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Sunday morning

We have been chanting the Heart Sutra in Tibetan and even in Tibetan there are several versions, which slightly differ. We have seen that there are numerous different English translations. Maybe it is a characteristic of the Heart Sutra itself.

Today we will conclude the teaching of the Heart Sutra.

After the mantra, Avalokitesvara addresses Sariputra. In some texts he says ‘Saripu’, in other he says ‘Saratatipu’. The ‘tati’ refers to the village where Sariputra came from. That is sometimes included in his name.

O Sariputra, this is how a Bodhisattva Mahasattva should learn the profound transcendent wisdom.

That is the conclusion of Avalokitesvara’s statement.

Up to here out of the three system of the Buddha’s way of teachings, the ka, the blessing one is completed.

Then Buddha himself awakens from his samadhi. Up to that point, while Buddha was meditating, these two were talking. Then suddenly Buddha awakens from his samadhi and speaks.

The Transcendent Victor rose from samadhi and said, ‘Well done’ to the Bodhisattva, the Mahasattva, the noble Avalokiteshvara. ‘Good, good, o child of spiritual family. It is exactly like that. Profound transcendent wisdom should be practiced exactly as you have said and the Tathagatas will rejoice.’

I have already explained the meaning of Avalokitesvara or Chen re zig. There are some western teachers who try to explain Chen re zig by translating each syllable separately. In this case that is a mistake. Some of us Tibetans have pointed that out. In this case Chen re has to be understood as one word and zig as another one. Then you put these two together. If you break it up into three then Chen is eye, re becomes linen cloth and zig is looking. That won’t work. If you don’t know Tibetan that well it can become the problem. What is Avalokitesvara doing with the linen cloth, while seeing the suffering of sentient beings? Maybe he is crying and has to wipe all his tears away with the linen cloth or what? So the real meaning is that Avalokitesvara’s eyes are focusing on the suffering of all sentient beings. You know there are depictions of Avalokitesvara with two eyes, three eyes, one with eleven heads and even one with thousand arms and thousand eyes. Each palm has an eye. So all his thousand eyes are completely focused on the suffering of sentient beings. That is the meaning. So better not bring the linen cloth in here.

Buddha praises Avalokitesvara, saying ‘Well done’ three times and confirming that it is exactly like that and that Buddha himself understands wisdom in just that way. These words are said by Buddha himself directly. He confirms that this is his understanding and it is perfect and all Buddhas will rejoice. What follows below it is still considered to be his words. It is a conclusion.

When the Blessed One had said this, the Venerable

Sariputra and the Noble Avalokitesvara, the

Bodhisattva Mahasattva, that whole assembly and the

World with its gods, humans, asuras and ghandarvas

Rejoiced and praised the words of the Blessed One.

I don’t know why the translation says ‘Venerable’. Every Tibetan version says tse dang den pa. That means ‘One who is in Life’. The translators must have hesitated to call Sariputra that and changed it into ‘venerable’. That should not be done in translations. It is not supposed to be a commentary. One should translate exactly what is there rather than trying to be polite. In case you are doing a meaning translation it is fine. But if you are doing a word-by word translation and then change or add up certain words it becomes a little complicated.

So that is the final conclusion of the actual Heart Sutra teaching. According to our tradition I will briefly start from the beginning as a good omen for continued teaching.

(Rimpoche reads title and homage)

The homage here is paid to chom den de ma she rap gyi pa röl du chin pa, the Bhagavati prajnaparamita. Why is she female? Because she is the mother of all enlightened beings. Remember, when we talk about bodhimind, we name that as the father. In traditional Indian culture, if your father belongs to a certain caste all your children will belong to the same caste. So if your father is Gupta, your children will also be Guptas. If you are Agarwal, so will be your children. If you are Ngawang, that is Vijendra in Sanskrit, so will be your children. My name is Ngawang or Vijendra in Sanskrit. The Tibetans will read that as Wagindra actually. Indians today will read it as Vijendra. I don’t know what the classical Sanskrit pronunciation would be. The relative bodhimind acts like the father. In old Indian culture that is how it worked. So Buddha explained it in that manner. If you have bodhimind with you, you will become a Bodhisattva. If you don’t develop bodhimind you will not become a Bodhisattva.

Bodhimind is the doorway to becoming a Mahayana practitioner. Taking refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the doorway to becoming a Buddhist. If you open the door you can enter the room. When you are sitting outside the door you are not in the room. With refuge you become a Buddhist, without it you don’t. Likewise, if you have bodhimind you become a Mahayana practitioner, without it you don’t.

