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Eight Verses of Mind Training Chicago, 2009

20090711GRCH8VMT01

0:00:05.2 Thank you for the introduction, that’s very kind of you, but also I realize it’s the same old introduction going for 20 years, so it needs to be sharpened and made simple and relevant. But thank you so much for that. You were probably given that, so you had to read that.

0:00:42.3 I always have that in mind, everywhere I hear that introduction, but then I forgot to say. When I got back to the office I always forget to say, but might as well say it here so that somebody may correct it and make two or three some short sentences and then that will do. I think that’s the first thing we have to do.

Secondly, I would like to say: I am so happy to be there. The Shambala Center has been wonderful and very kind to allow us to be in this facility. Very, very kind. I think Megan mentioned a little bit that Trungpa Rinpoche and I go way back a long time. In late 1959 we were both in the pace called Buxaduar [in North-East India] in the middle of nowhere, in the foothills of the Himalayas. There is nothing. It used to be an old British prison camp where they used to put the Indian freedom fighters they caught from any part of India. They categorized them, not the big guys like Gandhi and Nehru, but I think the second and third tier leaders. They put them in Buxa.

0:02:37.5 Fifty miles from either direction there is not a single human being available – a camp in the middle of the forest. So Trungpa Rinpoche and I were there in this ex-prison. We were not prisoners, but very similar to it. The facilities were very poor and from there we both went to Delhi, because there was a British woman called Freda Behdi. Later she became Sister Palmo. We used to stay both of us in Mrs. Behdi’s house. We didn’t have a bed room, but what the Indians used to call a verandah. Here we call it a covered porch. She made a big bamboo bed, from the east wall to the west wall and we all slept on that bamboo bed. Trungpa Rinpoche, Akong Rinpoche and myself. Trungpa Rinpoche and Akong Rinpoche were permanent and I sort of came and went, because I also had one leg in Dharamsala with His Holiness. So then there was another Tibetan girl. I can see her face but don’t remember her name. (asking Ujjen and Jamyang) that’s right her name was Ge nyi Tsultrim. Then Trungpa Rinpoche left for Oxford and we remained in India, we were supposed to be the freedom fighters for Tibet – supposed to be – but not violent, but in a non-violent way.

0:05:40.0 I remained in India for a long time and then came to visit the United States first time in 1975 and then 10 years later, in 1984/85 and Trungpa Rinpoche invited me to visit him in Boulder, Colorado. I saw Pema Chodron’s picture here on the door and she was the mayor of the Shambala community at that time in Boulder. There were two mayors. So I had a nice visit with Trungpa Rinpoche and that was the last time I saw him. I talked to him on the phone a number of times after that. He even urged me to stay with him during that period, because he was establishing a group called de lek and dekyong, community and community developers. So he told me to stay and run that. I said, “No, I can’t.” He said, “Yes, you can, you used to live in Lhasa and ran all that. And that’s what I need.” But somehow I couldn’t stay. So that’s the story and then later of course, we had a very strong relationship with the Shambala community through Allen Ginsberg, who was member of both places, as well as Judith Lief, Chuck Lief and everybody else. So we were very close and so we are here for the first time in the Shambala Center in Chicago.

0:08:01.1 I am very happy and very grateful for the members of the center to open the door for us. Thank you and also I was told this is Trungpa Rinpoche’s chair I am sitting on. So it is a little embarrassing to sit on Rinpoche’s chair, however, it is very kind from the center to give me this and a great honor and I appreciate it and I pray that the wishes of Trungpa Rinpoche as well as his son Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and everybody else’s wishes be completely fulfilled and Shambala, both, Vajradhatu and Shambala, secular as well as spiritual aspects may both serve the purpose of serving manking throughout the world. We strongly pray – and that is the original desire of Trungpa Rinpoche. So hopefully it will be fulfilled.

