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Sound file : NLOTF (13)

Speaker: Gelek Rimpoche

Location: Netherlands

Topic: Odyssey To Freedom

Transcriber: Jayapushpa

Date: 7th December 2021

And that’s why my hesitations of talking about guru. But on the other hand, it is absolutely necessary step in the traditional Buddhist or Hindu teachings. Even our Odyssey to Freedom, it occupies number 13. So, I would like to say, I mean like to talk about myself with my own little experience. Will I been able to manage had it not been the gurus. Answer for my personal case, ‘No’. Without which you don’t have spiritual information. Without which you don’t have contact with the enlightened beings. Without which I cannot really lay the spiritual fire from the energy sources such as the solar energy. They really function like a magnifying glass to focal, to bring the energy together and pin pointly hit it. So, I would not have manged without that. Beside that, every spiritual teachers that I have, 39, 40 wherever the number is getting, I look at them each and every one of them, has been my guru and is my guru. Many of been more active, some of them been lesser active, but each one of them you look as guru. When you look the person as guru, whether the person in reality, whether it is enlightened being or non enlightened being, that’s not the issue. The issue over here is my perception. So, how do I perceive? I perceive, if I perceive my guru as ordinary human being, I get blessing and benefit of ordinary human being. If I perceive this as an enlightened being , I receive blessing and connection of enlightened being. If I perceive my guru as a dog, I get blessings and connection as a dog. So, that’s why it becomes important. It is the connecting point.so maybe that’s good enough. That’s talking about myself. So that way it is important and necessary. So, now there’s a lot of questions. It says it is important and it is necessary. Then there is a lot of questions will rise. What is it? Is it appointed or is it appearing, or how do I get it and who sends whom to where and what? All these questions will be there0:07:51.

In my case whatever 39, 40 gurus that I have, with the exception of my first teacher, and the Dalai Lama, that becomes 38 or 37, each one of them, I, as an ordinary human being selected. The first teacher was there when I was four years old taking and there is some teacher there, and that was the first one. When he first started giving the first initiation, it is for all of us; it is compulsory, you have to go whether you like it or not. (Rimpoche laughs). He is the political and religious head of Tibet, so you just have to go.(Rimpoche laughs). And luckily he happens to be great one. Now, so, by telling that story, what I try to establish to you is you have to choose your own guru. Nobody else can choose your guru. Gurus are not appointed., are selected. Selected by you. It is not by the gurus. I always tell you sometimes people will say, ‘I am your guru”. If anybody telling you, ‘I am your guru’, just ran away, five hundred miles, without looking back. And, sometimes organizations like dharma centers, or organizations, they will say, ‘Ah, so and so is your guru’ and this and that. And that’s also not good. The organization is organization. It is not a Jewel Heart type thing, it is not organization build around me. Am I right or am I wrong? If that’s so, so whether the choice is whether you be in Jewel Heart or not to be in Jewel Heart. But that is organization function. But that doesn’t mean you have to follow it. You can ran away five hundred miles straightaway(Rimpoche laughs).And then there are certain organizations I noticed and they say, ‘Well, you took refuge here so you belongs to us’. And mind you, nobody belongs to anybody. Maybe you belong to your wife, I don’t know. But besides that, nobody belongs to anybody. No one has any claim on you. Guru or organization or group or whoever. So you have to make it absolutely clear first. If you one to pick up guru, you are the only one who picks up, nobody else. 0:13:45.7

