Buddhism in the 21st Century Workshop

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2:11 I'll probably just do the four lines there. Report an error in the passage at 2:11 Highlight the passage at 2:11

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3:17 Thank Report an error in the passage at 3:17 Highlight the passage at 3:17

3:36 you. Thank you very much. Report an error in the passage at 3:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36

3:43 So it's lovely to be back to Tsai Chen Ling and lovely to be here at this, for me, this new location. This is my first visit to this particular location. And I must say I'm quite impressed walking in the door. Right into the gompa immediately. It seems like a lovely space. Also looking around, there's a number of faces that are new to me and some that I've known for quite a number of years. Report an error in the passage at 3:43 Highlight the passage at 3:43

4:15 So I'm very happy to see all of you. First, let's check, are you happy with where you're sitting? Is my voice reaching everywhere and you can see what you want to see and don't have to see what you don't want to see? Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:43 Do you mind if I start off asking just a few questions myself? I'm quite curious for how many people who are here this morning, is this either the first or one of the first times that you've been attending a more or less formal teaching on Buddhism? Report an error in the passage at 4:43 Highlight the passage at 4:43

5:08 One of the first times? Anyone else? Report an error in the passage at 5:08 Highlight the passage at 5:08

5:14 But you have studied in other places? Yeah. Okay. And so I assume everyone else is a veteran. Report an error in the passage at 5:14 Highlight the passage at 5:14

5:27 Okay, very good. I'm very happy because I've always found that beginner's mind, either for people who actually are beginners or people who have been studying a while but manage to maintain that kind of freshness and that openness of a beginner's mind, that's the in. Report an error in the passage at 5:27 Highlight the passage at 5:27

5:50 Kind of the most exciting mind to communicate with both with other people and in terms of my own psychology to be able to keep that fresh outlook. And as Venerable Carol mentioned, the thing that I like most during teaching sessions like this is the question and answer part. So I'm going to make some kind of statement to open it up, maybe to set the tone and then open it up for questions or discussions. Report an error in the passage at 5:50 Highlight the passage at 5:50

6:32 Now, I think there's only really two qualifications that I have for sitting up here and facing you people. One is simply longevity. Report an error in the passage at 6:32 Highlight the passage at 6:32

6:49 Somehow or other I've managed to stay alive for the last 44 years, during which I've had an opportunity to study with some of the most extraordinary beings on this planet. Report an error in the passage at 6:49 Highlight the passage at 6:49

7:04 And though my memory is failing with old age, I still have managed to retain some of that exposure. So that's my first qualification. I've just been around for a while and am still around. The other qualification I have is that I'm basically honest. And by that I simply mean that if you ask a question and I don't know the answer, which is certainly possible, I'll just admit it. Report an error in the passage at 7:04 Highlight the passage at 7:04

7:35 I have no problem saying I don't know to a question. So I won't waste your time or any of our time. With just speaking about something that I really have no familiarity with whatsoever. However, sometimes there's questions which fall in the middle. I'm not absolutely sure of the best answer. It requires a certain amount of speculation on my part. But at least the speculation is based on some of the things I've heard and studied. Report an error in the passage at 7:35 Highlight the passage at 7:35

8:10 And if that's the case, if I'm giving a kind of a speculative kind of answer, I'll let you know. I'll label that. So you know it's not coming ex cathedra, as it were, but just from this refugee from New Jersey. Report an error in the passage at 8:10 Highlight the passage at 8:10

8:28 So it's very traditional practice, as many people here know, that at the beginning of any significant activity, and certainly a situation in which there's the giving... And receiving of Dharma teachings, that's certainly a significant activity, that one spends some time cultivating as expansive and as meaningful a motivation as possible. Report an error in the passage at 8:28 Highlight the passage at 8:28

9:03 And the underlying reason for that is that the benefit that we derive from an activity doesn't reside so much in the activity itself as it does in the motivation. With which we engage in that activity. So here we're in a situation of sharing thoughts and ideas about Dharma practice and there could be a very wide range of motivations of why we could be here. Report an error in the passage at 9:03 Highlight the passage at 9:03

9:35 There could be a wide range of motivations for why I'm here. Every once in a while I like telling jokes and I appreciate it when people laugh. So I could be here for the applause. But of course, if that were the motivation, if that were the sole motivation, that of course has nothing to do with the cultivation of insight into the nature of reality or the generation of a compassionate heart. Report an error in the passage at 9:35 Highlight the passage at 9:35

10:03 So to the extent to which that motivation arises in my mind, it's necessary for me to step back from it and remind myself of what is the genuine purpose for being here. And then the same thing for you who are facing in this direction, you again could have a whole range of motivations for coming. Report an error in the passage at 10:03 Highlight the passage at 10:03

10:27 Knowing the extent to which my life has been ruled by the calendar and the clock, the motivation might be no more than, well, it's 10 o 'clock on a Saturday morning and that's a time when teachings are given, so it's 10 o 'clock, so I'm here. So the motivation is just to stay true to your timepiece. And again, that's not a very powerful motivation, but at least it's enough to have you gather. Report an error in the passage at 10:27 Highlight the passage at 10:27

10:56 So when we talk about motivation, we're talking about what it is that we find important or significant, meaningful in our life, and then aligning our efforts with that meaning. Report an error in the passage at 10:56 Highlight the passage at 10:56

11:17 With that particular motivation. So in brief, we could say that we all are looking for peace of mind, a sense of fulfillment, what we might call true happiness. Report an error in the passage at 11:17 Highlight the passage at 11:17

11:35 And the actions that we engage in in this life are aimed at furthering, in one way or another, this kind of fulfillment, this peace. True happiness. And in our life we've tried many, many different methods for achieving this meaning and fulfillment and at some point we have come at least tentatively to the conclusion that such true happiness is unavailable to us unless we cultivate our mind. Report an error in the passage at 11:35 Highlight the passage at 11:35

12:09 That simply paying attention to external circumstances isn't going to provide us With the satisfaction that we're looking for. Report an error in the passage at 12:09 Highlight the passage at 12:09

12:18 So we might be gathered here to think about the Dharma teachings with an aim to seeing what we can learn and cultivate through these teachings in order to further establish ourselves on the path to gaining this meaningful experience, this true happiness. So that certainly is a very powerful motivation, a very excellent one. But it itself can be expanded when we consider that this intention that each of us has to achieve this sense of well-being, what we can simply call true happiness, to differentiate itself, to differentiate it from momentary pleasure, for example. Report an error in the passage at 12:18 Highlight the passage at 12:18

13:11 That this aspiration is something that is not peculiar to ourselves alone. That as we look around, not only at the other beings in this room, but all of the beings with whom we share this planet, everyone is motivated to experience whatever it is he or she identifies as happiness and well-being and to avoid its opposite. Report an error in the passage at 13:11 Highlight the passage at 13:11

13:42 So it's very good to recognize our own aspiration and then to realize that it is shared in one way or another with everyone else. So it is considered within the teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism especially that the highest possible motivation for engaging in any activity, including the one that we're engaged in this morning and this afternoon, is so that we can Achieve a state of awakening or enlightenment or realization in which we can most effectively and spontaneously fulfill the wishes of others by leading them along the path to this enlightenment. Report an error in the passage at 13:42 Highlight the passage at 13:42

14:32 So there is a very commonly recited four-line prayer. Which is very, very often recited at the beginning of teachings. And very often it's recited in Tibetan or several times in English. What I'm going to do is simply recite this prayer once in English. And instead of repeating the whole prayer, I'm just going to repeat the last line of it. Report an error in the passage at 14:32 Highlight the passage at 14:32

14:59 Because the last line of this prayer is the one that embodies this compassionate motivation to be a benefit to all. The first two lines establish what's known as the taking of refuge. In other words, aligning our mind and our hearts with the influence that comes from the three jewels. In Buddhist terminology, these three jewels are the source of the teachings, the Buddha, the teachings themselves, or the Dharma, and then the community putting those teachings into practice. Report an error in the passage at 14:59 Highlight the passage at 14:59

15:38 Or the Saṅgha. So the first two lines remind us of aligning ourselves with this source of refuge, of benefit. And then the last two lines cultivate the expansive motivation known as the bodhicitta, the wish to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings. So while I recite this opening prayer slowly in English, Report an error in the passage at 15:38 Highlight the passage at 15:38

16:07 You don't have to recite along with me, but it would be very helpful if you just meditate in terms of your own experience of whatever meaning these lines have for you. Report an error in the passage at 16:07 Highlight the passage at 16:07

16:39 We go for refuge until our enlightenment to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly from Report an error in the passage at 16:39 Highlight the passage at 16:39

16:54 the virtuous merit that we create by participating in this day's activities. May we attain the state of a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 16:54 Highlight the passage at 16:54

17:13 May we attain the full awakening of Buddhahood in order to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 17:13 Highlight the passage at 17:13

17:26 May we cleanse our mind of all limitations and develop those positive qualities of loving kindness, compassion and wisdom to their fullest extent. Report an error in the passage at 17:26 Highlight the passage at 17:26

17:40 Thereby awakening to our most authentic nature in order to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 17:40 Highlight the passage at 17:40

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18:18 I'm quite comfortable with this now. As long as it's picking up. Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:31 That might just be my hunchback posture. Report an error in the passage at 18:31 Highlight the passage at 18:31

18:46 So when we were coming up with titles for this Saturday course, What we finally hit upon, I guess for want of anything better, was practicing Buddhism in the 21st century. Report an error in the passage at 18:46 Highlight the passage at 18:46

19:05 Which I guess makes more sense than saying practicing Buddhism in the 19th century. Something like that. But really the impetus behind choosing a title of something like that comes from... Report an error in the passage at 19:05 Highlight the passage at 19:05

19:27 It comes from a question which often arises. If Buddhism is something which came into existence, at least in its present form, something like 2,600 years ago, in a completely different land, in a completely different era than our own, then what is the relevance of studying it or practicing it in this modern, Western, industrial world? Report an error in the passage at 19:27 Highlight the passage at 19:27

19:57 Secular type of society in which we live or in which most of us live. There can be a feeling that, well, this is just some object of antiquarian interest, like studying something from the deep past. What is its relevance to me here now? And I think the choice of the title was just reflecting that basic question. Report an error in the passage at 19:57 Highlight the passage at 19:57

20:26 of how to find relevance in something which comes from such a long time ago in the past, which was born in a society that had many, many different suppositions than the ones that we have now. Report an error in the passage at 20:26 Highlight the passage at 20:26

20:49 And on a personal level, it was a question like this which first intrigued and to a certain extent bothered me when I was a Just a very, very new student back in 1969, 1970, when my only contact with Buddhism was through a few books that I had read, mostly in the area of Zen Buddhism. In fact, there was very, very little worthwhile information from the Tibetan Buddhist source. So I was reading books largely from the Zen perspective. Report an error in the passage at 20:49 Highlight the passage at 20:49

21:33 And there was a lot of things that I read that spoke to me quite strongly, but I wondered what the effect would be of putting these teachings, or at least the extent to which I could understand them from the books I was reading, what would be the effect of putting them into practice? And a big, a huge doubt arose in my mind because with the emphasis On the teachings, on those teachings that I was reading, on calm and peacefulness and overcoming desire, attaining the state of the desireless, I had this huge doubt, almost to the point of the fear in my mind, that if I were to put the teachings behind Those readings into serious practice, maybe I would just end up no more than a statue. Report an error in the passage at 21:33 Highlight the passage at 21:33

22:39 Because that was really my only contact, other than the words I was reading, were these images of the Buddha. And they were indeed peaceful. They were serene. They were balanced. They were completely calm. But they were also made of stone. Report an error in the passage at 22:39 Highlight the passage at 22:39

23:00 Or would. They were also inert. And I thought, well, maybe that's what it means to become without desires. And that didn't appeal to me very much. Especially because at that time I was in my young 20s, so still not much more than a teenager. You talk to a teenager about overcoming desires, they're going to switch to another channel. Report an error in the passage at 23:00 Highlight the passage at 23:00

23:33 That's not the main aim of life is to get rid of desires. Desires were the very spice of life. So I had this kind of dual attitude towards the teachings. That which I could understand and relate to struck me as very, very profound, especially all of the teachings having to do with recognizing when our attitudes are concocted from merely... Report an error in the passage at 23:33 Highlight the passage at 23:33

24:03 Thoughts and opinions and projections and being able to cut through them to gain some insight into the way things actually are. Report an error in the passage at 24:03 Highlight the passage at 24:03

24:14 So part of me was very inspired by that, but another part of me was fearful that as a result of training the mind in such teachings, something vital Of being alive might be lost, might be submerged. Report an error in the passage at 24:14 Highlight the passage at 24:14

24:41 Fortunately, in my experience, that, and I'll call it a misconception now, at the time I thought it was perhaps a very accurate conception. Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

24:55 Later I came to understand it was a misconception. Fortunately, that misconception was completely blown out of the water the first time I met Lama Yeshe. And this was, as I was mentioning to Venerable Carol on her way up here, this was around Christmas of 1970, and I had gone over to India to join a friend of mine who had been studying with a Tibetan Lama, another great Tibetan Lama named Geshe Ngawandarge. Report an error in the passage at 24:55 Highlight the passage at 24:55

25:28 And I went over specifically to join in the teachings he was receiving. Inspired by a letter my friend had written after about a year in India, he had a chance to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And he wrote me this very excited letter saying, it's all true. It's still alive. It's not just something that belongs in museums or in dusty books. It's still producing enlightened beings and they're very, very pleased. Report an error in the passage at 25:28 Highlight the passage at 25:28

26:05 To be able to share their teachings with anyone who has any interest in receiving them, especially because they feel that now with the loss of Tibet, the time has come for them to repay the kindness that they received from India many hundreds of years ago, when the teachings went from India to Tibet, and now with the loss of Tibet, the time was to give it back to India and the rest of the world. Report an error in the passage at 26:05 Highlight the passage at 26:05

26:30 And it was quite clear that at that time, the late 70s and so forth, the audience, one of the main audiences for showing interest in these teachings were not so much young Asians. Report an error in the passage at 26:30 Highlight the passage at 26:30

26:46 Their vision of Nirvāṇa was like Madison Avenue or Park Avenue. There's a material success of the West. So many young Asians were not... So vitally interested in this legacy. But the young Westerners, those who were on the hippie trail, those who were following their own journey to the East, they were among the people who were the most interested. Report an error in the passage at 26:46 Highlight the passage at 26:46

27:17 So with all of that, I was very motivated to go over and join my friend. When I arrived, because it was wintertime, the place where... My friend was receiving those teachings, was basically shut down for the winter, it was too cold. And so the first place I went to happened to be Bodhgaya. Now I think many of you here know of and some have visited Bodhgaya, but for those of you for whom that's an unfamiliar place name, Bodhgaya is the site at which Shakyamuni Buddha, the Buddha of this world age, Manifested enlightenment while sitting under the Bodhi tree or the tree of enlightenment. So it's the most sacred, most holy, most inspiring of all the places of Buddhist pilgrimage in the world. Report an error in the passage at 27:17 Highlight the passage at 27:17

28:14 And it also is a place where in the summer months is hot as hell. In fact, I remember receiving some teachings from the Tibetan Lama. Who specified that according to the traditional Dharma approach, the hottest hells were located right under Bodh Gaya. Report an error in the passage at 28:14 Highlight the passage at 28:14

28:38 At some kind of incredible depth, I remember calculating what that depth was and it was wider than the diameter of the earth. So it's a little bit hard to put the cosmology together. But Bodh Gaya is a place in the state of Bihar which is very, very hot. From late March, April on up until autumn time. But in the winter, it's very pleasant. And so in the winter, that's a time for people often to visit Bodhgaya and take advantage of that place. Report an error in the passage at 28:38 Highlight the passage at 28:38

29:12 So that's the first place I went to. And after I was there for just a couple of days, word was sent around. That a Tibetan Lama who spoke some English was going to come to the gompa at the main temple there and anyone who's interested would come along and he would give a talk and answer questions. So I thought well that's the reason I came here was to meet this tradition so I went and that was an extraordinary gathering because the gompa Report an error in the passage at 29:12 Highlight the passage at 29:12

29:53 Significantly larger than this and it was completely filled up with the most motley crew that you could imagine. You know, hippie freaks from everywhere. And I often wish that I had a panoramic photo of us at that time. It would be quite interesting. So then at one point... The Lama that we were waiting for, together with two Westerners that he was traveling with at that time, I think he had just arrived from Nepal, came into the room. Report an error in the passage at 29:53 Highlight the passage at 29:53

30:34 And it's not too much for me to say that that entrance was the most significant event in my life. Report an error in the passage at 30:34 Highlight the passage at 30:34

30:47 And it was made more significant when he actually sat down. Entered meditation and then began to give a talk. And not because his words themselves were so inspiring. In fact, the advertisement that the Lama spoke a little English was an overestimation. He spoke very little English and fairly badly. Report an error in the passage at 30:47 Highlight the passage at 30:47

31:17 But his ability to communicate the meaning behind What he was saying and the meaning behind even the silences was extraordinary. It really went from heart to heart. And even in those cases in which I couldn't understand the literal meaning of what he was saying, still something in me understood and resonated with what he was trying to communicate. Report an error in the passage at 31:17 Highlight the passage at 31:17

31:47 One story that I love telling, some people here have probably heard it a few times already, was... In the Tibetan language, there's no letters that really correspond to our F or V. So when Tibetans, unless they've studied English extensively, and of course at this time the Tibetans were only newly arrived from Tibet, when they went to pronounce a word that began with an F or a V, they would often substitute a A B or a P like that. So Vajrapani becomes Bajrapani like that. Report an error in the passage at 31:47 Highlight the passage at 31:47

32:32 So I remember sitting there kind of mesmerized by the space that this Lama, whose name I kept having to ask my friend to remind me of because I didn't know what the difference was between a Lama Yeshe and a Lama Geshe and a Geshe Yeshe. None of those words meant anything to me. So at one point when he was speaking, he kept talking about the cultivation of warm peeling, dear. Report an error in the passage at 32:32 Highlight the passage at 32:32

33:09 And my mind is thinking, warm peeling, what could that mean, a warm peeling? And by the way, what is this warm feeling that's coming up in my heart? Report an error in the passage at 33:09 Highlight the passage at 33:09

33:25 And that's the way Lama was. Even when the language didn't communicate the meaning, his energy communicated wordlessly and deeply. And that was an experience that I've had many, many, many times over the next 13 years that I was fortunate enough to know him. Report an error in the passage at 33:25 Highlight the passage at 33:25

33:48 And there was, together with this, there were two, I Report an error in the passage at 33:48 Highlight the passage at 33:48