0:09:30.4 Trungpa Rinpoche is almost like the father of Tibetan Buddhism in the United States. Although there was Buddhism here before Trungpa Rinpoche, even Tibetan Buddhism, like we had Geshe Wangyal in New Jersey with a number of people, however, Trungpa Rinpoche was the one who really popularized Tibetan Buddhism with all kinds of people. I should also mention all these Beatnik poets, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and so on, as well as many artists at that time, including Baba Ram Das, all of them have tremendously contributed. The first time they made summer camp at Boulder, they did not just say they were going to have a summer retreat like we do. Allen Ginsberg was traveling from New York to California, reading poetry at every town available in between and inviting people to the summer retreat. Ram Das, starting from Los Angeles, via San Francisco, stopped at every town, giving lectures and inviting people to Colorado. That is how their summer retreat started. Now it runs for three months and we call it Shambala Rocky Mountains Dharma Center Summer Gathering.

0:11:36.6 That is how they started. It was very great. So he was like the Father of Tibetan Buddhism in the United States. I deeply appreciate him and rejoice in his great activities.

0:12:00.3 Now here we are together today to do Langri Tangpa’s Eight verses of mind training. I don’t know how this came up but somehow I got the request from Jewel Heart Chicago. I almost said Langdarma’s – luckily you people don’t speak Tibetan. Langdharma was the naughty evil king in Tibetan history.

0:12:56.5 So here it is Langri Tangpa’s eight verses. The Chicago sangha decided to ask for that.

Oh here is Trungpa Rinpoche’s picture, great. Now open the door. Isn’t it nicer to have some light as well as air? Is it okay with you?

0:14:47.7 Lojong basically is mind training, but don’t think of Silver Mind Training and all that. Forget it. This is complete the opposite. This is training the individual to be perfect for compassion and love.

Did I see Steve and Arielle? I can’t see you very well – there you are.

People at the back, can you see me, are you okay? Down here there are a couple of seats to sit down, but if you are okay, that’s fine.

0:16:10.6 So it is training your mind to perfection. Langri Tangpa was one of the earlier Kadampa lama. Those Kadampa lamas used very few words. The Kadampa lamas refers to the period between 1100 to 1300s – about 200 years in Tibet. Sometimes they are referred to as Kadampa geshes, sometimes as Kadampa lamas. The word Kadampa stands for Ka and dam.

Every single word that Buddha spoke……

0:17:42.4 [alarm goes off, causes interruption]…….I am sorry, my fault, I should not let them have opened the door……when you went in and out there was no alarm, what happened? Are you okay? Do we have any Shambala people here? Now the doors are open. Maybe we locked the door too early…(talks to Ujjen in Tibetan) – sorry for that interruption.

0:20:47.7 I am talking about the Kadampas. Buddha’s word are referred to in Tibetan language as Ka – that means order; order from the highest position, but if you look carefully, it is not the highest position. I think you really have to say: right from the horse’s mouth. So that is Ka in Tibetan. The traditional early Buddhist culture is almost like the old king’s order. You know Buddhism came in 2,600 years ago and that was the period where the royalty was functioning and the example they refer to many times is the kings and queens. That was the society at that time. So Ka refers to the order from the highest source.

0:22:41.0 Dam means that every single word has a transmission. It has value and understanding and is meant for one individual to obtain enlightenment. There is nothing single you can leave out. That’s why together Ka dam means every word of Buddha, whether interpretable or not, has a message and purpose and they used to say that a single word, even a dot, has a message and value. And a dot does have a message and value, but more than that, everything wherever you look – and that’s why it is called Ka dam pa.

0:23:51.5 There were only a few known Kadampa lamas. Few in the sense of a couple of handfuls or a couple of hundreds at the most, over 200 years. Each one of them had a very strange way of living. They were not living like we live our lives, but were mostly living in retreats and mountain areas, maybe in caves somewhere in hilly areas and mostly they were doing practice and not associating with people. But then a number of people would go and take teachings from them and they would give very limited teachings. So every word has some sort of – I can’t say funny – but the words they would throw out are almost like haikus – few words here, few words there. So it was not really elaborate. It is poetry, but not in the sense of entertaining. It is sort of throwing a message here, throwing a message there, like dum dum dum, like little rocks put together making a little ground available. One doesn’t really touch the other very well.