It is not out of place to mention here: Today it is very funny. Neither the person giving the refuge has time to explain, nor is it even in the tradition to explain much about it at the time of giving the refuge. The person who takes refuge does not know what they are doing. They just repeat the words like in Pali:

BUDDHAM SARANAM GACHAMI DHAMMAM SARANAM GACHAMI SANGHAMA SARANAM GACHAMI DUTIYAPAM BUDDHAM SARANAM GACHAMI TATIYAMPAM BUDDHAM SARANAM GACHAMI….

If you follow the Pali tradition they give you some vows, also in Pali, so you won’t know what it is. In Sanskrit it is NAMO BUDDHAYA NAMO DHARMAYA NAMO SANGAYA …in Tibetan it is going to be

GANG GI NAM KYI CHIO SANGYE LA KYAB SU CHIO DO CHAK DANG TRAWA NAM KYI CHIO CHO LA KYAB SU CHIO TSOG NAM KYI CHOG GEDUN LA KYAB SU CHIO

You probably repeat that three times and you think you are a Buddhist. But that is a big question. The words were repeated and you did have some profound thoughts, but without realizing whom you are taking refuge in, why and what really refuge is. Even though you are not clear on that, you still grow the vows, because they depend just on the ritual, but I am not very sure whether a true refuge has grown within the individual.

In order to have true refuge you need to know who Buddha is. So that is the first thing. On the mind level Buddha is the mind that knows every phenomenon that is to be known, exactly as it is, simultaneously, not only in the present, but also in past and future. Buddha knows whatever the zig-zag-ever-changing impermanent existence is going to be. For us, when we are in the present we don’t know what zig zags are going to take place and where it is all going to land. We do not know although we are going through it. But the Buddha mind knows everything that is to be known simultaneously and therefore knows all the zig zags that will materialize and also where you are finally going to land. Buddha knows not only the relative part of what is going to happen, but also the absolute part of it.

The early tradition gives an example for that. At that time there was no glass available. So they used a transparent berry as example. When you put such a berry in your palm you see the berry as well as the lines in your palms. This clearly shows that they didn’t have glass at that time! So if you put a glass on your palm, you will see the glass as well as the writing on your palm together, simultaneously. Buddha sees the absolute and relative truth together, simultaneously. In that way he sees past, present and future simultaneously, in all the little details.

To prove that, and because some people criticized and doubted him, Buddha in his lifetime did a demonstration. He went into one of the big capital cities of India. That city had 100 000 families. He asked them all to go back to their own place and bring back a handful of grain from their homes and mark these. So 100 000 families came back with some grains wrapped in a piece of cloth. All these bundles were put in front of the Buddha and he picked each one of them up and gave it to the individual people it belonged to. Then he explained that the way a Buddha sees things is not exactly how we see things. It is totally different. This seeing also happens through the mind. It is the mind that knows all that. But he could have done it through the eyes or other organs.

In Tibet, the 1st Panchen Lama, Panchen Losang Chögye Gyaltsen, lived to a very old age. He was over 90. After the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama is the highest lama in Tibet. Especially in this case, in the 1600s, the 5th Dalai Lama had just got into power and the 1st Panchen Lama was his spiritual master. But he was also still waiting for another disciple to come. This disciple didn’t show up for a long time, so that is why the Panchen Lama had to live so long. He was so old that his eyes couldn’t see any more. He also didn’t hear much. Then one day this particular disciple, Dorje Dzimpa Könchog Gyaltsen came. He was himself a great teacher in his own right. He read through certain texts and couldn’t figure out the meaning. Then he read a commentary by Panchen Losang Chögye Gyaltsen and after that decided to go and see him. Könchog Gyaltsen was a good teacher, but he had no high status whatsoever. He was just an old monk, looking like a beggar. Like that he just showed up at the Panchen Lama’s headquarters. There was no way he could get through. The Panchen Lama had a huge monastery with palace inside. There were many guards, there was an administration and secretary. So he couldn’t get through. He tried persistently for months, but couldn’t get in. Finally, one of the guards thought that he must have something important on his mind. So he helped him through to get to the inside office and with some more help he actually got as far as the Private Secretary’s office. The Private Secretary asked him, ‘What do you want from the Panchen Lama?’ He said, ‘I want to ask him for teachings on the 13 volumes of a particular text.’ The secretary said, ‘Are you crazy? The Panchen Lama is not only very busy, but also quite old now and he can’t even see any more. How can he give teachings on that?’ Könchog Gyaltsen replied, ‘I am not asking you to give me the teaching. Would you mind passing my words on to the Panchen Lama?’ The secretary said, ‘I don’t think so’, but finally he agreed to pass on the request. The moment the Panchen Lama heard about it he said, ‘Oh yeah, that is the one I have been waiting for such a long time. I could have died half a dozen years ago, but I was just waiting for this guy to show up. Let him in immediately.’