33:56 was going to call it two realizations, but that's perhaps too grand a term, maybe two epiphanies that hit me. During that first encounter. And one was that whatever it was that this person had achieved or experienced was what we were meant to achieve. Report an error in the passage at 33:56 Highlight the passage at 33:56

34:27 That this, I couldn't define the term enlightenment. I couldn't testify whether somebody else was enlightened or not enlightened. But whatever those words indicated, this guy had it. He didn't seem to be pulled down by the gravitational force field of ordinary egocentricity or projection. That he seemed to be inhabiting and speaking from a space of awakening. Report an error in the passage at 34:27 Highlight the passage at 34:27

35:08 But that was only half of it. The other half was that he was still completely human. So that thought, that fear that I had mentioned before, that with the attainment of some form of enlightenment or awakening, one would lose the spice of one's life, lose that quality that makes life interesting, exciting and worth living, that might be lost. Report an error in the passage at 35:08 Highlight the passage at 35:08

35:37 That was, as I said, completely blown out of the water by this person who was so warm, so compassionate, so unbelievably humorous and entertaining. It seemed like he hadn't given up anything. Whatever it was that he had attained wasn't at the sacrifice of anything that was worthwhile. That he was, and again, over all the ensuing years that I was fortunate enough to know him, He was the most alive, the most humorous, most engaged, most loving, most affectionate, happiest person that I ever met. Report an error in the passage at 35:37 Highlight the passage at 35:37

36:20 So I realized, like in a second, that that fear that I had had, that somehow the cultivation of the spiritual path involved some form of, oh, I don't know, some form of emasculation, you know, cutting, cut away something vital. I realized that was a mistake. That was just based on not being exposed to Report an error in the passage at 36:20 Highlight the passage at 36:20

36:50 that possibilities that Lama Yeshe expressed. Now that same kind of feeling, to a greater or lesser extent, is something that I saw reflected in all the various teachers that I was fortunate enough to study with, up to and including most especially His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I remember once Again, it was in Bodh Gaya a number of years later. And he was in the midst of giving probably the most profound and serious of all of the Buddhist teachings, the Kalachakra Tantra. Report an error in the passage at 36:50 Highlight the passage at 36:50

37:24 And right in the middle of it, he would crack jokes. The kind of jokes you couldn't imagine someone of that caliber cracking in that kind of society, that kind of environment. And often they were just... Report an error in the passage at 37:24 Highlight the passage at 37:24

37:43 Silly, absurdist Looney Tunes kind of jokes. And there was no sense that I'm supposed to be the Dalai Lama so I have to come across a certain way. Rather, if something strikes me as funny, I'll share it. Together with, of course, extraordinary profundity and depth and laser-like communication. Report an error in the passage at 37:43 Highlight the passage at 37:43

38:09 I just remember one thing that the Dalai Lama said on that occasion. There was about 100,000 people gathered in Bodh Gaya. It was a huge gathering. Later it was even topped by later gatherings in Bodh Gaya and elsewhere. But up to the point, it was certainly the very largest such gathering. And so a speaker system was set up and announcements would be made and the Dalai Lama would... Report an error in the passage at 38:09 Highlight the passage at 38:09

38:37 Came to one of his teachings and said, you know, when I'm sitting in my room in the temple, I can overhear some of the announcements that are being made. And I'm very, very pleased because there was an announcement this morning that so-and-so has found a wallet with a hundred rupees in it. And if it's your wallet, if you lost it, come to the main table and you'll be happy to give it back. And so the Dalai Lama said, oh, that pleased me so much, you know, that there was this kind of honesty where. Report an error in the passage at 38:37 Highlight the passage at 38:37

39:05 People could lose what would be considered a vast amount of money, and then people would be honest enough to return it to them. He said, that pleased me very much. And then he paused and he said, and then I thought, well, maybe there's going to be a message coming on that a Tibetan named Tashi has lost his nose, and if you find it, please return it to the main desk. Report an error in the passage at 39:05 Highlight the passage at 39:05

39:33 And I'm thinking, where did that come from? Is that from some kind of Warner Brothers cartoon the Dalai Lama is watching in his spare time? But again, no front, no face, no I should be this way or I should be that way. It was just direct, spontaneous, warm, humorous, but incredibly insightful communication. Report an error in the passage at 39:33 Highlight the passage at 39:33

40:06 So those kinds of experiences and others similar to that. Kind of convinced me that whatever Buddhism was, it was not something relegated to the distant past or something that was only fit for people of Asian mentality or more specifically Tibetan mentality, since the vast majority of my teachers were from the Tibetan tradition. Report an error in the passage at 40:06 Highlight the passage at 40:06

40:39 But something that had to do with basic human nature, which Despite all exterior changes, you know, material progress and the like, has remained certainly constant. Report an error in the passage at 40:39 Highlight the passage at 40:39

40:55 As the Dalai Lama himself often points out, it's as if we're all members of one family. We're all basically looking for the same thing, though we may define it differently. We're all of us wishing to overcome the same kind of things. Suffering, disappointment, frustration and the like. Report an error in the passage at 40:55 Highlight the passage at 40:55

41:20 And the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, the teachings that lead on the path to spiritual awakening are aimed primarily or consist, I should say, consist primarily not of a system of beliefs to be accepted but of an in-depth analysis and understanding of the nature of our own mind that Report an error in the passage at 41:20 Highlight the passage at 41:20

41:50 fundamentally Our mind is the creator of our experience. And as it says in the opening lines of the Dharmapada, a very extraordinary and widely translated collection of the Buddhist teachings, if we speak and act with an impure mind, in other words, a mind governed by the so-called afflictions or delusions of hatred and jealousy, Report an error in the passage at 41:50 Highlight the passage at 41:50

42:21 Arrogance, greed and ignorance. If we speak or act with an impure mind governed by those factors, then we create for ourselves experiences of unhappiness, exactly the kind of thing that we all wish to avoid. On the other hand, if our actions of what we do and what we say are motivated... By mind having pure qualities or beneficial qualities, such as loving kindness, compassion, forbearance, insight and the like, then happiness, well-being, peace of mind, fulfillment are the natural outcomes. Report an error in the passage at 42:21 Highlight the passage at 42:21

43:07 So it's not as if we are rewarded for our good thoughts by good things happening to us. We're punished for our bad thoughts by having painful things happen to us. It's not like a reward or punishment situation coming from the outside as if we're relying on some external force in the universe to either say we've done good or warn us that we've done bad through rewards or punishment. Report an error in the passage at 43:07 Highlight the passage at 43:07

43:39 But it's the natural evolution of things and that we can see it. In the natural evolution of our mind, the more we cultivate beneficial attitudes and systematically replace the negative attitudes with those which are at least neutral and at best positive, then the more we see that we begin to shape for the better the experience of our lives. Report an error in the passage at 43:39 Highlight the passage at 43:39

44:09 On the other hand If the force of the afflictions or the delusions is such that we become, in a sense, addicted to them, that we feel that is my nature, I just am that kind of greedy, angry, out-of-control person, so I might as well just go for it. Report an error in the passage at 44:09 Highlight the passage at 44:09

44:33 The more we engage in behavior that springs from that kind of motivation, the more we trap ourselves, the more we imprison ourselves more and more narrowly in a situation characterized by frustration, disappointment, pain and suffering. Report an error in the passage at 44:33 Highlight the passage at 44:33

44:54 So in this respect, the teachings are open for investigation. In the laboratory of our own mind. It's not as if we have to rely 100 % on someone else's testimony, whether it be the testimony of our teacher or of the Buddha himself or anyone else, for discovering the truth of the teachings. It's in our own honest, persistent application of the teachings we can discover. Report an error in the passage at 44:54 Highlight the passage at 44:54

45:31 Whether it brings about the results that we're looking for or not. And as Buddha himself said, and as His Holiness the Dalai Lama very often repeats, we're under no obligation whatsoever to take the Dharma teachings as being true, simply out of respect for the teacher who's giving them. Report an error in the passage at 45:31 Highlight the passage at 45:31

45:53 But rather, that we should adopt, as Lama Yeshe said on many occasions, a skeptical attitude. Not a cynical attitude. A cynical attitude is, I'm not going to believe whatever you say. But a skeptical attitude, meaning I'm going to test it out. I'm going to use my intelligence, compare the teachings with my experience, with the experience of others, see to see if it's logically consistent or not. Report an error in the passage at 45:53 Highlight the passage at 45:53

46:20 And also, most especially, notice as an experiment, if I train my mind this way, do I achieve? The results that I'm looking for. And as has often been repeated, if we find the teachings compatible to our aptitudes and proclivities and our needs, then the only obligation is to put them into practice as best we can. Report an error in the passage at 46:20 Highlight the passage at 46:20

46:53 And if they don't, if we don't find the teachings resonate with something in us, then just leave it aside. We're under no obligation to take the teachings as being true or not, or being applicable for us or not. Perhaps there is another set of teachings, another approach, maybe from one of the other great spiritual traditions or from some other source, which resonates more deeply. Report an error in the passage at 46:53 Highlight the passage at 46:53

47:24 The point is that the teachings aren't meant to be just some kind of Absolute statement of right and wrong, of correct and incorrect, but a method for us to find what it is in our heart of hearts that we're looking for. So if we find a set of teachings, even if the world honors them, but doesn't speak to us, then for us, those are not the best teachings. Report an error in the passage at 47:24 Highlight the passage at 47:24

47:57 Perhaps something else is. But if we do find That they teach to us, that they speak to us in this way, that they make sense for us, to us, that the more we examine them, the more the doubts we may have about them evaporate, and the more their profundity exposes themselves, and especially the more we see a transformative effect in our life over a period of, Report an error in the passage at 47:57 Highlight the passage at 47:57

48:28 you know, not just a few hours or a few days, but... You know, weeks or months of practice. Then we can have confidence that this approach is meaningful for us. Report an error in the passage at 48:28 Highlight the passage at 48:28

48:41 And I must say that right from the very beginning, this was one of the most attractive aspects of the Buddha Dharma for me. Report an error in the passage at 48:41 Highlight the passage at 48:41

48:57 I didn't have a background in traditional religion. I was brought up in a non-observant. So I didn't go to church or temple or anything like that. So my only exposure to traditional religion was things I would see on certain television channels. Report an error in the passage at 48:57 Highlight the passage at 48:57

49:19 When I went to Berkeley, there was a guy on the street corner who was banging the Bible. That was my exposure to traditional religion. It wasn't the best exposure. Report an error in the passage at 49:19 Highlight the passage at 49:19

49:30 The overriding impression that I had from whatever limited exposure I had was that the religious approach was an approach of blind belief, of unquestioning acceptance. And if you were among the people who did accept them, you were saved. But if you were among the unfortunate many who rejected them, well, I'm sorry, but that's nothing short of eternal damnation in waiting for us. Report an error in the passage at 49:30 Highlight the passage at 49:30

50:00 And that's, no, I am not saying that as a description of all other spiritual paths. It is definitely not a description. I'm just mentioning what I was exposed to, right? It was a limited exposure. And that attitude very, very deeply turned me off and made me want to have nothing to do with what I considered religion. Report an error in the passage at 50:00 Highlight the passage at 50:00

50:27 It's a little bit like that line of John Lennon's in the Song, Imagine, where he says, he talks about not being any countries and so forth, and then he has, and no religion too. And I'm, even though I'm not privy to what was on John Lennon's mind, I can't help but think by that he didn't mean that there was no value in his spiritual path. Report an error in the passage at 50:27 Highlight the passage at 50:27

50:56 I think he meant there was no value in holding on to anything like a separate My religion as opposed to your religion and using it as something else to divide one group of humans from another. I think that's what he meant by that. I'm sure he didn't mean that qualities, spiritually evolved qualities, couldn't be conveyed and would be worthwhile. Report an error in the passage at 50:56 Highlight the passage at 50:56

51:23 But all I saw in my limited experience as religion had to do with exactly... What I believe John Lennon was singing against, this sectarian approach in which to be a member of a particular religion was really being not much different than being a member of a particular political party or a booster or a fan of a particular football club or baseball club. Report an error in the passage at 51:23 Highlight the passage at 51:23

51:56 know, that people People identify themselves as I'm this or I'm that. And I had no desire to join a religion simply as a way of signing up so that I can identify myself as, OK, now I belong to the Buddhist club as opposed to the Christian club or the Jewish club or the Islamic club or the Hindu club or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 51:56 Highlight the passage at 51:56

52:25 In other words, just another concrete identity. To anchor us within our petty ego identity. It seemed to me that was the very opposite of what a spiritual path should be. So I was very, very pleased to see, at least amongst the teachers that I was exposed with, and I'm sure there are Buddhist traditions which are as sectarian as any other tradition in the world because of human weakness, but at least among the teachers I was fortunate enough to be exposed to the, the. Report an error in the passage at 52:25 Highlight the passage at 52:25

53:04 The stated aim and the repeated goal was to break free from all such conditioning, all such narrow identity. In fact, the highest truth is translated in many different ways, but one way that it was translated was as identity lessness. Not an easy word to say quickly. Identitylessness. To be without an identity. But not meaning the same as being lost. Report an error in the passage at 53:04 Highlight the passage at 53:04

53:42 We're not talking about a psychotic break where you don't know who you are. But it's that you've let go of that grasping mind, which is holding on to this narrow sense of me and identifying it with this and that. Report an error in the passage at 53:42 Highlight the passage at 53:42

53:59 I'm a member of this country. I'm a member of this religion. I'm a member of this... Fan club, a member of this political party, whatever it might be, just as a way of providing a support for a very narrow and limited conception of self. Instead, it seemed to me one of the great geniuses, genius aspect of the Buddhist teachings, was that the highest truth was the relinquishing of all such narrow, petty self-identification. Report an error in the passage at 53:59 Highlight the passage at 53:59

54:33 And achieve something much more universal, something that could resonate with all beings. So maybe I've said enough, or in all likelihood more than enough, just to set the tone. Report an error in the passage at 54:33 Highlight the passage at 54:33

54:58 But for me, this is a way of approaching this idea of what is the relevance. of the Buddhist teachings for let's say the 21st century because it's not a matter of leaving one's own tradition and adopting another one, you know, giving up one identity and taking out another identity. It's finding a method of cutting through one of the main sources of personal, national and international conflict in this world. Report an error in the passage at 54:58 Highlight the passage at 54:58

55:35 And that is the us-them mentality, which seems to pervade so many aspects of our life. We see it very, very striking in international politics, where you see there's many parts of the world in which there are conflicts which have been going on not just for years, but generations, centuries, and in some cases millennia, and they don't ever seem to be getting better. Report an error in the passage at 55:35 Highlight the passage at 55:35

56:03 Because people are locked into the idea that I belong to the us group and everyone else belongs to the them group. And between us and them, there is a dividing wall which will never be breached because we're right and they're wrong. And when we look around the world today, we find expressions of that basic, what the Buddhists would call self-grasping ignorance, we find it everywhere. Report an error in the passage at 56:03 Highlight the passage at 56:03

56:33 So that's on the larger arena, the arena of international politics. But we find the same thing in one's own neighborhood, in one's own family, in our relationship with the people who are near and dear to us, that very often we set up this dividing wall of me and them. Report an error in the passage at 56:33 Highlight the passage at 56:33

57:01 And if people happen to agree or please us, then they'll become. Part of the us group. But if they displease us, they get exiled to the them group. And so much of interpersonal relationships, commerce Report an error in the passage at 57:01 Highlight the passage at 57:01

57:25 between people, nations and the like, are poisoned by this belief in solid, concrete identities. I am this, we are this, you are that. And since Buddhism has very, very profound ways for delving into and deconstructing this structure, this false hierarchical structure, and coming to an experiential understanding of that which unites us, then I think the Buddhist teachings are extremely relevant. Report an error in the passage at 57:25 Highlight the passage at 57:25

58:14 The more there's conflict in this century, the more the Buddhist teachings become relevant. And I don't mean it by saying, by this I don't mean to say that what's necessary is for people to give up their own religion and become Buddhist. It's those insights which are available to everyone through the Buddhist teachings of the ways in which to investigate and see the false foundation of all these conflict. Report an error in the passage at 58:14 Highlight the passage at 58:14

58:43 Producing attitudes which can be then applied by anyone. They need not be Buddhist at all. They need not have, they need not be religious. They need not be even specifically spiritual. They just have to wish for happiness for themselves and others and for them these methods are completely available. Report an error in the passage at 58:43 Highlight the passage at 58:43

59:07 So that's my, that's my soapbox speech. For why I think there is, if anything, the Buddhist teachings are more relevant now, even than in the past. And so I was wondering, well, first we've been sitting for about an hour or so, so if your seated position has started to become a little bit uncomfortable and you feel the need to stand or stretch or get a drink, We'll take a very brief break, not a long one, just enough to refresh ourselves, and then we'll come back for the concluding hour of this morning, and then we can have the lunch break, and then we'll have the afternoon session. Report an error in the passage at 59:07 Highlight the passage at 59:07

59:57 And then when we come back from this brief break, any points that you'd like to delve into more deeply or any questions you may have, I'd be happy to address them to the best of my ability. Okay, thank you. Report an error in the passage at 59:57 Highlight the passage at 59:57

· · · silence, 9 minutes

1:09:14 Okay, so here we are back after that brief break. And so I'd like to open it up to anyone who has either thoughts to share or questions to ask or discussions to initiate. And we'll see where we go from there. Yes. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:14 Highlight the passage at 1:09:14

1:09:42 That he called totality the experience of totality. What was your sense of what he meant by that? Okay. Most of you heard it, but I'm going to repeat it anyway, at least for my own sake. Lama Yeshe used to use the word totality. And what did I feel personally was his meaning behind that? Report an error in the passage at 1:09:42 Highlight the passage at 1:09:42

1:10:10 What was he intending by that? And of course, my ability to say what Lama Yeshe meant by what he said is kind of equivalent to A frog's ability to tell you the width of the Atlantic Ocean. But I can at least give an impression. He did use that term, for example, in one of the books that I edited and compiled of his teachings on the introduction to Tantra. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:10 Highlight the passage at 1:10:10

1:10:46 I think the initial subtitle of that book was A Vision of Totality. I think so. I seem to recall that. So that's very likely where one of the examples of him using that word. I think when Lama used a word like totality, I think the impetus from it or the meaning of it comes from what it's not. So what's the opposite of totality is partiality. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:46 Highlight the passage at 1:10:46

1:11:24 know, this Tendency we have of dividing reality into bite-sized bits and then identifying some of them as good, others as bad, some as mine, some as not mine, like that. It's like a fragmented view of ourselves, our own psychology, a fragmented view of the world we live in, the society that we dwell in. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:24 Highlight the passage at 1:11:24