0:25:49.1 is like picking up rocks put together and making a courtyard. It will be bumpy, not smooth. Many of the Kadampas were like that. Some were very, very smooth, but most of them had very bumpy language plus they threw very unrelated messages everywhere, here and there, but it is not. Let’s say you are talking about Chicago. Suddenly they would throw a few words regarding Tokyo in – in the middle of nowhere they throw you off. That’s how basically the Kadampa lamas would talk. But each one of them has tremendous value, so later every master that came in Tibet in all traditions, Sakya, Nyingma, Kagyu, Gelug, picked up the early Kadampa lamas’ words and then they wrote a couple more poems here and there, trying to make sense out of it.

0:27:17.4 It is amazing, when the Buddhist sutras were translated into English, if you read the earlier translations in English, you don’t get any…they don’t make sense – many of them. Many of them don’t make sense at all. The translators have two choices, whether they want to be true to the words or whether they want them to be poetically presentable. So as we see today, all these translations do that. There are a lot of people who choose to have better English and they translate the meaning, not the words. They don’t. So whatever they understand – the individual translators – they completely recompose the whole thing. A lot of them we see today. A lot of them.

0:28:50.5 Then there are some people who are throwing out [direct translations of] the original language and it doesn’t make any sense. It is amazing. I used to work in the University of Michigan in the South-East Asian department. There were quite a number of professors who were translating Tibetan, Japanese, Chinese or Sanskrit Buddhist literature into English. There was one professor. I think I can mention him, although he retired. He is still there. His name is Luis Gomez. Gomez was translating a very short verse into English. 10 years may already have gone and even after his retirement I don’t think it is published, not finished. I mean he was so careful. He was the head of the department when I was there. We did have a meeting maybe once or twice a month. When everybody was sitting together he would throw a word and then there were the Sanskrit experts, the Chinese experts, Japanese experts, Tibetan and everybody. He would throw one word out and until he was satisfied he won’t put it. Dots are files and files in the computer but the book itself is this thick, maybe a couple of pages. So if you do it carefully that’s what it is.

0:31:01.7 Then we have a large number of people who are writing volumes and volumes of translations today and most of them go meaning to meaning. It is the individual person’s understanding of what the message is. I did notice sometimes when we ask some of the well-known translators, if they go wrong in one single word, one page is wrong. Their understanding is somehow twisted. One friend of mine, Dagyab Rinpoche from Germany, had something to be translated into English. So he sent it to me, four pages or something in Tibetan. I thought it was very important and I can’t translate with my capacity of English, so I sent it to friends of mine, well-known translators, six of them. By the time they came back they looked like six different documents. Each one of them have their own understanding. One or two went wrong with one spelling in Tibetan and then the whole page was wrong – completely different story. So that’s what happens.

0:32:46.2 The earlier Tibetan teachers put the Kadampa lamas’ words by themselves, and then they put things together either in the practice or in explanations. That’s what they did. We are now going to go to Langri Tangpa’s eight verses. Everybody has Thubten Jinpa’s translation.

0:33:19.4 Okay, Thubten Jinpa’s is also a meaning translation. Very clearly, he even very clearly told me, “I only do the meaning, I can’t do word.” Very clearly, but his understanding is very good. So I don’t know what you have there now. Thanks. All right, so he goes in that way – in eight points. So everybody has this paper, right?

I on the other hand can’t read English, but I can read Tibetan – lucky! Or unlucky, I don’t know. So we are going to read this first and explain and I always utilize this as practice, in the meditative format. Most of the Kadampa teachings are like that. So the meditative format in practice will be very helpful.

