Archive Result

Sound file : NLOTF (06)

Speaker: Gelek Rimpoche

Location: Netherlands

Topic: Odyssey To Freedom

Transcriber: Jayapushpa

Date:

The first word says ‘The foundation of perfections ‘ anyway. Oh, is that available in your books. Great, ya. It says, …so they don’t have to do tomorrow. You have it with you. And and with tibetan, very good. So, I don’t know the Dutch, so I have to say it in tibetan. Alright, it begins with ‘Yon ten kun gyi’, what does that mean? I have to make very brief. ‘Yon ten kun gyi zhir gyur’, how come it is the foundation of all perfections? Why? Because all our good qualities are coming out of our spiritual development. And what is spiritual development for us? And what is Buddhism? And what is teaching ? They are all same thing to me. Rimpoche quotes in tibetan ‘ te pa….ta gyi tu(*?) so what is Buddhism? Or, what is a quality? The quality is one part is the knowledge part of it, the second part is the development part of it. That is even Buddhism. It is knowledge information part of Buddhism and the spiritual development part of Buddhism. That is what it is. Buddhism is also two in that way. Vasubandhu has mentioned, ‘ta pe lu na ta gi tu’*(?)…He said there is two Buddhism. One is information , the other is spiritual. And its interdependent. Remember yesterday I said Tsongkhapa ‘Rimpoche quoted in tibetan (tung pu…..ta cha) First learn, second meditate, third become part of it. So, the learning part, information part, is the one part of spiritual….one part of quality. And it is one part of Buddhism. And then, based on that, you have the understanding development. Your mind pick those things up and mind become that part of it. And that is really the spiritual quality. So ‘yon ten kun gyi’, where does that come from? It comes from the spiritual master, ‘yon ten kun gyi zhir gyur’. (Rimpoche quotes in tibetan. ‘U me ju me ka lia’…’yon tu sangye…….jangchub sem pa la chung …’ so, you know, it is the great Indian saint-scholar, Candrakirti, has said in his Madhyamika root text…not really root text…Madhyamika text, ‘yon tu sangye ….’. so, the disciples of the Buddhas and you know two other yanas, that is the arahats, sravakas, pratyakayana, ‘yon tu sangye ….’ They are born out of the Buddha. Why? Because Buddha gave them teaching, they understand, they mediate, they develop, they become pratyeyaka Buddha or sravaka Buddha, and so, ‘yon tu sangye…). That is the first how these are born out of the Buddha. 0:05:55.5

Where does the Buddha come from? (Rimpoche quotes in Tibetan, ‘Sangya …..lap chon che’) Buddhas come out of bodhisattva. Buddhas born out of bodhisattvas. And where do bodhisattvas come from? It is the bodhimind. And bodhimnd comes from Compassion. So, (Rimpoche quotes in tibetan, te ye sawa nying je do) So, the root of all these is Compassion. That’s what Candrakirti explains. Not only Candrakirti said it, but it is true. If there is no compassion, there is no bodhimind. When there is no bodhimind, there cannot be Buddha. And where there is no Buddha, there cannot be Buddha’s disciples, or no followers. So it is sort of evolution of circle of how it goes, right? With the same principle, same idea, that is how the guru becomes the foundation of all perfections. So the gurus are the basis of all spiritual development, all good qualities, root of root. That’s why it is called ‘root’. So that is enough explanation because we have already taught a lot earlier, so that is enough explanation….yon ten kun gyi zhir gyur. So, since it is the basis of all mine good qualities, so I do have special connections, special intelligence understanding, sort of faith there. So the outline, in the lam rim outline, the first, ‘tsa wa te pa cha wa’, root of all developing intelligent faith, covers by this particular verse of that foundation of all perfections. The first word, these two syllables together…not syllables, two sentences together puts this. So, tsul zhin ten pa…Yon ten kun gyi zhir gyur…drin chen je. So how does English translation goes? Maybe Dutch. How does that go? (Translator : English?) Your know the word ‘kindness’, equivalent to the ‘kind’. You have that with you? (Translator: I have tibetan and Dutch. I don’t have English here). Oh, that’s right. Tibetan’s fine. Yon ten kun gyi…right? That you find ‘yon ten kun gyi’. And then kun gyi zhir gyur…that level the foundation of all perfections. Drin chen je…kind master. The word ‘kind’ , the ‘kind’ word, it says ‘kind master’ and when you read that it just says ‘kind master’. Doesn’t mean that. When you read the ‘kind’ you should be able to see within the ‘kind’ the one outline in the lam rim outline which says ‘tsa wa te pa cha wa tang , kadrin ….che pa’ ‘Kadrin ….’ Remembering the kindness and developing respect faith is by this word ‘kindness’. Just a single word ‘kind’ should give you that outline and that message and that information. When you read it, ‘foundations of all’, you see one outline. ‘Kindness’, you see the second outline. Okay? 0:12:00.8

