Archive Result

Soundfile 20120616GRJHNLCom01

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Netherlands

Topic 4 Immeasurables

Transcriber Dimitri Ehrlich

Date 8/30/21

Welcome here for the weekend. I think we began our conversations last night. And we will continue where we have begun last night.

We’ve been talking about ourselves last night. Our own situation. And we made three points.

Point number one, yes, the fear is there but do not lose hope.

And can you tell me point number two and three? I forgot. Can anybody tell me? Yes Barbra.

AUDIENCE: You have to start by yourself if you want to change the world.

Right. And third, change the world.

Right.

So I think today we are on the second point,before you change the world, change yourself otherwise we will change the world with all our problems.

In order to keep hope, in order to materialize hope, in order to improve the world situation, it is really we have to deal with ourself.

From the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, we sort of remind ourselves of the teaching by Atisha, the well-known... not only just very well known, really the light of--well--from the Tibetan point of view, of modern Buddhism. But we are talking about the 1100s.

Modern in the sense of--why do they refer to it as modern? Atisha organized Buddha’s teachings for an individual to be able to practice, created almost not newly written but sort of organized the steps that the individual is required to take in order to improve the individual self.

If you look into the Buddhist canon, or kangyur, whether it is the collected work of the Buddha or whatever it is, when you lookin there today you will find such an elaborate explanation by Buddha on a variety of subjects. Which is not streamlined.

Many times how Buddha taught if you look carefully, Buddha did not do organized teachings like what we do today. They did not have retreats. Well, they did have retreats, there is a summer retreat which is like 3 months or so, but retreat in the sense it’s not like teaching retreat but retreating the individuals for damaging the planet. Damaging the environment.

Why Buddha liked to hold his disciples for summer? bBecause in the growing season they don’t want to break the trees and twigs and flowers and greens that are growing, so if you look in the monks’ and nuns’ vows, many of them are restraining themselves from damaging the environment.

And that is what they are retreating from. So which means some people say Buddhism has nothing to do with the environment which is not true. Buddha’s one of the major purposes is taking care of the environment and insects. One of the reasons why they don’t let you walk much is to protect the insects. They even taught the disciples to use a piece of cloth to… when you’re collecting water for drink, use a piece of cloth so that you don't drink the insects and flies etc, so there is a net. Sort of a strainer. In those days they used only a piece of cloth so after drinking the water you clean out this strainer, piece of cloth, in a safe environment so that insects are saved, they are not harmed.

Buddha’s teaching if you look at it, it has a lot to do with the environment and true compassion. So does not harm any living beings. Not like us today. We eat flesh. And talks compassion. And that way, the vegetarians are great, honestly. You're not eating the flesh. Whatever you say about compassion you have more value to say than that of like me, who's been eating flesh. Honestly.

So then, talking about Buddha’s teaching, the style of Buddha’s teachings are mostly, I guess, mostly they raise questions and then Buddha talks about it, Buddha explains.

So that is why it is not streamlined. Very elaborate but really at least the Tibetan version of the canon, the kangyur, has about 110 volumes, I think. It also depends on what edition it is. The chinese version has more than the tibetan version does, much more. The mongolian version has a little less, I don't know why. And the original sanskrit pali i don;t know. So anyway, they are very elaborate, hundred volumes, but sort of focused because of the questions.

Then the Buddha’s intent, they think what he wants to give message, the great Indian masters give their own explanation on Buddha’s intended message. Which we call commentary on Buddha’s teaching. Which has about 200 volumes by different earlier Indian teachers. So which commonly known as shastra. Not as sutra but shastra.

The difference between the hinayana aspects of Buddhism and Mahayana aspects of Buddhism as well as within Mahayana, certain traditions, do not study shastra. They don’t read shastra.

The richness of Tibetan Buddhism is really contributed by these shastra aspects. As you probably noticed, the Dalai Lama talks a lot about the Nalanda tradition and the 17 maha pandits of nalanda. They are more on the shastra commentary point.

So anyway, to make it relevant to us, as both the sutra of the Buddha’s words and the shastras, the commentaries given by earlier teachers, and all of them, are meant to be for one individual to liberate.