So, what are you picking? You are picking connection. You are picking source of information. You are picking guidance. You are picking role model. So, that’s what it is. If you look in the lam rim books, they probably tell you the eight benefits of this and eight advantages of these and disadvantages of these, and lot of them there. And I am not going to speak to you about those but leave it up to you to do your homework. And then the question comes, ‘How do we select?’ This is not a job application, so you don’t need recommendations. The moment you put in recommendations, I notice recently I went to California, and one night I have to give a teaching in this Sogyal Rinpoche’s Rigpa Centre in California. And they made big publicity. In that there are two quotations from Allen Ginsberg and Philip Glass. So, that is the credential. (Rinpoche laughs) So the recommendations, you are not seeking job, you don’t need recommendations. Ah…what are we talking about it? (Audience: ?) I know, where? Oh, there you go. So, you have to study individual. Traditional teachings will tell you. Whether you can eat that or not, at least smell it. Whether you can wear that or not, try to measure with your body a little bit. (Rimpoche laughs). So, if it is good and fits you, then it is okay. Even if very good, Italian, Tasmanian…Tasmanian wool work in Italy, and designed by Giorgio Armani, even then the quality Tasmanian wool, Italian tailor, Giorgio Armani design, even doesn’t fit you it is useless. So you have to find out whether it fits you or not. That I think is very important point. And then you also have to observe what quality the individual has. Is that person compassionate enough? That person is she or he well behaved in person or another crazy one. Did that person work with their negative emotions. Is that person too conservative? Too liberal? All of those. And will the person know how to handle my strong negativity emotion rises. Does that person have true understanding and experience of the path that person going to share with me? Is that person really honestly teach and share on the basis of the Buddha’s personal experience in according to the lineage teachers way or he’ll be just simply making up stories, and passing all our time? Can that person prove that every statement he or she made is correct according to the Buddha? And, is she or he a stable person or crazy? Maybe heavily depressed, or maybe too wild crazy gone, and can he or she tell me something? If there is nothing to teach then what to do? No job. Can he or she teach something. Can he or she present whatever they are teaching in accordance to what I can understand and acceptable? Does she or he has art of presentation? Can he or she be willing to take a little hardship, because you have to sit there hour and hour…hours and hours or will he go to sleep when talking. I am not joking. So these are the few points for you to consider. 0:24:37.1

In the Lama Chopa there is a verse there they will tell you ten qualities of the Mahayana spiritual master and ten plus ten for the Vajrayana , so all of them are there. Am I am sure with the commentary, I might have counted each and everything, because ten plus ten, twenty one…twenty. Hi hi I don’t know where I am getting the one but maybe going to fall asleep. So twenty qualities. So accordingly you make your own judgement. The recommendation is fifty per cent discount. I believe you are not going to find somebody who exactly having all the qualities. But there are certain qualities you do not compromise. That’s the quality and information and capability. The quality here is the compassion. Information based on Wisdom. Capable to function as role model, which means well behaved. Okay, these are the basis on which you can think and make your decisions. It is important because it is connection with the enlightened. I remembered once I went to Gangchen Rimpoche’s centre in Milan,…Milano, you says, right? Milano in Italy, and talking about Foundation of Perfections or something I did. And I said, ‘guru is the ambassador of enlightened society with the credential giving address to you’. And when I got to Brazil there is a Tshirt which says, ‘Guru is the ambassador of enlightened beings’.(Rimpoche laughs). I thought it is interesting and good. We are really looking at the representative of enlightened beings. And that’s why the relationship becomes important. You called that ‘devotion’ or whatever but truly speaking is the relationship. And maintaining good or pure or wonderful respect…maybe not wonderful, but pure, respected, close honest relationship is necessary. Disrespectful means might not make much difference to the guru itself, but it affects all the enlightened society. It is like you know if you don’t treat well to an ambassador of country, then actually you will have a diplomatic disaster, right? That we know. So devotion or no devotion, but honesty, straightness, good relationship, directly or indirectly, both are okay. Because you are not really seeking the individual being too much, you are really seeking the support behind that. So, the recognizing the spiritual master is not that important as much as …Oh, I have them here, I am sorry. ‘Recognizing the spiritual master’ is gone. ‘Investigting the qualities of the spiritual master’ is also gone. See, that’s what happens. 0:32:27.5