0:36:03.9 First we need to understand what we are going to do. Basically, the whole purpose here is to improve the individual, to make the individual better.

0:36:16.5 This is very true here. We talk about love and compassion. Everybody is happy to talk about love and compassion. Who is not happy with love and compassion? There is no one, including George.W.Bush. He is very happy with love and compassion. They call it conservative compassion. It’s a policy, remember, almost 8 years ago, after 9-11, no that was his campaign slogan, even before 9-11. Conservative compassion. People do that. They love to talk about love. They love compassion. But what do they really know about compassion? What do we really know about love? That is the important question. There are a lot of people in the United States today, particularly, if I may say so, in the very conservative society, not only the liberal society. Liberals are meant to be compassionate. But in the very conservative society there are tremendously compassionate people.

0:38:11.1 There are so many who want to give back to the society, to the people, from whatever they gained. Wherever they come from, they are dedicated, there are so many. Really, it is true, they do and there are many of them, including the liberal groups. I don’t know if we are considered a liberal group or not, but generally looking, if you listen to NPR and drink wheat grass juice and try to be vegetarian, you are considered liberal. But whether liberal or conservative, compassion is not reserved to liberals at all. There is much more, very strong, powerful compassion-oriented people in conservative groups and societies.

0:40:06.7 Whether liberal or conservative, do we really know what is compassion? That’s a big question, really questionable. They mean to be, they want to be, they really want to be caring and compassionate, but they are also really limited in their understanding of compassion. It is our fault, the so-called spiritualists. We are supposed to know what it truly means to be compassionate. It is our job to inform them. Many times I have said that the scientists wearing their white coats try to make decisions over our lives, what is going to happen down the road twenty-five years from now, they keep going, they try their best and even carry spiritual books, like bibles, or the “Ethics of the New Millenium” in their usual briefcase. They try to look in there and find nothing – no answer. That is our fault. We have not been able to inform the scientists.

0:42:26.6 Likewise here, we are unable to talk to the people what compassion really means. We are unable to, it is our fault. We can’t tell, because we don’t understand. Honestly, do we really know the real meaning of compassion?

When His Holiness went to New York for the Tibet Fund I was in Europe, I couldn’t get there. But two years ago, when His Holiness had a seminar with philanthropists, we had a preparation dinner before the seminar. In that dinner Thupten Jinpa was there too, I was there and there were eight or nine philanthropists, including Rockefeller. They were all very concerned and they are great givers. They give generously and they were all very concerned about the best way they could give. That was their goal. But the best way is difficult. They went out of their way to be helpful and how to do it. Tremendous. Steven Rockefeller had eight points of giving and I asked him, “Where did you get these ideas from?” He said, “I hired Thurman” (laughter) So they really go out of the way. Each and everyone of them have a point. Should we give this much or should we not give this much? Is that going to be useful or is it going to harm them? They considered everything.

0:45:35.4 At the end, when everything was over and they asked if there were any more suggestions or ideas, I said, “What about the receiver’s point of view? We talk about the best way to give and then we make a decision for them, but what about the receivers, from their point of view?” Everybody was saying, “What do you mean?” “When you receive, that’s wonderful, but then you tell them what to do and what not to do. The whole idea we have is that we know better and we better guide them what to do with it.” Because of that many receivers don’t want to receive, they reject. They don’t want to compromise their dignity. I am talking about anyone specifically, but anybody. We see that all the time.

0:46:33.2 When I was in India earlier in the 1960s and 70s, Nehru, the Indian Prime minister, made a point that “I prefer trade over aid.” He kept on going round and talking so much. I was a stupid Tibetan, just got thrown out from the Himalayas, not knowing. So I asked, “Aid it given to you, you can put it in your pocket, but he prefers trade, why?” That struck me somehow when I was learning the language. Then naturally, aid comes with strings attached. With trade you can’t have that many strings attached. I mean trade has dignity and all that. Nehru negotiated with the United States administration and a lot of the trade went into rupees. It comes in as dollars and gets changed into rupees and you can’t change rupees back into US dollars. So then they created something else. It’s a long story, but that helped a tremendous amount of preservation of Tibetan-Sanskrit old books.

