bodhicharyavatara 2008, bir - dzongsar jamyang khyentse rinpoche

BODHICHARYAVATARA (Skt. Bodhicaryāvatāra; Tib.

བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ་, སྤྱོད་འཇུག་, Wyl. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug

pa) or Introduction to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life - Shantideva's

classic guide to the Mahayana path. (Deer Park, 2008) ...Dzongsar

Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

[First year teaching (2008) of three years; the other two in 2010, 2011]

The Reference Book/Commentary by Khenchen Kunzang Pelden. -

So I am going to, I will try to use as much commentary written by a great master, Khenchen Kunzang Pelden, who also happens to be one of the, who also happens to be the teacher for Khyentse Chokyi Lodro. Eh – and the, he made; this commentary is also used by Dzogchen Institute. The commentary, besides being very academic, Khenchen Kunzang’s commentary is also known as almost like a guideline for meditation. So readers can approach this text as almost as an instruction for meditation. And also, because the text is finally translated, completed: the complete translation of this commentary; and I would say one of the best group of translators have done the job. And I have strong confidence that the commentary in English is excellent.





Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche...part 1/24

In Nalanda tradition, as you know, I travelled to many different places and quite seriously to Tibet. And when I first tried to re-establish the famous Dzongsar Shedra, which in itself, a very diligent institute in keeping the tradition of Nalanda; here in Bir, I’ve never imagined that one day, this place will be occupied by beings like yourselves. At one point there were about 400 monks, cramped in this small place and I can, I can – it is safe to say the majority of the subjects that these monks have studied here in this institute, happened to be Nalanda tradition and related materials. This Bodhicharyavatara lore must have been taught in this place and in this room, probably more than 20 times. As you know, Bodhicharyavatara is most loved, respected, venerated, treasured by many, many masters of the past and the present. I'm sure you know His Holiness the Dalai Lama valued this text so much; mm - I'm happy to at least initiate the text this time although I cannot really make any promise whether this text will ever finish.

As you can see the text is quite long. We will, eh, try to complete the text maybe within several years. I like to and because of the, mainly because of my own time; not so much because I’m busy or I’m doing worthwhile things, but more like because I'm so lethargic and fear of responsibilities, I may not able to do it in one go. And also I think for the listeners, it may be easier for you to come in few - sort of segments. Mm – of course, ideally it would be good if you can complete the whole text, but

because the text is designed as a very important mind training, and even though you can, may miss some parts, I think there is no really specific prescribed restriction of not allowing, eh, people to just participate randomly. So I am going to, I will try to use as much commentary written by a great master, Khenchen Kunzang Pelden, who also happens to be one of the, who also happens to be the teacher for Khyentse Chokyi Lodro. Eh – and the, he made; this commentary is also used by Dzogchen Institute. The commentary, besides being very academic, Khenchen Kunzang’s commentary is also known as almost like a guideline for meditation. So readers can approach this text as almost as an instruction for meditation. And also, because the text is finally translated, completed: the complete translation of this commentary; and I would say one of the best groups of translators has done the job. And I have strong confidence that the commentary in English is excellent. The way I'm going to approach is inspired by His Holiness Dalai Lama, recently; when His Holiness Dalai Lama taught this in Europe. What he did was – he introduced 9th Chapter, because even though traditionally, of course, we start from page 1, step-by-step. Eh – His Holiness said that there is actually a tradition, especially introduced by Nagarjuna to teach the wisdom first, and then the method later. So he introduced the 9th Chapter, which is the chapter of the wisdom, and then he taught the beginning chapters. I'm sure there’re many reasons, eh, many good reasons for this. I can also see some reasons, especially in our modern, modern day, modern time, because, mm - we are going through the age: this age is the age of scepticism. Critical thinking, scepticism and to a certain extent, even the doubt, the culture of doubt, is very much emphasized in our modern culture. If you read a newspaper - to scrutinize leaders, to scrutinize political system, economic system, to really look at it with critical eye is very much emphasized. And I'm sure many of you are influenced with his, and I’m sure some of you even cherish this. For myself I cherish critical thinking. Buddha also encouraged very much. He said none of his teachings should be taken seriously just because Buddha taught this. He said like gold, one has to pass, one has to purify, one has to really analyse whether the gold is the real gold; because there are very, because, eh, appearance can be deceiving. This is actually the very big, one of the spine spirit, if you like, of Nalanda tradition. Nalanda is known for its dialectic approach to the Buddhist path. Not only the Buddha, his followers, century after century, also promoted the idea of, especially in the beginning, to approach critically. So what I am trying to say is in the early chapters you will encounter – you know, there are a lot of words, there are a lot of phrases, stanzas that describe about how to show path to somebody, how to sit on a bench, eh, all those, almost like theistic, almost religious-like instructions. Now, of course, I will tell you the story behind this later; but one thing you have to remember is Shantideva taught this to the audience of 500 Nalanda monks, I think. So audience always dictates and there are, because I’m, I am saying this now because in many sections, you will also hear from Chandrakirti’s, I mean from Shantideva’s stanzas, eh, like “How can you look at, eh, how can you look at a woman and see them as beautiful and clean and so on an so forth? In reality, you know, they are full of blood, and pus, and bones and so on and

so forth”. Now I want to tell you not to take this as a sexist remark, because I am very sure as a great Mahayana and especially, Yogachara-Madhyamaka, he was not a sexist. If the audience happened to be 500 nuns, it would have been otherwise. Anyway, if you can manage to cover even the first chapter, you will hear a lot of stanzas like me, myself, the destitute me, I have nothing to offer; may I offer flowers, may I offer the swans swimming in the universe, beautiful lake, adorned with the lotuses and all of these. Now as I said earlier if we approach the chapter right from the beginning, for many of us, modern people; the modern people cherishes doubt even though we don’t really have a good reason. Because when you doubt, you’re also doubting with a particular reason, and you are actually blindly devoted to that reason. So, actually there is really only, there is really very, very thin line, I would almost say there is no line between what we call blind devotion and critical thinking. There is almost no, no difference. When you’re been critical, sceptical; when you’re being academicals - you are always relying on a certain logic, so-called logic, reasoning or rational mind. And many of them, in fact, almost of them are pathetic. There’s a great Indian, eh, pramana, Buddhist logic master; he said actually logic is a gateway, a perfect gateway to illogic. But condition, (Tibetan phrase) condition is, condition dictates our lives; not only our hair. Conditioning is important. We, we get influenced by all kinds of condition. And right now, we live in a world that has so much conditions of sceptical thinking. Well, not all of us; some of us – we really blindly follow, some of us, unfortunately, some of us - we blindly follow certain paths and ruin themselves. Now, this is again critical thinking, isn’t it? So, we are, we live in this world of critical thinking, so for this if we hear Shantideva’s words like “May I offer flowers, incense and so on and so forth?”, right from the beginning, it might turn you away, turn our, our sort of appreciation away from this text. So this is why it makes a lot of sense for someone like His Holiness Dalai Lama to really present the wisdom first or time to time. And it’s like a carrot: to lead a donkey, you need a carrot. We, I think it was, if I'm wrong; you know, obviously I am teaching in India – there’s so many scholars here. If I am wrong, please correct me.

I think what’s his name? Chanakya – he said, Arthashastra, right? - He said that in all human endeavours, there’s always an aim. You have to have a kind of aim, you have to have an aim; and then whatever, you know, strategy, the budget, I don’t know, planning, all of this is done according to that aim. So wisdom, in this case, just for the manner, just for the sake of speech, just for the sake of communication, we need to first know - you know, we human beings always like to know what’s in it for me. You know, like; okay, I'm here travelling all the way from Delhi, Bombay, Norway, I don’t know, wherever, spending all this money, enjoy all these difficulties. And there’s so much, you know, life going on elsewhere but here I am for three days; I’m going to sacrifice these three days, you are sacrificing three days – what’s in it for me? You are all looking for something, a result and that, and looking for result; and Shantideva said (Tibetan phrase) - I don’t remember. (Tibetan phrase) He said there’s one ignorance that the Buddhist should not, for the practitioner, a spiritual

seeker, should not get rid of the time being - is the ignorance of thinking that there is a result. It’s a very profound statement, written by, I mean, spoken by Shantideva himself. So it’s important for you to have an aim. And our aim here to, our aim here is to actualize or to obtain, or to discover, however you want to put it; to really improve or to obtain this wisdom. And then to obtain this wisdom, to discover this wisdom, first you have to really study about this wisdom. Studying wisdom means many times studying ignorance; studying not wisdom; your particular wisdom.

Studying, studying wisdom, eh, can be many things, but anyway first, you have to do hearing. Then, a little bit of contemplation; and then you might get a little bit of confidence, “Oh, what Shantideva’s idea of this wisdom sounds interesting. This sounds workable. This sounds non- deceiving. If I pursue this path; if I try to obtain this wisdom, I think I'll get somewhere. I will not be too confused, so and so forth”. Once you have that, then you have a carrot. Then, then, only then, I think, we can say, “OK, now, if you want this wisdom, then you should think I offer swans swimming in the lake; I offer fruits growing in the mountains, so on and so forth.” You know, because then you realize there’s worthwhile to do this. This is why the way I am going to, sort of, present this text; many times I'm going to bring wisdom aspect a little bit, and then we will go, I'll try to go through all the stanzas as much as possible. Okay, Bodhicharyavatara; I think the “charya” – is it the action or the way, is it the way? Translated as “way”, right? Okay, I like the “way” – Way of the Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is a being, a person. Bodhicitta is a mind or an attitude. Someone who has this attitude is automatically, which Shantideva will speak very much in the 1st and 2nd Chapters – someone who has this attitude is automatically referred as the bodhisattva. And here Shantideva basically wrote, I’m sure he has written many, but he has written three major important texts - and this is one of them. In fact, this is the middle-length, the most practical one. He himself praised this one. This is called the “Way of the Bodhisattva”; the way of the Bodhisattva, the courageous one, the warrior, the Way of the Warrior.

