Archive Result

20060126GRNYALS

Geleg Rinpoche

New York,New York

"AttainingLastingSatisfaction"

26Jan2006

MayAllBeingsHaveHappiness X 3. Thank you and welcome here tonight. The subject on which I'm supposed to talk tonight , I think the title is called " Daring to #00:01:59-0#

Be Compassionate". Right? Daring to be Compassionate. The description given is " In a world that is (?worse? #00:02:16-4#) , competition and adverse attitudes , it takes courage to test the waters of compassion". I think this is proper yet for what we are going through. What's happening in the world today , world in general, and particularly our individual world. World in general you know what is happening. We don't have to emphasize. All kinds of things happening. Particularly in our personal world it is the world that we very much engage in competition and try to be searching for some kind of edge over others. And when you find some kind of edge over others, and you'll be rewarded, and when you don't have that it's very hard to make it in our world today. This is a #00:03:41-8#

(?valley,value?) what we experience in all parts of our life today and this is no secret, what we experience in the world (inaud. #00:03:48-8#). In your profession, what ever, in business ,in everything it is the competition and what is my special thing over others and even ask the question why you have something special for , why you, what is the reason, I think we openly ask and we have to have something to give , something unique in order to make it, in this world, I believe that's our world today. (inaud. #00:04:46-8#) ...ask the question, "Why You?" Why not this one, that one, others, so we're in that. Also, compassion is never rewarded. Or even the humbleness is never rewarded and today where, you know ,somebody who you know can blow our(his) own trumpet #00:05:25-4#

as much as you can gets better attention. Whether you have anything to offer or not . It is some kid of what we traditionally call a degenerated age. One of those signs of the degenerated age is , you know, actually , the learned people , people with quality , who just get disappeared in the midst of nobody , people who have very little knowledge , I'm talking about the spiritual path only, very little information, very little thing, can make a hell of a noise. And this is where we are today. That's why we call this, I think Buddha choose to call this , the degenerated age. No doubt about it . No doubt we have a tremendous development on the one hand, and we also have a tremendous degenerated level on the other hand. Simultaneously is functioning here. That's where we are. But, we know , we've been at least told, told by none other than Buddha, compassion is the key for our happiness. And, compassion doesn't work very well. You know, the person who thinks about compassion and love gets beat up all the time. Never gets success , looks like in this world , the world where we are , this is the world of violence. Tremendous violence, you know. Not only in the general country level, but each and every individual level. No matter what ever the age is, kids or retired people , every level violence is working , is almost like an answer to our problems. On the other hand, we know very well that violence brings violence , and that brings suffering. Not only suffering of one or two individuals , but its really mass suffering of masses of people. And that is what the violence does, we know very well. Violence has never prevailed in the world. Look back in our history. All this violent history , of all the world wars and all the different wars we have had. It's really not achieved much . Although, we've been able to stop Hitler, however, the Communists came in. Like constantly continues (inaud. #00:09:54-3#) all of those. So violence really does not stop suffering, torture of people, it creates more. On the other hand, non-violence has some how prevailed. We don't have to look very far away, what had happened with Mahatma Gandhi and his #00:10:24-1# non-violence movement. We also can we what has happened with Dr Martin Luther King in this country. And Mother Terressa. And we see with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. so the non-violence does prevail and does give help to the individuals as well as to everybody. However in our society when it looks it's only the violence that you know , that's sort of drawing the attention. That's the one which is capturing the headlines everywhere, everywhere you know that's what's happening. That's where we are today. This is the degenerated age. And at this level, if you can develop , generate a perfect compassion, it is far better than ,far more beneficial to the individuals as well as to the society and to all living beings. It is much more beneficial to generate small little compassion today than that of the good times of the Buddha . It is the statement given by Buddha himself. So we are very unfortunate in one way . Our hostile such a world that we live in, we are born and we are living in and as a growing day after day and stronger and stronger the competitions that you have at your work. Even to certain extent , even in the family. You begin to compete. And all this is growing and however if you could find room for ourselves to generate a little compassion. And that is courage in order to do that , in order to test the waters of compassion one has to have courage. But on the other hand , no other violence will never answer our sufferings , they increase. Where I come from with Buddhist background that spiritual path and no one has ever offered Enlightenment , or succeeded on the spiritual path through violence. Every one has achieved Enlightenment or the Buddha state, or the Buddha level or any spiritual developments that the individual gets it's always based on compassion. Compassion is the key for our happiness . We heard this so many times from Buddha himself and Buddhist teachers there after. Everybody. His Holiness give you know call it Universal Compassion. Universal compassion as a really basis of human joy and human happiness. Almost His Holiness tells us that Universal #00:15:17-8#

