Archive Result

20051210GRMLLLR29

Yesterday what we covered was sort of quite an important 0:00:22.1 [inaudible] and I told you and that alone if you [inaudible] and you will be independent. 0:00:38.4 [inaudible] love and compassion… just brief introduction and also brief introduction for the ultimate, unconditional, unlimited love and compassion which is technically known as bodhimind or bodhicitta, citta meaning heart in Sanskrit I believe. And so, sort of referring to the heart of bodhisattva, maybe the ultimate altruistic mind. So that much I have covered and I have very briefly covered, even last night, how does one travel on this road of compassion and love through a seven stages of development and I did mention there is exchange stage of development and also said combination of exchange and the seven stage, eleven stage of development is considered Tsongkhapa’s special way of development, bodhimind. I think those are what we covered yesterday. 0:02:30.1 Chinese translation

So and I was under the impression that we’re finishing this today and apparently it’s till tomorrow so it gives us a little extra time to do little more here and there. So one thing I would like to touch here, I’m sure you people heard that word called lojong, the training of the mind and also you have heard semjong which is training of bodhicitta. So I’m sure you have heard. So I’m not sure if I can touch the lojong or not but the semjong is quite important so I’d like to deal with that a little bit today. 0:04:49.1 Chinese translation There are a lot of books in English on lojong. A lot of people are writing, a lot. The lojong has become one of those- like earlier, if you look back 20 or 30 years back, meditation is part of practice, whether Buddhist practice or Hindu practice or whatever. It has become part of whole practice and it does not sort of function independently.

Today- so does in yoga too. Today the hatha yoga, the physical aspects of the yoga and meditation is completely sort of independent thing to do and so if you go in the five star hotels in the United States, today you have all of them available and there’s meditation, there’s exercise, there’s yoga, it’s almost like gymnastic choice they give you. Whether you want to go swimming or whether you want to go treadmill running or whether you want to do yoga or whether you want to meditate and it is almost like this. And meditation and yoga they have all those cushions available in those rooms and CDs are available to put in these rooms, in every room. It’s become like that and now the lojong is also the new 0:07:34.8 [inaudible] becoming like that. So the lojong is flying by itself without context of anything. So a lot of people are writing books on lojong and people are expressing, you know, how great the Americans can become experts overnight so everybody writes books about it, there are a lot of books. So I thought you know lojong. 0:08:14.2 Chinese translation

That’s the truth, it’s been commercialised completely. Yoga and meditation and all of them. Because if people have no interest, it doesn’t become commercial but they want to make money. People have interest and they can make money so it’s commercialised. And lojong is on the way too. 0:09:50.5 Chinese translation The reason why lojong is on the way to commercialisation because of the scientific discovery what I talked the other day- I mean it’s everywhere now, The New York Times covers, Time magazine covers everything, covers the scientific development saying compassion brings happiness because brain 0:10:30.9 [inaudible] moves to one side to another and how much they move and they also kind of- all kinds of scientific data they put out. So that's why people say lojong is to develop the compassion and so that’s exactly those who are commercialising, they’re all commercialising that, it’s coming on. 0:11:06.0 Chinese translation Those commercialising lojongs really doesn’t have the essence of lojong at all and it teaches you the breath exercise, breath taking- like meditation- breath taking, in and out, and taking the sufferings. Actually in the lojong you take sufferings in and in the commercialised lojong, you throw the sufferings out. So that is what they do. They say people, these PI people and what they do is they go through this and they pick up this and they pick up that and they put them together and they started making package already. So the real commercialised lojong doesn’t have the essence of lojong so the essence of lojong is the semjong. 0:12:42.5 Chinese translation