‘Reflect on the qualities of the student’ and that is whether I like to behave this way or not. We are talking about the role model. And I told you cultivate pure relationship. Good, we have come up to number 17. (Audience: spoke in Dutch) (Translator: what about the importance of the sangha? You may feel connected to a teacher but you may not feel at home at all in a certain group of people, in a certain organization. He is not talking about Jewel heart but this happened to him in the past).Sangha is equally important. Sangha represents companionship. The sangha is the family member. Sangha helps each other for your path. It is very important but not so important as much as guru is. The quality of the guru and the quality of the sangha differs. Sangha is companion, not role model. Sangha can give you information but it is different from the information that you get through teaching. We will talk during the ‘Refuge’. But to tell you the thing, you know Buddha is treated like a doctor, and Dharma is treated like medicine, and the sangha is treated like one who takes care of ..either nurse or family, or whoever taking care of that. So that’s the quality you can see. (Audience: spoke in Dutch) (Translator: So, you cannot sangha is reflection of the guru. If the sangha make certain state behaved not nice, that’s the guru’s fault) No. Maybe. Basically, no. The sangha is collection of individuals. And individual will have its own behaviour, each and everyone of them. And they also have their own advantage. They all have their own disadvantage. And they bring them together, and the beauty of it is you can snort it out. I don’t remember exactly, Allen Ginsberg used to have a poetry called ‘guru death’, no, ‘Father death’. In that he said, ‘Teacher death, you words are true. Sangha death, we sort it out’ or something.(Audience: ‘we work through’). That’s right. That’s it, you can work out, work through , because it is collective, collection of individuals. So, you can work out. You can work through with its own discipline and ways and means. Another words, is sangha necessary? Absolutely. Number one, it is part of Three Refuge, otherwise you left with only two refuge. In practically it is absolutely necessary. If you don’t have anybody to talk to, to help you to do what you wanted to do, what you needed to do, you are not going to make any headway at all. And soon you will drop out. So there’s a lot of reasons. I mean you yourself can think., lot of them there. So it is necessary and it is important and almost we cannot do without. Since you raise the sangha question, I mention that. It is not my subject right here at least. 0:40:14.0

Okay, my subject is ‘guru’. (Rimpoche laughs) Right now, guru. So, am I done? Devotion or not devotion, a pure relationship, that is very very important. And that doesn’t mean you cannot contradict. And you cannot express your opinion. You cannot say what you think about it. No, it is not. Because lots of people will think that way, it’s not true. I just remembered an incident that Allen Ginsberg told me.When Chogyam Rimpoche was alive in Boulder. Colorado. They decided to buy that huge building in downtown Boulder. There’s a big building now. They having a meeting and discussing whether they should buy the building or not. So,Allen said he was adamant not to buy that. So when he insisted that, Trungpa Rimpoche told him in the meeting in public, ‘Stupid’(Rimpoche laughs). So Allen said, ‘Person who is calling me ‘stupid’ is the sign of stupidity of Mupu’. ‘Mupu is Trungpa Rimpoche’s family name. (Translator: Sorry, can you say again?) He says, ‘calling me stupid in public is the sign of Mupu stupid’. Family name is Mupu. (Translator:Ya). So somebody will call you ‘stupid’, you call back ‘stupid’, so what? That doesn’t break relationship.It doesn’t destroy the pure relationship. So the pure relationship is broken if you really wanted harm physically, mentally, emotionally with hatred to the person, and wanted to destroy and harm. Then pure relation is no longer pure. That is the base. And on that you can build whatever you can. Okay, I think that is good enough. We are up to number 17. 0:45:12.5

Do we need question and answer or can I go through?(Audience spoke in Dutch) (Translator: Who is right, Trungpa Rimpoche or Allen Ginsberg?) I believe Trungpa was right. I think Ginsberg might be right too, you know. (Laughters) You know why? Because they bought the house and the house is very useful for them. It is big big huge house in downtown, ya. Allen told me he was wrong. He was wrong because he thought they could never pay that house. So what happened is somebody who attended their summer school wrote them a five million dollar cheque. So that’s why easily. They don’t know the five million coming when they bought the house. Lots of people went together, put their credit line and did all these. And some young lady who is sitting at the end instantly come up and wrote a cheque and ‘maybe this can help’. Oh, it is time to stop. Oh my god, I am sorry.I didn’t even realize that. (Audience: And I have one dish brought in because of our relationship. We are missing one dinner stand at the tables0 That’s mine, yes. Here you go. (Laughters) Thank you. Okay, I think we have to stop here but if you think tonight and if it is bothering or difficulties or ideas, we can talk tomorrow…0:48:18.6