The way; the word “charya”, the way, is really an important one because we are talking about attitude. We are talking about fashion. We are talking about dieting, diet system. We are talking about like skill. We are talking about, eh, eh, this is like; yah, we are talking about the method to be, method, eh, of how to be cool, you understand? And how to avoid and also, also how to be not cool – this is very important in the bodhisattva path. Maybe the Asians, the Indians and the Chinese, maybe a little accustomed this concept called “doing the not-doing”. And many times, Shantideva will also teach us how to not, how to do the not-doing. The way - very important; mm, all of us – we want to make a statement, isn't it? We want to make a statement. Eh, we want to rabble. We want to, sort of, stand out, but human mind is complicated. Eh, and if we get too stand out, we also might feel naked; so we tend to, eh, also adopt the practice of camouflage. Okay, anyway we need statements if not to others, at least to yourself. I am sure many of you, young generations; you are quite used to this. You know, we, we dye our hair purple, we gel it so that it looks, it stands out. We wear torn clothes among those people who are wearing ties and suits and all of this, because it‘s a way, the way of the certain people. We tattoo things on our skin to make a statement. There’s so many ways,

the way of different people; the way of the depressed people; the way of the, eh, what we call it – egoist way of; eh, what do we call it – ambitious way of; eh, all sorts of things. The way, eh, the way really involves everything. It’s like choice of dress, choice of dress; mm, choice of all sorts of things; choice of words. I don’t know, somehow this image keeps on coming in my head. The way of the Indian politicians; the way they dress, for instance. You cannot imagine them wearing three suit, eh, three-piece suit, you know; you cannot imagine; you just cannot imagine someone like, mm, Advani, (L.K. Advani – Indian politician) with a tie and suit, you know, you understand; you cannot imagine. If he does that, he will lose the audience, I feel. Similarly you cannot imagine someone like George Bush wearing - what do you call this, kuta, kuta? And going like this to the American audience (laughter) because you will really lose it.

There’s a certain way people perform, people exhibit; which makes a big difference to the way you communicate. I'm just trying to explain “bodhicharya” the way (Tibetan phrase). And as I said earlier everyone has different aims. All of us – we have a different goal. And of course the way you, the way you exhibit yourself, the way you dress yourself - also has an aim. A teenager, maybe he or, you know, maybe, eh, his or her goal is just to rabble, eh, just to show something, just to make a statement to the parents. So they gel their hair; I don’t know - they act different. So we all have a different goal. Now the bodhisattva’s goal is what we call “byang chub” - bodhi; eh, awakened, enlightenment; however you want to put it, not only for an individual being, but for all beings - that is the goal. And because of that goal, the way of the bodhisattva is also different. In fact, the way of the bodhisattva is really vast because the aim is “bodhi”, enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, not only for oneself. The way of the bodhisattva, the attitude of the bodhisattva; manifestation of the bodhisattva can be infinite.

One cannot say dyeing hair with purple colour is not a bodhisattva way. You understand what I mean; it can be. If piercing your nose, you know, like with five hundred holes is going to enlighten one sentient being – we are not talking about a hundred sentient beings - one sentient being - worth it, a bodhisattva will do it. So see, it is the aim that will determine the way. And here Shantideva has outlined these ways. Of course, the ways are infinite, infinite. Here, Shantideva will say later in the stanzas (Tibetan phrase) – there is nothing that is not studied or practiced or put into action by; that is not put into, that is not exercised by the bodhisattva. Nothing; everything can be used as a tool. (Tibetan phrase) There is nothing that cannot become easy, yes easy; yah, I guess easy. There is nothing that cannot become easy if one gets used to this. Okay – so with this, you may a vague picture that bodhisattva’s way, the way of the bodhisattva is very much dictated by the view or the wisdom. In fact, right at the beginning the 9th Chapter, Shantideva said (Tibetan phrase) all these attributes, all these instructions, skilful means, all these pith instructions that is stated in the eight early chapters - they are all taught and they are advised to be practised by bodhisattvas – only for the sake of understanding of the wisdom. Similarly the

Mahayana masters and other Nalanda scholars, such as Chandrakirti, said in the Mulamdhyamakakarika – without the wisdom, all the bodhisattva’s such as generosity, discipline and all these kinds such as offering incense, offering flowers, all of that - without the wisdom, they all like blind beings without the guide roaming in a big desert. It will not; it will just, eh, it will, it will have no end; it will not come to fruition.






So when we talk about the bodhisattva path, we are talking about the way, the way of the bodhisattva. The way of the bodhisattva, in quintessence, if I put into something very small, is the practice of the bodhicitta. Bodhicitta, enlightened mind, can be categorized as two aspects – the ultimate bodhicitta and the relative bodhicitta. The ultimate bodhicitta is none other than the wisdom and the relative bodhicitta is things like generosity, discipline - all of these; offerings, circumbulation, all of these; you know, basically the skilful means that bodhisattvas apply. And both these bodhicitta is taught here; but majority of the pages or stanzas is covered with relative bodhicitta. There’s a good reason for that because at this level, ultimate bodhicitta can be discussed vaguely between a student and a teacher - disussed vaguely, partially, because ultimate bodhicitta has to be experienced through the meditation. Ultimate bodhicitta has to be actually; to be very strictly speaking, ultimate bodhicitta cannot be taught. In fact, eh, mm, Shantideva – he demonstrated this. Somewhere in the 9th Chapter there is a verse (Tibetan phrase); there’s a verse that says that when both existence and non-existence is not within the sphere of mind, and - yah, when, when he was beginning, as he begin to utter these words, it is believed that Shantideva actually, sort of, eh, rose from the throne and disappeared. And the rest of the stanzas – the students can only hear the voice. We will talk about Shantideva’s life story, but I just want to; you know, one thing you have to get used to is many, many times – most of the time as when I talk, my teachings have no trends. So one moment I am talking about coffee, the next moment I am talking about tea. This, you have to bear with me. It’s kind of bad habit that I am trying to struggle to correct but somehow it’s not successful. So, and partly when it’s in my mind, I have to say it otherwise it will be forgotten. And what; I wanted to say here is many of you might think Shantideva was a great scholar, because he was a great, great scholar - Nalanda scholar; although he was not known as a great Nalanda scholar when he was in Nalanda. He was; in fact, he was, eh, sort of, made mockery by the other students. I think this is something where

Rajiv could help in the afternoon. He was, eh, referred to as “bhusuku”? Is this really Sanskrit word? (Discussion with assistant) - Yah, right; anyway someone who eats, someone who just basically sleeps and someone who walks around - basically good for nothing. He was referred as that, because he was never seen studying, he was never seen practicing, he was never seen as other students were all very dedicated, all studious, and all very active. He always basically seen doing nothing. And in fact, some people were a bit annoyed with it, because he gets equal respect by the lay people even though he does nothing. So some of the younger students: “We will have to, you know, do something about this”. So Nalanda has a tradition of taking turns to teach to the lay people; giving sermons, you have to be very eloquent, so on and so forth. And time and time again, they told him, okay, this is your turn, but he always refused. The students decided to inform Jayadeva, - is it? - His master, to order him to teach. So when he did that, when his master told him to do that, he said “yes”. You know, everybody was surprised. Now, some people, some people were very happy. Because they thought “Now we have managed to take revenge or whatever; not revenge, but he’s going to make a fool of himself. So, eh, in order to make; you know, get a full effect - these students – they organize the teaching place “extra”; you know, like extra offerings, higher, even higher throne without the ladder and all of that. And next morning, he was invited; he sat there, - no one actually knew how he actually ended up on the throne – but he was already on the throne without the help, without the ladder. And then he began to ask – what, what sermon do you want to hear? Something that has been taught or something you have never heard? And this is how the Bodhicharyavatara began, actually. Eh, he was a prince by the way. Even when he was a prince, I think he was a very devout Manjushri; he was a great Manjushri practitioner. And I think his mother was a great bodhisattva herself; and not like many other mothers. You know, when the father, the King died, naturally the son has to be enthroned as the heir. The mother helped the son to take bath; and the mother made the bath water very hot. And when the son, Shantideva, complained that “This is hot”. The mother said “If you think this water is hot, how about samsaric heat?” So the mother was always, instead of, you know, like, eh, like ordinary mothers, who would, you know, really push her son to become a King, she was otherwise. Anyway that night, Shantideva dreamt that Manjushri was sitting on the throne that he was supposed to sit next morning, during the enthronement; and Manjushri said “This is my seat. You are my student and a student should not sit on the teacher’s throne”. The moment he woke up, he ran away; he sneaked out and then he became; I mean, gradually he went to Nalanda. After, you know, as I was saying earlier, he disappeared after these special verses; Nalanda, many, many Nalanda students – they were so regretful. They really want to invite him back but he refused to come. And in the text, you know, in the Shantideva jangchub, there is a mentioning about you should read, you should read “bslab btus, bslab btus, bslab btus? - Sanskrit word…you know the other, other, Shikshasamucchaya and (Tibetan discussion with translators) Sutrasamucchaya? Shikshasamucchaya and Sutrasamucchaya – these two; he has actually mentioned it in the text. So they also want these texts and he said, “Don't worry, I don’t have to come”. Eh, in some stories I read, I don’t know, I don’t have a good, eh, I mean