So earlier Tibetan masters say, there is nothing to be left out by the teachings of Buddhas as well as the teachings of earlier Indian masters. There is not a single alphabet to be left out. It all meant to be for one individual to move forward on their spiritual journey.

So when Atisha first came to Tibet, Tibetans had sacrificed tremendously to get Atisha. It’s not that simply we send an invitation and Atisha came on,flying. So the earlier Tibetans have studied by sending the younger Tibetans into India to learn about this Buddhism and bring them back to home.

21 young selected kids been sent.

Most of them died. I think 19 or something died. So only 2 returned. And then there are other bunches been sent but they all couldn't do that much. Only a few lotsawas available from Tibet. When you count, there’s about a half dozen or so maybe.

So then the Tibetans thought it’s better to get an Indian teacher in Tibetan and they have studied whose suitable, from A) from what institution B) who is the individual. They did a lot more research than we thought they could.

Finally, they chose Atisha. When they tried to proceed to get Atisha to Tibet, then so much obstacles because Atisha is going to be one of the major teachers who will be holding the Buddhist teaching in later date. Because they chose a young age but in later date.

So the Indian monasteries started giving all kinds of excuses.

And they think it is impossible things, the Tibetans can never do. So they demanded to bring gold equal to the weight of the teacher’s body, completely.

Tibet, the word Tibet is actually spelled originally with P-R-E-T-A which means land of hungry ghosts. So the hungry ghosts not going to get that much gold.

And that’s why they thought it was safer that way.

But Tibetans managed.

Not easily, they even have to sacrifice the life of their king.

So, if you look back at that historical aspect, it is very moving, even today. Anyway, finally they managed to get Atisha into Tibet, the first thing the new king --who was the nephew of that earlier king who lost his life-- asked Atisha, I want you to teach the true practice that Buddha and disciples do. I want you to teach the true practice of what you and your teachers do. I don’t want black magic. I don’t want white magic. I’m not interested in flying in the air. I’m not interested in remaining under the ground or water. I want the true path that Buddha, how did he manage to gain that’s what we want.

So Atisha might have thought--I’m saying might have thought--these stupid Tibetans they’re not going to figure out anyting. It’s almost like a great learned Indian maha pandit in the midst of barbarians, so probably he must have thought these people not going to figure out anything so I better have something very simple, fit to be taught to these barbarians. Almost like the intellectual capacity of a 3 year-old in the eyes of those great Indian pandits. I’m quite sure.

So he gave a teaching and they wrote it down and it became three pages. And in that he said, unless and until you improve yourself you will never be able to improve anybody else. So the first goal is see if you can improve yourself.

So taming your own mind becomes the first task.

In the same breath, he said, do not think of your own great deeds much. Think about others’ great deeds. And respect to all.

So our task becomes appreciating, respecting other people. That’s our second goal. First goal is taming our mind. Why do we need to tame our mind? That question you should ask yourself. And when you are sitting, thinking, and we all have different thoughts, different ideas, when the situation rises, we have different feelings. Some people may have a little tolerance. But many people get angry.

So any situation that we face in our lives, every day, each one of those situations we have a reaction. So how are you reacting? The more educated you are, you become much more sophisticated for reacting to the situation, honestly.

We just want to make it simple. Our education will make it a little more complicated.

And our reaction will be a little more circling around than direct.

So but if you look, always will be the goal: protecting me. And attacking the others. Uplifting myself, Downgrading others. That will be our situation.

Some will do it very diplomatically, others will do it blindly.

The bottom line is, me to win, others to lose. That’s the bottom line. Whether you do it diplomatically or the hard way.

My loss will be minimum and their loss should be maximum.

And that’s the reason why we need to tame our mind. In order to achieve this--me not losing, you losing--we engage in all activities. Lying, cheating, stealing, violence. Despising others. Blowing our own trumpet. And all of them will do because I want to win, you should be losing.

So that is our target.

That mind is our target.

Dharma is actually, it’s not a direct translation but the bottom line is change. Change is the dharma. Not Obama’s change. You know Obama last election, “you and I will go and change our history,” blah blah blah. Never said what.

I even pointed out to some of our friends, look this guy keeps on saying “change, change, change,” he never said what he is going to change. And people started getting angry! Because they all were drunk with Obama fever at that time. So luckily they are not now. Good.

Anyway, let us get drunk with coffee.