0:48:14.8 There was a huge amount of money in rupees, available for the US. Sometimes it became even more than the Indian government’s money, so the US government didn’t know what to do, because these rupees were not transferable into dollars. It could only be used in India, so what to do? So there was plenty of money available for scholars to do research and things like that. Then there was a professor from Wisconsin called Richard Robinson, a very good professor. He later died in Wisconsin when the power went off and he made a fire and got caught in that and died. Anyway, he started the idea that we could reproduce all the Tibetan books, because they were getting lost. Under that program I was able to produce 170 volumes. It has been very helpful that way.

0:49:46.7 My point is that when you want to help you have to make that the dignity of the person who receives it is intact and the help you are giving really helps and uplifts rather than “Here you are and now you do this and do that”. That probably is the idea. So then [at that preparation dinner] everybody sat down again and eating and drinking and sat another hour extra thereafter and the next day all the questions they were going to ask His Holiness, all changed into considering the receiver’s point of view. So it really became nice. So it is for us to inform those people, particularly those of us who are artists, liberals, open-minded. It is for us to give them information.

Before we give them information we need to know ourselves. You can’t do research and hire somebody and have them give you some points. That may or may not work. I am sorry, I did say something wrong. He did not say “I hired Thurman”, that may have been a mistake. But it was Thurman’s ideas. He [Rockefeller] said he asked him or something. But the perception I got was that he had hired Thurman. So I am speaking from my perception’s point rather than his words. This is recorded, so [I want to be accurate]. When they record [it matters]. When we are just talking here it’s fine, but once it is recorded then it later appears somewhere, so that’s why I better make this correction.

0:51:54.4 Anyway, so we need to know what is the compassion that Buddha is talking about. Everybody knows compassion, no doubt about it. If you don’t have compassion, I guarantee you would not be here. You are here because you have compassion. Honestly, those few people who don’t have compassion would not like to come here – for what purpose? So, it’s not. But the compassion that we understand and the compassion that Buddha is talking about, are they the same thing? Which is better, ours or the Buddha’s? If Buddha’s is better, how can we change ours. Do we have to change the action, the motivation, or what do we have to change? Where do we have to change? How do we have to change? I believe these are the goals of what we are doing here.

0:53:12.6 Apparently, compassion is my subject this year, meaning in Chicago the talks for two days are going to be on compassion, followed by our summer retreat. We don’t have Allen Ginsberg or Ram Das going round for us throughout the country to collect people for the summer retreat. It is not even a three months retreat, but a one week retreat in Michigan. Those who are interested to work with compassion, to further uplift, it, we are talking here and increase it afterwards with generosity, morality, patience, and so on. All these are tools we utilize to enhance compassion: concentration, enthusiasm, wisdom and all that. So we are going to be talking about that. In these two days I am not going to finish. In these two days we are going to talk about Langri Tangpa’s eight verses but then on the 24th through Sunday [is the summer retreat]. Saturday it finishes, but Sunday we have activities. So it is going through to Sunday. All are welcome, Chicago is not far to Michigan, it’s just a couple of hours’ drive.

0:55:20.5 Now Langri Tangpa’s eight verses: but before that, to know compassion, first you have to know compassion on yourself. This is the confusion comes. A lot of people say “compassion, I love that, it is wonderful. I like to be compassionate.” But if you watch your mind it is out-looking, it is definitely out-looking. Close your eyes, watch your mind, the moment you use the word compassion where does it lead you? You already started looking outward to Someone who is suffering out there and feeling something. That is compassion, no doubt. But I like to raise the first question: what about me?