As we are looking here, we sort of have preliminary practice for training our mind for number 1 through number 12. When I say ‘number 1 to number 12 preliminary’, does not mean it is not actual part of it. It is definitely actual part of it. But still we call that ‘preliminary’ but actual practice begins at number 1, not number 12 or 13. And at this level, since we have been dealing with Ganden Lha Gyema, at this level, if you look in the Foundation of Perfections, the first verse they say,…now I can’t say in English. Why not you read that in Dutch. (Translator: in Dutch, first stanza of Foundation ..?) Ya, first verse. So, it is important. That’s why it is called ‘root of all development’ To understand this clearly, like we talked yesterday, ‘Is necessary or not necessary. If so, what kind?’. All also talked. The one question I did not deal yesterday, and what about the visions? What about the visions? What about …what do you called that? Trance. And all of those are another question completely on this. This is important question since we are touching the guru subject, we have to touch a little bit. Exactly personally, I don’t know. But I can only tell you what Buddha said and what the lineage teachers have said. Because I don’t personally know. Mainly I am talking to you is I am talking to you because I know it. So, really that’s why I am talking to you. And this case, I don’t know. But still what the Buddha said is and what the lineage teachers have said is, they say ‘No, you cannot’. The guru must be a …one must contact with the one’s guru it has to be living person; not some kind of spirit or somebody in 14th century, or, you know that type of thing. And they said, “No”. And I don’t know reasons why they said ‘No’, number 1. And number 2, occasionally there are visions and this and that are also there too. So, I am sharing with you what Buddha said and what the teaching tradition says it must be living. And I don’t know the reasons. I mean I can guess but I really don’t know the reasons why. On the other hand we talked about the visions, on the other hand we looked at the historical points. And this lama has taken teachings in trance of this and that, and you find them popped up from here and there occasionally. So they is a general decision saying, “No” but then there always seems to be a little specifically excuses or this case is special. Or, you know, seems to be things like that. That’s why I don’t know. (Rimpoche spoke to someone in audience: Don’t you need extra chair? I’ll be happy if you use it) (anybody needs anything, stretch your legs or some extra chair or something. No, are you sure? Just free feel, has to be relaxed). 0:56:42.

But, one thing I do know clearly, sometimes some people will think, ‘Alright, I make my deal with buddha and screw you’. That doesn’t work. Right? That doesn’t work. And the way Buddha and enlightened beings work with us, connecting with us is through a reasonable being, person, a living person. It is much more solid, much more effective than visions or all that other type. The moment you deal with vision, the moment you deal with spirit, the moment you deal with these, you have to take 50%, at least 50% off things due to our own psychological , physiological, emotional and maybe there is truth of 20% or 50%. If you have 40, 30…40% you are very lucky. And if you have truth of 50%, you are extremely lucky. So there’s always that big question which comes in between, and that’s why. And then you have another one there. You know we called ‘psychic’ or people who contact with different spirits and delivering message back and forth, all these are there. And in their case, these people are not lying. They are telling the truth because they perceive as truth. But we don’t know is whether it is exactly spirit who claims to be or not. It is a big question. You have to look in this way. When you spirit, you are beyond our law of physics. And many of them have unlimited access to any information. Many of them might have been there when this and that happening. And many of them will identify with name and physical appearance of each individual.so then they can communicate with family of those who seek the communication they are coming in, they tell you this happened and that happened, that thing happened, this is that, this is that, this is that. They are not lying but that might not be the individual person you think you are contacting, the spirit. And there is no way of confirming that. They will say, ‘I am Paul’. Which Paul, we don’t know. So, like that. Like Marianne, which Marianne? Like that and it is true, because that spirit may pick up a name., and then, ‘I am Paul’. That’s fine because it is a label, right? Nothing fixed, that’s how it works. Well, now I am going to conclude this part. In short, recognize respectable, reasonably good, spiritual master. 1:03:13.0