Drin chen je, tsul zhin ten pa ‘…so the properly treating or something? What is the some word there? ‘tzul zhin ten pa’ is properly …proper relationship. (Translator reads: …following a kind ..) Okay, ‘following’ The word ‘following’, or even in this outline, we say, ‘Cultivate pure relationship’. Didn’t we? Ah? ‘Cultivate pure relationship’. That is no. 16, ya. Cultivate pure relationship. That is ‘tsul zhin ten pa’, that’s the word in Tibetan, ‘tsul zhin ten pa’ which really means ‘following’, and that another outline, you know. ‘Remembering the kindness ‘ and ‘having relationship’. There is mental relationship and there is a physical action relationship. So all of them will cover under the word ‘following’. So, when you make this short, this is the consequence. All these huge volumes and volumes, and bundles and bundles and days of things, you can put in one word. That is really how it is, you know. So you say ‘following’ has a message, ‘master’ has message, ‘kindness’ message, and you know there are subtitles underneath these, if you look. So, when you get used to it, when you meditate, when you get used to it, you see the one word and you see three little outlines dangling underneath that. So you see them and that’s when you begin to see that, that means you are getting not only situation under control, you are getting it. You know you are really getting into it. Not really deep but you know , the deep don’t just dangle, but it really goes through. When you begin to see this dangling, then you have it, 0:15:30.8

‘leg par thong ne ba pa du ma’ So seeing that...Is there word ‘seeing that’? (Translator: Yes) Well, somewhere around there in this verse. (Translator reads: Empower me to see this clearly..) ‘Seeing clearly’, there you go. ‘Seeing clearly’ means understanding, realize, meditate, get part of it, get part of your life. That’s what ‘seeing clearly’ means. Leg par thong ne ba pa du ma yi/ gu pa chen po ten par jin gyi lob. ‘ba pa du ma yi’, by so many efforts’. Is there ‘Following a kind master,’, what did they say? (Translator reads: to make every effort to follow well ..) ‘To make every effort’, that’s right. That’s it, ‘to make every efforts’, there are three dangling things under that. The efforts of the body, the efforts of the mind, efforts of the speech. Three dangling things in there. And also the most important thing is ‘ka drin ..cho pa.’*? Just follow your advices and I will just do it. That is the acceptance of that. ‘Ten par jin gyi lob’, the last word is get the blessings. ‘Jin gyi lob’, the blessings here means , you know in our normal understanding we sit there, and ‘I receive blessings’ and you feel ‘I have been blessed, and you have been blessed’ ….you know. I don’t know. What do you get it? What is it when you receive blessing? What does that mean? ‘You been blessed, I been blessed’, I don’t know what does that mean. Anyway word in tibetan ‘jin gyi lob’ . ‘jin lob’, ‘jin lob, jin lob’, we say. What does that mean? ‘si jin gyi gyur’, by your power and my efforts, transform. It means transformation,’jin lob means si jin gyi gyur’ means by your power and my efforts, transforming. ‘Transforming ‘ here means ‘this minute I am in an impure state of lack of this particular development, by your power and my efforts, please transform me in the next second into a perfect pure position. That’s what it is. To me the blessings means transform. Transform my mind, which is controlled by the negative emotions into positiveness. My body likewise, You know all transforming. That is ‘jin gyi lob’ or ‘si jin gyi gyur’ (Rimpoche quotes in tibetan) (Translator : in Dutch…’empower me’) ‘Empower me’, that’s right. That is exactly. Where does it…where word says. Okay, ‘empower me’, that’s it, ya. 0:21:04.4