So when you’re looking at the semjong, first training of the mind is- what Buddha had said, there’s one little word that Buddha said and that is, Buddha says keep equanimity to all, think all beings are like your parents, have kindness and compassion to all, all the time. That is the best way how you deal with people. 0:14:13.9 Chinese translation So at the beginning of this is equanimity. We briefly talked yesterday- not briefly, we talked quite a lot yesterday. I even said equanimity is such a funny word actually. As it is a funny word, it also has funny meanings too. Chinese translation Mostly well known among us or among everybody, the equanimity is out of four immeasurables and four immeasurables A Seet chanted this morning, we all chanted together and saying, what was the last word? May all sentient beings be free from attachment and hatred. And that is what equanimity- this is sort of the first layer of equanimity which comes within the four immeasurables. 0:16:27.7 Chinese translation

What this one is saying and doing is- why do we pray this? Why do we say this? The idea is we, the people who are seeking liberation, we are the people who are seeking compassion. We, the people who are seeking the enlightenment. Whatever level you may be seeking, the idea here is you begin to see where the sufferings that we experience as well as others experience, where it’s coming from. Is it something like a third person? Like God made it and give it to us, something like a punishment, a lot of conservative Christians think suffering is God’s punishment. It’s not only the conservative Christians only, all those Abrahamic religions will think in that way. So is it that type or is it something that we ourself did it and is it our responsibility or what is it? So this is one of those wisdoms that 2600 years ago, Buddha threw and actually Buddha challenged us with this idea of where the suffering’s really coming from. Is it sort of somebody’s punishment and give it to you or is it something that we did it, even a punishment, you have to be punished because you did something wrong.

There’s sort of responsibility, underlines responsibilities there but that is not emphasised. What is emphasised is something’s not pleased so therefore, you have this punishment which is not only the Abrahamic religions either. Even in our tradition, like the Buddhist Taoist tradition or the old Chinese tradition, wherever you look, you will find this and this deity or this and this spirit is not happy so they’re harming you and they’re punish you and it is very much, even those of us whose culture background is Eastern religion will also have that, very much within ourself. You really should look carefully and you’ll find it’s not imported from the Abrahamic tradition but it is within our own traditions. Traditions of Caucasians, all of this we have. It’s very much in our culture, really. It’s deeply ingrained and automatically we get it so that’s the not thinking properly, the challenge that Buddha has thrown or the bodhidharma has brought to the Chinese culture. So we’re not thinking that way. 0:21:24.1 Chinese translation

I’m not trying to challenge the theory of creator and however, I think there’s a difference between the traditions and just drawing your attention, not challenging but I think that… I hope you get my points. Chinese translation But when the Buddha throw those challenge and the result either Buddha had discovered or whatever been presented is that really the responsibility of ourself, to our deeds and it’s almost everything together links up with the karmic principle and it links up with the positive, negative actions and its consequences which is karma and it’s sort of everywhere at the beginning to end, everywhere very pervasive in every way you’re getting is the responsibility of the individual. 0:25:46.7 Chinese translation

Even within ourself, our own level, we do have a struggle. The struggle is this: in one way, we take the responsibility of individual deeds very seriously. On the other hand, we also pray to having this happen, that happen, this happen, this happen, to Buddha, to other deities or to the yidams or even local deities or everything we do pray to and this is also a challenge. 0:26:58.2 Chinese translation In one hand, we say everything we have to do ourself and our responsibility. On the other hand, we say Buddha is capable of delivering anything you want and blah blah blah. We do have that challenge as well. Chinese translation

So perhaps temporary answer for us is seeking help. Chinese translation Maybe help me to connect to positive karma which can give this result and that result. Help me to fulfil wish that I have this and that. Maybe it’s temporary answer but I’m sure there’s a different answer you’re going to find yourself later as time goes. 0:28:35.8 Chinese translation Anyway what I wanted to talk to you today about this equanimity and so equanimity is based actually, all of those- the love compassion- comes from the Buddha’s viewpoint. All of them based on the taking responsibilities and nothing is based on giving awards or granting or anything. It is sort of a personal responsibilities. 0:29:30.9 Chinese translation