The Panchen Lama did the whole teaching on the 13 volumes, without seeing. The way he did that was by reading the books with his finger. Nowadays-blind people can read books by using Braille, a system of touching letters and reading. But that was not available then. He just put his finger over the page and read the whole thing, giving him teaching and oral transmission. Then the Panchen Lama said, ‘Now my time is over. I am already so late getting to the next place.’

This is the quality of the enlightened beings. It is way beyond our imagination. Everything is known to them clearly; even to every one of their hair pores. Each hair pore is capable of reading, listening, even of talking. That is why Buddha could give a talk from his ushnisha. I did mention some time that the enlightened beings travel on different frequencies. For them body and mind is one. There is no separation. Any part of the body can read and listen and speak. It is the union of body and mind. Therefore their fingers can think, even the toe-nails can think and decide. Maybe even their toe-jams can. Does Buddha have toe-jams at all? Probably not, because they are not supposed to be something good. But you never know.

When you think from that angle that brings you very close to understanding what Buddha is, rather than thinking of an Indian prince in ancient times who was around for a few years.

I did talk once at a function the Gyütö monks did together with the Greatful Dead in St. Johns in New York. Prof. Thurman wanted me to speak and asked me to keep it short, not more than 3 minutes. Then I was supposed to light some candles. 1000 candles were supposed to be lit together. That was the plan. By the time I got on to the stage to speak, Thurman held me back to tell me that there were no candles. He pulled me so hard that I nearly fell from the stairs that lead up to the stage. People had forgotten to bring the candles. Then I spoke for only two minutes. My purpose had been to light the candles, and now there weren’t any. I explained in two minutes that the enlightened beings are everywhere. I said it by using the word God. I said that he knows everything that is to be known simultaneously and that his body and mind are in union. So wherever the body is, the mind is. Wherever the mind is, the body is. That is how his presence is pervasive and everywhere. Richard Gere said that this was the shortest speech he ever heard from a Tibetan lama.

When I came down from the stage, a southern Baptist minister, African-American, came to me and said, ‘This is was so beautiful, Thank you so much!’ and then he gave me a big, flat, wet kiss on my lips. That was such a funny experience that day. First there were no candles. Then I was nearly was pulled off the stage and finally I got a big, flat kiss. He said to me, ‘You speak like a Southern Baptist minister and your message was very good.’ I didn’t even know what he meant. I asked him whether that was supposed to be a compliment and he said, ‘Of course it is.’ He was a huge guy, probably 6 foot tall.

So that is how Buddha is everywhere. When you are taking refuge to Buddha you don’t have to search for anything else. Then why do you put an image or photograph on the altar? This is for the accumulation of merit and for purification. Nowadays we have so many postcards and Xerox pictures and you can download things from the internet. I don’t know how great that is. Originally the images were not readily available. Each person would commission an artist to make the image they wanted. They would pay for that. This is how the merit part works. According to how much you pay your merit will grow. If you just get a post card, which costs a nickel, you probably don’t get that much merit at all. In addition, accumulating so many postcards and photos won’t do that good. You soon won’t know what to do with them. Your altar is going to be filled up and very soon will look like a junkyard. That doesn’t work as an altar. You have to build up your own image. Traditionally, you would get an image made out of gold or silver, then gilded copper as next option, then bronze, brass, clay and even wood. If it costs more, you have got to work harder to pay for it. You also want to go to a good artist who is naturally more expensive, rather than asking someone who will do it for you for free. This is because you want to gain merit. The images themselves are there to remind you. They are symbolic. They are not really Buddha.

In the Buddha image, not only the past, historical Buddha is represented, but also all future Buddhas, and not only that: the future of your own buddhahood, your own future Buddha is. That is the most important Buddha we connect to.