0:56:26.6 Of course compassion will tell you: don’t look at me, me, me, it’s about they, they, they – people, people, people. You say people have the power and this and that and think about people, people, people, and don’t say me, me, me. Right? But the question you have to raise is me. Before you think about the people you have to think about yourself. If I cannot take care of myself, can I take care of others? Now I am learning with my walking stick. I like to help people to do dishes and things like that, but if my leg is going like this…..you are in people’s way rather than helping. I noticed that. I noticed it last night and this morning. I wanted to do something, but I can’t. So if you don’t know how to help yourself you can’t help others. So the first and foremost guinea pig you like to use has to be yourself rather than them. The compassion must be drawn to ourselves. Buddha’s teaching sequence, the steps you take will teach that first you take care of yourself. That really comes first. If you can’t take care of yourself you can’t take care of others. It will be very difficult. The first and foremost is me.

Traditionally, Buddha calls that renunciation. People misunderstand that all the time. I have a number of people: Alex Berzin, Thurman, Jeffry Hopkins, Glenn Mullin, each one of them have told me more than ten times, “Rimpoche you can’t use the word ‘renunciation’, because people will think they have to leave their families, shave their heads and become monks and nuns. That is not good, you are doing a disservice.” I listened to them and used words like ‘seeking freedom’ and ‘liberation’ and all kinds of things, but the true idea is this: you don’t renounce your life. You renounce your ego, your attachments, obsessions, you renounce your hatred. That is the renunciation Buddha is talking about.

1:00:20.3 The first step in order to develop compassion for others is to develop compassion for yourself. The way and how you develop compassion to yourself is by understanding the reality of your own situation. Think, “I have been tormented by my emotions such as hatred, obsession, attraction.” It is true, look in your own mind. Most of our unhappiness is from not fulfilling what we wanted. If you look at what you want it is something you are attracted to, that you have obsession for. Or it is something that you dislike, that you hate. So the hatred, obsession, jealousy, everybody has it, including last night’s newborn babies.

1:02:00.6 Honestly. Ego-grasping, you name it, everybody will have it. These are the emotions that torture us. These are the sources of suffering that we are indulging in. So what do we have to do? Run away from them. Divorce them. Let them go their way and you go your way. Separate from them, whatever you have to do – or fight. Whatever it may take, you need to renounce them, because these are the things that are torturing us. If you feel for yourself, if you have feelings for yourself, if you care for yourself, if you have compassion for yourself, this is what you need to do, because they are not good for you.

1:03:57.0 They look like they are good for you; they look like they are protecting you, but they are false informers. They give you false messages, they cheat you, lie to you. That’s what they do. So Buddha’s words on renunciation – that is renunciation. Renounce that, because you love yourself. We say, “Oh no, no no, I am not concerned about myself. Never mind about me. I care about others.” You are not telling the truth, you are not. You try to present something else. You pretend to be. So that is where you are. If you love yourself you have to care about yourself. And you do care, believe me, you do care. You may say,” Doesn’t matter for me, bla, bla, bla..” but in the deep mind it is me. In order not to look bad I say I don’t care for me. You put up something else, right? Not for me, but for something something, but deeply it is for your own self. We all love ourselves, but we don’t know how to love. Honestly, we don’t. We love [talking] about love, good, bad, healthy, unhealthy or whatever, we all love love, but do we know how to develop, how to make it? (laughs). Probably we don’t. Everybody gets into trouble (laughs). We all love love, but we don’t know what love is all about. Honestly.

1:07:00.3 This is an important point and it has to be made clear to us before we even look into Langri Tangpa’s eight points. I must tell you one thing. One time I was in Dharamsala, and I had already been in the west, so it must have been, so it must have been in the seventies or ’80 or ’81, not later than that. I was having lunch with Kyabje Ling Rinpoche. Suddenly I forgot and said, “What about love and compassion?” He looked at me and said, “What do you mean?” Then I realized we don’t ask questions that way, that was a little western influence. So then he was eating Tibetan barley powder and he had a napkin. He put the barley flour cup down and picked up his napkin and showed me: this is love. Then he turned it around and showed the other side of the napkin: this is compassion.