And then you can stop here. You can stop here and then meditate on this and analyse. My meditation is you know, you have to be both together, analyzation and both the concentration. If you don’t have analysing, you have simply have concentration, that’s not good enough. And if you only have analyzation, and you don’t have concentration, that’s not good enough.

(Rimpoche quotes in tibetan ..shin ne lam je sherab ji…) (Rimpoche muttered something…lam rim teachin) The Tsongkhapa…I thought it’s from another book. Tsaongkha a in the ‘Essence of..refined…’No, is it ‘Essence of Refined Gold or? In short lam rim, it says ‘Shi ne lam ….nyon mong mi tope…..*long quote) ‘shi ne lam …sherab ji, …..mi to pa’) Without your concentration, no matter how much analyses you do…analyse, analyse, analyse, you become analyst. Even then if you don’t have concentration, the analyse will go wild and crazy and ‘does not deliver the goods’. ‘Shi ne lam je sherab je…’ No matter how much you analyse, you cannot block the negative emotions. (Rimpoche conversed in tibetan with some audience )so, but if you only have concentration and no analyzation, and then it becomes blind faith. So what happens some people will just sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit till the cows come home. Sit till the cows come home. So the cow never show up, maybe death will come before. So it is not worth. So you have to have it. You have to have analysing concentration. Analyzing will give you the upper hand. It is like a surgeon in medical field. The medical doctors know how to treat you, they can only give you medicine and wait the medicine will take effects. So, but surgeon can cut you and cut you wherever the wrong piece is, take it out, and stitch it back. And it is the edge over the surgeon. The surgeon has edge over the medicine. So, just like this, analysing has edge over on concentrated meditation. So analysing will give you the essence and focusing will make part of your life. And that’s why both has to go together. 0:26:06.6

So, that’s good enough up to this outline. Now we should move to the second. Shi ne ten pa……ten pa nyi…..*long quote). So, the next one will be, we have to move number here too. Cn you follow this number, Hartmut? Where are we? (Translator: no.17) (Hartmut: 17, embrace human life) Okay, embrace human life. Embrace human life is also you know , we have to recognize its value. Recognize it is such a qualitative valued life. That is very important to be remembered, you know. ‘te wa ta wa….kor we …) That is len chik nye pay del way ten zang di. ‘len chik’,only one time we found, right? Do you have English with you, can you read it for me? (Translator: (reads)Precious human life, gained but once, ..) okay, ‘but once’ The ‘but once’ tells you how rare, how important. There are some dangling things here too. But, can you read that word? (Translator: Yes. ‘Precious human life, gained but once, has potential but is easily lost…) Alright. ‘Precious’, the word ‘precious’ has 18 different danglins there. So the qualities of the human life.and in the outline you have those, eight opportunities and ten leisures and all of them. And you will read them, and you will understand the, And each one of them you have the dangling. You know put on that hook, called ‘precious’. So you really have to…it carries like 18 dangling thinks there. But whether you have 18 dangling or not 18 dangling, but the really thing is to recognize how precious our life really is. It really is really precious. Len chik nye pay del way ten zang di. Okay, len chik nye pay del way ten zang di. That precious life you have all . It is very precious. We all know. What we know is a negative point. We have to know the positive side. Negative point we know. You know why? You don’t have it. You can do nothing. That’s negative. We all know that. That’s why we are afraid of dying. That’s why we are afraid of everything. So that’s why we are afraid of dying. That’s why we are afraid of everything. That’s what it is. So the negative way we know. But the positive way…we have the sky is the limit of human capability, believe me. Yesterday we mentioned Einstein was a human being is no news. And so does the Buddha. And if you tell us…the Buddha was a human being, it is no news. And that is not super human, just a human being. So the human capacity in both field of the spiritual and material is unlimited capacity we have. I don’t know how much we can use it. I think even the scientist are accepting it. We are using very very little capacity out of what we could have used it. I think even the scientist accepting it how much part of brain and its capacity. They see it as substance in part of brain and what is it called? (Audience: neuros) Ya, neuros, yes, and how much you are using as….they really see how little we are using. Even they knew it, they say it. They know it for fact. So our capacity is so much, so much but we couldn’t use it. That’s why human life is more precious that of dogs, or cats or anything. Earlier I said , remember, if you kill a human being, it is much more crime than killing insects. That’s not from the law point of view (Translator :*going to translate*) I am sorry…because the capacity point of view. 0:35:48.7