Compassion is universal religion. For each and every one of us to bring our happiness. Not only the word by the great Buddhist teachers and His Holiness but even we begin to see ourselves, happiness within us really follows by caring, love and loving. Hatred never brings peace, hatred never brings joy to people, hatred makes our mind so rough, the individual becomes so rough. So much so that we begin to title them as terrorists. Compassion does not produce terrorism. Hatred did. And does. So we are very much on the junction today, everyone of us , each and every one of us, no matter how long you have been in Buddhism, no matter how long you have been any religion, any tradition. We are all on this junction , junction of taking which direction we are going to go. Our usual habitual patterns will drag us towards violence. Because some how we are confused and we think violence will protect us. On the contrary, violence hurts us. Compassion might not protect immediately , but in the long run it does. The best protection for us is compassion and love. Earlier Tibetan teachers taught that and they've been asked ' how long do I have to meditate compassion?' The answer given by them ' until you do not need to any more'. You do not need anymore meaning the perfection of the compassion is Buddha level. When Buddha became Buddha, the last deed of becoming Buddha, I'm sure many of us have seen , there was a few years ago , there's a movie called " Little Buddha". And I'm sure a number of us have seen it, maybe all of us seen it. But if you look at that "Little Buddha" here the guy tries to become fully Enlightened, try to sit and meditate under the tree, and then suddenly you get all these attacks. First seduction and seducing the person by all kinds of beautiful models , right? And followed by all kinds of weapons that they throw and attack. And remember in that movie all these weapons been changing, in a certain area they all change into flowers. And what makes that happen? It is the compassion and love that makes its. You know sometimes we think our protection is some sort of wrathful deity or mantra or meditation of protection realms or shields, which we do very often. All of them , well the shield is a little better, but you know wrathful things, you know the real protection #00:20:55-8#

is the love and compassion. The essence of even wisdom and all of them lies with compassion. Essence of the compassion is wisdom. Essence of wisdom is compassion. If these two separate, we are no where. Combination, union of compassion and wisdom brings union of absolute and relative truth. Union of compassion and wisdom brings the union of body and mind. When we talk about Buddha we talk about total knowledge. When you are talking about the total knowledge at that level there is a separation of body/mind , however body/mind functions together. Body is mind and mind is body , at that level. Technically , this statement is not right. Philosophically, logically, you can debate. But in the essence, that's what we are talking about. Union. Union here really means union of love , compassion and wisdom together. It's not the male and female figure is a metaphor. The real union is that. That is a total knowledge. So it is the basis of all this is compassion. Compassion is the root of , what we call it , Bodhimind. Which is the ultimate, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion is called Bodhimind. It is a very special mind that sort of marks the individual person to be called Bodhisattvas. So the earmark to become a Buddha. That was made, that was marked by compassion that develops into a very strong mind called Special Mind. Compassion and love. I always emphasize this. This is one mind with two different aspects. We talk a lot about Compassion , but we really need to know what the compassion is all about. Compassion and love to me is one mind with two different aspects. Two different aspects. One aspect seeks the individual, whatever the subject or object of your mind may be. #00:25:01-0#