1:11:51 This fragmented, alienated view is the opposite. A view of totality, a view which can see the interrelationship, or to use a more maybe Buddhist technical term, the dependent arising of phenomena, that things don't exist in their own cocoons, separate from everything else, but have a deep fundamental interrelationship with all other Aspects of phenomena. I remember on some occasions when Lama would teach, he would hold up a flower because there was almost always flowers in front of him, so he used flowers as examples a lot of times. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:51 Highlight the passage at 1:11:51

1:12:41 And I remember sometimes he would hold up the flower and he would say, in this flower is the sun. And then he would... Explain or demonstrate by his very being what he meant by that. Is that you might think, well, the sun is 93 million miles in that direction and the flower is right in front of me here in this direction. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:41 Highlight the passage at 1:12:41

1:13:07 How could I say the sun is in the flower? But when you see the whole evolution of the flower, how it came into being, why it's alive, why it's vibrant, the whole life cycle of the flower, you see that the sun's energy is... Directly part of that. It's not anything separate. And so the vision of totality is a vision of interrelationship, of dependence, of breaking through the rigid barriers of separation between self and others, between this and that. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:07 Highlight the passage at 1:13:07

1:13:47 And so I think that was a Lama's non-traditional Way of translating what is often translated as the lack of inherent existence. From the Buddhist point of view, there are a number of fundamental misconceptions which are responsible for suffering. In fact, the Buddha specified three in particular. And of these, the most profound Is the misconception which tends to view things as existing in and of their own right, from their own side, inherently existent, as if they had no connection with other phenomena, with the viewing consciousness which perceives that object, but as if they were in, as I said before, their own cocoons, their own separate cocoons. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:47 Highlight the passage at 1:13:47

1:14:51 And all problems in the world, from the point of view of the Buddha Dharma, come from holding on to such a fragmented view of reality. Because from that fragmented view, we develop that dualistic mind, that self versus other conflict, which automatically gives rise when we're frustrated to anger and hatred. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:51 Highlight the passage at 1:14:51

1:15:21 And when we're pleased, it automatically gives rise to greed and attachment. And all the other afflictions, such as arrogance and the like, all derive from that basic flaw, that unquestioned belief in inherent existence, separate existence, cocoon-like existence, fragmented existence. And so totality... Report an error in the passage at 1:15:21 Highlight the passage at 1:15:21

1:15:50 Was a way of like pulling the rug out from under that mistaken view. Because it not only gives rise to those afflictions of arrogance, hatred, jealousy, desirous attachment, greed and so forth, but which themselves are aspects of suffering, deep psychological suffering. But more than that, those very same afflictive emotions Report an error in the passage at 1:15:50 Highlight the passage at 1:15:50

1:16:19 Motivate behavior, behavior which is harmful, which then creates suffering in its wake. So I feel, when I hear a word like totality, that this is the direction that his thought was going. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:19 Highlight the passage at 1:16:19

1:16:37 Do you have a similar feeling or another approach to understanding his use of that term? As Report an error in the passage at 1:16:37 Highlight the passage at 1:16:37

1:16:53 Buddhism moves into the West, some of the terms in Buddhism may... It may not play out. I'll give you an example. The key really in Buddhism is emptiness, but it's a word that people don't like here in the West. Exactly. And a lot of aspects of what Lama Yeshe called totality is, you know, the lack of inherent existence is bound up in that word totality. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:53 Highlight the passage at 1:16:53

1:17:30 And totality is something that... He plays very well in the West. I was interested in your view. I think what you say is true and I think one of the things I discovered and admired very much about Lama was that he had no fear about words. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:30 Highlight the passage at 1:17:30

1:17:54 Like in the beginning his English was horrible, but he had no fear about using them. And later, often looking back at his early teachings, he was actually using words very specifically. It sounded like it was bad English, maybe because the grammar connections weren't always so clear. But the words that he was saying actually was really pinpointing very profound reality on many occasions. So I think he also was very sensitive to the tendency of many of his students to take... Report an error in the passage at 1:17:54 Highlight the passage at 1:17:54

1:18:27 Terms that were couched in the negative as oppressive in one way or another. And so couching them in the positive was a way of kind of lifting up their minds. So if lack of inherent existence or emptiness was kind of depressive in some way, then he might use a word like totality to indicate... The same thing, but from a positive point of view. Now, having said that, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with this very extraordinary Lama who lives in London, who visits the states occasionally, Geshe Tashe. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:27 Highlight the passage at 1:18:27

1:19:15 Maybe some of you have studied his foundation program, his excellent program that he has out of the Jamyang Center in London. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:15 Highlight the passage at 1:19:15

1:19:29 And if you're not familiar with the books that make up that series or the teachings that make it up, I very highly recommend them. But he was, at one point, he was discussing the Heart Sūtra. And I think most of you, if you've not studied the Heart Sūtra, you've probably at least heard it mentioned. This is one of the shortest, pithiest versions of what's known as the perfection of wisdom teachings. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:29 Highlight the passage at 1:19:29

1:20:00 Buddha, the Prajnaparamita teachings. And in it there's lines such as, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And you have lines like, there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. It's a whole series of negations. And if misunderstood, it can sound like nihilism. Nothing exists. But it most emphatically does not mean nothing exists. So then the question comes, well, if it doesn't mean that nothing exists, then why does it keep saying there's no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind? Report an error in the passage at 1:20:00 Highlight the passage at 1:20:00

1:20:45 And then there's a list of everything else, all the Buddhist teachings. You know, the Four Noble Truths? Oh, there's no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation and no path. Everything, everything seems to be denied. So what's with it? You know, is Buddha fooling with us at this point? Is he just trying to twist our minds into a knot, right? Or is he saying that this whole world of ours is an illusion, just nothing but a figment of our imagination, and when we wake up, we'll really see that there is no nose, no eye, no ear, no tongue, no body, no mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:45 Highlight the passage at 1:20:45

1:21:23 What is he trying to say? Well, before I give my own answer, which Isn't coming just from myself, but from an attempt to understand the teachings I've received. How would you understand that apparent contradiction of the string of negatives? What is the intention of having statements that say there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no this, no that, no the other thing? Report an error in the passage at 1:21:23 Highlight the passage at 1:21:23

1:21:58 Why would that be considered so profound? Report an error in the passage at 1:21:58 Highlight the passage at 1:21:58

1:22:05 Or is it completely confusing? You've read it too and you have no idea what it means. In which case there's a lot of good commentaries out. Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:05 Highlight the passage at 1:22:05

1:22:22 My guess would be that it's an attempt to show us that all of these things are conceptual constructions of our mind. That there is no sort of inherent quality to any of those things. At the end of the day, it all depends on our mind. That's a very, very good answer. It still needs some commentary. It still needs some shaping. Because it could be interpreted that actually nothing exists, but our mind just created it. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22:22

1:23:05 So, in fact, we don't really have a nose here. My mind just believes I have a nose here. That would be quite an extreme view. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:05 Highlight the passage at 1:23:05

1:23:17 I'll sample a few more and then I'll add my two cents. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:17 Highlight the passage at 1:23:17

1:23:27 Take the sort of middle way approach of not affirming and not negating to sort of prevent us from fixating on a certain definition or conceptual idea. So it's sort of almost paradoxical in some ways. That's also a very good approach to this question. That Buddhist teaching is often referred to as the middle way, the middle way between existence and non-existence, for example. So it could be a way of getting to that. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:27 Highlight the passage at 1:23:27

1:24:04 But again, there's a little bit more commentary to shape it. But I think there was a comment way in the back there. I thought I saw. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:04 Highlight the passage at 1:24:04

1:24:17 I was wondering if it meant kind of that all of it's true and all of it's not true at the same time, that on the outer edges of reality, The edge of reality, this is true that there is nothing, that there's emptiness, but in the world we live in there at the same time, there is the existence of these things. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:17 Highlight the passage at 1:24:17

1:24:35 So we have to deal with both of these, the reality of everything at the same time. That's also a helpful starting point to explore this issue. And in fact, if you're really interested in following that further. Then there is a whole set of teachings known as the two truths in which an explanation is given of the ultimate truth of emptiness and the conventional truth of ordinary appearances. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:35 Highlight the passage at 1:24:35

1:25:10 And so that exploration would go along in the direction of what you're suggesting. Anything else that you'd like to offer? Report an error in the passage at 1:25:10 Highlight the passage at 1:25:10

1:25:25 So all of these answers that have been given so far are really getting, I think, in my own humble opinion, is really starting to approach this question. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:25 Highlight the passage at 1:25:25

1:26:03 So to start my little spiel on it, again I'm thinking of something that I've heard Lama Yeshe say in the past, and that is on a couple of occasions he said, Whenever we hold on to a fixed idea of anything, we're hallucinating. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:03 Highlight the passage at 1:26:03

1:26:25 So now what is a hallucination in this case? Report an error in the passage at 1:26:25 Highlight the passage at 1:26:25

1:26:33 When we see a pile of what turns out to be a pile of rocks in the distance, it may look like it's a person, because it might be kind of in the shape of a person. And if we can't see it clearly, we might think, oh, there's a person over there. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:33 Highlight the passage at 1:26:33

1:26:52 But as we get closer, investigate closer, we see it's not a person. It's just a pile of rocks in the shape of a person. So before we did the investigation and got closer, we actually thought there was a person there. And in fact, if it's late at night and we're on a scary road and we're a little bit lost, that person might appear very threatening. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:52 Highlight the passage at 1:26:52

1:27:16 We could actually be frightened of him, right? Even though there's no him there. I mean, first of all, before I continue, That experience, is that relatable? Report an error in the passage at 1:27:16 Highlight the passage at 1:27:16

1:27:30 We really have to, for analogies like this to work, we have to relate it to something that we've experienced. When I was young, I had this completely irrational but very strong fear of moths, which is surprising because moths can't do anything to you. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:30 Highlight the passage at 1:27:30

1:27:55 But nevertheless, I did. And there were some occasions when There would be this little fluttering in the corner of my eye, and I'd react with incredible fear. And it was just something like a piece of paper being blown in the wind. But because I didn't see it clearly, I thought it was a moth, the dreaded moth, the man-eating moth. And I'd react with fear. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:55 Highlight the passage at 1:27:55

1:28:21 But as soon as I saw that it actually wasn't a moth, then after a while the fear would subside, because I saw it was based on a... Misconception. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:21 Highlight the passage at 1:28:21

1:28:35 So seeing a fluttering piece of paper as a moth is a hallucination. There is no moth there. But that doesn't mean that there is no such things as moths. It's not saying that. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:35 Highlight the passage at 1:28:35

1:28:56 And it's not saying that there was nothing there. Because in this case, there was a fluttering piece of paper. But it was misunderstood. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:56 Highlight the passage at 1:28:56

1:29:07 It was misconceived. It was one thing being seen as something else. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:07 Highlight the passage at 1:29:07

1:29:17 So this is not in the point of view of an example, but as an analogy. So in the same way that we can see what is in fact one thing and mistake it as being something else, in a similar fashion, We can see all the things that make up our reality, and that includes such things as our sense organs, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, all the various elements of our existence, all the teachings of the Buddha, such as the truth of suffering, cause, cessation and path, the 12 links of dependent arising, all of these phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:17 Highlight the passage at 1:29:17

1:30:06 All the phenomena of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, we can see them mistakenly. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:06 Highlight the passage at 1:30:06

1:30:17 Just as we mistake the paper for a moth, or the traditional example that's always given is the coiled rope seemed to be a snake. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:17 Highlight the passage at 1:30:17

1:30:30 I was much more frightened of moths than I was of snakes. So for me it was a better example. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:30 Highlight the passage at 1:30:30

1:30:39 In all of those examples, something is being perceived, or better, being misperceived or misconceived. We're coming into contact with something, but we're hallucinating about it. Now, in the analogy, one existent phenomena is being mistaken for another existent phenomena. A pile of rocks is being mistaken for a threatening A person on a dark road, a fluttering piece of paper is being mistaken for a moth, a coiled rope is being mistaken for a snake. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:39 Highlight the passage at 1:30:39

1:31:20 In all of those cases, each member of those pair is an existent phenomenon. There are such things as papers and moths and ropes and snakes and rocks and threatening people. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:20 Highlight the passage at 1:31:20

1:31:35 But when we take that analogy and apply it in the Buddhist teachings, And this is the reason why it's an analogy and not an example. The mis-, the mistake is not mistaking one existent phenomena, one, you know, one conventional truth for another one, you know. Oh, I thought it was a person, but it was actually rocks. That's not the mistake. The mistake is relating to the phenomena of our experience in an incorrect manner. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:35 Highlight the passage at 1:31:35

1:32:15 And it has to do with the manner of their existence. Not so much what they are, but how they appear to exist. This starts getting a little bit challenging here. But let's go back to what we started to talk about earlier, that the mistaken view sees things as, I use the expression, cocoon-like, meaning they exist in their own Dimension and they seem to be unrelated to other phenomena around them. Technically speaking, they seem to be inherently existing, existing from their own side. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:15 Highlight the passage at 1:32:15

1:33:00 Whereas according to the Buddhist teachings, everything that exists does so in relationship to other phenomena and also in relationship to the consciousness that views it. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:00 Highlight the passage at 1:33:00

1:33:17 And that second, that second connection starts making very, very powerful Connections with quantum mechanics and there have been a number of very interesting explorations of that and even as holy as the Dalai Lama has made some references to that. I'm not saying that they're saying exactly the same thing but if you know a little bit about quantum mechanics you realize that the objects that make up our phenomenal universe are seen. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:17 Highlight the passage at 1:33:17

1:33:52 From the point of view of quantum physics as not to be objects at all, but to be appearances to the mind. Just a scientist would say, that's a silly way of saying it. But that's kind of a Buddhist way of saying it. But anyway, that's an asterisk. That's a parenthetical remark. But the point is that what these teachings are not saying, like for instance, when it says, There's no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. So let's take the first of it. There is no eye. And that's the E-Y-E-I, not the capital I. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:52 Highlight the passage at 1:33:52

1:34:35 That's another whole discussion. So what the teachings are not saying at that point, and I feel pretty confident about that, it's not saying there is no eye. Where you see an eye, there's actually something else. It's something which looks a lot more like a nose. All right. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:35 Highlight the passage at 1:34:35

1:34:56 It's not saying that. It's not saying that when you perceive one phenomenon, such as an eye, you're mistaken, because it's not that phenomenon, it's another phenomenon. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:56 Highlight the passage at 1:34:56

1:35:07 Like when you see a pile of rocks, when you see a man in the distance, it's not a man, it's a pile of rocks. Or when you see a snake, it's actually not a snake, it's a rope. Or when you see a moth, it's not actually a moth, it's a fluttering piece of paper. It's not saying that. It's saying when you see an object, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, all the other phenomena that make up our reality, the mistake is not that they're not what they appear to be. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:07 Highlight the passage at 1:35:07

1:35:46 That instead of being an eye, it's something else. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:46 Highlight the passage at 1:35:46

1:35:53 It's how they impress themselves on one's mind is mistaken. Because they seem to, Be existing in and of themselves as something out there. Lama often used to like to use the term concrete. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:53 Highlight the passage at 1:35:53

1:36:14 It looks a certain way. It appears to be a certain way. It seems to exist in and of its own right, a bearer of its own characteristics, as sometimes it's expressed that way in the traditional teachings. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:14 Highlight the passage at 1:36:14

1:36:31 But when you look for something that corresponds to such a self-contained, concrete, inherently existent phenomena, you don't find it. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:31 Highlight the passage at 1:36:31

1:36:44 So it's not denying the existence of eyes, ears, nose, tongues, bodies, minds and all the other phenomenon, you know, mountains, clouds, people, ceilings, gompas. It's not denying their existence. It's denying... That the way they appear, I don't like the way I started that sentence. The way they're appearing to us is in a mistaken appearance of having a self-contained quality that they don't actually possess. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:44 Highlight the passage at 1:36:44

1:37:18 So the perception or the understanding is wrong. It's a misunderstanding. It's a misconception. Not because we're mistaking one thing for something else, like mistaking a pile of rocks for a threatening person. But we're seeing things as if they exist in a self-contained manner, and nothing exists in that self-contained manner. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:18 Highlight the passage at 1:37:18

1:37:42 Everything is a dependent arising. Nothing exists in vacuum. Everything exists relationally, and that's related. They often talk about three kinds of relationship, and this is something that you can receive much Further more detailed teachings on or you can read books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama where it's explained in much greater depth. But there are kind of three basic dependent relationships that are at work. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:42 Highlight the passage at 1:37:42

1:38:17 So any phenomenon you think of is dependent on the causes and the conditions for it to come into being. So like if Lama Yeshe is holding up a flower. And he points to the fact that it's not separate from the sun. What he's saying is that this phenomenon, this growing phenomenon that we can hold and look at and admire and smell and feel, this phenomenon didn't just pop into existence from its own side, but there were various causes and conditions which brought it into existence, among which is sunlight. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:17 Highlight the passage at 1:38:17

1:38:53 And there's a lot of other conditions, aren't there? There's sunlight, there's moisture. There's the skill of the gardener. There's the seed from which it grew. There's the atmospheric conditions. And there's no such thing as a flower which is separate from those causes and conditions. So that's the first level of dependence. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:53 Highlight the passage at 1:38:53

1:39:16 And it's profound enough, but then the other levels of dependence get even subtler than that. The second level of dependence is that things depend They are what they are, dependent upon the parts that make them up. Here we're not talking about the causes, what they grew out of, or the conditions, the environment in which they grew, but the part that make them up. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:16 Highlight the passage at 1:39:16

1:39:47 So very often a table is used as an example in the Buddhist teachings. And again, I think that's because when teachings were given traditionally, there was some form of table right in front that everybody could see, like this one here. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:47 Highlight the passage at 1:39:47

1:40:01 So we tend to think of a table and we see this thing and we see it all at once, a table. But what is this table that appears to us all at once? Well, it's made up of many parts that we can identify. There's a horizontal surface that can serve for supporting objects like cups of tea and flower vases and the like. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:01 Highlight the passage at 1:40:01

1:40:31 And then there's legs that support it and raise it off the ground. And that's a pretty good working definition of a table is something that's made up of those parts. So without depending on those parts, there's no table. There's no table that springs into existence without depending on the legs and horizontal surface and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:31 Highlight the passage at 1:40:31

1:40:56 So that's... Another level of dependence, and that's said to be a bit subtler. But the subtlest level of dependence is that this table is also dependent upon the viewing consciousness, the conceptualizing consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:56 Highlight the passage at 1:40:56

1:41:18 Now that can be misunderstood. That could be misunderstood to some person who may believe, okay, well then before I came in the room, And before I thought table, there was nothing sitting in front of the speaker. But as soon as I thought table, then it sprung into existence. So depending on a viewing consciousness can be misunderstood for that. That is not what it means. It doesn't mean that you think something and it pops into existence at that moment. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:18 Highlight the passage at 1:41:18