Another words, this basket bowl we have over here, really, that little basket bowl has so much value. So much value, so much value and we will only know when we are threaten to lose. So what does the spiritual path tells you? Tibetan Buddhism, the Buddha tells you, ‘Hey, you have that value over there , just don’t spoilt, make best use of it’. That’s what they have been telling us for 2600 years. Yelling and screaming and doing everything, but we just don’t hear it. So it is called that ‘precious human life’. You have to think about it. If you don’t think then it is ‘ya, a, it is important ‘. You know it doesn’t make any sense. It won’t hit you. But if you think it will hit you. It is the little basket bowl that we carry on our shoulders all the time. It has that value. Make use of it, honestly. Doesn’t matter even you don’t use in the spiritual field, but just use it. Why wasting? There are lots of creatures who are carrying the basket bowl on their head but their basket bowl and our basket bowl are two different things. (Translator: You said ‘Christians’? ) (Laughters) I am sorry, I didn’t say that. I say there are creatures . But if you really become strong stubborn right wing or even left wing, if you become stubborn, you have not become openness and you are locking your heart and brain out, anyway.

I have to stop here because the clock ticks and people have to leave. So to make it short, what did we do today? Today we did…I mean what you are going to meditate tonight. That’s what I mean, ‘what did we do today’. What you are going to mediate tonight is the purification, that’s your major thing today. Acknowledging there is bad things too. Acknowledging there is good things too. And good and bad is not gift from God. It is coming from my karma, my own creation. And my good karma, I don’t have a problem if you lose it. But bad karma is full of problems. Remember you are sitting on box full of explosives. So diffuse them, throw four powers. Power of recognition, regret, antidote. I hate to use this word, ‘non repentance ‘Okay, the four powers. And saying mantras, meditating love compassion, emptiness, all of those or one of them. And anything you want to do positive will do. Rejoice for accumulation. Request to remain and the teaching for longevity and activities. Dedication for safety, security, insurance. Root of all development, guru devotional practice. Developing intelligent faith. Remembering the kindness and gaining respect. Recognizing the precious human life. Okay, we are up to there. Thank you and goodnight. See you tomorrow. Quickly, one Mig tse ma. (Hartmut : Just one round, ya. (Recites: By this merit….followed by Mig tse ma) 0:45:36.2