Then Dharma is also not something ordinary. It is spiritual development, in particular the relative bodhimind and absolute bodhimind. The relative bodhimind is the completely dedicated mind that seeks total enlightenment for the service of all beings. That is the fundamental Dharma. Then the absolute bodhimind is what we have been talking about this weekend. When the relative bodhimind recognizes emptiness, when that mind becomes wisdom-nature mind, then it becomes the absolute bodhimind. Relative and absolute bodhimind is the ultimate Dharma that you take refuge in, in particular our own future Dharma. That is most important.

Let me remind you once again: impermanence is not the same as emptiness; especially gross impermanence. Impermanence, however, gives you an idea of emptiness, because it goes. Subtle impermanence still is not emptiness, but it will bring you close to it, because of the change that takes place every second and every moment. If you snap your finger, just that second is supposed to have 65 changes within it. That shows you how nothing is solid. This is happening in life, our body, in everything, in all of existence.

Existence is divided into two categories, permanent and impermanent. Look at a flower vase. The vase itself is impermanent. But part of the flower vase is permanent. The flower vase is a flower vase. What does the ‘is’ mean here? Actually this means that it is [the exclusion of everything that is not a flower vase?] separate or opposite of what is not a flower vase. Whatever is [the exclusion of what is ?] not a flower vase is a flower vase.

Audience: Is this like Plato’s idea of form?

Rimpoche: I have no idea what that is.

Audience: A concept.

Rimpoche: The coming away from the flower vase [the opposite of what the flower vase isn’t?] , that is what the flower vase is. That part of coming away from the flower vase is permanent. The flower vase itself is impermanent. You know why this is helpful? It helps you with the counter-culture view I mentioned yesterday, when I said, ‘Because I see you, you are not there’. Knowing the meaning of what ‘is’ will help you to get it. I normally won’t even visit that area, because it just creates confusion, but ‘is’ means really what is not. So the saying, ‘It depends what ‘is’ is’ has real value. It is a true statement. The coming away from ‘is not’ is the permanent part of the flower vase. Even if the vase breaks, the ‘is not’ doesn’t break. That is why it is permanent.

The subtle impermanence helps us to gain a little better wisdom. Of course, even in the Buddhist tradition there are so many different viewpoints on that. The three lower schools will accept as emptiness the lack of separation between object and the perceiving mind. One of the lower schools says that it [existence] is not simply labeling by a pure mind, but that emptiness is seeing that there is a lack of something you can hold on from the object’s own side. At a very gross level, emptiness means being empty of being a permanent, unchanging self.

I tried this with you people a number of times. A few years I talked about a subtler level of emptiness a little bit and nobody got anything. Then I changed to talking about that there is no independent, unchanging, solid self. Then people told me that for the first time they understood something. But that is just the lowest Buddhist viewpoint on emptiness. I had to leave it there, because talking about something more subtle didn’t work. Now I can talk about counter-culture and people are ready to think about it and many pick it up. It is not a complete blank. Because I touch you and shake hands with you, you are not there. You understand that now.

When you go into that level you will never find ‘the [final thing]’. Then, if you go into that direction too far you are in danger of losing the base of karma being able to function, past, present and future lives and so on. That is why I said that just the combination of things together is good enough to be able to function. I am trying to save you from going too far into things not being there and concluding that everything that happens is just incidents and accidents and nothing else is reality. This is going too far.

You people are educated. You are in less danger of that. Your education brings up arguments from the other side. The more education you have the more you will know. Not because you are very spiritual but just because of your education. You can be looking for the truth from any angle, scientific or spiritual. If you are really looking for the truth, at the end you are going to find one thing. If at the ultimate level your findings contradict each other, then that would be a problem. But it will not. You will reach the same thing, the truth of emptiness, yet without losing the fundamental basis. Therefore, just the combination is good enough to function. It is provable that this functions, because it already does. Everywhere, this is how everything functions.

When I was a kid I liked the color orange. I used to think if I mix yellow and red together I am going to get orange. After all, orange is the combination of yellow and red and that is good enough. Nobody taught me that if you mix yellow and red together you are going to get orange. But I thought that is what you are going to get. So the color orange exists based on the right mixture of yellow and red. If there is too much yellow it will become yet another color. If it is too much red, again you get another color. So just the combination works. I knew that even as a 10 year old kid. This is how our total functioning is.

Read the hand-out about the emptiness from the Chicago teaching and the hand-out about the primordial mind. You still have to read and understand more, but that is what the direction is, that how you can get it.

