid. The hand only reacts if pushed by its owner. I have a right to be angry with the individual, not the hand.’

True, but in this case the individual is being pushed by their hatred. It is not them who are doing the harm, but the hatred. So, if you want to get angry, you should get angry with the hatred, rather than with the hand or the person. This is the famous Buddhist teaching of equanimity. Perhaps the example is coming from this text originally, or perhaps this teaching draws it from the other teaching on equanimity. But whoever took it from where, here it is in verse 41.

So if someone is hurting you with a stick, a sword, or is throwing stones at you or whatever, the direct cause of your pain, your suffering, is the stone that is being thrown. The stone thrower has only contributed. What really hit you was the stone. So you should be angry with the stone. If you think that is stupid, then getting upset with a person who is angry is also stupid. The person is not doing the harming. He or she is controlled by their hatred. The real source is the hatred. If you want to get upset, get upset with the hatred of the individual.

I am not sure how suitable for a lot of people the next verse is but it is part of the teaching, so I am going to read it too.

Verse 42

Previously I must have caused harm

To other sentient beings.

Therefore it is right for this harm to be returned

To me who is the cause of injury to others.

This is again another way of looking at it. This is the viewpoint of karma. It is I myself who is causing my own trouble. I created the karma to suffer. Here I have been hit by the stone being thrown and it hit my jaw or whatever. This is my karma. I might have hurt him or other sentient beings by similar acts. Maybe I am paying back what I caused them. It could very well be. This individual may just act as the condition, being caught between hard and dark, but actually it is my own doing. I have hurt another person the same way as this one hurts me. I am really just getting back what I did. The real punishment is the karmic punishment. There isn’t anybody else involved. Other people may act as the condition, but not by willing to do so. You are not being punished by any individual but by your own karma. You are experiencing the consequences of your own actions. This the real punishment, not a man-made one, but the punishment of your own wrong deeds. That should be the way. Nobody should be punished by others. I am not against the jury systems and judges. Really I am against capital punishment. I am against all punishment from anywhere. There are further people involved in punishing and that creates another karma. All these unwanted things are being continued. The real punishment comes through karma and there are even some beings who are observing the karmic thing. There are sources of truth, there are witnesses. It works its own little way. Individuals like you and me don’t have to be involved to exact punishment. Even if it is totally the fault of that individual, by punishing we just create another karma unnecessarily. That is the reason why it is not right.

Verse 43

Both the weapon and my body

Are the cause of my suffering.

Since he gave rise to the weapon and I to the body,

With whom should I be angry?

Whatever the weapon is, a stone, a weapon, a stick, hits my body. The other person raises the weapon and I raise my body, both together make the suffering possible. So what is really the cause of that suffering? The combination of weapon and body. So whose fault is it? In our normal way of thinking we say that it is the attacker’s fault. I am just minding my own business, doing nothing, going my own way and he came and hit me. But if you take one step beyond, the actual cause is not only the weapon but also the base on which the weapon can be used. You create the base, the other person provides the weapon. You are equally responsible. It is your karma.

Everything depends on causes and conditions. Nothing just happens through a single cause. There is always multiple causes. The terms and conditions have to be right. Whatever happens in our life, comes about through the terms and conditions. The time has to be also right. When the conditions are right, the result will materialize just like this. If the conditions are not right nothing can materialize. Remember the stories of airplane crashes. Everybody dies except one person who got thrown out of the plane together with the seat and did not die. The conditions were not right for that individual. We can call it miracle. That is fine. There are plane crashes and some days later some people are dead and others have survived. Why did some people die? Because of condidions. Why did some survive? Because of conditions. When the conditions are right, the result pops up, it does not take much time. When the heat and moisture and soil is there the fruit tree will grow. When flowers are there and the temperature is right, fruit will be produced. When the conditions are wrong, then no matter whatever you do, no fruit will come.