When you look at the personal responsibilities, then you begin to see where the joy comes from and where the suffering comes from. Chinese translation The joy comes from compassion and love. Chinese translation Suffering comes from the hatred and obsession. Chinese translation This is principle of Mahayana Buddhism actually Chinese translation and that’s what I’ve been saying. You know, when the scientists are proving, trying to make another physical evidence, literally putting up in every scientific magazine and what they’re putting up is this one. 0:31:02.2 Chinese translation What do they know is they know if the people engage their thought with compassion, they become happier and their brain cortex moves to the happy side of it, I mean rather quite 0:31:29.6 [inaudible] awhile ago more than just general meditation or focussing or anything, they moving. And that’s why these commercial people are packing lojong as package selling quickly, that’s the reason why. 0:31:46.0 Chinese translation

So this compassion actually there’s two categories of compassion as you know. General compassion and greater compassion. Chinese translation Both general compassion and greater compassion are based on that equanimity. Chinese translation If there is no equanimity, if you see suffering of a friend and you feel sad and sorrow but if you feel serious suffering of enemy, you’ll be happy and celebrating. Chinese translation That goes against compassion, it doesn’t go for compassion. Although we think it’s compassion, it goes against compassion as we can clearly see. 0:33:32.4 Chinese translation

The first equanimity, the first layer of equanimity, you’re praying, saying ‘May all beings be free from attachment and hatred’ means knowing the attachment and hatred are causing sufferings for them and so you equalise and say they may be free from- it’s not suffering. Equals, one equals to again equals to- you know one plus one equals to two, not that sort of equalising but sort of leveling. Sort of levelled as hatred and attachment, praying it will be leveled so they that they don’t have so much hot and cold life of the huge turbulence of hot and cold swaying in their life so that sort. First the layer, simply praying because I see the cause of turbulence in their life, not looking at you, looking at them, saying in their life the cause of turbulence of hot and cold jumping, suffering and all this is because of this hatred and obsession is bringing them so I’ll pray they may be- sort of level them.

That’s why I said the word equality, equanimity is very funny but you know it’s really nothing is popping up, nothing is falling down, just leveled like you level the paved road before you pave them. So just like that, we are able to level praying only. Seeing the cause of turbulence in their life is caused by their own hatred and their own obsession so praying they may be free of it, they may be smooth, they may be equalized. That is the first layer of equanimity which we pray out of the four immeasurables and that’s that. 0:36:23.4 Chinese translation

Now the second layer of equanimity is the equanimity that we count in those seven stages of development of bodhimind. We say equanimity first and that is different than the equanimity out of the four immeasurables though it’s the same name. In Tibetan it’s called 0:38:05.6 tang nyong. I don’t know what they call it in Sanskrit, I have no idea. Don’t need to know, I’m sure they have a name for it. If you listen to the Theravadan teachers I’m sure they used either Sanskrit or Pali, I’m sure they used. So anyway, that equanimity, the word in Tibetan is tang nyong and 0:38:48.8 Shira tells me and Ubeka and Gayeng seem to agree right? Ubeka is the word they used. Anyway it is the same word in four immeasurables and same word in seven stages of development but the different meaning. So you have to know this, there’s a different meaning. 0:39:16.6 Chinese translation The first meaning I told you out of four immeasurables.

Now the second one, this is within the seven stages of development of bodhimind and this one is not praying, not looking at others but looking at yourself and seeing that the cause of turbulence in life is hatred and attachment therefore, me, as an individual person, will not let my mind go in the control of hatred and attachment but my mind should equalize all sentient beings, all living beings and so it is equally equalizing my aspects of my mind looking at the people at having the rough and smooth minds, equalizing that. First is looking at them and that is the cause for the trouble so simply praying they don’t have that.

Second point is me, it is my cause of my difficulties so my perception for them should not be- my mind should not be under the control of hatred and attachment. I should smoothen my mind. Second is looking to this and this is a common with the Theravadan tradition as well, Theravadan tradition of Ube at that level is the same. Mahayanas use the same thing, Theravadans use the same thing and that is the second layer or tang nyong or equality. This has become really inconvenient, the word equality or equanimity whatever it is anyway.