Happy Easter everybody. So today is our third day here. The first day what we did is we quoted from the Three Principle Path and we did the first….second verse. And today I like to quote .Nam dah nge jung me par si tso yi / de dre don nyer zhi wey thab me la / Si la kam pa yi kyang lu chen nam / kun ne ching chir thok mar nge jung tsal. So Jamgon Lama Tsongkhapa has said, ‘Lacking the dtermination to be free, you remain …is that steadfast or stupid? ..(Hartmut: ‘You remain stupefied..’) ‘stupefied’. What does that mean? (Translator: Baffled) (Audience: You can’t ..?) Okay, you remain stupefied by samsara’s delights. Since obsession ropes all beings to samsara, first free yourself from it’. Nam dag nge jung me par si tso yi / de dre don nyer zhi wey thab me la /si la kam pa yi kyang lu chen nam / kun ne ching chir thok mar nge jung tsal. Nam dag nge jung me par si tso yi…without, if you don’t have desire to liberate yourself, and there is no way you can liberate. That’s the very fact. (Translator: *about to translate) Oh, sorry. Thank you. You better interrupt because I am going to forget. (Translator: Okay, sorry) 0:49:08.5

The first thing is our mind, right? The first thing what we do is mind. We have mind doing something. Wants to do something, then you can do it. If your mind doesn’t have desire, it will never work anything. So first what you need what we called it ‘ to determine yourself to get free’. If you don’t have that desire, you are not going to put any efforts . Should we stop here or…(Translator: Yes, that will be nice) Why you don’t have determination to free yourself because you don’t care for yourself. Honestly, if you care for yourself, you wanted to do something good for you. If you don’t care, you don’t care. So, my question is unless you care for yourself, who is going to care for you? Mother in law? No, no right? So you have to care for yourself. And if you love yourself, you have to care yourself. And if you don’t love yourself, if you don’t have love for you then, doesn’t matter; you are gone ! so traditionally , tradition teachings tells you. You know what I mean it really takes huge long time to come. Traditional teachings will tell you here, the tibetan tradition, everywhere it tells you, ‘nge jung’ which is sometimes people translated ‘for a long time’ as renunciation. And then number of buddhalogists those translators near here, like Alex Berzin, and Bob Thurman and all these people they somehow realized the renunciation is not the right word here. Though maybe but it is not because of the culture. It is not the question of language but the question of the culture. So, they thought it is not the right word, they changed all ‘renunciation’ into ‘determination to be free’. So with determination to be free, again, it is terminology we are playing with it. And when you really think carefully, the bottomline what it is. It is really self care. I don’t know now some people saying ‘self love’, but I don’t know whether it is self love or not. But it is really self care. You care for yourself, then you got to do something. If you don’t care for yourself, that’s what it is. So, if you care for yourself, we do. We do care for yourself, for ourself. We try to make ourself look better; at leaste we care that much. And then feel better. You know our categories are sometimes funny. The look may come more than feel. Some people feel is more important than look. But some people look is more important than feel. But anyway we do care ‘how do I look like’, ‘How do I feel’ and sometime when you have the pain, the physical, mental, emotional pain is also severe, then you care. Particularly physical pain. The mental pans people play around round and torture yourself and do all that. But the physical pain, when you are in pain, you have to be ouching all the time. And you have to look for doctors or do whatever you can to get rid of to get rid of the pain. Because you say ‘I cannot bear it anymore’. 0:57:40.2