Including self and all others, or one other or many others. Seeking them joy, wishing them to have joy and happiness is what we call it, love. I think this is the definition of. But compassion, the same mind, the aspects of the compassion seeks separation of that individual from the pains and the misery and the suffering , what ever they experience. And that is compassion. Compassion is mind that really wishes the people to be separated from the pain that we experience all the time. Love wishes to have joy all the time. Even in the Four Immeasurables that we say all the time. May all beings be separate from suffering and the cause of suffering. That is compassion that we are talking about. May all beings have joy , may they never be separated from the joy that has never known suffering, is indeed the love of the Four Immessuarable level . Four Immessurable level is not the compassion we talked about. I mean, it's a little more than Four Immesuarables. Four Immesurables level simply wishing that the people be free from their sufferings. When the real compassion kicks in, it becomes action oriented, our will to remove our suffering, to separate from the individual and the person , it's sort of really a little more, remember I used to give you very detailed level of equanimity. Four Immesurable level of equanimity , Seven Stage Development of Equanimity, Exchange Stage Development of the Bodhimind, equanimity to give you different layers, how deep equanimity itself is. Like wise compassion, like wise love. You have that. So that is compassion, and especially the root of the Bodhimind, what we call Greater Compassion. Bodhi mind is rooted, rooted, that is Maitreya Buddha has said (Tib. phrase #00:28:27-7#) "The root of the Bodhi Mind is Compassion". A Bodhi Mind Is (Tib. phrase #00:28:38-2#) "Dedicated mind for altruistic however seeking Enlightenment for the dedication that you have to serve other beings" . That is Bodhi Mind. Which cannot be grown without compassion. As a root. That's why, you know , when you go into detail, when you look into Lam Rim teachings or any where else, they give you the way how it develops Bodhi Mind, how it develops Compassion. Basically we are all good human beings, we have good hearts. We are kind persons. We do have compassion. When we see people suffering, animals, people or animals, any living beings that we see suffering so we feel it , we feel it . We feel it and we try to stop . We try to help them. We don't take the attitude of indifference. We don't. #00:30:04-9#

We may be scared and run away. That's a different matter. But we try to help , whatever. And that's why most of us are against violence. Most of us appreciate and rejoice and enjoy non-violence. And that's why we go against war. War is a violence, no doubt about it. There's no mistake. War is violence. Doesn't matter who declares it . It's violence. You know, we went through the experience of 9/11. And such a horrible experience some times push us so strongly to the attitude towards violence. And all the year, September , October, November, December, all those years, months we have been hearing that violence is completely promoted. And the fear of terror has helped to accept violence to a certain level. Just because of a horrifying action and experience that we went through. I think I told you a number of times, in that year, in January I visited Dehli. The day when I arrived in Dehli, I mean like two hours later, my , the telephone in the hotel rings and I pick up and its Subdorum(?) Rinpoche , my good friend , and who happens to be the prime minister of His Holiness' Exile Government. And Sumdorum(?) Rinpoche says 'I know you are here today , and you arrived and we have a conference, would you like to come?' I said ' well I'll just wash my face and hands . So I went . And I saw the conference is called " Compassion as Antidote for Terrorism". I must admit, it held me back for a little while. I'm coming from the United States , we have all this bombardment of you know violence and violence and violence and all this , and suddenly saw compassion as an antidote for terrorism. Sort of pulled(?) #00:33:54-7# me back for a little while. Any way, I'm sitting there and listening to all these great people, great Gandhians. The former president of India , I think his name is Venkataraman, and then all these great Gandhians, one after another, speaking , making complete sense that violence can not be able to change the mind of terrorism, cannot. What ever we are doing today with force and with power , whether monetary power or military power, what ever we do few people may please us just by acting. But heart of heart , you cannot force people to change their heart. One hundred barrels of guns, or money also cannot buy the real love and affection of the people. People may do anything for you for money, or fear #00:35:46-2#

of guns or torture or whatever. But doesn't change minds. But compassion and love does things really change people from inside. Even the atomic Bomb will not be able to change the mind of the people. They can kill. They want to change the mind of the people. It is only the care, love and compassion that changes people. So, absolutely , His Holiness is right to use compassion as antidote for terrorism, although, it came to early. September, October, November, December, January. It's four months after 9/11, there's no room for anybodys' ear or mind to think about that. It's a little too early. But now, it's 2006 . We are all not evil. We are all not , what we call it , the blood thirst devils or demons. We are all compassionate, caring and loving and normal regular human beings. And we can think . We can understand. Yes. Events do take place and we intend to move extreme this way or that way, depends on what events took place. However , basic human beings, human, good human heart, human quality, always care, love, compassion , is in our blood, our nature, our blood. That is the source of our strength and that is the source of our happiness. And that is the source of our spiritual development. We just cannot ignore. If we keep on ignoring, the violence takes over. We are in degenerated age. And in a degenerated age , any thing can happen. Although, degenerated means 'looks bad' and terrible . Sounds like. However, it also has a great opportunity. Because whatever little effort we do gets tremendous yield and gain. And it's #00:40:07-6#