A lot of people say that when you encounter your mind you have recognized emptiness. That is not true. Certainly not. Even when you encounter the primordial mind you have not seen emptiness. Even the upper tantric college from within the Gelugpa school says that when you encounter your primordial mind you encounter emptiness. That is not right, even though it is said by one the great colleges. Why is it not right? Because we get in touch with our primordial mind every time we die. We mentioned yesterday that ‘Never-ending Story’ where that kid jumps into the mirror and is pulled in. If you don’t get the zoom, you are thrown back out. That is exactly what happens if the impure mind meets with the primordial mind. You get thrown back out. But you do meet the primordial mind. If just meeting it would be the recognition of emptiness, then what are we doing here – again? It would mean that there is a fall-back after encountering true wisdom. However, according to Buddha, there is no fall-back. That is how Buddha revolutionalized the Hindu tradition. There is no fall-back. You don’t go to the 17th meditative level, but only to the necessary level, the first form level. From there you find the true wisdom and you use this to cut the root of samsara, rather than sit in concentrated meditation and go through 17 stages. This is also what one of the earlier Hindu masters who changed to Buddhism after a debate had written a praise about. It was Chandrogomin. In his praise to Buddha he says,

In the old tradition you go through all these stages, the desire realm levels, the four form - and the four formless levels. Then you reach the peak of samsara. You can remain there for a long time but when the power of this samadhi is exhausted you will fall back.

The power of this samadhi may not be exhausted for many eons, but eventually you will fall back. Buddha revolutionized this process, recommending not to go into the form – and formless realms, but at the first form level switch to wisdom meditation. At the first form level you fully develop shamata. That means you can focus on anything you want, as much as you want, as often as you want, without interruption. Then you drop the shamata development there and pick up vipasyana.

The vipassana from the Burmese, Ceyolonese and Thai traditions is different from the one of the Tibetan Buddhism. Vipasyana is analytical meditation, not focused meditation. You keep the power of the concentrated mind of shamata and with that switch over to analytical meditation. You use the mind for exactly what you want to analyze. I could figure out, without mixing yellow and red together physically that you can get orange by combining them. Just by looking at these two colors I could figure that out at the age of nine years. I had not seen anybody doing coloring business. So that is vipasyana style. You don’t have to physically do it. You know what to do. You have the know how. You can do that also internally. How much wisdom you want to put in, how much sexuality, how much the mixture should be, what level you want to go to and what is going to happen there. You can figure that out. This is just to give you a little example.

This is the vipasyana. Through that method you find the prajna. Without the power of shamata your practice is weak. The traditional example is a warrior without horse. If you are up against other warriors on horseback and you are not, you are in trouble. You not only have to challenge the other warrior but also their horse. If you have the shamata power, that is your horse, while the vipasyana is your weapon against ignorance.

Ignorance combined with fear and confusion is what I like to call ‘ego’. Right now this ignorance has control over me. It has the horse and the weapon. When you have to fight now it is like a ten year-old kid challenging the authoritative, fiery father. That is why this combination of shamata and vipasyana is absolutely necessary. One without the other won’t be good enough. Chandrakirti says at the beginning of his Madhayamaka text that a bird needs two wings in order to cross the ocean. These are the wing of the relative and the absolute. Here also, you need the wings of shamata and vipasyana. In Tibetan it is shi ne and lhak tong. Without lhak tong you won’t get anywhere. But it takes tens of years to get to that level. Right now we are knocking at the door and try to open it a little bit. You are going to find much more of this type of thing whenever I am going to be talking with you in future. It looks like we can talk a little more. It is no longer as if you completely draw a blank. Otherwise I quickly have to switch to saying that there is no independent self. Then everybody will be happy.

I would like to conclude here. Thank you very much. Lets dedicate our efforts. This includes not only the virtues that we have put in here but also driving or flying here, sitting in the train and even making the preparations from home, doing the chores before and doing the chores afterwards, missing two days of holidays. We dedicate all this for the benefit of all beings in general and in particular to all human beings suffering from wars and bombardments and bloodshed everywhere. A few years ago President Carter told us, ‘We are not in peace time. There are 12 different conflicts going on in the world.’ Now, I am sure there are hundreds. Truly speaking, there are only a few crazy leaders who make everybody suffer and they happen to have the upper hand. There is big daddy supporting them. Hopefully they will all be pacified and people are able to find peace and harmony and joy. May they find the joy has never known suffering. We also wish that for ourselves and our families. We wish that their illnesses may be cleared, that mental, physical and financial difficulties may be overcome and most importantly, that we all will awaken from the spell of ego and realize and recognize the great wisdom. Let us chant the Four Immeasurables three times and the migtsema three times.

Thank you so much.