It is funny for us. When the pain is strong and bothering, then we begin to act. We can only recognize then. Actually the cause of the pain, whatever the illnesses maybe it is already with us for a little while, when you begin to see the symptoms. But we never bother. And we try to take care of the symptoms only because it really hurts. Even sometimes when the pain subsides or reduce, then we stopped taking the medicine even when you are taking antibotics You know and until it is symptoms gone down. And symptoms gone down we stop taking it. We won’t even complete course. Many will but many don’t. So, we are very short sighted. And also we are very good on the other hand. We will avoid eating the wrong food, would like to be vegetarian, would like to be pro rice , wheatgrass juices, and you know all of those. And we will say they will cause cancer, cancer, cancer. You k ow we will say that. And we go for that. It is a very complex of human mind. So, as much as we do care, for protecting ourself down the road, somewhere, someday the cancer will get us. So, we try to be vegetarian, I am not talking to you (Rimpoche looking in the audience) Try to be vegetarian, try to eat the brown rice and try to have wheat grass juice; not to have caffeine, and all of those, not to eat meat. . and we are very good. And I wish we could do the same thing to a deeper course of ours. That is where our sufferings are really coming from. So our sufferings are really coming from the negative actions. They probably created in our previous lives…probably, most probably. And again, we can’t prove that scientifically, no. You cant even prove the reincarnation, forget about previous lives action, result and all that. Yet, we cannot deny either. Nor scientist ever denied. There is no proof of that is not. We are presuming it’s not because we haven’t seen it. We haven’t seen it. Well, if somebody comes back from dead, and shake hands with us and say, ‘Hey, how are you? I went to the other side and spend couple of years and now I am back. And if they could do that, and everybody will buy it. But we don’t have it. 1:05:14.5

The only thing what we have is those reincarnated lamas and they carry a tremendous amount of questions behind them, always. Always, they always you know, that’s a big question. How do we know it is the previous person? And very few will have some really outstanding signs, very few. The rest of them just nice looking boy.to certain case not even nice looking too. So that’s why, there is no …That’s why it becomes very hard to accept the idea of reincarnation. And because of the difficult to accept idea of reincarnation, then the consequences of the previous life affecting this life. And because of that consequences of this life, it will affect future life. It is almost becoming simple belief system. And on the other hand, there is too many incidents. It is just a couple, not just hundreds, but thousands of instance where people remembers or recollects, or recall and all of them in the world you cannot shut that half of the world too either. I am not just talking about the belief. Belief almost 25% of the total of the world population belief in reincarnation. That’s just belief. But real true incident of people recalling, there are hundreds and thousands still available. They are not lying either. And also for me what really convincing thing for me, is the continuation. I am talking about me, personal. Continuation. Today’s me is the continuation of yesterday , last month, last year, 7o’s, 60s’, 50s, 40s. And the 4o is continuation of 39. And I was born in ’39. So, it is a

continuation is there. And me in 40s and 50s, were me. It is not another person but I am not he 40s and 50s. You know really. Think. I am not in the 40s and 50s because I am in the 21st century. Simple reason straight forward. You all know this. If you don’t think, doesn’t matter. If you begin to think, you begin to realize that. So, in the 39, where I was come from? Did my parents made me in ’39? Well, they made my body for sure. Because they give me the genes and they gave me the whatever…the structure, physical being. But the genes and physical being alone does not become a human being. You know how many sales goes off without producing human beings. You know we know that. There is no mystery about it. So, what happened is, those genes connect with something else. And what is that something else? My mind. So, can parents produced mind? Well, it is a big question today. Even the scientist are involved now, luckily. But I have no doubt the science will fail, they cannot produce mind. Not only that, certain scientist today begin to see those cardiac arrest, when no begin to And then they recall, rise, then you come back.and then they recall. And they have statement after statement, and saying that person is experiencing some experience outside the body. 1:14:48.4