1:41:50 But it does mean that what appears to us is exactly that, an appearance. to a consciousness. So, for example, one of many possible examples, to those of us who share a similar cultural background, and on top of that, share the fact of being human beings, then this phenomenon here in the front of the room, in front of me, is easily agreeable as being a table. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:50 Highlight the passage at 1:41:50

1:42:27 Of course, If we're very, very young, and if we haven't learned that word yet, or we haven't become conversant with the world, then if we're like a little baby making our way along the room, then we don't bump into a table, we bump into an obstacle. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:27 Highlight the passage at 1:42:27

1:42:47 But in our mind, we're not bumping into a table because we haven't learned that word yet, we haven't recognized that that phenomenon serves the purpose of supporting things off the ground. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:47 Highlight the passage at 1:42:47

1:42:59 There's still a phenomenon that exists there, but it doesn't appear to us as table at that point. But at a certain point in our evolution, our common heritage and so forth, we learn that word, we learn the function, and then we are able to identify it as a table. But for someone who doesn't have that kind of conditioning, for that person, there's something there, but it's not a table. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:59 Highlight the passage at 1:42:59

1:43:30 I mean, what is it for a little ant? Report an error in the passage at 1:43:30 Highlight the passage at 1:43:30

1:43:40 It's a mountain range. It's an obstacle for me getting from this side to the other side. Or, I don't know what senses they use, but they can pick up on the fact that there might be something sweet on here, and then it's a pathway to finding something sweet. But it's not a table. So there's something, but what it appears as... Report an error in the passage at 1:43:40 Highlight the passage at 1:43:40

1:44:04 is dependent on the viewing consciousness. There's one other example that I want to use because we tend to be, speaking very generally, we tend to be chauvinistic. And by this I mean that we tend to think, okay, we might accept that different beings and different people have different ways of viewing things, but basically the way I view it is right and everyone else is mistaken. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:04 Highlight the passage at 1:44:04

1:44:32 That's what I mean by chauvinistic. let's... I think I have a set of keys with me, but I can't find it right away, so we're just going to use an imaginary set of keys. Okay, this mullet is going to be a set of keys. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:32 Highlight the passage at 1:44:32

1:44:47 So we're just all going to buy into that hallucination, right? So I use this set of keys for getting to my house and starting my car and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:47 Highlight the passage at 1:44:47

1:44:58 And then there's a baby that's brought into the room and is kind of feeling fussy. So I give the set of keys to its mother or father, and the baby starts being diverted by it and playing with it. So for a baby, it's a toy. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:58 Highlight the passage at 1:44:58

1:45:18 Now, don't we have this kind of intuitive prejudice that, ha ha, that's silly baby. Baby thinks the keys are a toy, but it's actually a set of keys. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:18 Highlight the passage at 1:45:18

1:45:35 Why? Why is our view of it being a set of keys more true In the baby's view of it being a toy, because it functions perfectly well as a toy for the baby. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:35 Highlight the passage at 1:45:35

1:45:50 In the baby's universe, there are no such things as instruments that unlock doors, but there are things which are amusing, and this jangling set of sounds and colors and shapes is perfect, so it's a toy. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:50 Highlight the passage at 1:45:50

1:46:11 So think, because it serves as a function of a key, For us, we call it keys. Because it serves the function of a toy for a baby, it calls it or thinks of it as a toy. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:11 Highlight the passage at 1:46:11

1:46:29 And they're both correct. Because it's not a set of keys from its own side. It's only a set of keys in relationship to a viewing consciousness for which keys perform functions, such as starting cars and opening doors. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:29 Highlight the passage at 1:46:29

1:46:50 And it's not a toy from its own side either. It's only a toy for a being such as a baby or a toddler who is amused by something that makes that kind of sound or texture or whatever it is that is found amusing by a jangling set of keys. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:50 Highlight the passage at 1:46:50

1:47:11 But there's this tendency to think that the way something appears to me is the way it exists from its own side. That it is a set of keys from its own side. As if, you know, on top of Mount Sinai, a tablet appeared and said, and this is a set of keys. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:11 Highlight the passage at 1:47:11

1:47:47 But it's not like that. Things exist only in relationship to the viewing consciousness. know. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:47 Highlight the passage at 1:47:47

1:47:45 We'll be right back. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:45 Highlight the passage at 1:47:45

1:47:54 And so the tendency of seeing them as separate, self-contained, autonomous units, or to use that technical term that I've alluded to a couple of times, as inherently existent, existing from their own side, that's a misconception. And it's not, you know, to say that the keys don't exist from their own side, or the toy doesn't exist from its own side, you know, that exists in relationship to the viewing consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:54 Highlight the passage at 1:47:54

1:48:25 Is not to say there's no such things as keys or that this isn't a set of keys. It is a set of keys, but it isn't a self-existingly set of keys or a self-existing toy. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:25 Highlight the passage at 1:48:25

1:48:43 It's a conventional reality that is dependent upon its causes, its conditions, the parts that make it up, and the consciousness to which it appears. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:43 Highlight the passage at 1:48:43

1:48:55 So one can Cultivate, and it's our attempt in the wisdom teaching to cultivate an understanding of these three levels of dependence, how things depend on causes and conditions, how they depend on parts, how they depend on the viewing consciousness. And the main reason for cultivating it is because intuitively our reaction to things is the opposite. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:55 Highlight the passage at 1:48:55

1:49:24 Intuitively, our reaction is to accept the outward appearance of things as their fundamental reality. And that's where the problem comes. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:24 Highlight the passage at 1:49:24

1:49:36 Now, how many problems come from viewing keys as being keys from their own side and toys from being toys from their own side? Well, that would require plunging into it some depth. But there are certain examples that are very obvious where the mistake. How the mistake leads to trouble. And that's especially in those areas that involve emotional reactions. And especially the emotional reaction of rejection, which is coming from not liking something, being fearful of something, wanting to get rid of something. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:36 Highlight the passage at 1:49:36

1:50:16 So it's made up of fear, hatred, anger, frustration and the like. And the polar opposite but related delusion of Grasping, greed, longing, desire, attachment, the I can't live without it mentality. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:16 Highlight the passage at 1:50:16

1:50:35 Because it's from those two, when our reactions fall into the extreme of the repulsion and aversion, hatred, anger, or when it falls into the extreme of greed, grasping, attachment, that directly gives rise to suffering. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:35 Highlight the passage at 1:50:35

1:50:59 Now, one could develop such grasping towards a toy or a set of keys that it also becomes the cause of suffering. And actually we do that all the time, don't we? Someone puts a scratch on my car, they might as well be cutting my arm. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:59 Highlight the passage at 1:50:59

1:51:20 But it's at that level of that emotional reaction that we see how destructive it is to believe that things exist in their own self. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:20 Highlight the passage at 1:51:20

1:51:32 Their own inherently existent way. So getting back, and I know there was a question, but I'm going to make one more statement and then we'll entertain that question. Getting back to those lines from the Heart Sūtra, there's no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, mind, and all the other things which are preceded by the word no. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:32 Highlight the passage at 1:51:32

1:52:03 The commentary on that is that it doesn't mean that there is no such thing as an eye or ear or nose, but the apparently concrete self-existing or inherently existing eye that's appearing to our mind mistakenly, that doesn't exist. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:03 Highlight the passage at 1:52:03

1:52:29 So one could add the word, there's no inherently existing eye. No inherently existing nose, no inherently existing body, no inherently existing mind. But that's not the way in which the sūtra is written. But that is the underlying meaning, according to all of the commentaries of Nagarjuna and Tsongkhapa and Chantakirti and the rest. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:29 Highlight the passage at 1:52:29

1:52:53 That's the underlying meaning. So a question came up to Geshe Tashi, remember the Lama from London. Who I was making reference to before, excellent teacher. And the question came up is, well, if that's the meaning, then why didn't Buddha just give the sūtra using positive vocabulary rather than negative vocabulary? Report an error in the passage at 1:52:53 Highlight the passage at 1:52:53

1:53:21 Like instead of saying, there is no I, and commenting that means there's no self-existent I. I that mistakenly appears to us. Instead of putting it that way, why not say there is a dependently existing I, dependently existing ear, dependently existing nose, dependently existing body, dependently existing mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:21 Highlight the passage at 1:53:21

1:53:50 Why not just, instead of phrasing it with all the negatives, which seems like such a bummer, give it the positive way, like using the word totality. Instead of absence of inherent existence, do something more encompassing like totality, a totally existing I, a totally existing you, a dependently existing I. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:50 Highlight the passage at 1:53:50

1:54:16 So that question was put to Geshitashi. And for me, he gave a very, what I thought was a very, very profound and meaningful answer. He said, our tendency, and and. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:16 Highlight the passage at 1:54:16

1:54:36 In terms of this explanation, our tendency means the tendency of all beings who have not awakened to reality just as it is, who have not gained deep insight into the nature of phenomena, but are still under the influence of this ignorance of self-grasping, so to our ordinary appearance. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:36 Highlight the passage at 1:54:36

1:55:03 Whenever something appears to our mind, is. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:03 Highlight the passage at 1:55:03

1:55:07 Without having to think anything in addition, we already intuitively grasp onto it as if it were self-existing, as if it were inherently existing, as if it existed in its own right. That's just the way things appear to us, through beginningless conditioning with ignorance. So the cup that intuitively appears to us just appears to us as if it's out there. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:07 Highlight the passage at 1:55:07

1:55:37 Existing in its own right, within its own boundaries, from its own side. It doesn't seem to be something that grew from causes and conditions, but we can think about that, but it doesn't immediately appear that way. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:37 Highlight the passage at 1:55:37

1:55:52 It doesn't immediately appear that it's something that's dependent on the parts that make it up, even though we can investigate and see that it has parts that do make it up. And it certainly doesn't appear... To exist in dependence upon a viewing consciousness, it seems to be out there. We're just the innocent bystander who just happens to be viewing it. And that's the intuitive reaction we have to things. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:52 Highlight the passage at 1:55:52

1:56:18 So even if the sūtra said, in positive language, there's a dependently existing I, dependently existing mind, the ear, nose, body, mind, and all the rest, even if it said that, because we're so Only under the influence of grasping at identities, grasping at things existing in and of their own right, from their own side, that even with those words being present, it wouldn't be enough to overcome that mistaken tendency. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:18 Highlight the passage at 1:56:18

1:56:57 You know, we would hear intellectually, it's a dependently existing I, but we would still be viewing it as an independently existing I. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:57 Highlight the passage at 1:56:57

1:57:08 So basically, what the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, including the Heart Sūtra, are trying to do is get down to the level where we're making the mistake and developing a mind which becomes very skeptical and mistrustful of the way in which things appear to us as being so solid, so external. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:08 Highlight the passage at 1:57:08

1:57:35 And one way of doing that is just to... Report an error in the passage at 1:57:35 Highlight the passage at 1:57:35

1:57:42 So there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. Now, of course, that could lead to nihilism, thinking there's no such thing as eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. We could fall into that extreme of non-existence. But we're basically saved from that extreme by our experience. Like we know we have an eye, because we can blink it. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:42 Highlight the passage at 1:57:42

1:58:09 And we know we have a nose because we smell things and an ear because we hear things. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:09 Highlight the passage at 1:58:09

1:58:16 So there's not too much danger in ordinary experience of falling into a nihilistic extreme that none of these things exist. But if we're told that there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body and mind, then we're forced to either reject the teaching as just nonsense, which we wouldn't do if we have faith, In the Buddha and the Dharma and the Saṅgha. Or search for the underlying misconception that the phrase no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body and mind are meant to uproot. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:16 Highlight the passage at 1:58:16

1:59:03 So that's a very, very long-winded explanation as to why a negative approach is used in the perfection of wisdom teachings because a Positive language feeds into our innate tendency to grasp onto things as separate self-contained entities. And it's that, it's that tendency that we need to loosen, to cut through. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:03 Highlight the passage at 1:59:03

1:59:35 One last word, within the traditional teachings on emptiness, and the approach that I've used this morning is far from traditional. But within the traditional teachings of emptiness, when the analysis is being done, one of the most important, if not the most important, parts of the analysis is known as identifying the object to be refuted. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:35 Highlight the passage at 1:59:35

2:00:01 Identifying the object to be refuted. If some of you have received teachings before, you've probably run across this phrase many times. If not, it's a very unusual phrase. But it means what is, how, to put in words. What is the mistaken way in which I'm viewing the phenomena that make up my universe? All right, there's a table in front of me. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:01 Highlight the passage at 2:00:01

2:00:27 It functions. It's supporting the cup. If I put my cup on it, it won't crash to the floor unless I kick it over. So it functions. So that's how the table functions. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:27 Highlight the passage at 2:00:27

2:00:41 What is the mistaken way in which I'm viewing the table? What is to be refuted by the wisdom of emptiness, by the perfection of wisdom teachings? Report an error in the passage at 2:00:41 Highlight the passage at 2:00:41

2:00:55 And that is the table that appears to be self-existent, not to rely on causes, conditions, parts, or the phenomena of mental labeling, of being an appearance to consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:55 Highlight the passage at 2:00:55

2:01:09 So I've talked a bit longer than I intend to, but there was once. Question that came up before we started, and we can go to that and then have our lunch break. Now, I might be wrong, but I thought you might have had a question. How Report an error in the passage at 2:01:09 Highlight the passage at 2:01:09

2:01:33 the Buddhist teachings that you've been discussing might be used to diffuse the Middle East conflict where both sides see the other as inherently evil. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:33 Highlight the passage at 2:01:33

2:01:46 Yeah. First of all, it goes without saying, it's not easy. If it was easy, conflicts like that would have been diffused a long time ago. It's the strength of our grasping onto identities, whether it be I'm Shiite, you're Sunni, I'm Jew, you're Muslim, I'm this, you're that. It could be anyone. It could be any of a huge number because all around the world, even within the Middle East, there's many, many different identities which are being clinged to. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:46 Highlight the passage at 2:01:46

2:02:26 to So if it were an easy thing, there's plenty of time for wisdom to have removed that. So it isn't just a matter of recognizing that this grasping onto identities is ultimately at the root of the problem. It's been solidified with generations, if not longer, of conflict. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:26 Highlight the passage at 2:02:26

2:02:58 But one area that at Report an error in the passage at 2:02:58 Highlight the passage at 2:02:58

2:03:07 least provides some hope, and I've read about this in certain internet postings and elsewhere, is that there are younger people, often women, you know, which often don't have such a big voice in the politics of the area. So young people, often women. Not exclusively, from both sides who meet each other as human beings and discover their common humanity. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:07 Highlight the passage at 2:03:07

2:03:44 They all want a good life for their children. They all want security. They all want freedom from this and freedom from that. And on the basis of actually meeting each other as human beings, not meeting each other as Sunni and Shiite or Jew and Muslim or Eastern or Western, but meeting Not under those categories, but under the categories of being a human being who, like every other human being, just wants peace and safety and happiness and wish to avoid pain. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:44 Highlight the passage at 2:03:44

2:04:19 It's from those meetings that it's possible that something will grow and begin to overturn the very deeply entrenched identities. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:19 Highlight the passage at 2:04:19

2:04:34 We have to be realistic. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:34 Highlight the passage at 2:04:34

2:04:39 How quickly is that going to happen? But I think that's the most hopeful direction because people who have been taught hatred as an expression of their own fundamental identity Report an error in the passage at 2:04:39 Highlight the passage at 2:04:39

2:04:58 aren't going to easily get rid of it on the basis of wisdom teachings. Wisdom teachings can't penetrate to a mind that's holding on so tightly. To those separate identities. But sometimes the heart can open up. And great works of art, whether they're movies or books or other great works of art, I mean, not just good works of art, but great works of art. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:58 Highlight the passage at 2:04:58

2:05:27 A fundamental similarity among many of them is that they express the heart-to-heart connection that can exist even between enemies. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:27 Highlight the passage at 2:05:27

2:05:40 You know, think of it. Think of any movie you've ever seen that's really touched you, deeply touched you. Check in and probably, there's a really good chance you're going to find that one of the themes of that movie was that two beings who started out fearfully each other learned to love each other or trust each other. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:40 Highlight the passage at 2:05:40

2:06:02 Don't you run across that all the time in these very moving works, books, movies, other things like that? Even sometimes paintings. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:02 Highlight the passage at 2:06:02

2:06:16 So one of the things that we can explore after lunch, if it's of interest, is that so far the approach has been in a sense lopsided because the Buddhist teachings are a union of insightful wisdom and everything that's been said so far is in the nature of that wisdom which is kind of Removing the mistaken view so that the correct view can come forward. So it's a union of that and something else. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:16 Highlight the passage at 2:06:16

2:06:52 What's that something else? Yeah, compassion, compassionate method, a union of wisdom and method, wisdom and compassion. And so it's said that wisdom without this compassionate method is dry. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:52 Highlight the passage at 2:06:52

2:07:15 Compassionate method without wisdom is blind. So for true transformation to take place, our path as individuals and as nations has to be some kind of combination of insightful wisdom and compassionate method. So, so far, we've really only focused on the wisdom side, trying to identify and then slowly begin the process of eradicating the mistaken view. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:15 Highlight the passage at 2:07:15

2:07:46 But together with that, we have to cultivate the compassionate. Method side, which is more like the, what we might call the heart connection. And the only place that we touched on it so far this morning was right at the beginning, right at the motivation. That our motivation was the wish that by doing this we're able to help others on their path to fulfillment and happiness or enlightenment or whatever term we want to use. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:46 Highlight the passage at 2:07:46

2:08:14 So maybe this afternoon we can also kind of feed feed into that, you know, tap that. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:14 Highlight the passage at 2:08:14

2:08:27 So, thank you for your incredible patience for this long-winded spiel this morning. And because we went over, you know, it's now almost 10 after 12. Should we extend the lunch hour to 10 after 1? Should we do that? Report an error in the passage at 2:08:27 Highlight the passage at 2:08:27

2:08:49 Okay. Right, so people don't have to go out? All right. Enjoy. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:49 Highlight the passage at 2:08:49

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:09:40 So I Report an error in the passage at 2:09:40 Highlight the passage at 2:09:40

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:10:19 think we're ready to resume, just about. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:19 Highlight the passage at 2:10:19

· · · silence, 1 minute

2:11:07 So we're ready to begin the second half of today's program. And I always feel a little bit cautious about the first session after lunch. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:07 Highlight the passage at 2:11:07

2:11:26 Especially if it's a meditation, Report an error in the passage at 2:11:26 Highlight the passage at 2:11:26

2:11:31 because people enter very deep states of meditation, from which it's almost impossible to awake them. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:31 Highlight the passage at 2:11:31