When I say ‘recognize’ I mean after investigate the qualities and acknowledge its person as your spiritual master. That’s what I am referring to. And one most important point here is whether you would like to reflect his or her qualities to you. That is important. Another words, would you like to behave or would you like to function dealing with your problems, that other person does. If that suits you then you reflecting quality okay. If it doesn’t suit you, reflecting qualities not okay. That’s what I mean ‘reflect quality ‘of student, of self. If you look here, it says, ‘Reflect on the qualities of the student’, that’s only one, that’s me. This student, rather than ‘students’. And as we talked yesterday, cultivate the relationship, pure relationship. Pure relation is very important. If it is impure, it is not right. There are lots of things, pure and impure in tis materialistic samsaric world. Each and everyone of us, would like to have a very special relationship with your own guru or teacher. We all do. And we go out of our way to get that. So whatever it may take, and a lot of people do that. (*long pause) I don’t know what to say. (Translator: I don’t know either) I think what I am thinking I shouldn’t say. That’s why I don’t know what to say. People sort of go completely out of the way, whatever means to get preference treatment, whether it is sexual, financial, any kind of willy dilly business, you know. Or, even bowing down. Even, you know, all sorts of things. And that’s not good. Unless it is straightforward, from the bottom of your heart, no agenda involved, then it is fine, nothing’s wrong. Otherwise, you are corrupting the person. So instead of helping, it is harming. Having said that, when the pure relation really true, honestly seeking help from the enlightened beings through that person, and that person, individual person since we have a number of teachers here, that individual also has to treat everybody the same. You cannot treat right eye with ointment, ‘chen’, in tibetan, it is honorific; the left eye, no honorific, ‘mik’. So, this is ‘chen’ and this is ;mik’. You know, right eye has the right side of the eye, has the honorific title, and the left side of the eye has no honorific title. One can’t do that. Understand now the message? This is old tibetan saying, you know. 1:10:56.9