Is it accepted theory throughout the world? No, it is not. The scientists are also as stubborn as we are. But that tells us the separation of the differentness of the mind and body. The interdependentness of the mind, and the interdependentness of the body, I should say. So for me that interdependent entity called ‘mind’ and that physical structure capable of functioning, combined together, I like to called that ‘life’. But the question is where does that come from? Got to be somewhere previous continuing. Here I say ‘got to be’. According to the Buddha, you have to …I also have to tell you this. There is no new born. Every beings are in Christian terms, it is all ‘old soul’, no new soul. Buddhism doesn’t have ‘soul’, doesn’t matter, it’s theorectical. From our practical purposes, according to Buddha there is no new soul. So it is appropriate the fuuny thing is, the scientists today beginning to exam not accept, exam this points. Not because Buddha said so. But because they are fact findings forced them to look in that direction. The quantum physics is another one. They also find those gaps, lapse ….they called it ‘lapse’, right? So it is just ….it is a beginning. But whether scientist prove this or not prove this, we may or may not have the time to wait the scientific proofs to come because we may die before. And that’s why I make a big statement at the beginning, no scientist have ever proved there is no reincarnation. So there is a separation, almost you can see. The separation of body mind, mind that is interdependence of the body, can exists. Then our brain cells becoming like a television. You know we can receive the information, you can see the picture. Picture is there but the television, monitor makes us to see. Just like that our brain cells make us to understand and act. Anyway, these are not my subject but I have to tell you because otherwise we are going to ….what we are urging here to work for long time goal. In order to tell this long time goal, we have to see we have long time. Otherwise why we waste our life for nothing. If there is no long time, why should we bother? Why should we bother all these? We got to be happy, nice, get drunk whatever, be high. This is Netherlands, right? So all these, we just finished our life, you could be. But we don’t want to. Look at this any life. She can be happily married like anyone of you, just like anyone of you. Now, she chose to be different. Want to wear red, yellow, shaved head and make her look like stranger. And she does that for a reason. The reason is looking for some longer goal. I hope I am not making wrong statement. (Rimpoche laughs). I am not saying we all have to be nuns and monks like her and geshela here but we put lots of energy and effort. We need to know, really, is there something really there? We got to be convinced ourself. This is worthwhile for me. Therefore, I am trying to establish. So, we will not be able to draw the conclusion here in two days, no way. But we see the possibilities. And if you care for yourself and then you have to make a choice. Like Allen Ginsberg always tells me in private, in public, you know. If you know Allen, he is just Allen. There is no difference between private and public for him. Those of you who knows him, his life’s like that. So he tells, “I don’t know if there is reincarnation, I haven’t seen it yet. I haven’t shake my hands with anybody whoever comes back. But, if there is, and my thinking is there is, I don’t want deprive myself of the opportunity and I don’t want to be the loser”. Actually his actual words is, ‘I don’t want to be bumped when I get there, you know’. 1:26:22.1

So if we think our goals and everything up to the death, then it is very short sighted. There is a huge difference between the people who think about reincarnation and people who don’t think about reincarnation, there is a huge difference. The panoramic view of your lives really looking from here to continue up to there. But you don’t think of reincarnation, you are simply taking a certain narrow passage over here, and there you called this ‘life’. The definition of ‘life’ or ‘lives’, make a tremendous difference from our view. So anyway, reincarnation or no reincarnation, the good things cause happiness and bad things cause sufferings. That we know for fact. So when some Buddhist teachings tell you, don’t seek happiness for this life, you will read this no matter how much we say ‘oh, it is not renunciation, it is determination to be free’, or, ‘it is not determination to be free alone, it is really self care’ and all these. No matter how much you say, you say it or not say it, you are going to read it. You are going to say, read and encounter with certain Buddhist documents or the text whatever, translated into the language and saying, ‘Hey, don’t have attachment to this life’. You are going to hear that. When you hearing those I want you to remember that’s not telling you ‘don’t worry about your life or give up your life’. Some translations even say ‘ turn off your interest for life’. All of those doesn’t mean it. They are saying this is not the end. This is not the only one. That’s what they are saying. They are not saying don’t have interest for your life. It is saying, this is not the only one. Of course you have to care for your life, you have to care for yourself. You have to help yourself. Otherwise who is going to do it? Nam dah nge jung me par si tso yi / de dre don nyer zhi wey thab me la. So even in our normal life, we have contradiction in our human life. Some people will only think the material thing can bring happiness, nothing else. And there is no doubt there are human beings who accept that. I am sure you know many and you know many. I know many, we all know many. And we called them ‘yuppies’. (Rimpoche laughs) May not all yuppies are like that but we called them ‘yuppies’. 1:31:11.5

,