reliable document, but I have read in some obscure clippings that his quarter, monk’s quarter, has a lot of cracks on the wall, and I guess it’s cold during the winter. So this Shikshasamucchaya and Sutrasamucchaya, and also this Bodhicharyavatara; some of these, he made, you know, like small notes, scribbles and rolled those papers; and these papers, gradually, you know, he used them as to cut, to block the cracks. And today we are studying these scribbles, these notes, which we are; and I tell you, even in India, this is saying a lot, because Indian scholars are very snobbish. They will not write commentary to someone else's text; but even in India, used to be 108 commentaries. And in Tibet – oh, Tibetans have lots of commentaries, but that does not mean much. You now, Tibetans – they write commentaries anyway; you understand. They will, they, they have a different kind of snobbish. Indians are snobbish by not writing commentaries to someone else’s text unless it’s really, really good. Tibetans are snobbish by writing as many, plagiarising most of them; anyway so many commentaries, to show off how great scholars they are. Even today, this is what they are doing. Anyway in Tibet, (Tibetan discussion with assistant) about a hundred, living now – I don’t know but definitely there is a lot, there is a lot. But besides this, of course, this, of course I have to tell you – this is very much loved by all the lineage holders; all the, you know, all the shedras. This is very much loved. Dzongsar Institute has a tradition to teach Bodhicharyavatara every year. When you enter to a shedra, almost certainly, the first text you will be studying is the Bodhicharyavatara, and it makes sense. Anyway here we go, I am completely scattered now. So what is it that I was telling you? Okay, wisdom. Eh, ultimate bodhicitta therefore is difficult. In fact, Buddha, you know, “You cannot speak about it”. Words, language, human contemplation, thoughts, cannot really actualize the truth. The moment you speak, actually you are making a mistake. And even to explain; okay, even to explain vaguely (Tibetan phrase) we call it in Tibetan - generalization of the ultimate - a teacher or author has to be a sublime being - an Arya. This is what Chandrakirti said, (Tibetan phrase) – an Arya, only an Arya can teach right about the generalization of the ultimate bodhicitta. So what is, how do we really know this ultimate bodhicitta, how can we get it? - Through two kinds of accumulation; (Tibetan phrase) – accumulation of merit and accumulation of wisdom. Accumulation of wisdom needs discipline, hearing, contemplation and meditation. (Tibetan phrase) This is what you need – that’s difficult. Accumulation of merit is so important; really, really important. Although this is beside the point, I will tell you here, something. There’re two challenges in Buddhism, okay. One is the subject matter is so complicated, such as Madhyamika, such as the wisdom Prajnaparamita - so difficult to comprehend. But with; so the way to, the way to know this complicated, complicated subject matter is through really struggling, reading, hearing it, contemplating on it, debating; eh, and through that, you can gradually actualize these subject matters. That’s one challenge. The other challenge is even bigger. And that challenge is: the truth, the ultimate truth is too simple – too simple. It’s so simple you cannot really study and know it. No books to read, no discussions to make; and even you, by reading books, having

discussions is not going to make it easier to understand this simple truth, the absolute truth. So what do need for that? – Merit. These, these two are challenges. Shantideva will spend lots of chapters; in fact, eight chapters in the beginning and then after the 9th Chapter, the wisdom chapter (Tibetan phrase) - which is the dedication chapter. So basically nine chapters are all dedicated to making merit and also meditation. Okay.






Now, briefly this morning, the wisdom, as I said, we have to know. The question is (pause); we will have question and answer later. So if you have questions, just make a note. (Long pause) Okay, the wisdom is our aim. Actualizing this wisdom is our aim. So what is wisdom? Is it a very sharp, intelligent, quick- thinking, brilliant mind, scholastic, full of knowledge? Because when the word wisdom is mentioned, almost always we tend to think that’s wisdom because, okay, you know, by our habit, when somebody speaks brilliantly or when somebody answers a question, right on the spot; then you refer to this person – oh, he has so much wisdom. So with all of these, it indicates that in our minds, wisdom is someone - a product of lots of education, lots of studies - almost like encyclopaedia mind. Someone who has again and again won one crown, is it? Is it? You know quiz show; is it one crown? (Conversation with assistant) Someone who has won this prize again and again; all kinds of questions like, you know, names of a certain obscure plant, all of that; you know, he gives you answers. Does that mean this person has wisdom? - None of this. None of this is what we, the Mahayana people want, what Shantideva is referring to wisdom as wisdom. Wisdom in the Mahayana, wisdom in Buddhism - in Buddhism, wisdom is non-dualistic mind. When the mind is normal, it’s stained by dualism. When, okay, that’s, of course, very abstract. What does that mean? What, what does that mean when mind is not stained by dualism? Dualism - what does that mean? How does this mind function? Of course, we human beings always like to know stuff like this. How does it function? You buy a coffee machine – how does it work? First, you have to know what is this. Then the second – how does it function? Function is important. Yeah; non-dualism, non-dualistic state is very abstract for most of us. We cannot even begin to fathom what it is. We can sort of talk, but most of time when we talk about the non-dualism, we are talking about dualism to, dualism; we are talking about dualism as something to transcend from and that’s about the only thing we can do. Non-dualism – okay; this will come again and again so I will not worry too much about not understanding the non-dualism right at the beginning; especially for those who are new to this.

Today I think the right question maybe “What’s wrong with the dualism?” Let’s begin with that. Why, why not, why can’t we have? Okay, a lot, some dualistic mind is, we can understand it’s not good, but, you know, fundamentally what’s wrong with dualism? Okay, eh, many ways to sort of approach this. Let’s go to the most fundamental one. Most fundamental, basic - we have to ask – okay, I'm trying to answer the question what's wrong with the dualism. Okay, in order to answer this question, we have to ask one question - which is, (pause) “Don’t you want to have fun?” I think that’s the best question. You understand, don’t you want to have fun? Yes, of course, we all want to have fun. But, of course, that means different things for different people. Of course, but fundamentally, we all want to have fun. The definition of fun, of course, is also different, right; but we want to have fun. Okay, now you want to have fun. I also want to have fun. (long pause) If you want to have fun - this is a little difficult, but let me, sort of try to paint this. If you; okay - if you want to have fun, then certainly you should not get worked up; you know, worked up, occupied, busy; worked up, engrossed, worked up; you understand – you are angry with somebody. You, you are totally worked up; you don’t know what’s wrong behind, right, left, in front. You can’t hear what people are saying, because you are totally worked up with this. I am sure you must have experienced; let’s say; your husband or wife has broken your coffee machine - your favourite coffee machine. You are somewhere outside and you receive this bad news, you receive this call with the bad news – your coffee, your beloved coffee machine is broken. You're worked up and you immediately get worked up; car honking behind you – you don’t hear; I don’t know, a big cow walking in front of you - you don’t see because you’re totally worked up with the beloved broken coffee machine - which you are now thinking “How can she or he do this? Now where can I find this, so on and so forth.” You get worked up; okay, we go back to “we want have fun”. In order to have fun, one thing that we don't want is to be worked up; to get worked up – right? That’s what we don't want. What we want is fun. In order to have fun we don’t want get worked up. Okay what is the nutrition, what is it - that is sustaining this mind that is getting worked up all the time? And it is dualism. That's why we don't want dualism. This is one out of many, many ways to approach. So, because you see, we are talking about really, really big; we are really, really talking big. Mahayana’s approach of wisdom is very big. Shantideva is looking at this man who is worked up because he just heard that his beloved coffee machine is broken. That’s here. Shantideva is looking at someone else also; eh, religious person, theistic; theistic person who is here - who is waging war, propagating because he or she is worked up with his god. Worked up – Shantideva can’t see difference between these two. In fact, Shantideva has a little bit of sympathy towards the “coffee machine” work-up, because, at the least, the coffee machine does something. But this “god” – what is it? It has never come. It’s never there when it’s necessary. You can’t even call. All it does is to create problem, but yet, you are worked up. Shantideva doesn’t stop there. Shantideva goes even to the Buddhist. Even among the Buddhist, there are many different schools of Buddhism. Even the highest one, such as the Cittamatra, Mind-Only school – Shantideva thinks that they are worked up with the mind only. But, anyway that’s; if I explain this, for those who are new, you will be snoring like in two minutes. So, I’m not going to discuss this too much. But basically; basically all of these, from Shantideva’s point of view, is worked up.

So getting rid of grasping is the path to the Mahayana practitioner, bodhisattva. Grasping – this is what the great Sachen Kunga Nyingpo said: “(Tibetan phrase) If you have grasping, you have no view”. So that is the wisdom, okay. Now, now I hope I have created, mm, sort of healthy, at least good enough carrot to lure you to the eight chapters, the nine chapters. Because, you see, okay, why should we; why should we think, you know, I offer these swans, you know, swimming in the pond? Why should I offer bath to the Buddha, buddhas, I, what, anoint oil to their bodies – what is this? Why should we do this? We should this so that we accumulate merit, merit so that we understand this non-dual wisdom. You understand; this is important, this is really important. If you, if you don’t have the wisdom bit, the whole Mahayana Buddhism would be just as fanatical as any religion. As fanatical, as narrow-minded, as completely backward, as superstitious as any other religion - it is the wisdom that is making everything different. This is really, really important. Okay, mm, what time is it? I am running out of things to say. What? - 10.40; okay. So, the wisdom and the method; together wisdom and the method is what we call “bodhicharya”, the way of the bodhisattva, the way of the bodhisattva. And this is the only way, as Khenchen Kunzang Pelden said, this is the way past buddhas have taken, this is the way that the present buddhas have taken, this is the way that the future buddhas will also take - wisdom and method. One, you, you cannot do without one. Actually it’s not even possible but intellectually for the sake of communication; even though it is not possible in reality, but during the path there is a lot of divorce of wisdom and method, by the way - a lot. Because methods are, methods are very attractive. Methods are photographical. Methods are something doable like meditation, sitting like this. You know, meditation; meditation is a big trend now; it’s a big fashion. Very soon, it will be introduced to North Point - technique of meditation. Is it West Point, right, not North Point? West Point; West Point Academy - it will soon be introduced to that. Meditation – many people think meditation is Buddhism. It is not. Meditation is just a method. Meditation; many people, you know, there are so many people “Ah, you know, these Tibetans – they are offering incense and flowers; you know, this is very superstitious, but me, I am meditating, Zen, you know, all of that”. You know, they, they make a judgement between, you know, seemingly superstitious like circumbulation. You know, some people looked at people going round and round a piece of stone, a piece of you know, structure called “chorten”; going round and round – so what is this superstition? And these people – they think meditation is very, very more authentic Buddhism. It is not. These two are equally method. Equally; but meditation looks more exotic; meditation looks more, I don't know, it’s a higher class method for people’s mind now in this age? Actually, I guess it has a lot to do with how Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, and also the word “meditation” has a lot to do with the sitting - with sitting. And also for the beginners, usually we encourage because beginners, in order to discipline; the beginners – we need to prescribe methods of confinement, you know, we have to tell them you have to confine this food, that attitude. So sitting is one of the most simple confinement. This is probably the reason why mediation is the preferred. Okay, anyway this is the subject of Bodhicharyavatara - wisdom and method, way of the bodhisattva, attitude of the bodhisattva, Bodhisattva means someone who has bodhicitta. What is bodhicitta? Bodhicitta has two or many different categories. At

this point, what you need to know is bodhicitta is the wish of enlightenment for all sentient beings. That is, that’s saying a lot. Wish to enlighten all the sentient does not mean wish to make everybody happy; happy in the sense of, you know, happiness we are talking. In Mahayana Buddhism our aim is not to, our aim is not really to be happy. Our aim is to be enlightened. Enlightenment has to transcend from happiness and unhappiness. If what you are looking for is happiness, you know sort of worldly happiness; especially if you are looking for worldly happiness, Buddhism should be the last resort to go to Because Buddhism is the worst. Buddhism is really, really; eh, the whole genuine authentic buddhadharma is, eh, about the truth - the truth. Worldly happiness is lot to do with concealing the truth, hiding the truth; so Buddhism is going this way, worldly pursuit is going that way. It will come together, ever. So enlightenment should be our aim, and especially, in the Mahayana, enlightenment not only for oneself but for of all sentient beings. That has to be your aim.






