Archive Result

Soundfile 20120615GRJHNLCom02

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Netherlands

Topic 4 Immeasurables

Transcriber Dimitri Ehrlich

Date 8/22/21

Welcome back. And once some earlier speaker told me, when you take a break and more than 50% of the people come back, it’s a sign that they’re not that bored.

So I hope you are not so bored. But anyway, the reality really is, what you are really looking for is some kind of spiritual guidance, I believe. Are you? I presume that’s what it is.

And spiritual guidance the Buddha has given us is the same old guidance anyway. Avoid negativities. Build positives as much as you can. And that is Buddhism. That’s what Buddha says.

Buddhism is not so much about worshipping Buddha. As a matter of fact, not much at all talking about worshipping. Nor does Buddhsim talk much about a belief system. Buddha encourages us to be in charge of ourselves. And you are your own protector.

How can there be other protectors? You have to protect yourself. And the way and how you protect yourself is avoiding negativities and building positive deeds.

Avoiding negativities, because we are addicted to the negativities so we will always engage whichever way we could, the negative addictions will take over. That’s why hatred is taking over. That’s why fear takes over. That’s why this jealousy takes over. And that’s why obsession takes over. That is because we are addicted.

And simply you have to recognize and remember that we are addicted to these negative emotions. I like to call it negative emotions and leave it there but some people will call it--correctly--afflictive emotions--whatever that is.

So whatever it may be we are talking about anger, hatred, jealousy and above all, ignorance.

People such as yourself are very much aware of anger, hatred and even jealousy.

And you are alert, too, you are very much alert. However you may be ignoring the ignorance a little bit. I’m sorry! Because you know ignorance is such that in the Buddhist field, there’s a different story, altogether. But the truth is, it is the confusion and fear combined together, that makes the ignorance.

Sometimes, you don’t want to know.

How many times, we say, “we don’t want to talk about it”? In other words, you mean you don’t want to deal with it. You are avoiding.

Avoiding will not become that you have avoided the subject.

In 1970s, mid 70s, I went to Texas and there were a number of oil rich guys. So I knew one. So he tried to give me some money and told me, help your Tibetans. So I told him, you better come look at the Tibetans in India. He said, I will never go to India because there is too much suffering, I don’t want to look at it.

By not looking at, neither the suffering is going to disappear nor he is going to develop immunity from suffering.

So not to talk about it, “I don’t want to talk about it,” really means you don’t want to deal with it. And if we don’t deal with it, we’re not going to be helped.

What better opportunity than this life?

What better opportunity than today will we have to deal with our problems?

There is no better time than today to deal with our problems. Just putting them aside is not going to take care of them, at all.

It is old time. We brush. We put our problems under the carpet. Put the carpet over them and sit nicely. That’s not going to work. Carpet gets rotted. The wooden floor gets collapsed. Smells will come. Sometimes worms come, too. So do not brush aside. Deal with it.

Ignorance is overcome by the light of learning.

A little bit of knowledge is necessary. I’m not asking you people to become scholars. Neither are you going to become scholars nor am I fool enough to ask you to become scholars. That’s not going to work.

However, a little bit of knowledge is necessary. A little knowledge is like a light that clears the darkness of ignorance.

A little information is wealth that cannot be taken away by thieves.

A little information will be the best friend who will not look down on you when you are low. Many of the friends will not be with you when you are going down. They will avoid talking to you. They will pretend they didn't see you. They will prefer to talk to someone else, who is a little more famous than you, a little more rich than you, a little more better looking than you. That’s what ordinary friends do. But your knowledge, your little information, will not do that.

Not so much information you need. You do need to know suffering. Because we are suffering. We all pretend we’re not suffering. We like to put a nice cream on our face. Nice make up. Right? A little more red.

But there is a crack. Between the crack you see the worry and suffering in there.

So the information you need is, yes, we are suffering. But why worry? We all are suffering? Worrying is not going to avoid suffering.

Also, the information you need to know is, this is not the end of the world.

It is changeable.

You can change.

You are your own boss.

The other bosses will bully you. But you can’t bully yourself. But some people do bully themselves, too, you know. They torutre themselves. But that is wrong.

Honestly, it is changeable. We change every day. Every minute. I myself changed a lot. I was not ugly looking like this before! Honestly I’m not sure whether I was handsome or not, but I was not so bad. Now every year, I’m going to become bigger and older and that’s what it is.

Because it is changing. I could have changed for the better, too. By eating better, doing a little more exercise, or wearing a fit jacket, whatever, making sure the color combination is right, or something I could do! Because it is impermanent. So likewise, as I could change, you also could change. Or you can choose not to change, like I chose not to change. It;s the same thing. But it’s changeable.

So the sufferings are changeable, mental, physical, emotional, financial, all are changeable. Believe me. You know like the commercials say, “I guarantee you it will change,” so I guarantee you here, it is changeable.

You know in America there’s an advertisement for Men’s Wearhouse and the guy says “I guarantee you you will like it better,” when they’re selling a suit. I don’t know whether that guarantee is true or not but here I can guarantee you.