too sensitive. It makes huge difference. It pushes, works, sometimes even better faster than such a great, what you call it, Golden Ears , what Buddhists call it, in earlier times. So , any way, we're in terrible level, but on the other hand , we are in good and wonderful times. And this is the period for us to make a difference by us , for us, for all living beings. The key is compassion and love. No other, great you can do practice, great you can say mantras, great you can do prostrations, great you can do circumambulations, do all that . Great! However, to make a difference for our selves and for everybody, even inside, deep inside our mind it really depends on compassion and love. Without compassion and love, even you have wisdom, what will it do? Wisdom maybe able to understand, maybe able even to cut the ignorance, ego oriented what ever the root of Samsara, even then without compassion you can never become even Bodhisattva, forget about Buddha. Shantideva used his chapter one of his Bodhicaryavatara, or " The Bodhisattvas Way of Life", totally gives us the benefit of the Bodhi Mind, and that is the benefit of compassion , that is the benefit of love. The total chapter one is totally the benefits solely, as many of you have read it. What I could remember at this moment is (Tib. phrase #00:42:48-5#) .......So , its like a golden solution that changes ordinary matter into gold. It's not, what we have today, what we call it, this gold solution, what you call that one? Gilded. It's not that , gilded. It's not. It's some kind of solution that changes whole chemical thing and changes into , supposed to be, I don't know if it whether it's early Buddhist, Hindu mythological story or what ever, that is supposed to change all matters into gold . Not just gilded , but into gold. So, the Bodhi Mind and the Love and the Compassion does that. It is that solution. Bodhi Mind and compassion, how small , how immature it might be , a tiny little one draws the attention of all Enlightened Beings. (Tib. phrase #00:44:36-7#) ......like waxing moon every body likes, not the what you call it , waning moon . So like a growing Bodhi Mind, growing compassion , it's all taken care of , helped by all Enlightened Beings. And we are at that level, we could take advantage of this. It is the only : our Mind. What blocks compassion ? Self cherishing. #00:45:33-6#

Ego boosting. Ego. They block compassion. They block love. Although we may say ' I love you ' , what do you mean by that? If you really look carefully, true love wishes happy and joy, given the good old American saying ' I love you as you are what you are ' or what ever you say ' as you are what you are ' . And that is true love. But most of the ' I love you ' business is ' I want to control you , I want all of you , I want all you , I want you to be mine and I want you do exactly what I want you to do' . Is this love? Is this compassion? No , it's not. It's certainly not. It is the control issue. This is the desire of the individual person over the object of obsession. That's not love. Any way, I don't want to talk too much. You all know that. But it is interesting to remind you occasionally . We are supposed to be admirers, if not followers, admirers of Buddha. What did Buddha do? Read the Buddhas " Jataka Stories ". Twelve events of Buddhas , what is it? ' twelve events of the principals of life(?) ' or something? Right? Or if you can read, the (inaud. #00:48:08-9#) ' Avadan? Stories'. And there how Buddha had come out. ( audience question #00:48:28-3#) ...Maha what? (inaud.)....or the different stories of Buddhas previous lives. Right. ' Jakata Stories'. And that helps us at least to see how Buddha has done , how Buddha , what is the Buddhas love , what is the Buddhas compassion is all about. That may be a little too extreme for us. Like the story of Buddha giving his life to bring the family of lions , a very famous story, but may be a little too much for us. But there are a lot of others that we can do easily by modulating our minds controlled by ego and self cherishing. Ego is the one which really makes us think this violence is a protection, not compassion. Because, that is egos way of doing. So it brings the hatred. It brings the obsession. It brings , we know just last Thursday we talked about three objects and three subjects and three resolutions. The three subjects are the three poisons. And these are the weapons of the ego. This is how ego (thrusts ? #00:50:27-1#) the people around and makes the people the wrong thing. Because ego is fear, #00:50:42-8#