1:08:47.3 That’s it. I was a little embarrassed about the way I asked, but also, at the same time thinking about it. What he was telling me that it is one mind with two different aspects. The inside side of the napkin and outside side of the napkin. The aspect of compassion and the aspect of love it is one mind. The compassion aspect wishes them to be free from suffering, to remove the suffering, thinking “how can I remove their suffering?” and totally focus and concentrate on the separation of the individual from their pain. How can we pick up the pain and throw it away?

The love aspect wishes them happiness and joy.

1:10:08.8 It is one mind, focused by one person, two different aspects. First we talk about love/compassion. That’s what it is. Even at the wishing level we say: may all being be free from suffering and the cause of suffering. And there we are talking about unlimited compassion. May all beings remain in the joy that has never known suffering. That is the love aspect. So that is the love and compassion we have to understand in that way. So when you are looking at yourself, we do have love for ourselves, we do have compassion for ourselves, but we are not working with it. We are working with something else and we think that our joy is not the joy that has never known suffering. We think that our joy means plenty of success in whatever it is, making your name, fame, whatever, money. What we know is how to make money, how to make our name and fame, by defeating our challenger or competition, by projecting ourselves as better than that. We put all our efforts in that. But is it healthy way if you go in that way? There is one way that is a healthy way and another that is a dirty way.

1:13:08.1 We indulge in both. Truly speaking, is that the way to go? No. You will be happier if you bring everybody along with you and uplift everybody else. That is compassion, that is love. That is caring. But putting down your competition, trying to push yourself up is the wrong way of doing it in the long run. In the long run it will hurt you rather than help you. Unfortunately, almost all politicians in the United States seem to do that. Almost all. It is almost their universal language. Since you have that in mind, anything you say, anything you do, becomes suspicion. We label them election slogans, right? But they do the same thing, even when there are no elections (laughs). I am sure everybody is campaigning now for 2010 and 2012. That’s what’s going on. In the long run that doesn’t help you. It hurts you, because you are hurting somebody else.

1:15:18.7 By hurting somebody else, if you try to uplift yourself in between that, that’s no good. It hurts you. We can see the scandals, sex scandals, within our politicians. It is nice that the sex scandals are with politicians. For a while we had spiritual leaders’ sex scandals, which is not good (laughter). Nowadays, luckily, the politicians took over. That’s nice (laughs). You know, but sex scandals are better with politicians than with spiritual leaders. There are spiritual leaders who are supposed to be role models. I always used to say during the Clinton scandals that Clinton was not running for pope, but for president. But then you know it is exactly the same thing what’s happening now. So hurting others makes you get hurt.

1:17:02.0 Helping others makes you help yourself. Amazing, last night my host was mentioning, “His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that by helping others it is helping me.” That is beautiful and it is really true. Helping others is helping yourself. In the long run the compassionate and loving ones are very selfish! (laughs) I am joking. But it looks like it. So now at least we have a recognition of compassion and love. Then find out within yourself, by yourself, alone, don’t talk to anybody. As yourself the question: what kind of love do I have for myself? What kind of compassion do I have for myself? Don’t check with anybody else. If you want to take notes, take notes. Make sure nobody sees it – for the time being anyway. Ultimately everybody will see it anyway. And then compare how genuine it is and how much selfish interest in involved. That’s what you do and it will make a difference in your life.

1:19:13.6 I am going to stop here. It is 15 minutes early, but I am going to stop here for lunch and we meet again at 2 pm. I am sorry, I haven’t read a word of Langri Tangpa yet, but we will. Thank you and thank you so much for coming. I should have left some time for you to ask questions but I will do that in the evening.

1:20:13.9 Announcement

1:23:26.6 End of file