If you put seeds on a cement floor you can pour water on top and pray as much as you like, and even provide heat, but it will never grow. Even if you add up miracle grow, nothing will grow, because one condition is not there. You don’t have soil. You have just thrown the seeds on the cement floor.

On the other hand, if the conditions are right, you can drop the seeds in the dirt somewhere and even if you don’t have heat, water or miracle grow, it will grow. It will produce its own little thing. A flower may grow and fruit may come out. Tomatoes may come up. Whatever is happening in our lives functions like that. Why are we all here today? We all have a karmic link. If we didn’t, we would not be here. On top of that we have provided the condition to have a place where we can sit and talk. Then the time is also right. We started at 7.30 pm. If one of these conditions are missing, nothing happens. If you are not here even though I may talk, nobody is there to listen. I can’t go on yupping like a crazy person. If I am not here you all will wait. Everything is terms and conditions. It is karma. Even the meal you are going to have afterwards is due to terms and conditions, although you are going to have to pay for it. If the conditions are not right, your meal could be cold or without taste or it may be burnt or smelling bad. Something will happen and you don’t get satisfaction.

Verse 44

If in blind attachment I cling

To this suffering abscess of a human form

Which cannot bear to be touched,

With whom should I be angry when it is hurt?

This verse is saying that our whole body is like an abscess. If you touch that at any part, if it gets a little hot or cold, you cannot bear it. Where did I get such a horrible body from? I got that from my attachment to my body. Think carefully. Who does not have attachment to our own body? Normally we think attachment is related to other people, like I am attached to her or to him. But the real attachment is attachment to self. That is also represented by attachment to the body. ‘My body. I have to put some lotion here, it is too dry.’ ‘I have to put some extra white stuff here, it is too dark.’ ‘I have to put a little red over here, it is too white.’ ‘My beard must be groomed properly, it should not look too dirty and too messy. It should be good to touch.’ ‘My hair has to be shiny and healthy’.

Even the Tibetans know about healthy hair. We have Tibetan hair oil for sale in the store. It is actually a traditional medicine to maintain hair, not to have dandruff. It is something you apply so that you don’t lose your hair and your hair remains healthy. So even the Tibetans who have been living behind the Himalayas for a thousand years have attachment to their hair. They have to make hair oil!

The strongest attachment you can have is attachment to the body. Actually our body is like an abscess. It looks like a human being. But everywhere you touch it, it is about to burst. It is going to hurt you. You experience pain. If you hold on to your body tightly, everything is going to hurt. If you are not holding on to your body, probably nothing can hurt you. All the pain we have is because we have too much attachment. We are too sensitive, so we get hurt easily. It is the attachment that hurts you, not the other person who is touching you. Maybe the other person who is touching you is trying to give you love, but you get hurt because you are holding it too tight.

Verse 45

It is the fault of the childish that they are hurt,

For although they do not wish to suffer

They are greatly attached to its causes.

So why should they be angry with others?

That means us. We don’t want to get hurt, but we so much want the causes of getting hurt. These are all reasons why one should not be so sensitive about one’s own body. If you have problems because of bio-chemical reasons, that is a different story. But most of the sufferings we have because we are too sensitive. To be under-sensitive is not good and to be over-sensitive is not good either. Everything is about balance. I am sorry to have to say that, but everything needs to be balanced. I was talking with my Tibetan friends today about food, how there needs to be a balance of carbo-hydrates and proteins. We have that bad habit of cooking rice and potatoes. If you do that you get carbo-hydrates over carbohydrates, starch over starch. On the other hand, if you have too much protein it is also not good. You have to find the balancing point.