ego is confusion, ego is dominating. The Big Boss within ourselves. That is our problem. You've heard the expression saying ' evil is not an external , inside you '. I forgot one of those great Tibetan Masters who'd been asked to do exorcism for some prince who'd been sick. In exorcisms they normally carry this big ( torma ? #00:51:19-6#) thing outside and burn them and all that. So the guy took the (torma ? ) outside and ran around every where and couldn't find a place to throw outside. Went out there where they made this little hair, sort of collection where he was going to burn, he went back into the house, started going up and down, up and down. Finally goes into the bedroom where the prince was really sick and goes ' Oh here is my object ' . So he throws that exorcism thing on the body of that sick prince. And because that's where he really found the ego of there. And that , if you do an exorcism you have to do the exorcism on ego. Not on human being. So this is how Three Poisons dominated and are used by ego to overpower our self. So we are confused and are seeing wrong, thinking that violence is the answer for our problems. Actually, compassion is. I don't have to tell you what the scientists are finding today. If it's true, there really is a physical measurement of compassion (inaud. word #00:52:59-6#) joy, for the first time. Scientifically. Which is a great thing. It's just simply confirming what the Buddha has told us 2600 years ago, or 2500 years ago, whatever. And then, we forget all about this in our normal every day, mind our own business level, even then compassion , love, brings happiness. Hatred makes our self miserable. Fear too. We know it our self. We don't have to learn. One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Our daily experience every day tells us. So the choice is ours. Whether you want to choose fear, or choose love. Whether you want to choose violence or non-violence. Choice is ours. We have all information available right in front of us. That's it. And if you love yourself, if you care yourself, you have to choose the right choice. And if you choose one part, you have to follow. And at least keep opportunity to develop that,give the opportunity to give us the fruit of it. You choose this today, choose that tomorow, keep on switching around, and that's not going to #00:55:25-4#

get us anywhere. I talk too much. I'd better shut up and listen to you, if you have any questions. (audience member w/ question #00:55:57-6#) GR: Idiot compassion! Ooo! Do we know what that is? You do know. Idiot compassion. I think the terminology was, I mean the language , I think the terminology , I don't know whether , who introduced, but it's used by Tumba (?) Rinpoche a lot. Idiot compassion is , I don't know....The question is very interesting. If you really see a substance addicted person and when the person is begging you for money in this spirit, the question is whether we should give or not. We almost think we should not , because every body will be happy if that person is going to buy a hot bowl of food. Every body will be happy. No doubt about it. But the idea of not giving will be block by saying ' well, he'll use that again to buy drugs or whatever '. So therefore if I feel so sad about his situation, how ever if I give what he wanted it adds to his addiction. So we almost intend, most of the time we intend not to give. If you give that it may be, what ever that's called , idiotic compassion. Maybe. On the other hand, people suffer tremendously with withdrawl symptoms. At a certain level then they have to have it no matter what ever, otherwise they die. So what a giving a couple of bucks ( laughs about how word sounds like bugs ) #00:59:07-1#

how ever might not be idiotic compassion. Because the with drawl symptoms can kill you too. So I don't know where to put idiotic compassion. This is a little extreme. But then sometimes we ignore our selves completely. And completely and totally goes out to do this and that if your health and your mind is not there your health will be limited. What you can do (soon ? #00:59:59-4#) you have limitations. And if you don't care about those and you are driven by sudden love or affection or anxiety or whatever, and ignoring self, and it is health and mental health , would we call that idiotic compassion? Perhaps it is. And there are a lot of those things. Although, in the tradition of the Buddhist point of view, tradition of old Buddhist teachings, (Tib. phrase #01:01:01-7#) ....so there's the sign of one doesn't return to Samsara, there's 16 or 17 of them, one of them is even a person willing to spare one's life for the sick for their spiritual development for the sake of compassion, for the sake of Bodhi Mind, or wisdom , is considered one of those signs too. So it is very hard to say ' this is it '. What we can do is rise to raise these possibilities and then we bring this to our mind and..... (own or om sound ? tape ends.)