2:11:42 And I was thinking of that and it reminded me of an experience I had also way back in the 1970s. And it was also in Bodh Gaya, where I mentioned that I had met Lama Yeshe some years before. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:42 Highlight the passage at 2:11:42

2:11:57 And on this occasion, the senior tutor of... The Dalai Lama, this extraordinary Lama known as Lingu Rinpoche, was giving a teaching to several hundred Tibetans and a handful of Westerners. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:57 Highlight the passage at 2:11:57

2:12:18 And it was on the Lama Chuba, the Guru Puja, which many of you know because it's a puja that's very commonly done twice a month. And also on other special occasions. And a very, very profound text. And he was giving this teaching for, as I recall, it was 17 days, for many hours each day. And there was no translation. And so I basically didn't understand one word. But it was a very, very powerful blessing. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:18 Highlight the passage at 2:12:18

2:12:53 And also the gompa in which it was taking place was newly painted. With extraordinary images. So everywhere you looked, on the walls and the ceilings, everywhere was newly painted excellent Tibetan art of deities and bodhisattvas and gurus and everything. So I spent those 17 days sitting right behind Ling Rinpoche, which meant that when he didn't finish his tea, his servant would pour the The remainder of his tea into the cups of those of us who were around for the blessing. So I got to drink some of his leftover tea and then watch all these pictures on the wall. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:53 Highlight the passage at 2:12:53

2:13:44 Rinpoche was giving these extraordinary, profound teachings of which, as I said, I couldn't understand one word. And it was very frustrating. It wasn't just frustrating not to be able to understand, but what was also frustrating was, In the audience, which was 95 % at least, monks and nuns, if not more, in the audience, whenever the teachings would start, right after the initial prayers and so forth, and up until the time that tea was distributed, a huge percentage of the audience would fall asleep, like immediately. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:44 Highlight the passage at 2:13:44

2:14:24 And I felt, they can understand Tibetan, and they fell asleep. I can't understand, and I was just, you know, I visualized Lina Rinpoche's words just coming in, you know, I didn't know what they meant, but just coming in and pouring into me. And I felt so, I'm not sure, jealous is exactly the right word, but it just didn't seem fair that these people who could understand Tibetan were asleep, and me who couldn't understand anything was just dying to get a sip of the teachings. Report an error in the passage at 2:14:24 Highlight the passage at 2:14:24

2:14:56 And also, this was also in the very first years. Of when Tibetans were coming out of Tibet. And so they were living in circumstances as opposite to the world they would have known in Tibet. Almost as opposite as you could imagine. You know, instead of being up at 16,000 feet, they were at sea level and the diet was completely different. Report an error in the passage at 2:14:56 Highlight the passage at 2:14:56

2:15:23 Everything was different. And many of them suffered from respiratory diseases. So there was a lot of coughing and so forth. And so a friend of mine, who was also attending under the same circumstances, he couldn't understand anything, but was just there for the blessings and to be in that presence. Report an error in the passage at 2:15:23 Highlight the passage at 2:15:23

2:15:43 I heard him describe the situation of being in those teachings. He said, being in that gompa was like being in a cross between a tuberculosis ward and a sleep research center. Report an error in the passage at 2:15:43 Highlight the passage at 2:15:43

2:16:02 And that was a pretty fair summation. So I hope this next hour won't resemble a tuberculosis ward, but if it does represent a sleep research center, then please go for it. Report an error in the passage at 2:16:02 Highlight the passage at 2:16:02

2:16:27 But one way of combating the, I learned this word once, postprandial relaxation. Anyone heard that term before? Postprandial. It means the natural relaxation your body goes through just when you've eaten and the body starts kind of shutting down. Well, certain parts of the body start shutting down so that the food can be digested and that's kind of sleepy. Report an error in the passage at 2:16:27 Highlight the passage at 2:16:27

2:16:54 Postprandial relaxation. So if any of you are experiencing postprandial relaxation, then that's quite natural. But a way of combating it is to have the... Report an error in the passage at 2:16:54 Highlight the passage at 2:16:54

2:17:09 The session would be a little bit livelier than just meditation. So with that, if there are points that you'd like to bring up that might engender some rousing discussion, then this would be a perfect time for it. Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 2:17:09 Highlight the passage at 2:17:09

2:17:38 Yeah, good idea. Report an error in the passage at 2:17:38 Highlight the passage at 2:17:38

2:17:49 So it's somewhat general, but maybe you could give me some guidance. So lately I've been... Listening to some kind of spiritual development talks on the internet, not necessarily Buddhist, but certainly a lot of the teachings of Buddha do seem to come up. And what I've been learning is that there are various people, I guess, in our society, in the world, mostly Westerners, who say that they had an awakening experience. Report an error in the passage at 2:17:49 Highlight the passage at 2:17:49

2:18:24 Again, they're not necessarily Buddhist. And many of the things that they describe sound similar to what I guess the experience in Buddhism might be. But I started to wonder, well, are these people truly awakened? Have they had a realization? And where does liberation and then Buddhahood come into, you know? Report an error in the passage at 2:18:24 Highlight the passage at 2:18:24

2:18:55 So maybe with your years of experience you might shed some light on this. Report an error in the passage at 2:18:55 Highlight the passage at 2:18:55

2:19:03 I don't have too much light to shed on that, but several thoughts come to mind about it. One is that there are many degrees of awakening or enlightenment and sometimes you have to be a little bit Careful when someone talks about an enlightenment experience, which ones of these might they actually be referring to. Report an error in the passage at 2:19:03 Highlight the passage at 2:19:03

2:19:35 Like even in the Buddhist texts, the term enlightenment isn't always reserved for the full and complete enlightenment of a Buddha. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's a synonym for Buddhahood. But it can also be used, there's expressions like the enlightenment of an arhat or the enlightenment of a... One of the first four stages of spiritual evolution. And they can be called enlightenment. So sometimes the same term is used for different levels. Report an error in the passage at 2:19:35 Highlight the passage at 2:19:35

2:20:07 And if that's the case, then certainly it can be used for experiences that even predate those enlightenment experiences. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:07 Highlight the passage at 2:20:07

2:20:21 own feeling is that whenever a... Report an error in the passage at 2:20:21 Highlight the passage at 2:20:21

2:20:29 A cherished belief, one that we've held on really strongly, often without knowing that we have it, just in a kind of a natural way we view things. Whenever one of those is demonstrated to be faulty and we feel it slipping away, that we're no longer under the burden of that particular one, that is... In the nature of an enlightened or awakening experience, even if it's far from being the full enlightenment of a Buddha, the fact that that particular delusion or that particular misconception no longer is keeping us as tightly in its thrall as it once was, this is a release. Report an error in the passage at 2:20:29 Highlight the passage at 2:20:29

2:21:24 And so I think people can have that on Through the practicing of many different paths and on many different levels. So unless you know the mind of that person, have that kind of level of clairvoyance, which itself is quite an accomplishment, it's very hard to tell from the outside what the enlightenment of someone else is. Report an error in the passage at 2:21:24 Highlight the passage at 2:21:24

2:21:52 Even if that person carries a great title and is respected by many people, it's still hard to tell from the outside. what it is. So That old expression, the proof is in the pudding, the result gives an idea of whether the experience was valid or how deep it was. I think that's a more accessible criteria for us because even then it has to do with judgments and sometimes our judgments can be faulty. Report an error in the passage at 2:21:52 Highlight the passage at 2:21:52

2:22:30 But if there's somebody who claims an awakened or enlightened experience or a great realization, but still shows every sign of being a greedy and selfish and quick-tempered, you know, like that, again, that still could be just a show. Report an error in the passage at 2:22:30 Highlight the passage at 2:22:30

2:22:54 That person could still be a Buddha, right? We can't be sure about it. Report an error in the passage at 2:22:54 Highlight the passage at 2:22:54

2:23:02 If someone claiming experiences or appearing to have, from one point of view, a certain kind of holy experiences, but is acting in a way which seems to be completely governed by the delusions, then that's questionable. Report an error in the passage at 2:23:02 Highlight the passage at 2:23:02

2:23:18 Often what it seems, well, I shouldn't say often, but sometimes it seems like a person who has that kind of reputation, either having advertised it from his own side or having the reputation put on them. As being somehow higher or more evolved or more realized, the chief characteristic of that person is haughtiness or arrogance. Report an error in the passage at 2:23:18 Highlight the passage at 2:23:18

2:23:43 That can happen. And that, in my mind, raises a big red flag because among the teachers that I've met who, if anyone, have a claim, not from their own side, but just seeing how they operate in the world, to being realized. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, his tutors and so forth. They don't have one ounce of arrogance or haughtiness. So if someone is claiming something that's akin to spiritual realization and they're just full of themselves, everything they say, the way their posture, the way their being is, then again, I can't say for sure. Report an error in the passage at 2:23:43 Highlight the passage at 2:23:43

2:24:26 Maybe it's a Buddha teaching us how ridiculous we look when we're haughty. Could be. Could be that case. But it certainly makes me feel that that claim is based on very, very little. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:26 Highlight the passage at 2:24:26

2:24:42 But I think it's definitely possible that people from all kinds of backgrounds, some of them not specifically spiritual, may have these breakthrough moments. People do have it sometimes in communion with nature, where they're not necessarily The recipients of a spiritual teaching, but something in the harmony of nature, for example, leads them to feel this certain kind of rapport with other living beings. Report an error in the passage at 2:24:42 Highlight the passage at 2:24:42

2:25:17 And so, at least momentarily, some strength of self-centeredness dissolves, maybe not forever, but it's kind of released. Well, yeah, I would call that an awakened or enlightened experience, but obviously. Not necessarily the full enlightenment of a Buddha. Is that helpful at all? Report an error in the passage at 2:25:17 Highlight the passage at 2:25:17

2:25:42 I'm interested in what you would comment on in terms of what might be some problematic areas for Westerners converting to Buddhism. Did you see particular themes when you first entered into studying Buddhism, becoming Buddhist? Report an error in the passage at 2:25:42 Highlight the passage at 2:25:42

2:26:07 It's a dream. The early 70s, is there some parallel now or are there changes now? Do we have additional problems that weren't so much a problem in the 70s? Could you just address that? Report an error in the passage at 2:26:07 Highlight the passage at 2:26:07

2:26:30 I'll try. My experiences with ranges of students both in the past and in the present, the range is fairly narrow, so I don't have... Report an error in the passage at 2:26:30 Highlight the passage at 2:26:30

2:26:46 I know of other teachers who travel much more extensively than I do and teach much more extensively, so they're constantly coming in contact with many classes of students, so they probably have a better feeling for this than I would. But I have a little bit. Report an error in the passage at 2:26:46 Highlight the passage at 2:26:46

2:27:09 I'll just choose a few things that pop into my mind relating to this. I think one challenge that's gotten worse over the years, from the last 40 years, is a shortening of attention span. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:09 Highlight the passage at 2:27:09

2:27:31 And I think it's a well-known phenomenon that with all of the extraordinary means of instant communication that we now have, which has proliferated tremendously since the time I was first a student, it seems like everything is coming in sound bites. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:31 Highlight the passage at 2:27:31

2:27:56 Small packets of information, whether the information is verbal or visual, whatever it is, it seems like if it lasts more than a few seconds, the mind drifts off of it and even gets restless. Report an error in the passage at 2:27:56 Highlight the passage at 2:27:56

2:28:13 And one of the results that I've seen to some extent is that, and I don't mean this, what I'm about to say is a criticism of any specific people, certainly not anyone in this room. But when I first went over to India to study, I considered that by and large, my fellow students were exactly that. They were students. Meaning we were confronting a new set of information and we studied it. Report an error in the passage at 2:28:13 Highlight the passage at 2:28:13

2:28:51 We spent time with it. Whether it's taking notes, discussing it. Memorizing parts of it, all of this, you know, actually like a course of study. And then in addition to that as well, you know, whatever practice we did in meditation to deepen it. But there was at least this foundation of study so that if a question was asked on week two of what was discussed in week one, there was a good chance that people, a fair number of people could answer it. Report an error in the passage at 2:28:51 Highlight the passage at 2:28:51

2:29:29 And one of the things that I've discovered over the last few years is there can be a course that goes on for several weeks, and this particular course may focus, for example, on the cultivation of the bodhicitta. For those for whom that's a new term, it's a compassionate attitude of wishing to attain the enlightenment we're striving for, primarily in order to benefit others. Report an error in the passage at 2:29:29 Highlight the passage at 2:29:29

2:29:58 So it's the very heart of the Mahāyāna path. And teachings such as the Lojong, the training of the mind teachings, are all about cultivating this bodhicitta and using various approaches. Well, I've had the experience quite a number of times of teaching a course on such a topic. It doesn't have to be bodhicitta, it could be something else, but I'll use bodhicitta as the example. Report an error in the passage at 2:29:58 Highlight the passage at 2:29:58

2:30:23 And then, you know, three or four weeks into the course, asking someone, could you give me a good... Definition of bodhicitta, which is all we've been discussing for four weeks. And with the exception of one or two people, no answer. Or the answer is really vague. Or the question is, what's a bodhisattva? Well, a bodhisattva is someone who has this bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:23 Highlight the passage at 2:30:23

2:30:54 So to be able to give an answer of what a bodhisattva is, you have to kind of know what the bodhicitta is because that's the defining characteristic. So then you get... Answers like, oh, a real compassionate person, a nice guy. Well, yeah, bodhicitta is a compassionate person, is a nice guy, but that's nowhere near a definition. Report an error in the passage at 2:30:54 Highlight the passage at 2:30:54

2:31:15 It doesn't give any sense of what goes into that transformation. Now, I can't definitely say that if those same questions were asked 40 years ago, more people would have been able to give an answer. More of my fellow students would have been able to give an answer, or at least hazard a guess. But it just seems to me that less and less people among those who show up in teachings are approaching those teachings as a study. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:15 Highlight the passage at 2:31:15

2:31:50 Because if they were approaching it as a study, it would be easier to answer those questions. That's just my own private view. And the question has come up, well then, why are people attending teachings if they're not studying it? And that's a hard question for me to answer exactly. But I think when people get together, and Dharma is the subject, then things come up in the teachings that people relate to. Report an error in the passage at 2:31:50 Highlight the passage at 2:31:50

2:32:24 If nothing comes up, they don't come again. But if they come again, it's because there's something they're connecting with. But it's not... But they're not actually studying it in the sense of being able to take something away with them that can be the basis of their experience later on. They're just enjoying that hour or two hours of being in that space where they're contemplating things that are important for them. Report an error in the passage at 2:32:24 Highlight the passage at 2:32:24

2:32:59 And maybe it gives a certain good feeling or a deep feeling A period of a few hours. But then the question that comes up in my mind is, well, what's carried over from that? Report an error in the passage at 2:32:59 Highlight the passage at 2:32:59

2:33:16 And I'm not looking for intellectual understanding, but that's part of it. Part of it is to be able to become familiar enough with the terms of the teaching so that you can then apply it. And if you can't, then what are you doing with the teachings? know, does it? Report an error in the passage at 2:33:16 Highlight the passage at 2:33:16

2:33:34 Then you're waiting for the next week to come to get another hit. And so this observation may be off base, or it may be limited to the people who come to my teachings. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:34 Highlight the passage at 2:33:34

2:33:50 Maybe I attract the crowd that I deserve. Mickey Mouse teacher, Mickey Mouse students. That could definitely be true. serve, you know. Report an error in the passage at 2:33:50 Highlight the passage at 2:33:50

2:34:02 But I've talked to a few other teachers, teachers who I know to be very skillful teachers, and many of them say the same thing. So I can't exactly say, first of all, if that observed phenomena is being accurately observed. And if it is being accurately observed, whether the cause is lowered attention span, increased distraction. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:02 Highlight the passage at 2:34:02

2:34:34 Lives being busier, not having time, I can't say. But that's something I seem to have noticed. Does that resonate with anyone else here? Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:34 Highlight the passage at 2:34:34

2:34:56 Please. Report an error in the passage at 2:34:56 Highlight the passage at 2:34:56

2:35:07 There are components of Buddhist practice that require, or don't require, but aspects of Buddhist practice like sadhanas, Rituals, elaborate rituals sometimes that require quite a bit of time and energy and effort to go through. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:07 Highlight the passage at 2:35:07

2:35:27 And, you know, to me it seems that our contemporary culture, there's this huge emphasis on getting things very easily. And if it isn't easy, there's this kind of absence of effort. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:27 Highlight the passage at 2:35:27

2:35:47 So it always makes me wonder, and it goes back to, I think, the question that I was asking you during the lunch break. There's two kind of fundamental aspects, maybe, if you choose to look at it this way. Buddhism could be looked at as a sort of practical, almost common sense psychology, very useful, very applicable to day-to-day life. Report an error in the passage at 2:35:47 Highlight the passage at 2:35:47

2:36:17 Then there's the Vajrayana presentation of Buddhism, which some people question about in terms of even its ideology, and that maybe it's quite separate from the teachings of Buddha, for example. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:17 Highlight the passage at 2:36:17

2:36:32 But there's Tantric and Vajrayana, which really delve into that sort of ritual presentation, a lot of sadhanas, prayers. The idea of getting blessings from holy beings, the idea of just, you know, even believing in holy beings. That's where I think Western culture really disconnects. So that, you know, if it were just presentation of, you know, basic sūtra teachings, people can kind of relate to that because it has immediate practical applicability to their lives. Report an error in the passage at 2:36:32 Highlight the passage at 2:36:32

2:37:06 Where the other is so abstract and esoteric. That it just almost seems inaccessible to Western culture and to most people that I know. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:06 Highlight the passage at 2:37:06

2:37:25 And I think what you say has been recognized and also reflected in many statements that His Holiness the Dalai Lama and others have made over the last few years. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:25 Highlight the passage at 2:37:25

2:37:42 I was traveling around Mexico for the first time earlier this year, visiting different places, and many of the places I visited His Holiness had been to just a matter of months previously, so people were remembering the kinds of things he said. And he was coming to places and he was giving very, very pointed advice to these centers, these Buddhist centers, of how and what they should teach. Report an error in the passage at 2:37:42 Highlight the passage at 2:37:42

2:38:12 And he was emphasizing that the predominant thing to be taught at the centers was the psychology, the nature of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:12 Highlight the passage at 2:38:12

2:38:24 And that was the first thing, that was the predominant thing. And then for those who were interested, the philosophical underpinnings of that, you know, like Madhyamaka thought and so forth. And then, Report an error in the passage at 2:38:24 Highlight the passage at 2:38:24