Okay - so just briefly; eh, speaker of these subjects such as Bodhicharyavatara or Way of the Bodhisattva are many. But briefly there’re three kinds: a completely enlightened being, or for the sake of communication, partially enlightened being and, eh, a pandita, a scholar. And they have different ways to teach. They teach different way. Buddha or a completely enlightened being, teach at, you know, completely different level; and he, the Buddha, is the only perfect teacher. Even the partially enlightenment being cannot do what he can do. This is because only the Buddha knows (Tibetan phrase) motivation, elements, sense, and mind streams of different beings - only the Buddha knows. For instance, as I speak, I'm neither these three, yah. I, I have to put a disclaimer here. This is modern age – I don’t want to be sued for it. I don’t want to be blamed later. So this is a disclaimer with my signature on it – none of these three. So if my words are going to confuse you; all of this and it can and I think most probably it will. So I have, I will have to tell you “You be on your guard”. Anyway, there are three different teachers. Anyone who is not an enlightened being, completely enlightened being - even the partially enlightened being, scholar and of course, people like me, when I teach - only way I can teach is through generalization. I will just have to generalize. Okay, some French coming to my dinner, guests, as guests tonight; maybe red wine – it will work. Some Indians are coming – ah, I’ll have some masalas. You know, you generalize - usually it works; it’s kind of you know, good guess job. So when I teach people like me, when I teach, based on educated trained guess job – that’s all I can do. And not only that, even the

scholars – they do that. And partially enlightened beings – they do much better. Their generalization is much more narrow. Our generalization is very big. For instance, see when I teach you, one person - one person’s element, one person’s sense, one person’s motivation is different, not only different from others, but it changes every moment. Within one being it changes every moment. So this, only the Buddha can perceive and only the Buddha can explain according to what the listener means – that’s Buddha. Now, how does arhat, partially enlightened being, this is what I mean, arhat teach - using omniscience? Their omniscience needs bit of focusing so to speak, you understand. See the scholars and people like me – we don’t even have omniscience, so forget about focusing. But at least, these partially enlightened beings - they have, they have a sort of delayed omniscience. So they sort of concentrate and look at the persons whom they are teaching, and then use their omniscience, clairvoyance and then they teach. How does the pandita teach? Pandita’s or the scholar’s way of teaching in India; of course, buddhadharma originated from India, therefore we’ll always be referring to Indian tradition. In India, actually there were two ways. They, they use two, there were two traditions of teaching the shastras and sutras – there’s Nalanda’s way, and there’s Vikramasila, Vikramasila’s way. Nalanda’s way to teach shastras and sutras is basically using, eh, several categories; okay there is what (Tibetan phrase) eh, five certainties, five auspicious certainties – that’s one category. And then also, eh, that’s how, that’s how Nalanda’s people teach the sutras, Buddha's words. And when Nalanda’s scholars teach the shastras, they teach what they call, eh, five different kinds of categories.

Vikramasila has different, different style, but here obviously we will be using Nalanda’s tradition. And since this is not a sutra, this is not spoken by the Buddha, but spoken by his follower, Shantideva; therefore it is a shastra; so we’ll be teaching this based on the five different categories. I don’t know whether you need to, actually hear this; but if, if I am not telling you all this, I’ll have nothing much to say. So this is all like, kind of, kind of too many words, I think, sometimes. Okay,(Tibetan words) the five categories are who wrote the shastra; where, where the quotations are extracted from; and this shastra – where does it belong to, which basket does it belong to; what is the whole, what is the abbreviated meaning of this, meaning or the purpose of this text or this shastra; mm, eh, and what is the purpose. Yah, what is the meaning and what is the purpose. And who wrote it; obviously Shantideva – I’ve already told you. And by the way, something to add on the Shantideva’s life-story; Shantideva - as I was telling you, this is something I’ve forgotten – is not only a scholar. He has proved himself; he was also a siddha, a mahasiddha – accomplished one. He has proved that because you see, nowadays there are so many scholars hanging around in the universities. They talk a lot. They know how to talk. They know how to analyse. They know how to quote. They know which page is written, what text and all of that. But they're not necessarily mahasiddhas. In fact, many of them, actually this is, this is what I mean. I don’t know about India; I don’t think it’s yet like this. But in the West, like Harvard, Virginia, all of these great Ivy League universities, if their professor begins to exude or show a little sign of accomplished practice, you know, like, sign such as; you know, Chandrakirti was not

only a scholar but he was also a mahasiddha. You know what he did – he milked a painted cow. Now if a Harvard University professor begins to do that, he will become, tomorrow, next morning, he’s fired - isn’t it? Because these are not allowed, these magic. This performance – what is this? You are not here to convert. So this is what I mean earlier. We live in the age of scepticism. We, we live in the age where devotion is lacking. Things like milking painted cow can’t fit in our head. So because it doesn’t fit in our head, our immediate reaction is “It’s a magic, it’s a trick; get out, you have, you don’t belong here. You go to the street and busk”. That’s, that’s our attitude. In the ancient India, actually in India since, you know; this is one thing you’ll hear. I’m kind of very romantic about India. You will hear this, a lot. In India till today; this is still a country, I still think – I just come back from Europe, America and partially China – this is still a country that venerates, eh, you know like wandering monks. As you know, it’s like; you know these corporate managers, directors and business people in America – they give lots of donation proudly to scientific research institutes of headache and, I don’t know, nose-ache, whatever – they think they’re doing a great job. Here in India, people offer alms to these “sannyasins” because they think these people are going up and down, looking for wisdom – and that’s a great benefit for mankind. This is similar, similar. But this is still a country; the appearance – because they look horrible, you know, they smell horrible; they look horrible, you know, they, they look strange. But this in this country it’s not horrible. You know, they don’t see that. Anyway, here, see I’m getting astray, mm, going astray. What was it? What was my thread? Why did I say this? Why did I say this? Mm, (conversation with assistant) Anyway, 11 o’clock, let’s stop. (Laughter) How many minutes? (Around 20 minutes – from assistant). Okay, twenty minutes. I didn’t know there’re so many Hindus here; so if I offend them, please do not recite “guardian” mantra towards me. Buddhists and Hindus have a conflict, but the Buddhists’ and Hindus’ conflict is a very elegant conflict. It’s not like these days’ conflict. It is a conflict; their conflict – the Buddhists’ and Hindus’ conflict, and actually also the Jains; the Jains’, Buddhists’ and Hindus’ conflict – has matured the wisdom much more. It’s not like, you know, jihad and crusade these days. Anyway, you will also hear some unpleasant, strong remarks time to time from me – you can always ignore it. Okay, I’ve got my threads, so I’m going to speak from there. You know I was talking about these Ivy League universities; their professors, I don’t know, their faculties, not performing. They want to do that. And even though, I was trying, it was a joke, but there is a serious side about this. The definition of the wisdom, definition of the wisdom in the worldly sense is always something (pause); oh, it’s really (pause); okay let me try this. Definition of the wisdom in the worldly sense is something useful. It doesn’t matter whether it’s useful for us in the larger sense, it could be a professor, a scientist who is so good at, eh, of finding, eh, the effect of deer’s stool, I don’t know. You know, it’s doesn’t matter - something, something specialized. And those are considered - those are considered useful research, you know research. Mm, this is a bit tricky. What I really want to say is I don’t know. The Buddhist’s concept of wisdom is useful in this sense. I don’t know whether the aim of Buddhist path is to be even useful. At times, you will realize the Buddhist aim is to transcend the usefulness. You know, a lot of times, we suffer because we are trying to make a

point – thinking that there is a point. I am not saying that the Buddhist path is to make things pointless. I am not saying that. What I am saying is Buddhists maybe, someone like Shantideva maybe not really be obsessed with points – some kind of, you know, break-through, discovery. Enlightenment going beyond, beyond dualism, hypothetically speaking is the aim at the moment.