Likewise, everything depends on the right balance. Over-practicing is not great, neither is under-practicing. It has to be properly balanced. People who like to practice a lot are not going to last very long. It will just be a few days. In Tibetan it is called nying gyu pu sum – hairy renunciation. For a few days these people think, ‘Oh, time is running out, I am getting old, I am not helping myself, I am so old, I am 23. I am wasting my time.’ Then for a few days they like to do so much. But that does not last long. It is bubbling up with overheated temperature and the hot air is just going to go out. That is not good. On the other hand, not to do anything and to completely forget about it is also not good. You need the balance. Do something reasonable for half an hour or forty minutes, like 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening. If you can do longer than that, good, as long as it is powerful and strong and not weak. If you are half asleep and do your practice then it is useless. If you lose your focus beyond 30 or 40 minutes and you force yourself to keep on sitting there and do something, that is not going to get you good results at all. Better stop and have a cup of coffee, or if you don’t like caffein, have emperor’s choice. Relax and then sit again or sit another time, with sharp focus and forceful.

We are stubborn people. We have to talk and argue all the time. Stubborn heads are bouncing against each other – that is myself included. In the same way we are also stubborn in our practice. We think we can do it, but in reality we already have lost focus and the practice is useless. The earlier great teachers never lost their focus and could sit day in and day out for the whole day. They did week long and month long sittings. But we lose focus and forcing ourselves to sit there without focusing is just useless, it is wasting time. You might as well go and watch a movie, like Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If not that, watch Nikita.

Aud: About verse 42. I agree with you wholeheartedly about capital punishment and punishment in general. But wouldn’t you say that it was the karma of a person to be born in Texas rather than in California where there is no death penalty? Wouldn’t you say that someone who is put to death in Texas, that this is just fulfilling their karma and all the people who are involved in making them die, the governor, the warden, the executioner, etc, are also helping to fulfill his karma as well as their own karma? If that is the case, how can we really be upset at them?

R: Well, it was just Texas. But now I am not so sure. It may get like that throughout the United States. We are upset with the capital punishment people, because we are trying to lessen the conditions that make that possible. We should be happy to have a governor who gives a pardon or at least a stay of execution. That becomes at least one condition less. We like that. We have every right to like that. Yes, it is true, without the individual’s karma, even if they are born in Texas, he or she wouldn’t be in that loop. Because of their own karma they get into this.

From the karmic point of view the individual who is executed is definitely not dying to pay off the karma of killing that they have created immediately before. When they are legally injected and are dying, they are not paying off the karma of having recently killed somebody. They are paying for some other previous karma. In karmic law that is how it works. With the execution we are creating additional killing karmas, by the wardens, by the judges, the juries, the governors who refuse to stay the executions, and so on. They all create additional circles of karma. That is how samsara works.

There is also attachment in there, the attachment for justification. Due to their ignorance they insist on justification and accountability. Somehow they are caught in this and they justify their support for capital punishment by saying that we are doing this on behalf of God. But if God has to hire you to fulfill his job, then God is a little difficult and very pathetic. I look to God as a source of truth and as a witness, not as a source of punishment. Who does the punishing? It is the karma which comes round.

Aud2: I am a bit confused by verse 44 which refers to our body like an abscess. Does that refer to later in life when we are likely to have some disease?

R: No, it shows the potential. The human body has the capacity to entertain an abscess at any time. The human body is such a delicate thing. We can get all kinds of diseases. The body can maintain all kinds of funny things. All sorts of good things and bad things can happen. And we do abuse that body tremendously, although we have so much attachment to it, whether you deny it or not. We abuse it so badly. We abuse nobody so badly as we abuse our own body. We force our body into corners to do all kinds of things. Yet, we have very strong attachment to it. That body is capable to becoming anything.

Aud3: About verse 42 again. It says there that if somebody throws a rock at me, I have caused that by doing something negative previously. So if I caused the rock to fly, didn’t I also cause that person to throw it and so who has got the karma for that? The rock thrower or myself?

R: Or his anger! You caused something, he caused something, they cause, we all cause. Besides that, I have repeatedly said you should take the totality of all these verses into account. Don’t read the verses separately and try to fit everything into each verse.

I am going to close shop now.