2:38:42 Thirdly, and way in last place, was religion. And by that, apparently, from my Mexican friends, they were saying by that he meant rituals and prayers and so forth. And he apparently made a big emphasis on that. And then subsequent to that, I've heard that he said the same thing in different places that he traveled in Europe and elsewhere. Report an error in the passage at 2:38:42 Highlight the passage at 2:38:42

2:39:18 And so I think that kind of statement by the Dalai Lama and your kind of observation fit together in a very significant way, that there are definitely people for whom the immersion into Buddhism as what we might call a religion, replete with prayers, practices, Report an error in the passage at 2:39:18 Highlight the passage at 2:39:18

2:39:40 sadhanas, et cetera, really fits with who and what they are and their level of commitment. But that is far from the case for the majority of people who come and have interest in the teachings. There may be some, and there may be some element, an exotic element to those things which can be initially attractive. Report an error in the passage at 2:39:40 Highlight the passage at 2:39:40

2:40:07 But when it comes to what's really important, giving benefit to others, it's primarily understanding the nature of the mind. you know, an enlightened psychology. And And so, yeah, I would be inclined to agree with the caveat that we're all quite different and some people get really attracted to one approach that another person might say, well, I can leave that to the side. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:07 Highlight the passage at 2:40:07

2:40:39 But in speaking in very general terms, I think what you say has a lot of truth to it, a lot of truth. Right, and I think the reason that that's so important Is that if we think about it from, say, you know, the 30 or 40 thousand foot level, that's what would make the biggest impact on changing the nature of our existence, you know, worldwide. Report an error in the passage at 2:40:39 Highlight the passage at 2:40:39

2:41:04 Because to the extent that people disconnect with the other components, those religious components of Buddhism, makes it much harder, I think, to kind of propagate Buddhist. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:04 Highlight the passage at 2:41:04

2:41:20 One thing, there is something which was called to my attention recently because they're going to have a meeting around it coming up in a few weeks. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:20 Highlight the passage at 2:41:20

2:41:33 There was a book that the Dalai Lama brought out a little while ago called Beyond Religion and the theme of it is that the world needs ethics. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:33 Highlight the passage at 2:41:33

2:41:51 The things we were discussing this morning, for example, all the problems that we can look at internationally, nationally, individually, largely stem from the fact of an inability to discriminate between what's ethical behavior and what isn't, and often getting it very confused, very wrong. Report an error in the passage at 2:41:51 Highlight the passage at 2:41:51

2:42:13 And the Dalai Lama is saying in this book, he said, It's important, he feels, for this day and age, for us to separate ethics out from religion, because there's many people who reject religion, view it only from the point of view of belief, so if they're not a believer, then they just disregard those ethical teachings. Report an error in the passage at 2:42:13 Highlight the passage at 2:42:13

2:42:41 But the ethical teachings themselves are absolutely necessary. We can't live, we can't... continue without a significant So I think the whole tenor of this book and I haven't read the whole thing yet so I can't testify but I think the whole tenor of the book is we have to provide an education which teaches really Report an error in the passage at 2:42:41 Highlight the passage at 2:42:41

2:43:10 practical beneficial ways of cultivating true ethical behavior that is not tied with any Belief system, whether it be Buddhist or not. So a secular ethics, as it were. And so this has become like a clarion call for people of all different faiths and non-faiths to really understand and propagate this approach. Report an error in the passage at 2:43:10 Highlight the passage at 2:43:10

2:43:47 Because otherwise, we're just leaving it up. you know, and... Report an error in the passage at 2:43:47 Highlight the passage at 2:43:47

2:43:50 To the people who spout a religious line but behave horribly, you know, or people who just throw the whole thing in, you know, out the window and then behavior is just a matter of, well, actually just greed, you know, basically come down to greed. And then just things just get worse and worse. So beyond religion is one of... Report an error in the passage at 2:43:50 Highlight the passage at 2:43:50

2:44:19 The Dalai Lama has spoken about this in several different contexts, but apparently this book, Beyond Religion, is the one that he really is focusing on very strongly. In line with this, the Dalai Lama has often said over many years that certain qualities that we associate often with a spiritual path such as loving kindness and compassion aren't luxuries. Report an error in the passage at 2:44:19 Highlight the passage at 2:44:19

2:44:49 They're absolute necessities. So they have to be propagated and ways of developing them have to be spread or else we're just getting in more and more trouble. Report an error in the passage at 2:44:49 Highlight the passage at 2:44:49

2:45:06 Does that make sense from your experience? Did you have a comment on that from your view? Report an error in the passage at 2:45:06 Highlight the passage at 2:45:06

2:45:25 There were several things that came to my mind and one of them was in the aspect in terms of like centers teaching and focusing on ethics and on the mind and understand, you know, Report an error in the passage at 2:45:25 Highlight the passage at 2:45:25

2:45:43 essentially presenting Buddhist psychology of sorts, which again you could make the case for Buddhism in Tibet being all about. Being an inner being, getting to know the mind. But what came to my concern about some of this is that without being really grounded or understanding the breadth of that psychology, it's very easy in presenting things in a graspable, succinct kind of view. Report an error in the passage at 2:45:43 Highlight the passage at 2:45:43

2:46:20 Not necessarily having, I know you were talking about. You know, the pithy teachings of our society now. So I'm not saying we have to go that way, but even if you're, when you're presenting things on a simpler or, like sometimes it's called presenting, you know, Dharma in non-Dharma terms. You have to have this really, almost a deeper understanding, I would say, because it's very easy to present, you know, by the time you end up presenting your view, It's no longer Dharma. It's like watered down. Yeah, and I think it really takes some, maybe more than just study, maybe it takes the practice to know what to keep and what to let go. Report an error in the passage at 2:46:20 Highlight the passage at 2:46:20

2:47:11 His Holiness always says when he finishes a public talk, if anything was helpful, great. If not, if you don't agree with it, don't worry about it. Let it go. Just take, but you've got to consider the source as well. Report an error in the passage at 2:47:11 Highlight the passage at 2:47:11

2:47:29 So there's that side. The other thing I was thinking is that in terms of what Carol was talking about with the esoteric side of Tibetan Buddhism in particular, to me those aren't, the esotericism builds on the sūtra side and it is simply Report an error in the passage at 2:47:29 Highlight the passage at 2:47:29

2:47:52 Another manifestation and an opening in a different way, which again may not be, certainly isn't for everyone. But it's like, again, understanding how to present, how to even talk about it. So that it isn't, so that in our minds we don't lose respect for parts of the teaching. Because sometimes, just to give an example, there was a talk I heard where, this was on a, from a, Like an audio book in the library, but a teacher talking about karma and about stories about how a dog chases a rooster around the stupa. Report an error in the passage at 2:47:52 Highlight the passage at 2:47:52

2:48:37 And it said that, oh, this rooster is going to get a higher rebirth because it circumambulated the stupa three times. And the teacher was saying, It was a Western teacher. From this viewpoint, that's just superstition because there's no motivation, there's no intent on the part of the rooster. But it was interesting because this teacher was talking to a Tibetan Lama who then said, well, you know, in terms of motivation and intent, Report an error in the passage at 2:48:37 Highlight the passage at 2:48:37

2:49:07 we really have to look at our motivation because we think we have this altruistic or bodhicitta motivation. But generally, 90 % of our motivation is about what we want. So it was an interesting view to sort of stand back and take something that I've heard before, you know, because these things come up like, right, is there something to the power of the object or is it just our intent and what we're doing? Report an error in the passage at 2:49:07 Highlight the passage at 2:49:07

2:49:33 And again, it was interesting for me to hear, again, reaffirming, it's all about our minds. So I don't know how you would... Approach that little story or where, you know, if you can lend some, shed some light on this problem of, you know, what to present and what not, how to go about doing this. How to feel you can even begin to do this. Report an error in the passage at 2:49:33 Highlight the passage at 2:49:33

2:50:07 Well, you've raised many more things than I can comment on. But I think what you put out is a very good... Very good way of getting an idea of what the lay of the land is, what some of the issues are. My own personal prejudice has been by and large to shy away from those things which are more magical or more superstitious sounding. Report an error in the passage at 2:50:07 Highlight the passage at 2:50:07

2:50:44 But I've had to be very careful about that. I remember a friend of mine who's very talented and A very excellent teacher was explaining the iconography of the Buddha form to some very, very new people. And he spent a lot of time talking about this one mark of a Buddha's body. And if you look in the traditional texts, they talk about the 32 major and the 80 minor marks and they give a description of what those marks are and what they mean and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 2:50:44 Highlight the passage at 2:50:44

2:51:24 And one of them... Is this hair curl on the brow, like that. There's a hair that curls to the right, where the third eye is sometimes pictured. Report an error in the passage at 2:51:24 Highlight the passage at 2:51:24

2:51:40 And then there's a description that even though it looks like an ordinary hair curl, if you pulled on, if you extended, it would go out some extraordinary distance, like three times around the world, some number like that. And that was what this... A friend of mine, this teacher, chose to emphasize when he was talking about the Buddha image. And I thought, why? Report an error in the passage at 2:51:40 Highlight the passage at 2:51:40

2:52:06 Of all of the things, of all the things that you could focus on, why choose that one? Why choose the hardest one to swallow? Or the one that seemed to be the most, if you want to use the word superstitious, or, you know, why not choose? One of the many, many marks that really seem to have a relationship to what people can actually understand. Report an error in the passage at 2:52:06 Highlight the passage at 2:52:06

2:52:34 And so my tendency has been to, if that's falling to the right side of the path, my tendency has been generally to fall to the other side. You know, kind of scale things back a little bit. Provide interpretations that are easier to understand. But for me, what I have to come to grips with is which aspects of the Buddhist teachings do I have a problem with and is it just my problem? Report an error in the passage at 2:52:34 Highlight the passage at 2:52:34

2:53:12 And if I scale it back or whitewash it a bit, am I depriving people of hearing something more authentic? And so that's been an ongoing concern of mine, and my thoughts about it have changed over the years. Like, I don't want to get into this topic too much, but just to give you an idea of what I mean, I was a very serious student in the terms of being a student, you know, taking notes, memorizing them, things like that, in the early years, especially under the teaching of Geshin Gawandarge. Report an error in the passage at 2:53:12 Highlight the passage at 2:53:12

2:53:54 He was an extraordinary teacher I studied within first in Dalhousie and then in Dharamsala, the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. And I was receiving upwards of three and a half hours of teaching virtually every single day from him, some in a class, others in a much smaller group. Report an error in the passage at 2:53:54 Highlight the passage at 2:53:54

2:54:18 And his teachings were very clear, very ordered, very well translated. By Sharpa Rinpoche and Kamala Rinpoche. And for the first three years that I received these teachings, I never for one nanosecond believed in reincarnation, past and future lives, the six realms of existence. Not once. And yet the teachings were full of that. There was plenty besides those teachings that struck me as Eminently true and valuable and worthwhile, like all the teachings about the nature of the mind and so forth and the cultivation of compassion, that I bought completely. Report an error in the passage at 2:54:18 Highlight the passage at 2:54:18

2:55:08 But reincarnation and things like that, hell realms and god realms and stuff like that, often I would just stop taking notes at that point. Report an error in the passage at 2:55:08 Highlight the passage at 2:55:08

2:55:22 My disbelief in it was so thick. you know Report an error in the passage at 2:55:22 Highlight the passage at 2:55:22

2:55:32 So I'd have to be a little bit concerned as if I'm soft-peddling teachings on a subject, is it because I personally don't believe in it or I haven't studied them enough myself or I haven't looked into my own psychology deeply enough? Report an error in the passage at 2:55:32 Highlight the passage at 2:55:32

2:55:54 Because on one hand, I don't want to spout things that I don't wholeheartedly believe in because then it just sounds like hypocrisy. Report an error in the passage at 2:55:54 Highlight the passage at 2:55:54

2:56:03 To teach about rebirth when I don't believe in rebirth, that sounds highly dishonest. But not to teach about it might mean that whatever understanding people gain of karma becomes very narrow. Because you can understand karma within the space of one lifetime, but the full teachings on karma really require understanding that there's lifetimes after lifetimes. Report an error in the passage at 2:56:03 Highlight the passage at 2:56:03

2:56:30 Because otherwise you're... Truncating the whole teaching into a very, very narrow scope. So that was a really kind of big dilemma for me. It wasn't such a huge dilemma in the beginning because I was not called upon to teach in the beginning. But once I was called upon to teach, then I had to be careful of not saying what I didn't believe on one hand or Report an error in the passage at 2:56:30 Highlight the passage at 2:56:30

2:57:09 Or depriving people of a teaching simply because I hadn't fully grasped it myself. So that's a challenge. That was a big ongoing challenge. Fortunately, as it happens, over the years, a lot of those problems, which were difficult for me in those first three years, began to dissolve. Report an error in the passage at 2:57:09 Highlight the passage at 2:57:09

2:57:38 But it took a long time. I was very hard-headed about it. What I didn't believe. It took a long time to open up the possibility of something else and then to figure out ways of making it consistent with experiences that people could relate to, that they didn't have to buy the teachings on karma and rebirth and the six realms, hook, line and sinker, but how they could begin to approach it from their own psychology, kind of build up on what What we do know, what we do experience, and then see how it might be expanded even into areas that are beyond that. So that became quite a challenge, actually. Report an error in the passage at 2:57:38 Highlight the passage at 2:57:38

2:58:24 And something which I've learned to really enjoy was to figure out how you can take something which can be extremely challenging and present it not in a watered-down version which Report an error in the passage at 2:58:24 Highlight the passage at 2:58:24

2:58:39 Denies the profundity of it, but in, let's say, an introductory version. I think there's a difference between giving a teaching in an introductory fashion, which shows how you can start to approach it, and then leave it to people to take it further. I think there's a difference between that and then taking the teachings and then stripping of his profundity and just presenting it in a kind of a Mickey Mouse version. Report an error in the passage at 2:58:39 Highlight the passage at 2:58:39

2:59:03 I think we can discriminate between the two of those, at least over time. Become a little bit more skillful in that. I don't know whether that even began to answer any of the questions that just came up, but that's all I got. Report an error in the passage at 2:59:03 Highlight the passage at 2:59:03

2:59:25 I have one more thing that has come up before as well. I know you've kind of alluded to it, just touched on it here a bit in terms of how there are enlightened beings in this realm, this existence, whatever. Report an error in the passage at 2:59:25 Highlight the passage at 2:59:25

2:59:43 And the teachings refer to it, too, in terms of how we can't really recognize them. And you were saying before, like somebody, I think, honest question about realizations of somebody. You know, you sort of assess by their behavior. But if you go back to, let's just say, in a situation where maybe it's just not clear. Report an error in the passage at 2:59:43 Highlight the passage at 2:59:43

3:00:13 Because you did say it. The behavior is an indication or likelihood that that person maybe isn't what they say, but it could just be for show. And in a situation like that, how do we balance kind of the cynicism that might arise from that or the judgment with that understanding that, well, you know, there's this person. Report an error in the passage at 3:00:13 Highlight the passage at 3:00:13

3:00:45 I don't have the realizations myself now to really know what's happening, but not becoming naive about it or in the sense of being in a situation where you're kind of giving respect. I guess I'm thinking of situations where sometimes as a newer student, I would feel inclined to err on the, okay, I don't know, I don't understand what's going on. So I would be thinking, okay, this is good, and maybe there's a Lama there, and they kind of look at you like, are you crazy? Report an error in the passage at 3:00:45 Highlight the passage at 3:00:45

3:01:32 I mean, can't you see what's going on here? And then you think, okay, so that isn't really, that's not acceptable behavior, and that wouldn't be a Buddha. Or something like that in terms of... How do you balance that? How do you... Report an error in the passage at 3:01:32 Highlight the passage at 3:01:32

3:01:51 Another big question. For me, the approach that makes the most sense to me, resonates most with me, is that it's never primarily a question of me making a judgment about someone else. Report an error in the passage at 3:01:51 Highlight the passage at 3:01:51

3:02:11 That's not the primary thing. The primary thing is, what is it that I learned from the situation that's applicable to me? So, for example, if there's someone... Who maybe has a great reputation or thinks very highly of himself or herself or has followers and so forth, but is acting like a real jerk, you know, then it doesn't, it's not incumbent on me to say, well, he must be, he must be more advanced than he appears. Report an error in the passage at 3:02:11 Highlight the passage at 3:02:11

3:02:46 That's, that's not incumbent on me. And it's not incumbent upon me to think, It's Report an error in the passage at 3:02:46 Highlight the passage at 3:02:46

3:02:52 This guy really is a jerk, he has no qualifications at all. Neither of those judgments are important to me. Neither of them affect me. What affects me is, what do I learn from that behavior? If I see that someone who has a great reputation can act like a total jerk, what it teaches me is to try to avoid acting like that. Report an error in the passage at 3:02:52 Highlight the passage at 3:02:52

3:03:15 So I take it to apply it, well I try to, I mean this is this ideal circumstance. We all have human weakness. But it's to apply it to myself and think, it's like when they say, when someone is expressing anger, view that person as a teacher. But that doesn't mean a teacher who teaches you how to get angry. It's the teacher who shows you how ugly you look when you're angry. Report an error in the passage at 3:03:15 Highlight the passage at 3:03:15

3:03:51 That's the teaching. So it isn't to take that person as a guru because they're acting like a jerk. You're taking them as presenting a teaching because it shows you what to avoid. Report an error in the passage at 3:03:51 Highlight the passage at 3:03:51

3:04:06 So I've never thought it terribly important, and there's some exceptions to this, but terribly important for me to make a judgment about the qualities of someone else. But in this lifetime I've had experiences of meeting... Great teachers, such as Lama Yeshe, whose qualities somehow or other resonated with me. Report an error in the passage at 3:04:06 Highlight the passage at 3:04:06

3:04:34 Like, I never had the feeling, and I want to kind of express this a little delicately, was my experience with Lama Yeshe was not predominantly how great he was, even though I'm filled with millions of stories that, you know, about how great he was, you know. But that was not the That was not the primary thing. What was great about him, and I would extend this to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many other teachers as well, but for me specifically Lama Yeshe, was that the way he expressed his being was, and you too. Report an error in the passage at 3:04:34 Highlight the passage at 3:04:34

3:05:20 In other words, it wasn't like here's a being who's way above everyone else. It's like any Good quality you would see in him, the fact that you could see it meant that you had an element of it in yourself as well. What resonated with you meant that you also had the Buddha nature. If you didn't have the Buddha nature, you wouldn't have recognized it even to a little extent in someone else. Report an error in the passage at 3:05:20 Highlight the passage at 3:05:20

3:05:48 And Lama was also kind of emphasizing, he used to make fun of his students relentlessly. Saying, oh, students come to me and say, oh, Lama, Buddha, what should I do? I'm so bad, blah, blah, blah. He says, I don't want any of that. Don't think the Buddha's way up in the sky and you're down there in the mud. He always emphasized this connection. Technically, the fact that we all have the Buddha nature, the potential for enlightenment in us. Report an error in the passage at 3:05:48 Highlight the passage at 3:05:48