And then they also have a personal relationship, which is nothing to do with the …I mean there is something to do, but from the ‘I’, from the window of individual teachers, the personal relationship has nothing to do with your spiritual dealings. And above all, total dedication, whether you are tired, sick, or whatever might be, whenever and whatever needed, to be able to give it. To give it to such a way it will make sense to the individual, rather than making big presentation and went overhead or talk about crazy things. And if you have experience and understanding, is great. If, not, whatever you say should have proof out of recognized authentic teachings. And it is also important to keep stories as well as explanations, everything, whatever is related in what level, keep it there. Rather than picking this story and try to fit down here, and picking that story try to fit up there, which is sometimes disservice, becomes. No pride, whatsoever. And no hope of becoming popular, you know, seeking popularity. And if you noticed that within you, and then is disqualification. You have to correct yourself. Nobody corrects you. And then of course, even tibetan Buddhism, it has its own traditions. We have Sakya, we have Nyingma, we have Kargyu. Even Kargyu we have 16 different Kargyus. Even Sakya has three different Sakyas. The Nyingma also has two ? and ? eastern and the northern thing. There is no division among the Gelugpas but each one of these monasteries has their own little traditions. You know they don’t label in that, so far. And now it is beginning to pop up but so far there is no such a thing called distinction among the Gelugpas, are not there. So, if you are following a traditional teaching, and meditating and practising and try to help others, is important you follow one tradition. There’s nothing wrong with any tradition. They are all perfect. But it is not…in my opinion, is not right when you try to pick up something from here, something from there, something from there, and you can make a nice new Age soup. I say this with great hesitation. Because His Holiness and everybody is emphasizing that all become oneness. And it is important for His Holiness to do that because the unity of Tibet is total political basis on which you can fight..not fight, you can hope to gain independence. Because if there is no united , we have only you know, like hundred thousand Tibetans outside Tibet, right. There is six million Tibetans in Tibet. 100 to 150 000, maybe 200 000, the most, outside Tibet. So, when you know there is 200000claims to be on behalf of six million, fighting for your own country’s freedom, which is really difficult. Truly speaking, it is very difficult. Look at the ratio. There is six million here and here’s 200 000 . Not only a minority, it is almost…how many per cent is it? Let’s say, 200…200 000 out of six million,..(Audience: 3%) 3%, not so bad. I thought maybe less than 1%. 3% is not so bad. But, 3% try to act as representative of 97% of the total population. And not only fighting a reasonable society or nation, you are fighting against the upcoming economic power with the communist ideological social system, can shut down anything, any minute. It is very hard for Dalai Lama. And that Communist, that socialist is also not a good one, we think in Europe or America. Sometimes there are some socialist ideas and communists ideas, not bad. But that’s not the one. This is the dictator type of communist rather than true socialism at all. Remember Mao and Chou, and Ting , all of them is one person. The one person is the executive, the one person is the legislator, one person is the Jury chief, whether it is Mao, or Chou or Ting and now what is his name? Chiang xie Meng, whoever. They are all like that. It is not the usual nice idea of socialism what you see in Sweden or things like that. It is not, it is totally different. Anyway, having said that and His Holiness has no other alternative. I mean 3% plus Dalai Lama, so, has no alternative, unless you really become sort of oneness. And what alternative He has? Nothing, but he has to call unity, whatever it may take. So, we must support that. We should definitely support. Yet, whatever you are studying, whatever you are working, you have to work according to this because this is organized, there is steps, there is ,you know, there’s a way of looking whether you are going up or going down; way of checking your progress or not making progress. There is a framework here. And if you bring something from here, something from there, something from there, something from there, and then try to put them in, and when you try to look into the framework, you not going to get it anything. Tibetan has saying funny things, You can neither get the cow dung from other side of the hill, nor can you can maintain your own basket, then after a little while, you don’t even have the rope to keep the basket together. It won’t go. Did you get idea? (Translator: No, I didn’t get it) You did not. Okay, it is a good old nomad house. So what they do? They picked up basket from here, go to the other side, picked up cow dung. You know why? Cow dungs are the fuel in Tibet. So that’s why they picked up all the cow dungs and dry and burnt it. So sometimes you can pick up your basket and go and get the cow dung; it’ll be good. But sometimes you can’t go there, you cannot get any cow dung or anything and by the time you come back here, you also forgot your basket over there. You not only don’t have cow dung, you lose your basket and the rope which tied the basket together is also gone. Another words, you left with nothing at the end. I don’t know whether you made it right or wrong, whatever. When you say that in English it doesn’t make much sense. I am sorry. That doesn’t mean you cannot go and take teachings from this person, that person cannot take teachings from this person. You can take it if you can maintain pure relationship, you can take from anybody. However what you do, that make difference. 1:28:30.0

But on the other hand, no matter wherever you look, the Sakya, the Nyingma, the Gelugpa, the Kagyupa, wherever type of lam rim type of practice, they all give you. And if you look in the Sakyas, they doin’t call lam rim, they called it dre rim. If you look in Kargyu, The Jewel Ornaments of liberation, by Gampopa. It is one of the main principle texts of all Kargu sects, all 16 of them accept that important text, which is nothing but lam rim. You can see them in English. If you look in the Nyingmapa, either the ? or all of those. If you look it in there and that is very much lam rim, even though the Dzogchen will tell you, you just sit there and open your eyes and wait for five colors dakinis appear and this and that. And once stuck yet but in order to receive, they will take you completely down to the lam rim once again. Tsongkhapa says here, ‘it is the essence of all the teachings of the Buddha’ whether it is love compassion oriented or wisdom oriented. And it is made easy to develop the result within the individual. And Tsongkhapa did not make this eazy. This system was seen and understand with Atisha’s way. And where did Atisha get this system? It is the Vikramashila , the most important monastic learning center ever existed in India, early part. It is two, right? One is nalanda and the other is Vikramashila. 1:31:56.3