You want to be better or worse, it’s in your hands. Believe me You want to be better, you can You want to be worse, you can. Or you do nothing, you get do nothing results True. That's totally in your hands.

Physically, improve your health. Financially, work smarter, not harder, but smarter. You know, Dutch people work really hard honestly, Those who work. They work really hard.But you have to work smarter.

And emotionally, do not engage in negative emotions. Do not entertain anger, hatred, jealousy, obsession, ignorance.

Do entertain compassion. Do entertain love.

You know compassion is one thing. Love is another thing. Love without compassion sometimes works. But compassion without love will not work.

Compassion without love is lip service. No feelings. Compassion with love has feeling.

I give you one example, I do quite often anyway. While we are sitting here, if we hear some car run over something in the street, we hear the noise of something getting run over. And we will be wondering, what’s going on? Then somebody will come in and say a dog was run over by a car. And we all say, oh poor dog, Except real animal lovers will run down, but other than that we all say “poor dog,” and it will end there.

Then somebody else will come and say that’s not a dog, that’s a human being. Then we all say “oh!!” We are a little more concerned with human beings than a dog. Then someone else will come and say “we know that person.” So oh, someone we know, so it's much more concerning than just a human being. Then someone else will come and say hey it’s your family. It’s not just I know the person,but it’s my family. So see the difference in feeling between a dog, just a human being, someone we know, our family member. The difference. It’s not compassion. It's love. Compassion without love is lip service. Believe me. It’s the love that makes a difference.

You know the Dutch cheese is good. Because it has a lot of fat. So if you take all the fat away, such a cheese nobody wants. So your compassion is good because of your love. OK?

So think about Gouda cheese without fat. Who wants it? So you don’t want compassion without love. Compassion makes it effective, helpful for people because of love.

So take love home. Leave with love. Grow your love. Entertain your love. Enjoy your love. That’s how you should enjoy your life.

I guess I have nothing more to say unless you people have questions. It’s not that I have answers. But we can talk about it.

AUDIENCE: I have a problem with my sister, from an inheritance. We have divided the goods and I got a necklace that my sister wants and now I am getting all kinds of anger from my sister and her husband. Should I give her the necklace? If so, then I am giving in again because the sister always wants what I have. What should I do?

RINPOCHE: Interesting question. You know the answer that pops in my head which is a very wrong answer, you know what I’ll do? Break it.

But that is the wrong answer.

Wrong answer because the motivation of breaking it is influenced by anger and that’s why it’s the wrong answer. Or the consequences of that is neither she has use nor you have use--breaking it. So we know that’s the wrong answer.

Should we give it to her? Have you been giving a lot to her before? Every time she wants something you give it to her? You did.

Well, then there should be something called “stop.” That stop should not be influenced by anger. That stop should be influenced by love. By love for her. Because if you keep on giving there'll be no end and she will never learn how to live her life without taking advantage of others. Changing you into a doormat. And that is not good for her. Therefore, stop being a doormat.

Nor should you cheat her. So you have to find a way. Not creating anger. Not cheating. But not submitting. And that’s not an easy solution. And it’s not that solution-less. You could do something. But if you can’t do it yourself directly, you let someone else who knows how to handle it, let them handle it. I don’t want to spell it out and say “do this and that” because I don;t know myself. But I’ve given you enough information, honestly.

AUDIENCE: You’ve talked about changing yourself and society [unclear]

RINPOCHE: If you don’t change yourself, if you try to influence society, you're influencing the society with your negative emotions. People get angry. You contribute anger. You remember? NUmber of volunteer people like Grenpece, they volunteer a lot and then they get very upset, they say, i try my best i couldn't; do anything, I've been burned out. Do you remember that word? I’ve been curbed out. So that's because you didn't change yourself. You want to drag the society the way you think, with your emotions. So if you change yourself and you influence society that would be a better influence. For example, if that gGreenpeace worker, i mean I’m just taking that example, if that Greenpeace worker tirelessly worked with compassion and love, you will never have burn out you work there because you wanted to work, because you are angry with the polluters, so you get burned out. So changing yourself will make improvement for everybody. It doesn't go against changing yourself and making society better. Actually I mentioned earlier, the enlightened society; it is coming out of that. Change yourself and that influences everybody. Everybody becomes a better person,better society , better care, better love and that will go as enlightened society. So these two are complementing each other, not contradicting.

So now, the conclusion is, what are you going to take home? You’re going to take home a couple of things out of what we said today. You need compassion. Compassion without love is useless. So take love home. And remember, you are a member of society. Human society. European society and Dutch community. You make a difference to the Dutch society, to European society, to human society because you are a human being.

And we all would like to bring peace, harmony in the world. The killing must stop. The war must stop. Violence must stop. Human beings have one ultimate precious thing: it’s life. If that goes without any value, how big a loss it is. For the individual. For the family. For the mother. And for everybody.

So we must stop the war, honestly, put every effort to stop war. Obama or no Obama, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is war must stop. Killing must stop. And help yourself.

Remember you can help yourself. Otherwise no one else can help you.

That’s it. You’re taking three things home. Thank you for being here tonight. All this rain, within rain and all that, thank you. And thank you to the members of Jewel Heart who arranged that.