3:06:19 And what excited me about being with Lama Yeshe and... I experienced this with other teachers as well, was when I was in their presence and even afterwards, the overwhelming feeling wasn't just simply, oh, how great they were. Report an error in the passage at 3:06:19 Highlight the passage at 3:06:19

3:06:40 It was, wow, I can feel, I can feel that. I can feel some measure of that compassion, some measure of that insight, you know, something resonated with it. Report an error in the passage at 3:06:40 Highlight the passage at 3:06:40

3:06:57 If it didn't resonate with me, then I could recognize, oh, that person had great concentration or great ability or great insight, great this, but there'd be no connection. The fact that there was a connection, that was the important part. So it always kind of turned the investigation around on to what benefit was I deriving from it. Report an error in the passage at 3:06:57 Highlight the passage at 3:06:57

3:07:22 And so my ability to, like someone asks me, okay, you've studied with these different teachers. Are your teachers enlightened? You know, was Lama Yeshe enlightened? Is Lama Zopa enlightened? Is the Dalai Lama enlightened? And I hate that question, right? Because all I can say with any honesty is how they appear to me when I'm being influenced by them. Report an error in the passage at 3:07:22 Highlight the passage at 3:07:22

3:07:49 And to whatever extent that's beneficial for me. If I say, oh yes, this teacher is enlightened, you know. Like Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In my opinion, one of the most extraordinary beings alive on this planet. My feeling. Report an error in the passage at 3:07:49 Highlight the passage at 3:07:49

3:08:11 But I would hesitate to say that to anyone who hasn't received teachings from him. Because then they'll say, oh, Lama Zopa's coming to town. I'll go. I'll attend one of his teachings. John Landau says he's one of the most extraordinary beings on the planet. Wow, he must be great. And then what could happen? Report an error in the passage at 3:08:11 Highlight the passage at 3:08:11

3:08:31 You go to attend these teachings and 12 hours later you're still sitting there, you know, and he maybe has just gotten through the title of the text he's talking about. And then there's some people blissing out and other people spacing out, you know, and some people really getting into what he's saying and other people not getting into it at all. Report an error in the passage at 3:08:31 Highlight the passage at 3:08:31

3:08:52 So how, then afterwards, a person came up and said, I thought you said he was one of the most extraordinary beings on the planet, Buddha, everything like that. What can I say? Report an error in the passage at 3:08:52 Highlight the passage at 3:08:52

3:09:09 Over many years, observing him for that time and seeing how selflessly giving he always is, 24 hours a day, every single day of his existence, then you think, my goodness, where's all this coming from? How extraordinary. Report an error in the passage at 3:09:09 Highlight the passage at 3:09:09

3:09:31 People have this idea that, oh, if someone is fantastic, you know, then I, when I see him or when I see her, I should be blown away. That doesn't always happen, does it? Especially with someone as challenging as Lama Zopa, you know, as uncompromising as Lama Zopa. Please, please. It just hit me that... Report an error in the passage at 3:09:31 Highlight the passage at 3:09:31

3:10:00 This goes right back to what we were talking about before because it's our experience of reality. There's more to it, of course, with lamas and beings in terms of our connections and the karma and everything. But ultimately, I've done that before where I've said to someone, oh, yes, you've got to go to this teaching. And then they have a very different experience than I do. Report an error in the passage at 3:10:00 Highlight the passage at 3:10:00

3:10:26 The first time Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a teaching in San Francisco, we were at the Unitarian Church. It was a good-sized room, maybe 150 people sitting there. And Rinpoche closed his eyes and began, you know, it was almost like a meditation. And about four hours later, he opened his eyes and there were about 20 people left. Report an error in the passage at 3:10:26 Highlight the passage at 3:10:26

3:10:49 It just all disappeared over the hours. And everybody had very different experiences. Yes, so I'm not sure exactly the conclusion to all of this, what Venerable Carol and I have been saying, but it's that the main emphasis is not on a description of an external reality. He's so great, she's so great, you know, here's a Buddha, like that. It's the extent to which the Buddha potential within us can be awakened and resonate. Report an error in the passage at 3:10:49 Highlight the passage at 3:10:49

3:11:28 With someone that we have some kind of sympathy with. That's not quite the right word. Connection with. Resonance with. And if that's there, if that resonance is there, then we can recognize the Buddha qualities in someone else. And the fact that we're experiencing it is enough. And if the resonance isn't there, we can't say, oh, then that person wasn't enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 3:11:28 Highlight the passage at 3:11:28

3:12:00 We can't jump to that conclusion just because we're not tuned into the right radio frequency. Nor can we say that they are enlightened because we are tuned into it. The important thing is what effect it has on our own mind. And I think that's very largely true for the Dharma as a whole. Getting beyond the personality of a particular teacher is if we listen to a teaching and then for the space of an hour or two we feel Kind of blissed out or our horizons get broader or something like that happens. That's good. Report an error in the passage at 3:12:00 Highlight the passage at 3:12:00

3:12:39 But what happens if shortly after that every ordinary delusion comes back with the same strength as before? That means we haven't really fully benefited. We did get at least a vision, so that's good. At least a brief vision, that's helpful. But if we want more than just a brief vision, Then we have to become students. But I mean that in a broader sense than just an intellectual student. Report an error in the passage at 3:12:39 Highlight the passage at 3:12:39

3:13:10 In other words, we have to make a study of it. Buddhism is demanding in that way. It isn't just getting a hit from it or being entertained by it. It's kind of using the teachings to help identify what are the key issues and especially Discovering what's the blockage. Because if we hear a teaching on compassion, especially if the teacher has some kind of charisma, that can put us into a different state for that hour or two hours. Report an error in the passage at 3:13:10 Highlight the passage at 3:13:10

3:13:49 It can be really amazing. Or studying someone like Shantideva, talking about compassion. I remember many times leaving the teachings with Geshe Dhargi, studying Shantideva. And it was like the whole class was like walking on air. Geshe Targi, through Shantideva, introduced us to this completely other way of viewing life. Report an error in the passage at 3:13:49 Highlight the passage at 3:13:49

3:14:12 And it really was. It was like our feet weren't on the ground afterwards, after some of these talks. But the proof in that, or the real value in that, aside from that momentary vision it gives us, is can we spot? Those things in ourselves is preventing this deep experience of compassion from arising. And then can we apply the teachings, the antidotes that are right in those very same teachings for overcoming that selfishness so we can give full reign to that compassion. Report an error in the passage at 3:14:12 Highlight the passage at 3:14:12

3:14:48 If we don't do that, if we don't do that job, if we're not a student in that sense, then all we do at the best, it seems to me, is occasionally get a contact high. Report an error in the passage at 3:14:48 Highlight the passage at 3:14:48

3:15:00 You know, from a very charismatic type of teacher. And that's something, but that's different from, you know, really training and practicing. Report an error in the passage at 3:15:00 Highlight the passage at 3:15:00

3:15:14 And to a very large extent, I don't know how far I want to take this philosophically, but I think to a very, very large extent, the Buddhist teachings focus on how to uproot First, how to diminish and then how to uproot those factors within ourselves that's shrouding our enlightened potential. Report an error in the passage at 3:15:14 Highlight the passage at 3:15:14

3:15:45 Not so much, I don't think the emphasis on how to develop loving kindness and how to develop compassion and how to develop wisdom as much as it is how to overcome selfishness, how to overcome lack of empathy, how to... How to overcome impatience, how to overcome anger, how to overcome ignorance. In other words, instead of focusing on you should be good, it's like, well, what are the factors that are shrouding your innate goodness and how to diminish them and how to uproot them? Report an error in the passage at 3:15:45 Highlight the passage at 3:15:45

3:16:21 I think that's the major emphasis, at least from my experience. And if we don't make an effort in uprooting those Inauthentic aspects of our being, then it's limited, isn't it? It's kind of limited what we get from it. Report an error in the passage at 3:16:21 Highlight the passage at 3:16:21

3:16:44 Then the teachers become like cheerleaders. Give me loving kindness. Yay, it's great. Well, that's good. But even better than that, loving kindness is, well, what's this harm and anger in you? Where's that rising from? You know, you know. Report an error in the passage at 3:16:44 Highlight the passage at 3:16:44

3:17:06 And how can we diminish it? That's much better than just thinking, oh, I should be a loving person. Anyway, maybe too much. Report an error in the passage at 3:17:06 Highlight the passage at 3:17:06

3:17:24 But isn't that like what the Dhammapada says? Cease from evil, do good, and then tame the mind. So as opposed to doing good first, you're ceasing from evil. So then when you can start to uproot the greed, hate and delusion, then you can... You said too much. Report an error in the passage at 3:17:24 Highlight the passage at 3:17:24

3:17:42 Get the sense of what doing good is about. Yeah, exactly that. And the Dalai Lama says it on many, many, many occasions. I personally have heard him say it dozens of times, so he must have said it hundreds of times. He says, if you can help, help. If you can't help, try to avoid giving harm. He says that all the time. So if there's a scope, For your loving kindness and compassion and so forth, if there's a scope for that and the power and ability and effectiveness in that, then the best way to live one's life is to try to do that. Report an error in the passage at 3:17:42 Highlight the passage at 3:17:42

3:18:28 But if there's something preventing, either externally or internally, from giving the help, then at least try to refrain from making the situation worse. And that's a very practical approach. Report an error in the passage at 3:18:28 Highlight the passage at 3:18:28

3:18:44 Isn't it true with the Dharma, haven't you experienced, that we receive many, many different teachings, but where does it say that we have to completely master one before we can start the next one? Report an error in the passage at 3:18:44 Highlight the passage at 3:18:44

3:18:59 They talk about the lamrim being a graded path and a series of graded developments, but where does it say that you have to, for example, completely develop renunciation before you start training your mind in bodhicitta? Report an error in the passage at 3:18:59 Highlight the passage at 3:18:59

3:19:17 In the lamrim, renunciation comes first and bodhicitta comes after. But nowhere does it say that just because you haven't completely gotten over your internal demons that you can't cultivate loving kindness and compassion for others. It's all mixed together. Not mixed together in a sloppy fashion, but you train on all aspects of the path. Report an error in the passage at 3:19:17 Highlight the passage at 3:19:17

3:19:46 Kind of together in some way. And then, you know, when you have occasion, maybe an extended retreat, then you would go and you'd like take the lamrim and you really would. You would train in that way, that you would start with the first point and you wouldn't move to the second point until something in your mind changed about the first point and then you go to the second. Report an error in the passage at 3:19:46 Highlight the passage at 3:19:46

3:20:10 But when you're just getting used to the teachings in the beginning, you know, you... You cultivate a bit of this and a bit of that, not hit or miss, but you're kind of developing it all together as one part. Report an error in the passage at 3:20:10 Highlight the passage at 3:20:10

3:20:27 I mean, that's true especially in the lamrim, isn't it? Because bodhicitta is the most advanced motivation, but what happens at the very beginning of the very first lamrim teaching, the motivation is the bodhicitta. So they take that advanced one and they place it there right in the beginning. But if you want to fully develop the bodhicitta, then you have to do it on the basis of all the elements of the first level of the path, where you're taking an interest in benefiting your future, and then you have to do it on the basis of the second level of the path, where you've taken interest in achieving liberation from all limited samsaric existence, and then on the basis of that, then you can develop the bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 3:20:27 Highlight the passage at 3:20:27

3:21:12 But it's not as like you forget about the bodhicitta until you reach the third stage. Is it? I've never heard it taught that way. Report an error in the passage at 3:21:12 Highlight the passage at 3:21:12

3:21:29 Do you have something? Report an error in the passage at 3:21:29 Highlight the passage at 3:21:29

3:21:34 I can't be here next week, so I'm going to ask this question. Maybe something will happen today. You seemed reluctant to talk very much about, or go into at this point, dealing with the habitual patterns of how we undermine. fine. Report an error in the passage at 3:21:34 Highlight the passage at 3:21:34

3:21:55 How we get in the way of seeing our goodness. Does that go right to meditation and mindfulness as a practice? Would you say something about that? I have to admit I don't really understand what your question is. I'm sorry. I thought I heard you say that you were a little reluctant now to go too far into talking about there Report an error in the passage at 3:21:55 Highlight the passage at 3:21:55

3:22:24 How we would decrease our negative, I don't remember the exact words you used, but how we would decrease our habitual patterns that get in the way of us being more loving, more compassionate, more ethical. I didn't mean to express reluctance with that. There's maybe a time constraint. I thought maybe it was something we were going to do next week. Report an error in the passage at 3:22:24 Highlight the passage at 3:22:24

3:22:52 As far as I know, I'm not coming next week. Okay. How I heard that. No, no. It's just that what I might have said was that with a total of four hours together, there may have just been certain topics that we didn't have time to fully explore. But I didn't mean to shy away from that, because I really think, as I just expressed, I think the essence of Dharma practice Report an error in the passage at 3:22:52 Highlight the passage at 3:22:52

3:23:23 For myself, when I'm serious, I mean, I've been supposedly doing this for 40 years, but if I'm honest, 24 hours a day I do not practice the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 3:23:23 Highlight the passage at 3:23:23

3:23:34 If 24 minutes a day, that would be a lot. But maybe Report an error in the passage at 3:23:34 Highlight the passage at 3:23:34

3:23:53 I can say a few words about that. Report an error in the passage at 3:23:53 Highlight the passage at 3:23:53

3:24:10 In my experience, one of the most profound elements of the Buddhist teachings is that it recognizes that all Negativity and all resultant suffering, all of it comes not because we're bad, you know, or not because of outer circumstances or not because of demons or anything like that, but basically because we're just not seeing things correctly. Report an error in the passage at 3:24:10 Highlight the passage at 3:24:10

3:24:44 We misconceive the nature of our reality, external reality and internal reality. That's where the problem lies. And in respect to that, Buddha taught very, very clearly three prominent misconceptions that plague the mind of, how should I say, unenlightened beings, being still trapped in suffering. There's three prominent misconceptions. And many of you have heard this. Report an error in the passage at 3:24:44 Highlight the passage at 3:24:44

3:25:22 In different contexts over the years, I'm sure. The first one is, well, does anyone know what the first one is? What teachings you've received? Report an error in the passage at 3:25:22 Highlight the passage at 3:25:22

3:25:33 The first one is viewing things which are, in fact, in a constant state of change, or to use technical language, viewing things which are by nature impermanent as if they were permanent, or static, or unchanging. Report an error in the passage at 3:25:33 Highlight the passage at 3:25:33

3:25:54 That's the first one. In many ways, it's the simplest of the three to understand. But also, it's in a way the most important. Report an error in the passage at 3:25:54 Highlight the passage at 3:25:54

3:26:11 It's the one that's accessible. And it's also the one which, when misunderstood, leads to such obvious suffering. So what was that again? Viewing impermanent phenomena as if they were static, unchanging, permanent. Report an error in the passage at 3:26:11 Highlight the passage at 3:26:11

3:26:32 So that's a misconception. Everything that we see, hear, smell, taste and touch is in a constant state of flux. Everything. Whether it's a prized possession that we have or a loved one or ourself, our body. Report an error in the passage at 3:26:32 Highlight the passage at 3:26:32

3:26:56 I'll just Huxley use the phrase, perpetual perishing. I don't think that has it. know, it's, it's, it's. Report an error in the passage at 3:26:56 Highlight the passage at 3:26:56

3:27:04 That's a direct translation of a Buddhist phrase. I don't believe it is, but I think it's a very accurate translation. Everything is in the process of changing, perishing, moment to moment. Report an error in the passage at 3:27:04 Highlight the passage at 3:27:04

3:27:19 In fact, this was such an important insight by the Buddha that not only did he teach it all the way during the course of the 45 years that he taught, but it was the heart of the very, very last teaching that he gave, the very last teaching that he gave. Report an error in the passage at 3:27:19 Highlight the passage at 3:27:19

3:27:36 I forget whether he was already lying down in the lion posture when he said it, or just before he lay down in it, but the last formal teaching he gave went something like, all compounded phenomena, means everything that arises from causes, is impermanent. Work out your own salvation with diligence. That was his last address to his monks before he entered deeper and deeper states of meditation and passed away. Report an error in the passage at 3:27:36 Highlight the passage at 3:27:36

3:28:04 So the last thing that he wanted them to remember was the impermanent nature of phenomena. Now, intellectually, impermanence is not that difficult. There are such things as gross impermanence and subtle impermanence. There's some variation in that. But the idea behind it is rather simple, and it's completely supported by any kind of investigation we do, scientific materialism. Report an error in the passage at 3:28:04 Highlight the passage at 3:28:04

3:28:32 Any kind of investigation shows us that this is true. Things are in a constant state of flux. But it's not as if we become liberated by just understanding that things are impermanent, that things change. Our liberation comes about when we recognize what we're holding onto as permanent. In other words, it's the opposite view. Report an error in the passage at 3:28:32 Highlight the passage at 3:28:32

3:28:59 It's recognizing the presence of the opposite view in us and then subjecting that to this wisdom dissection. So you can go about, you know, 25 hours a day saying, everything's impermanent, everything's impermanent, everything's impermanent, everything's impermanent, you know. But it doesn't mean anything until you recognize, oh, I'm holding on to this as permanent. That's why I'm suffering. You know, I'm holding on to my... Report an error in the passage at 3:28:59 Highlight the passage at 3:28:59

3:29:30 bodily strength as being permanent. I'm holding on to the face of my beloved as being unchanging and permanent. I'm holding on to my job as being permanent. I'm holding on to my status in society as being permanent. In other words, we have to find out what is the negative view, which is the, you know, which is the, what is the manifestation of that first misconception in our life? Report an error in the passage at 3:29:30 Highlight the passage at 3:29:30

3:29:59 And then applying All of our ability of introspection and investigation to see if we can soften it, to undermine it. Otherwise, just saying the positive view, just saying the positive view, everything is impermanent, doesn't move the mind at all. But if we discover, ah, I'm holding on to this, and whatever that this may be, reputation, a loved one, possession, whatever it might be, and then to recognize, well, I'm holding on to it as if it were permanent, but it's not permanent. So we have to use the realization of its actual nature to loosen our grasp on the mistaken nature that we're holding on to. Report an error in the passage at 3:29:59 Highlight the passage at 3:29:59

3:30:50 Otherwise, it's kind of like we said before when we talked about the Heart Sūtra. You have to recognize the object to be refuted. Now usually, in Buddhist terminology, the object to be refuted is subtler. It's getting into the third of the mistaken misconceptions. We don't usually apply it to it necessarily to the grosser ones. But you can apply it to it. Report an error in the passage at 3:30:50 Highlight the passage at 3:30:50