Okay, the reason why I am saying is this. Eh, you know Shantideva was not only a scholar but he was also a mahasiddha – that’s what I was telling you about. He was not just a nerdy, well read, well-versed, you know, professor in the Nalanda University who has lots of books in his room, lots of, you know, notebooks everywhere; who, you know, sort of wears a beret; you know like inhale cigar and drink, you know, like, eh, drink incredibly thick coffee somewhere – you understand. He’s not just that. He was a mahasiddha because at one point, a king asked him to be his bodyguard and he had a wooden sword. When everybody had a real sword; he had a wooden sword; and because of him, he really protected the King. But some of the other guards were jealous and suspicious of him. They reported to the king, saying “This man is a little funny. He only had a wooden sword in order to protect you”. And the King demanded to show the sword, and Shantideva said “Are you sure? You don’t want to do this”. The King insists. So Shantideva said “Okay, in this case, please cover one eye. Only look at this sword with just one eye”. When he partially, you know, took out his wooden sword, the King’s eye fell on the ground. So there are lots of, you know; there’s, there’s lot of this kind of manifestations coming from Shantideva. Now the reason; okay, here this is quite important. This is where things go wrong. When you are listening to this, I’m not painting a picture of Shantideva as a divine being, who can someone like ET, who would touch your head and then, you know, everything gets fixed. I’m not; I’m not painting that picture. What I’m trying to tell you is Shantideva is not only a well-versed scholar in the non-dualistic subject, but he also was someone who has accomplished the subject matter through his practice. So in his mind, duality between metal sword and the wooden sword – no difference, you understand. In our mind - Oh, the wooden sword won’t work. It doesn’t do the job. Only a metal sword will work. See that kind of dualism, we have. We are stuck with it; not only that, for instance, like if we need to go to toilet, we have to go through that door. It is considered not good to go through the window. It’s considered not safe to go through

this window, definitely, because we are stuck with the size, shape; we are stuck with distinctions. We are grasping to distinctions. We are worked up; we are worked up with distinctions, size, qualities, and time, for instance time. I, I have to tell this, since it’s in my mind. I’ve reasons to have some heated arguments with some so-called scientists who refuse to believe reincarnation, you know, reincarnation. They think that reincarnation is; actually it’s not only a synthesis of Buddhists, by the way. There are many so-called new Buddhists in, in the West; eh, now, this is becoming big. Eh, I think it sort of originated from India, Dr. Ambedkar’s people, I have a feeling; because Dr. Ambedkar’s movement was based on going against the caste system. So, somehow, they, I don’t know which reason. They somehow think reincarnation is something to be toned down because the moment you talk about reincarnation, you are talking about past lives, karma and therefore you are talking about the caste. I think that is totally misunderstood, but that we can discuss later. But anyway in the West, there is a lot of Buddhists – young Buddhists, new Buddhists – who think reincarnation is a Tibetan stuff. I don’t blame them because there are actually reincarnated tulkus like myself, who now are beginning to become a disgrace to Buddhism, you understand. Anyway, there’s a lot of that reincarnation business, “tulku” business. Tulku business is creating lots of trouble, anyway. Anyway, and because of that, many Western people think that reincarnation is a Tibetan thing, it’s not Buddhism. But that is really a big, a big ignorance; if there is no next life, then why do we practice Dharma? Then we should go and rob a bank. As long as you are not caught, as long as you are not caught, as you, you get on with it, yah, go and rob a bank; go and kill people if you need to. As you only have this life, you should live happily. You should have a swimming pool. You should have 88 inch plasma screen. You should have everything, broadband, everything. You should have Chinese cook, eh, English house gardener, everything, all of that. You should have it. And why, why should you stop, if there’s no next life? This, you know, sort of refraining from meat, refraining from sex, refraining from stealing is such a pain. It’s a work. It involves, you know, like sacrifice. Anyway my discussion is about, you know reincarnation. So they think, these scientists, they think reincarnation is something Tibetans are engrossed with, worked up with. What the scientists don’t realize is science cannot be taught if the scientists don’t believe in time. Right? - Big Bang theory. If you don't have that, how can you talk anything without the time? But time - that many people cannot avoid but to believe. Concept of time and the reincarnation – absolutely no difference; absolutely – they are equally absurd. Reincarnation is definitely absurd; we, in Buddhism, we do not believe in truly existing, ultimately existing reincarnation - we don't. Remember; we have to transcend all of them. Relatively we believe in reincarnation. Relatively we believe in time. So it’s a matter of name. Scientists believe in time, Buddhists believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation and the time have no difference. And in fact, in many ways, reincarnation also has a good purpose. For one, it stops you robbing bank; I’m not robbing a bank because I’m afraid that next life, I might get robbed - you understand. So it is making me, you know, sort of avoid lot of trouble.

You know, you know, it's, it's keeping me away from troubles because of this reincarnation business also - anyway, more of that later. But the point here is not to get stuck with dualistic distinctions. And this, not only someone like Shantideva knows intellectually and he wrote a book about it; not only that, he lived through it. This is quite important for you, you know, try to understand. Someone like Western philosopher Nietzsche, right, Nietzsche - quite good, quite good, really, you know, really – you know, God is dead, all of that. But a lot of deconstruction but we are not hearing Nietzsche, I don't know, Nietzsche, eh, we, eh, what do we call it, we are not hearing Nietzsche, a point in his life, actually, eh, ride a tiger. We are not hearing this. This is where someone like me; to me Nietzsche is a great philosopher - a lot of contribution, a lot of contribution. Actually I have to tell you this – many people think that the West, the Western contribution to this earth place is science and technology, but I don't think so. Science and technology is not a big contribution that the West has made. In fact, I would say, it has did the opposite. Science and technology is destroying the world. But what is the real contribution of the West? - The good anarchism, anarchism, good one, not the bad one. Someone like Nietzsche – I think that was the biggest contribution from the West – almost equal, equally good to some the great panditas of Nalanda. This is saying a lot. This is saying a lot. Anarchism is a really, mm, it is a very sophisticated thing; it has deconstructed a lot of concepts. Eh, I think, now am I going astray? You can always raise your hand and say, “Come on, get to the point. Get to the Buddhist text.” You can always say that to me. I feel that the “hippie” culture of the Sixties, I always feel that the discontinuity, almost like a discontinuity of the hippy culture of the Sixties was the biggest loss for the civilization. It should have survived. And this, this lack of merit of the sentient beings, especially in the West has resulted so that now you go to places like Cape Town, Woodstock or Biden Bay and you see all these like Benetton Colours, what, United Colours of Benetton, what Louis Vuitton and all these shops, trendy coffee shops. These used to be the “Bodhgaya” of the hippies, isn’t it? These are where a little bit of practice of anarchism was sort of exercised. Those were necessary. When people think okay I should, I should plant tomatoes on my backyard, instead of just buying from supermarket, then it shows a little bit of sign of hope for the world. But that’s kind of dying now. Anyway really, let’s go back to the point. That was part; anyway I was telling you about, you know how the Nalanda people teach. And there’s two ways; one is the sutra way, and the sutra is taught with five certainties, and the shastra is taught with the five categories. By the way, I am talking about the five categories. The first one is who taught – Shantideva. Shantideva was not only a scholar but a saint - realized being, realized being. And I want you to really get this point because I'm not painting a picture of a divine super human being here. This is something that is doable even in your lifetime. Some of them you have done it. When you were a kid this big, sandcastle that you made was such a big deal – remember? When you become older, when you are around twenties, sandcastles, the window of the sandcastles, you know, actually; I tell you this. Really eh, I learnt such a great lesson on non-duality but only intellectually this time

when I was in Taiwan. My friend, Claudia; she had this baby; she’s barely two years old I think. She’s so sweet. She came to see me, so I bought for her a Barbie doll. And she really liked it so much, especially the pink skirt; and she took out the skirt. And she’s trying – she’s quite big; the Barbie doll is this big and she is trying to put on this skirt. In her mind, the distinction of fitting and not fitting, big and small does not exist - you understand. But we have lost that because we diligently, society diligently learn dualism.






Diligently; oh, you go to the shops – What inch are you? - Thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two waist; length, all of that. Then we have baggies, straights, stretchable; what is it – spaghetti strings, all kinds we have. Now it’s really; you go to the shops, you know like, you know like; I went to buy a soap in America just to, you know, wash my body. And there is like, probably about two hundred different varieties. Like, you know, there’re so many instructions like free this, free that, free sodium, free fake colour, free sands; all of this. I have not reached to this level where I'm stuck; I am worked up with certain soap. So I’m still okay. But my, my friends in America – oh, they’re very fussy about this. Oh, this one has something, something, you want to, this one has something, something you do not want to; this one – yah, well it has all the right ingredients but this one has something like a, eh, I think this is used against animal or something - you know something like that. There’s so many; not only that scientific matters but emotional things like political, politically correct matters – on soap! So our world, dualistic world has become so big. It’s because of this we can’t go round with a wooden sword and protect ourselves. We have to go with a tomahawk, and protect ourselves. This is what we think because this is how we have developed. So it’s really important. Who is the author here? – Shantideva who is not only a scholar but a mahasiddha who, who lives with what he has written and what he has said. Very important – someone who is living with what he has written and said. There are so many authors these days – they write so well but they don’t do what they write or they don't perform what they write. Okay, and then, where is this, from which, which sutra it is extracted from? - Mainly, okay, basically all the Tripitakas, but mainly from the sutras. Which does this shastra belong to – what category? In general in Buddhism, there’s Shravakayana and Mahayana, this belongs to the Mahayana. In Mahayana also there’s the Vajrayana and basic Mahayana. This one belongs to the Mahayana. What is the overall meaning, subject of this text? (Tibetan sentence/phrase) – To generate the art of