3:31:16 You can apply that. The false view is seeing impermanent as permanent. So that's what we have to work with. you know, the, the. Report an error in the passage at 3:31:16 Highlight the passage at 3:31:16

3:31:28 So if we don't use the teachings in terms of our own personal psychology, we end up being able to spout the Dharma, I'm pretty good at that, without actually applying the Dharma, which I'm not that good at. Report an error in the passage at 3:31:28 Highlight the passage at 3:31:28

3:31:43 So that's the first one. And of course, it's a huge topic in and of itself. So now that I've given you a hint of what the first of the three are, does anybody want to venture what the second of the three misconceptions are? And it can be expressed many different ways. There are very different ways of stating it. Report an error in the passage at 3:31:43 Highlight the passage at 3:31:43

3:32:05 Okay, can you put it in a whole sentence? Report an error in the passage at 3:32:05 Highlight the passage at 3:32:05

3:32:12 Yeah, I can repeat it. Venerable said, mistaking that which is unsatisfactory as if it were the source of true happiness. Report an error in the passage at 3:32:12 Highlight the passage at 3:32:12

3:32:25 And that can be expressed in a number of different ways. Report an error in the passage at 3:32:25 Highlight the passage at 3:32:25

3:32:31 Thinking that things which are incapable of giving us true happiness and satisfaction were actually causes. you know. Report an error in the passage at 3:32:31 Highlight the passage at 3:32:31

3:32:39 Or sources of happiness and satisfaction. So it's like a misestimation of the quality of things. Now we're not talking about whether they're permanent or not, but their ability to provide us with the satisfaction, peace of mind, happiness that we're looking for. Report an error in the passage at 3:32:39 Highlight the passage at 3:32:39

3:33:01 And it's like, colloquially you could say, it's like putting our eggs in the wrong basket. We think And common culture constantly is holding up the mirror to this. Someone who said, I did everything right in my life. I went to college. I got this education. I got married to this really lovely person. I had 2.7 children. Report an error in the passage at 3:33:01 Highlight the passage at 3:33:01

3:33:32 I paid my dues. I'm an upstanding member of the society. I got the right job. I'm living in a good neighborhood. I've got all these modern conveniences and everything like that. But still, somehow or other, my life is empty. I mean, how many times do we hear that story again and again and again? And we don't hear that story from religious teachers or spiritual teachers as much as we hear from the common culture. It's constantly coming back to us, reading Report an error in the passage at 3:33:32 Highlight the passage at 3:33:32

3:34:08 Newspaper reports, all kinds of things. Watching dramas, programs on television. That experience is, and it's repeated because it's always on some level an eye-opening experience. Wow, I didn't expect that. I thought if I did all those things I really would be happy. But look, this person did all those things and he wasn't unhappy. He wasn't happy and she wasn't happy. Report an error in the passage at 3:34:08 Highlight the passage at 3:34:08

3:34:35 So all of that is somehow or other Testify to this second misconception that relying on things which are incapable of giving us true satisfaction is a form of suffering. Report an error in the passage at 3:34:35 Highlight the passage at 3:34:35

3:34:56 It's a major form of suffering. And so there comes from that an analysis which can be a very painful analysis as what is really essential in life. Now, again, it's possible to fall into an extreme. I know of some people who, when they became students and they saw the example of older students and their teachers being monks and nuns, then they started and they'd hear teachings about the faults of possessiveness and You know, ordinary attachment and attraction. I know of a number of cases in which people broke off the relationship they had with a loved one, even in the cases when they were married and had children. Report an error in the passage at 3:34:56 Highlight the passage at 3:34:56

3:35:52 They just broke it off. They said, oh, this is wrong. This is saṃsāra. So they weren't actually abandoning saṃsāra. They were abandoning their wife or their husband. You know, the saṃsāra is on the inside. Report an error in the passage at 3:35:52 Highlight the passage at 3:35:52

3:36:09 Attachment isn't the person. Attachment is the attitude towards what we have to the person or the possession or the thing. If we don't get rid of that, then we're just changing the outer circumstances. And that happened a lot, didn't it? I mean, you must have seen examples in your years. I certainly saw examples of mine where they thought, oh, the teachings are telling me that I have to give up my samsaric life, so therefore... Report an error in the passage at 3:36:09 Highlight the passage at 3:36:09

3:36:36 My wife is my samsaric life, my husband is my samsaric life, my job is my samsaric life. Without recognizing the samsaric life is the attachment to those things, not the things themselves. Report an error in the passage at 3:36:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36:36

3:36:51 But in any event, though this can be misunderstood, it's still very important to try to understand it correctly. And I remember one of my teachers once said that He was talking about the seventh Dalai Lama. And by the time the seventh Dalai Lama was the Dalai Lama, the Potala Palace had been built. It had been built under the time of the fifth Dalai Lama. It was at least started then. And so by the time of the seventh Dalai Lama, he was living in this extraordinary palace. Report an error in the passage at 3:36:51 Highlight the passage at 3:36:51

3:37:28 Many, many rooms, servants, everything. But what they were saying about him, because he was one of the most extraordinary of the Dalai Lamas. They said that even though he was living in these sumptuous, elegant quarters, from his own position, the only possessions he felt he had were his robes and his begging bowl. Report an error in the passage at 3:37:28 Highlight the passage at 3:37:28

3:37:53 Nothing else that was there in the Poetler Palace he considered his. So it's not the presence of wealth or luxury or conveniences or amusements. It's not the presence of those things that's the attachment, it's the attitude towards them. And they were saying, he was free of that, even surrounded by wealth. Report an error in the passage at 3:37:53 Highlight the passage at 3:37:53

3:38:18 And of course, we have the opposite case of people who have very, very little, but they're so attached to that, you know, that spiritual progress is greatly impeded. Tibetans tell a number of kind of funny stories about that as well. So that's the second of the three. By the way, as I said before, These misconceptions can be explained in different numbers and in different titles to them, but this is one way of understanding it. Report an error in the passage at 3:38:18 Highlight the passage at 3:38:18

3:38:48 First one, viewing that which is impermanent as permanent or static, unchanging, if you don't like the word permanent. Second one, viewing that which is incapable of giving us ultimate pleasure or happiness as if it was capable of providing that kind of satisfaction. And then the third is the most subtle of all and underlines the first two and actually gets back to the subject that we touched on in the first hour. Report an error in the passage at 3:38:48 Highlight the passage at 3:38:48

3:39:20 And that is, what's that one? Report an error in the passage at 3:39:20 Highlight the passage at 3:39:20

3:39:28 Anybody have an idea? Yes, please. Report an error in the passage at 3:39:28 Highlight the passage at 3:39:28

3:39:36 And the way we can express that is even though things lack self-nature, viewing things as if they had. Such a self-existent nature. So even though things lack inherent existence, viewing them as if they had inherent existence. There's many, many ways you can formulate it. Even though that nothing exists concretely from its own side, viewing things as if they were concretely existing, existing from their own side. Report an error in the passage at 3:39:36 Highlight the passage at 3:39:36

3:40:12 There's all kinds of ways of putting language onto that. But basically, It's a misconception on the very status of phenomena. Now, I want to make a discrimination, which I tried to make before, but I'm not sure how clear it was. Report an error in the passage at 3:40:12 Highlight the passage at 3:40:12

3:40:32 I was going to say that there's two fundamentally wrong ways of looking at things, but I think there's a lot more than two. But for the current conversation, let's just say there's two ways. You can have a mistaken idea about something. Report an error in the passage at 3:40:32 Highlight the passage at 3:40:32

3:40:51 Mistaking it for something else, right? Report an error in the passage at 3:40:51 Highlight the passage at 3:40:51

3:40:57 You know, and use the example of mistaking a coiled rope for a snake, mistaking a mirage for a lake, mistaking, oh, there's certain diseases that you can get in which when you look at things that are white, you see them as yellow, right? Or you see the movement of what looks like hair falling in front of the eyes, but there is no hair falling there. Report an error in the passage at 3:40:57 Highlight the passage at 3:40:57

3:41:27 So in that case, you're looking at one thing, perceiving one thing, but you're mistaking it because you think it's something else. That's a mistake. That's a hallucination. But that one is relatively superficial, and it can be corrected by just taking a closer look, right? Report an error in the passage at 3:41:27 Highlight the passage at 3:41:27

3:41:52 Or having someone else give a testimony or undergoing some kind of cure. It's not that difficult. To get rid of those hallucinations, or the case of a pile of rocks that looks like a man, well, just take out a flashlight and shine it there and get closer. And you can see it isn't a man, it is a pile of rocks. So that first level of mistaken view is not that difficult, though it causes its own problems. Report an error in the passage at 3:41:52 Highlight the passage at 3:41:52

3:42:20 It does cause its own problems, but it's not that difficult to overcome compared with the second one. The second one is not What the phenomena is. It's how the phenomena exists. What's the nature of its existence? Report an error in the passage at 3:42:20 Highlight the passage at 3:42:20

3:42:39 And as mentioned earlier, this fundamental mistake to which we are accustomed through lifetimes after lifetimes of our wisdom eye being clouded over with delusion, with ignorance, the fundamental mistake is that things, Appear to have existence in and of themselves separate from everything else. Separate from the causes and conditions which could rise to them. Report an error in the passage at 3:42:39 Highlight the passage at 3:42:39

3:43:13 Separate from the parts that make them up. Separate from the activity of the viewing consciousness. In a word, they seem to be self-existent. Report an error in the passage at 3:43:13 Highlight the passage at 3:43:13

3:43:25 Or a phrase, one of the phrases that Kepche Zompa Rinpoche, What he very much likes to use when he's talking about these teachings is that things seem to exist from their own side. Report an error in the passage at 3:43:25 Highlight the passage at 3:43:25

3:43:40 So what does that mean, things seem to exist from their own side? It's like denying that we have any input into how things appear to us. Report an error in the passage at 3:43:40 Highlight the passage at 3:43:40

3:43:51 As I said before, it's like we're just a poor, passive, innocent bystander. I just happened to walk along and I saw this thing. Report an error in the passage at 3:43:51 Highlight the passage at 3:43:51

3:44:05 I didn't have anything to do with it appearing the way it appeared. It just appeared from its own side to me. And especially if it appears particularly attractive, then I'm sort of the slave to how attractive it looks. Or if it appears particularly threatening, then I'm a slave to the threatening appearance. Report an error in the passage at 3:44:05 Highlight the passage at 3:44:05

3:44:26 right? But It's attractive or it's threatening or it's whatever it appears to be from its own side. It has nothing to do with me. I just happen to be around. I just happen to see it. But its qualities come completely from its own side. Report an error in the passage at 3:44:26 Highlight the passage at 3:44:26

3:44:50 Does that make sense at all? Because these points are getting subtler as they go on. This third misconception. It's subtler than the first two, and as I mentioned, it's said to underline the first two, be Report an error in the passage at 3:44:50 Highlight the passage at 3:44:50

3:45:12 the foundation for the first two. Yeah, I was looking for another word, but I lost it. Anyway, so this is the hardest one to overcome. I sometimes think of, you know, I wonder, like, if I were a fish and lived my whole life in the ocean, would I even know what water was? Would I? I mean, if If I live my whole life in water, I don't have anything to compare it with, it would just be the way things are, would I be able to recognize the existence of water? Report an error in the passage at 3:45:12 Highlight the passage at 3:45:12

3:45:49 I wonder, would I know it? Maybe the feeling against my body, but would I know what it was? And it's similar that we're so immersed in this view that things exist from their own side and we just happen to be perceiving them. Report an error in the passage at 3:45:49 Highlight the passage at 3:45:49

3:46:08 We don't participate in them at all. We're just the innocent viewer of them. We're so used to that, it's really hard to overcome it. It's such second nature to us. In fact, it seems logical that things exist from their own side, because if they didn't, then what are they? How do they exist? And this is something which is debated. Report an error in the passage at 3:46:08 Highlight the passage at 3:46:08

3:46:33 Not only between Buddhists and non-Buddhists, but among all the various levels of the Buddhist school, is how do things actually exist? Because we're so used to things existing concretely, solidly, from their own side, as soon as we start to doubt them, you know, maybe they aren't as out there, as solid, maybe they're not as concrete as they seem, then our pendulum-like mind Swings to the other direction, right? And then we think, oh, then they must not exist at all. If things don't have solid concrete existence, then they must be totally nonexistent, you know, the nihilistic, the Report an error in the passage at 3:46:33 Highlight the passage at 3:46:33

3:47:21 universe makes no sense, it's random, nothing holds together, might as well just go out and get drunk, you know. And that's a major philosophy and has been for thousands of years, you know, you can't. You can't find the way things actually function, so you kind of assume that there's no rhyme or reason behind it at all and live a life of dissipation, sunk in hedonism or self-destructive behavior or addiction, like that, which are all formed one way or another, I think, of a nihilistic extreme. Report an error in the passage at 3:47:21 Highlight the passage at 3:47:21

3:48:04 And while other teachings, and here I'm going to be a little... Chauvinistic, or maybe very chauvinistic, is it's true that many insights that are found in Buddhism are found in other spiritual traditions in different forms. There's no question about it. Especially true on the compassion side of the path. Definitely true. If you think of the teachings that Christianity has on compassion, very, very advanced. Report an error in the passage at 3:48:04 Highlight the passage at 3:48:04

3:48:37 And that's just one. Possible example. But when it comes to the wisdom teachings that unearth the apparent solid reality of the way things appear to us, then it really seems like Buddhism, Buddha was on his own. Report an error in the passage at 3:48:37 Highlight the passage at 3:48:37

3:48:59 That he was really teaching something that was quite radically different from the other spiritual traditions. Other spiritual traditions which in their own sense were very profound. And very transformative. But in this respect, it seems as if Buddha was a true radical. And when we find, and this is my own idea, this may not be right. Report an error in the passage at 3:48:59 Highlight the passage at 3:48:59

3:49:24 This is just my own feeling. I'm not wedded to it at all. But you're here, so you've got the karma to hear it. That were a bad karma that might be. Is when we find echoes of the teaching of emptiness. In other spiritual traditions, I have a very strong feeling they were borrowed from Buddhism. They came from people who were exposed to the Buddhist teachings and then for one reason or another incorporated it in their own spiritual path and gave it its own flavor. Report an error in the passage at 3:49:24 Highlight the passage at 3:49:24

3:50:03 I could very well be wrong about that, but everything that I've studied and read and heard makes me feel that If there was one extraordinary contribution that Buddha made to world thought, it was these teachings on the lack of inherent existence, of emptiness, of selflessness. Report an error in the passage at 3:50:03 Highlight the passage at 3:50:03

3:50:27 But I just put that out as a possibility. And it became a problem. I mean, it became a challenge. How do you accept ethical behavior? Necessity of ethical behavior that actions have consequences if neither the actions or the consequences have inherent existence. Report an error in the passage at 3:50:27 Highlight the passage at 3:50:27

3:50:55 How do you hold them together? And it was really up to, as far as I can see, up to the great Indian master Nagarjuna, who was predicted by the Buddha, predicted that he would come and elucidate the deep meaning of his teachings. It was basic, one of... Nagarjuna's basic contributions was to show that the working of cause and effect on one hand, dependent horizon, and the infallible working of cause and effect, the efficacy of cause and effect on one hand, and the lack of independent self-existent on the other, were not contradictory but were compatible. Report an error in the passage at 3:50:55 Highlight the passage at 3:50:55

3:51:41 Because on the surface they appear very contradictory. And they appear contradictory not just to a Mickey Mouse student like myself, they appeared contradictory to some of the great minds, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, who existed over the centuries in India. So it's not just a problem for people who have just a cursory understanding, it was a problem for people who were truly brilliant spiritual masters in and of themselves. Report an error in the passage at 3:51:41 Highlight the passage at 3:51:41

3:52:11 So very, very amazing, very subtle. Very transformative teachings and a challenge for us. But the fortunate thing, and the Dalai Lama has pointed this out on many occasions and all the other teachers I've had have pointed it out, is that we needn't overcome the subtlest view first. Report an error in the passage at 3:52:11 Highlight the passage at 3:52:11

3:52:35 You know, we should take the most obvious mistaken view that we have, whatever it is, usually manifesting through one of the delusions. You know, what's your favorite delusion? Is it jealousy? Is it greed? Is it anger? Whatever it is. Take that one first. And I don't mean, when I say take it first, that we completely ignore all the rest, but focus on the one that's causing the most problems to begin with, and then discover what's feeding into it, what mistaken view is feeding into it. Report an error in the passage at 3:52:35 Highlight the passage at 3:52:35

3:53:09 Now, it's true that the mistaken view of seeing self where there is no self ultimately is the cause of whatever that view is. That's true. But there's also a lot grosser views which are also supporting it, which we can work on first. So we don't have to think that we have to develop a complete understanding of the emptiness or selflessness teachings before we can uproot the major delusions. Report an error in the passage at 3:53:09 Highlight the passage at 3:53:09

3:53:38 We can go a very, very, very long way to weakening them and overcoming them by adopting a more accessible view. Report an error in the passage at 3:53:38 Highlight the passage at 3:53:38

3:53:50 Even the easiest one of them all, at least of the three that I mentioned, just bringing to mind impermanence. Report an error in the passage at 3:53:50 Highlight the passage at 3:53:50

3:54:03 But we actually have to do it. We can't just say things are impermanent. We have to bring to mind that teaching and overcome whatever we're grasping onto. So let's say if our main delusion is jealousy, we can't stand it when someone else gets Promoted and we're left behind. Or when someone establishes a relation to somebody that we're attracted to and we're left behind. Report an error in the passage at 3:54:03 Highlight the passage at 3:54:03

3:54:34 Let's say it's jealousy. But it could be any of the delusions. Jealousy is just being one of them. So let's say if that's the main one, that's the one that really puts us on fire, that really creates suffering for ourselves and others, then of course. If we're strong enough and well-versed enough, we can take the teachings on emptiness to undermine it. That would be perfect. But how many of us can do that? Report an error in the passage at 3:54:34 Highlight the passage at 3:54:34

3:55:02 How many of us after studying for 40 years can do that? It's difficult. But impermanence is available, isn't it? So if it's a position that we applied for and we didn't get and the other person got, well, that whole situation is completely impermanent. The position is impermanent. The person who got it in place of us is impermanent. We ourselves are impermanent. And the implication of that is that we're all going to die. Report an error in the passage at 3:55:02 Highlight the passage at 3:55:02

3:55:36 Well, if we're all going to die, why would we spend our time being jealous when someone gets something that we want? Because even if we got it, we'd lose it after a while. Report an error in the passage at 3:55:36 Highlight the passage at 3:55:36