bodhicitta mind and apply this attitude with the action of six paramitas. This is the basic subject or main subject of this shastra. To whom; for whom this text was written? – Eh, generally for all sentient beings, especially for the five hundred scholars of the Nalanda University at that time. Okay that's, that’s how these teachings are being approached. And then; do you think we should do Question and Answer? Maybe just a little bit more. Okay, let’s try a little bit more. With what attitude – now this is important, especially for the Mahayana. As I was telling you, mm, you are listening a Mahayana path, you and therefore, as always in all our endeavour, we have an aim. The aim is to enlighten all sentient beings, including yourself. That has to be the main aim. Not just, okay, ideally that has to be the aim. Some of you may be here to just finish your dissertation on Buddhist studies. Some of you are just here just because you are curious about the Mahayana path. Some of you are curious about the place, I don’t know. Some of you are here because your boyfriend or girlfriend is here – therefore you have to be here in order to tag along. Some of you are here because you want to impress your Buddhist boyfriend or Buddhist girlfriend, I don't know - all kinds of reasons. But ideally what you really need to have is you have the motivation to listen to this, to hear this so that you can enlighten all the sentient beings. This is important. ‘Kun slong’ in Tibetan, we call it. This is really important. This will determine, this will determine your on-going study and practice of the Mahayana path. Of course, for instance if you are here to impress your girlfriend, you will listen through a different ear. You will write down everything what I say or what the book said, so that you will recite this to her, isn't it? So when she quiz you, that, that, that’s your ‘kun slong’, that’s your motivation. If you are here for enlightenment then some of these parts; okay, okay you will again hear with a different attitude, you will hear it with really with the wish of applying every word, every sentence, and every verse that is here so that you put it into the practice. So that's so, ‘kun slong’, motivation has to be this. (Pause) These are all traditional, sort of traditional remarks at the beginning of the teachings. Mm, I will have to; I think I am obliged to go through this – bear with me for a while. There are negative attitudes that one has to avoid such as not paying attention to the teaching; such as not being able to conceive or hold the teaching; such as mixing the, such as listening to the teaching with a, eh, wrong attitude. The last one especially, the third one is something to pay attention with; because if you have wrong attitude, meaning you are listening to this teaching, not necessarily for the sake of sentient beings but to make yourself more knowledgeable - then it is easier for you to think that all the teachings are not detailed enough, maybe too much detailed, maybe too long-winded, maybe too repetitious, what is we want to hear the point, all of that. So if you listen to the teaching with this kind of attitude, if you are a practitioner then you’re not doing it according to the Mahayana path. Eh, you have to adopt a certain correct attitude such as one should, and especially if you are a follower of the path. If you are just a student, if you are just here out of curiosity, then you don’t have to apply all of this. You just listen whenever you want to listen and go whenever you; you can also listen to IPod if you want. Some music, whatever; you can miss, doesn’t matter. But if you really want to listen to this Mahayana shastra, for the sake of the enlightenment, then, eh, certain attitudes like

you should think the listener is patient, like a patient – that you are sick with all kinds of disease, such as emotions, such as desire, anger, jealousy and all that. The text or the teaching that you are receiving should be seen as the medicine. And listening attentively and contemplating on this attentively is like actually taking medicine. And the teacher should be, eh, looked upon as, eh, the physician. And also during the teaching you can also automatically, if you have the right attitude and right motivation, just receiving the teachings, or giving the teachings – that’s already the six paramitas. When you receive the teachings if you offer service, flowers, incense or respect or prostration - that is like giving generosity. If you clean the place, for instance before receiving the teaching; or if you put on, sort of, nicer outfit for the occasion of the teaching, that can be considered as the discipline. And while you receive the teaching if you enjoy the hard mattress, I don’t know, the floor, cold, heat, I don’t know, arm-pit smell of the next door person; eh, all kind of things. If you are enjoying this, this is the patience and attentively listening is like meditation. And asking questions and really trying to get to the bottom of the teaching, the root of the teaching attentively is like the practice of the wisdom. This is, this has; also the giver of the teaching, one who is bestowing the teaching also can accumulate the six paramitas. Giving the teaching is the most supreme generosity. When a teacher gives the teaching, he or she should not have any motivation of doing it with the desire of wanting to become famous, wanting to be, I don’t know, wanting to, eh, collect more students, or stuff like that. That’s like the discipline. And going and really enjoying all the difficulties of teaching is the patience. And generating the joy to teach is the diligence. And when you teach with not getting distracted is of course the meditation. And discriminating the words and meanings and making people understand properly is like the practice of Buddhism. So these are general, sort of, advice to the, eh, receiver of the teaching and the giver of the teaching. And sort of very brief introduction to the whole text, we will start with the root text from tomorrow with again a little bit of introduction to the wisdom. So I think you can ask some questions if you want to. If you don’t have questions, that’s also fine. Question: (audio not clear enough) Rinpoche: Well, this book is supposed full of practical advice. But as you ask me this, let me quote Gedun Chophel. Gedun Chophel is a great scholar. He’s really, really brilliant. You know, he said – when you were a child; we’re talking about renunciation, renunciation from this kind of distinctions. He said actually people do practice renunciation mind. When you’re a child, you were so obsessed with the sand castle, the games in the sand, in the dirt. When you’re around teenager, late teenager, then automatically you have renounced that. You’re no longer interested. You are more interested in the car, I don’t know, maybe not car yet; I don’t know, what do you call it, those? – Things that you stand and skate (answer from floor) - skateboard. Eh, rock and roll, I don’t know, maybe not rock and roll; what is it, eh? So fast this is, I can’t catch up. And then when you become like maybe, I don’t know, late twenties, thirties – then fast cars. And then, eh, mid-forties, late forties, fifties, eh, middle-age crisis, right? So certain values; so okay, then you become like sixties,

seventies, eighties, then you to get attached, you begin to have interest in table cloth (laughter). So, the earlier ones you have renounced them, you understand? You are no more; what, what Gedun Chophel is suggesting – see since you are going to do it anyway, why don’t you speed it up? - Within like six months. Since you are going to do it, it’s such a waste because everyone has done it; you are going to do it anyway, why don’t you speed it up?





Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche...7/24

But what you are saying is very crucial, very, you know, difficult. I tell you, if I all, I don’t; Buddhism will never be successful in the bigger sense. Buddhism will never; never we should think and never we should aim like Buddhist Republic of Great Britain or France or India or anything like that, especially if it is a genuine Buddhism. Because if Buddhism really become flourishing and if Buddhism is really become very, you know, prominent spiritual practice in the world – economy of the world will collapse. Really, Buddhism is bad news for economy. If everybody becomes a little bit renouncing, who’ll buy those things? So Buddhism is not good for economy, actually, I mean, broadly speaking – broadly, broadly; even though, actually Buddhism has the ultimate, I think Buddhism has the ultimate answer for MBA students - those who really, eh, study economy because Buddhism is a study of illusion. And the study of economy, I’m beginning to realize is a study of tricks and illusion. I mean in the study of economy, you can sell things that you don’t even own! - Right? You can borrow; you can lend money that you don’t even have! That’s a great study, that’s really illusion, a study of illusion. But in the broader sense, in a more practical sense, Buddhism will always work individually, I think. But to create a nation of Buddhism is difficult. It will be a very backward nation - from the worldly sense. So individually when we watch television and when there is all these things trying to sell to us, we will just have to be alert. We will just have to tell ourselves – well I’ve bought many of those things, I'm still - that there is still a problem. And because; of course problem is if there is no problem, again there is no economy. Economy, economy thrives on problems. And many times some of these problems are mind-made, most of the time. These, these people will tell us “Oh, you need this. You know what is your problem? You don’t have this”. And then you will ask “Oh, I want to have that. Who has it?” “Oh, of course, I have it” – so that’s how they sell. Eh, the only thing you can do is to develop your own alertness, awareness. This, this is difficult; not that easy – okay. Question: With Claudio’s baby, you know, the concept of big and small: why didn’t you perceive her putting on her dress? Did she put it on? Why?

Rinpoche: No, didn’t managed, of course. Why? That’s a good question. That’s a very good question. Because, that’s a very good question; in her mind because she is still very young; yah, this is very good question - big and small is not really there. But her body which is the result of her past lives, consciousness, past lives’ karmic formation which she hasn’t got rid of, you understand - she’s stuck with that. This is actually the question of; you know, have you heard about paramita, eh; there are two kinds of enlightenment. One is, eh, (Tibetan phrase), the other (Tibetan phrase) enlightenment. You know, Buddha when he, under the Bodhi tree, he achieved enlightenment – right, but he’s still stuck with the body. So that’s why Devadatta could do things. At one time, you know sown body into his soul and all that. After Kushinagar, he reached to parinirvana; no more, even the result of the karmic formation. Now of course she, the baby, not because her great practice, because she’s still young, her dualistic mind is lying low as, you know, like sleeping. It’s all there but because she just came out in this world and just been only about less than two years, the dualistic education to invoke that sleeping, eh, what do you call it (Tibetan phrase) - propensity is not yet developed. Her mind is working more towards the non-duality - yeah. But her body which is the result of her past lives’ karmic formation is already stuck. It’s because of this reason why the path of the buddhadharma is to be free not only from the death but also from the birth. Almost; you, you have really make a note on this – almost all the spiritual paths have this thing – oh, because death is something that we don’t want, everybody is afraid of death, isn't it? So there is a story about you know like - this is why the quest for the religious paths has come because we are all afraid of death and after the death. But there is something extra in Buddhism if you really think properly. We’re not only afraid of death, we’re equally afraid of birth, because both birth and the death is the bad news. Because the moment there is birth, there is the death. You have to be afraid of both and of course the old age. This is, I mean birth, old age and the death (Tibetan phrase) and the sickness, I guess – the, the deformation. So part of the Buddha is to transcend causes from birth also; but like you and me - what we can do is transcend our birth of the next one. We can try but this one, we are finished, we are stuck now, you understand. That's why, yeah, in the Mahayana, in the Mahayana, this is in the Mahayana. The Vajrayana is slightly different. I can only tell you this much. Question: (inaudible) – On collective consciousness… Rinpoche: Collective consciousness? I don’t know this collective consciousness. This, actually I don’t know. Eh, what is? Yeah, I also don’t know this so much. I think it is, eh, sort of a technique to express certain things. In Buddhism we talk about like group phenomena – group phenomena. Probably you can talk collective consciousness based on that. You and me, you and I create a group - right. And you look at this flower and I also think this is a flower, so you and I have a group phenomenon. But we also have individual phenomena. Because you can, you think you can make this into salad; I think this is a poison. Like that. That's an individual. So if you’re talking that level, that’s the example – okay.

Question: So, how does a mahasiddha like Shantideva, change and … Rinpoche: Mahasiddha? Actually mahasiddha is more of a Vajrayana concept. Eh, but anyway I'll be very; I will still stick with the Mahayana. In the Mahayana, you can reach a certain level of sublime state, such as Shantideva. Now, eh (pause) I’ll try to give you an example. Because mind; okay there is something called three doors – body, speech and mind. Mind is what controls body and the speech, right? - When the practitioners, when they manage to control their mind - then their body and the speech indirectly get controlled. When, when I say controlled, it means they will be less, or much, very, very less subject to fixation, such as size, you understand. And .not only that, by the way; the bigger question should be this; the bigger question should be: when Shantideva took out the sword, the wooden sword, the King – he, his eyes fell. Now this is a complementary to King actually. It’s a complement to King. If Shantideva showed us the wooden sword, our eyes would still be intact. Why? Because we just don’t, we’re not even that good, you know, that, we are not even – how do you call it? – That qualified, qualified bad - you understand? He was kind of bad but he was quite good. He, at least; it worked to him, it worked for him. He was already quite good, that’s why his eyes fell. For us, I’m sure, you know, it will, will, it won’t have any effect on us. So it works on this level. Just like anything, just like any everything. You should always put into our, our way of day-to-day life perceiving. For instance, you’re trying to impress somebody. It’s like makeup, by the way. I’m not talking to the girls only – everyone; makeup, lipstick, hair, whatever. When we make ourselves beautiful, it's so ridiculous because we are always looking at a mirror and make ourselves beautiful in your, according to your beauty. We don't know whether this is what the other person like. You understand what I am saying? As long as you confirm it this is beautiful, then you think this is how your boyfriend or your husband or your wife thinks. And often it works because the husband or the wife or the girlfriend or the boyfriend doesn’t want to upset you – right? Ah, you look nice! So this confirms your, your confusion: “Ah, it works.” You understand – so for instance, like you think the smell of the garlic is so good so you apply as your aftershave. You go and embrace your girlfriend. Your girlfriend, out of politeness, “Wow, that is really good smell.” You put more. And this is also how the relationship falls apart by the way. Because you do this for a week, two weeks, three weeks, one month - then the other one can’t stand it anymore; so then says “Maybe you should go slow with that garlic.” Then immediately you will be, you’ll, you will be victimized, alienated, but that’s how all the perceptions work. It’s all that; like talking to the dogs, it’s like that. We have the perception that when the dogs wag their tails, the dog, dogs are happy. I guess so. I don't know whether the dogs are really happy. This is I guess, I guess so. Okay. Did you want to ask questions? Question: Rinpoche, I think you have already answered the question. My question is whether the siddha would be able to fit, to get into the frock. Would he able to fit into the frock? Which one? The siddha, if he was the siddha – the example of the baby and the doll. Rinpoche: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes; if she's not, eh, not the subject of karmic formation

– yes. Okay, there’s some more – there. That gentleman, there; or do you want to ask? Okay, why don’t you finish there so that… Question: I’m just wondering about hearing the story of a young husband’s expedition from Tibet. I was going to say this that he was gunned down. He was supposed to be protected by all these kinds of protection. I thought they have this kind of non-dualistic, eh, approach - that didn’t really work. What happened there? Rinpoche: Ah, that’s good, good, good; yeah, yeah, very good. Not only that; that’s so much more. You know all these Malakalas and Malakalis, all of that; they’re supposed to be dharma protectors and all of that. What happened to them, all this time? Nothing! You understand – much bigger questions like that. Ah, oh, many answers; one – there’s no definite, amazing, one-pointed devotion towards that. If they have, it could have worked. And most likely it’s this because usually the soldiers, I think around that time, they were compulsorily given something called protection cord, which probably may have been rubbed by some, you know, useless young monk somewhere. You understand - just to give them a certain kind of, eh, confidence. Okay.






Question: This question is about the arhats and bodhisattvas. The question is that do

you agree that because the arhat focuses on the absolute bodhicitta and the

bodhisattva actually focuses on the relative bodhicitta that is why their paths differ.

Rinpoche: Eh, okay, this is a very big question. Arhat – what does arhat mean? -

Enemy destroyer, foe destroyer, yeah. Bodhisattvas can be also arhats, but usually

the word (dgra bcom pa) the arhat is given to Shravakayana practitioner but not all

the time. Even the Buddha we refer him as the Grand Arhat in this sense, you know,

the big one. Eh, okay, Shravaka arhat practitioners, arhats and the bodhisattvas; the

difference is the Shravaka arhats – their motivation is to get the hell out of samsara.

That’s why they are there. Bodhisattvas’ motivation is not really to get out of the

samsara. It is also not really to achieve enlightenment, I mean, to nirvana. It is to go

beyond samsara and nirvana. So it’s a more one big one – is the motivation. And as

I said before motivation is important; because of your motivation you’ll end up, even

though you are going to the same path, you’ll end up with different interpretation and

different effect – because of the motivation. Okay, one more after…oh, did you want

to ask question? You want to ask question?

Question: (not audibly clear) – on eight worldly dharma and “Way of the Bodhisattva”

– any commonality or are they different?

Rinpoche: Oh, no, no - these two are not really different. Eight worldly dharmas;

working with the eight worldly dharmas is a big part of the bodhisattva’s path. Eight

worldly dharmas; the exercise of working with the eight worldly dharmas is extracted

from grand Mahayana path or Buddhist path. So they are not different – okay.

Student: I really don’t understand your disagreement with the science about time and

reincarnation.

Rinpoche: What is it that you didn’t understand?

Student: Well, the scientists – they don’t believe in reincarnation.

Rinpoche: But they do believe in time.

Student: Not really, from my understanding from the book I read.

,

Rinpoche: Oh, I think, well, if they don’t believe in time, then how do they work?

Student: Well, they use the word they don’t believe in truly existing…

Rinpoche: Truly existing - then it’s fine, then it’s fine, that’s what I mean. Then we

also don’t believe in truly existing reincarnation. Okay, one more question, then we

finish.

Question: (not audibly clear) regarding way of metta; looking for their own way, their

own way of achieving enlightenment through metta…

Rinpoche: Eh, that’s a very big question also so let me think about it. It is a very

important one. And this just; okay, let me be a little bit provocative here. Have you

read a book called “Power of Now”? It’s quite a popular book now. And it’s fine, it’s

really good but the author has claimed that he got that - this is a revelation. This is

his experience. He said, I don’t know remember his exact words, but he was so

depressed one night. He woke up and then he got the light. Okay he suddenly

realized all of this, so he’s sharing this to the rest, the rest of; it’s a best seller in

America, anyway - the book “Power of Now”. I haven’t read, I haven’t finished it yet.

But I’m reading page by page and I have two highlighters. Where it is plagiarised

from which Buddhist books is usually green. And I have to say the book, the page

after page is becoming more and more green. And like everything, everything, even

some of the examples; you know, plagiarizing is an art. And I think many people do

that. But when you plagiarize, when you steal something, you have to really steal it

so well that nobody even knows that you have stolen something. But I think this book

hasn’t it because I have this good mind to actually even indicate where, which part of

this is come from which sutras or shastras. And it’s kind of; easily I think I can do it.

Okay the danger is this. The danger is the author has strongly saying, indicating; of

course no credit, no acknowledgement to any of the books that he has plagiarized

but only – usually that’s the case these days, right. Usually the acknowledgement

and gratitude always go to the publisher and the editor; not to the buddhas and

dharma. Not to the buddhas, never to the buddhas ‘cause they don’t have a buddha;

nobody wants to have a buddha these days because everybody wants to be the

reveal-ar. Everyone wants to be the first person who discovers this even though the

whole thing is plagiarized. The danger is this. The danger is it has got a few from

here; a few from there and deliberately not use terms – Hindu terms, Buddhist terms.

Usually these days in the new age, most of the books are, I think, got from Buddhists

and Hindus. So they avoid the classical words, classical terms. They bring some

good sounding what you call it, names - modern. Now this is very tricky though

because someone like I can’t argue with this directly. Because why? ‘Cause they’ll

say - well, you know, this is skilful means, you know everybody should do that - even

to a certain extent I agree.

You know many times I feel, like you know, when I, when I went to Beijing - I was

teaching in Beijing University and I weren’t wearing this. I was wearing normal, by

the way I wore a green ‘gutta butta’ and it looked terrible. I think most of the Beijing

students thought I was sick or just come out from a hospital bed or something, I don’t

know. It wasn’t even like deep green. It was like faded green; I don’t know where I

got that. That’s the only one I have. But I have realized sometimes when, when I

don't have that barrier of teacher, the divine look, the robe, all these terms, all this

culture, ritual - it works. Because there are so many people who really want to know

the buddhadharma but they are too afraid. As soon as they see a Lama with a high

throne and all kinds of paraphernalia, surrounding that with all these sluggish-looking

monks surrounding – then there is a big distance. So to a certain extent I can

understand that we should not be using the classic terms and classic rituals. So I

have a difficulty to argue that.

But what happens – to answer your question - when we get few ideas from here, few

ideas from here and try to present this as the original thinking, original path as

spiritual path; and when it is not accompanied and followed up, followed up, followed

up by a certain system. You know it’s like a radish, carrot; if you are showing a carrot

to a donkey, the shower of the carrot to the donkey must have an aim to lead this

donkey from here to there. Many times this book is just carrot. No place to lead, you

understand, so what’s the point of the carrot? But people like that because carrot

looks so orangey and delicious and it becomes a best seller. And as long as it’s sold,

for the one who is showing the carrot, the job is done. Anyway this is a very, very

strong remark. Eh, you can quote me but eh, eh, yah actually you can quote me. Do

whatever you want; I’ll take responsibility, why not? Okay we will end it here.

Eh, yesterday probably I make some strong remarks about plagiarism and probably I

may have done it, eh, too much. If that has unsettled your sleep, eh, I apologize but I

feel that it is important to keep the uniqueness of the wisdom tradition of different,

eh, I don't know, culture, tradition, countries - intact. Eh, I’m, I'm supposed to be an

incarnation of a person who promote or to encourage ecumenical or non-sectarian

attitude. So I do; I’m someone who sees, I’m someone who sees the value off non-

sectarian attitude. But the, eh, this does not mean that I believe that all religions or

all different traditions or different systems can be put into a jar and blend into one

juice. And because, I don't know, used to be not so much in the East; eh, I don’t

know, mainly in the West, I feel this especially, now even in the East – the modern

thinking has this – that everything needs to be united: United Nations, united this,

united religion. And I'm someone who does not believe in that. I don't, I don’t think

we can unite anything, as you can see United Nations is one of the biggest failures.

It would be even worse if you’re trying to unite all religions. We should not unite any

religion. We cannot unite any religion. And if you do unite religions, if you do unite all

religions – it’s going to be, eh, become, instead of a service to the wisdom tradition

of different parts of the world, it would be, what you call it, harm, and it would be,

what you call it, eh, degeneration towards the different wisdom traditions or religious

traditions. I know there are so many people who have a very peculiar idea about

tolerance and all encompassing, sort of embracing, hugging kind of, you know,

attitude like – all religions has one goal, you know, they come from different

directions - which also I don’t believe. Different religions must have different goals. I

don’t know other people’s goal. Buddhists have a particular goal and it should remain

like that. Coffee should remain as coffee, tea should remain as tea, eh, soup should

remain as soup; those things do not need to be united, blend it together and make

into something completely useless. One should never have that kind of attempt

even.






Buddhadharma has its uniqueness. I believe that and I actually, through a lot of

analysis, I believe that every human endeavour is looking for happiness. That’s the

aim. And whether we utter this way or not, one way and probably the only way to

attain the happiness is by seeing the truth. Well the truth is probably more of an

Indian term, Indian wisdom traditions such as Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Eh,

other religions may be calling it something different - having the experience, being

with the God, whatever, which I don’t know. But anyway experiencing the happiness

must have something to do, from the Buddhist point of view, something to do with,

eh, understanding the truth – and this is very simple. Now what I am trying to do, as I

said yesterday, we are going through the stanzas of Bodhicharyavatara and every, if

I can, we will begin always presenting a little bit of the wisdom extracting at times

from the Ninth Chapter. So; then we go back to the chapter that we are going on at

this point. So, yesterday I talked about the wisdom being the state, the state of

aware, sort of, yes, the state of non-duality. But today maybe we will try to make it

more simple.

Wisdom is a mind or awareness that has a complete picture of the truth, the reality,

the truth. If, if a person does not know that certain things such as eh, certain

pesticides, I guess, is harmful to the soil, then that is ignorance. So somebody has to

tell this person the truth, the truth that this chemical is going to ruin your soil forever.

Once you know this truth, then the person is released from not only the suffering of,

potential suffering of ruined soil but even the ignorance of not knowing the chemical

is not the right thing. It is as simple as that - the truth. This is; so if we talk about the

Buddhist truth, it’s also the same. When we about Buddhist truth, we are not talking

about something so divine, something that is revealed by certain divine being.

Maybe other religions may speak like that but that’s not how Buddhists are saying.

First of all, you must know Buddha himself said (Tibetan phrase) the truth of the

phenomena whether the Buddha came or not, whether the Buddha taught or not, the

truth of the phenomena is never changing, it’s always the same. Buddha only taught

so. It’s not as if the truth of the buddhadharma, the truth that is taught in the

buddhadharma is sort of made up, created, revealed – ‘revealed’ is maybe better

word but sort of. Just because Buddha said all compounded things are impermanent,

from then on everything became impermanent - it’s not like that. All compounded

things are impermanent even before Buddha said so. And the truth that all

compounded things are impermanent – as if you look at it, there’s nothing religious

about it. It is a simple truth.

Similarly his remark about all emotions that’s stemming from the ego clinging is pain.

Now that maybe slightly more difficult to understand but if you look at it frankly it is

the truth. And it has always been like, no matter whether the Buddha said or not - so

on and so forth. All phenomena have no inherent existing nature. Nirvana or

enlightenment is beyond, has; nirvana is beyond extremes. These are truths that is

taught by the Buddha but not made by the Buddha. It is not manufactured by the

Buddha. Understanding these truths, realization of these truths, not only intellectually

but practically is what you at this point, you can call it wisdom.

And If you look at it, one by one, it has a lot; you know, as I said yesterday - what is

the real point here? What is our aim? What is, what is it that we are trying to

achieve? Some are trying to go to the moon. Some are trying to wage war. Some are

trying to plant rice. The others are, you know all kinds of things people are doing.

Some are in the cave meditating. All of us – what are we looking for? We are looking

for happiness, fun – fun was the word. We’re looking for that happiness.

Now you will ask me this question – what, how do one find happiness by knowing

that all compounded things are impermanent? At glance you might think that’s going

to make us all depressed because that’s kind of, you know, oh everything is going to

die, everything’s going to decay, everything’s going to change, isn’t that kind of

pessimistic view? Isn't that a very, sort of, depressing kind of thing to think about?

Yes that’s if you, if you are worldly being, yes – that’s what I was saying to you. If

you are not interested in enlightenment don't go to Buddhism – it’s the worst place. If

you are looking for worldly fun you have to really more you can deceive yourself, the

better - with shampoo, moisturizer, I don't know, dye hair, all kinds of vitamin pill that

promises you, eh, that it will make you live forever, stuff like that; going to shop as if

you’re going to live thousand years. All of these you can do, deceive yourself, cheat

yourself, tell yourself lies and tell others lies. That's the only way we can achieve

happiness if you are looking for worldly happiness.

Now, keeping that aside, if you are looking for happiness but that’s not really a

worldly happiness then you have to see the truth. Not only that, understanding the

impermanence is not necessarily a pessimistic approach. It’s not necessarily, eh,

depressing approach. Understanding and I always say, if the MBA students of today

- forget about the other Buddhist teachings - but if they can understand just of these

that all compounded things are impermanent; if that is emphasized in one of their

curriculum - maybe one month in their whole MBA years, it will make the world a big

difference. It will really protect the environment. It will really be such a good news for

ecology, its good news for humankind; just one truth, forget about all the other truths

- all compounded things are impermanent – just that.

And you know, I don’t know so much about economy but I sat through some lectures

in New York. It’s quite amazing; some of these people – they use the language. You

know in the economic studies they talk about bubbles. I don’t know whether you

have heard bubbles, burst, bubble bursting, bubbles. You know I think now, right

now, the world is going through a bubble about to burst, in certain cases bubble is

already burst. That’s why all the people are going through panic, anxiety. And the

bubble is such a, I mean the economic people – they, really they use this term

‘bubble’, ‘bubble’ and they’re such a; in Buddhism, in the Dharmasutra, Vijayasutra it

is taught there already; eh, many, many difference and then also in other sutras,

other sutras like (Tibetan phrase)

The bubble is used as examples to really indicate, eh, sort of, eh, what you call it,

express the impermanence and the uncertainty aspect of our lives. For instance,

right now, this gathering, me and you, this gathering, this house – this is very much

like a bubble. ANYTIME it will burst. Anytime it will; you can hope for forever intact

gathering but the truth is it’s going to burst. Now where is the happiness fitting into

this? If you know that the bubble will burst one way or another, sooner or later, if you

know the bubble will be burst then it will bring you at least lack of. It will what, what,

what will it do? It will give, it will, it will, what you call it, bring, eh; it will not encourage

false expectations. It will, you will have eh, what we call it, if you, if, if an expectation

is necessary, then the right kind of expectations, right kind of expectations.

What, what is the expression? Eh, hope for the best; expect what do you call it?

(Audience response) – For the worst, like that; that’s really a meditative thinking, you

know. Hope for the best and expect the worst. If you can apply that in every dualistic

situation - I hope that I will eat dinner tonight but expect that I might not even have

my lunch, that I might die this morning. If you can have that - now imagine this. If you

can have this in your head or at least these MBA students have, the world will do

business in a different way. And everything, it has an amazing effect, I tell you; even

the way you sort of plan your life. Right now many of us here including me, of

course, we plan to live here, okay about a thousand years - really seriously. But the

reality is if we're lucky, in some like my case, forty years. That's about the, that’s,

that’s already quite greedy. That’s already a big assumption because given the fact

with all the pollution and disasters and road accidents and all kinds of things; I might

not even fulfil that plan.

But let’s say forty years; so if you have forty years – I am talking about wisdom by

the way, okay. If you have forty years now plan how many jeans you need. Okay,

you are very extravagant, so to you, what the, jeans are two years; you know, every

two years one jean, that’s twenty jeans only. So that’s already, so you can keep

aside that money. Also inflation, of course, you have to consider that a little bit; T-

shirts, regular holidays, ah, toys gadgets, all of this - I think likely you can live like a

maharaja and still quite doable. Because actually, you know, we have, you know,

economic, so--called economic, the definition of economy today, money and all that -

the world generally for a lot of us, we have become much more well off - so we can

plan life. You can call it simply living but I would say it’s still quite luxurious living; at

the same time less really enlightened planning. Now where does this come from?

.Again having the wisdom of understanding the truth - only one truth.

You know, you know, there’re many, many categories of truth but for instance like

the Four Seals and out of the four seals, one, the first seal – all compounded things

are impermanent – just understanding that alone brings us lots of good. So, that’s,

that’s the wisdom, anyway; that’s the wisdom. So we are trying to develop this

wisdom. We are trying to nurture this wisdom. We are trying to acquire this wisdom.

We are trying to learn this wisdom. Like any other endeavours or any other subjects

or, you know, science or art or whatever, the human methods in order to achieve a

certain happiness. Likewise here Shantideva, in order to understand these, in order

to get this wisdom, we, Shantideva has taught all these stages of discipline. Stages

of, yes mainly the discipline, diligence, patience and also very, what you call it, very

skilful technique, very skilful technique.






Skilful is very important in buddhadharma. Sakya Pandita said in the; mm, this is a

little bit of Vajrayana so I don’t know why I am quoting him but since I’ve already said

it, I guess I’ve got to finish this. Eh, for instance desire, desire; Sakya Pandita said:

mm, causal path such as Shravakayana and Mahayana – they use desire, Vajrayana

also use desire.

And this is quite; okay this is a little tricky maybe. See in the Shravakayana or also in

the Mahayana, can be in the Mahayana, the way they use the desire is - even

though you have desire, even though you have desire, by not utilizing the desire, but

not using it – that’s how the Shravakayana and Mahayana obtain the merit; by, okay,

refraining from activities of desire .. Okay. In the Vajrayana, they use the desire and

that’s how they obtain merit. So both are actually; they need the desire.

This is a very important point because if you think not having the desire - this is really

important to tell you - NOT having the desire, let’s say, you know like sexual desire;

NOT having the desire is of utter important stage, then it’s of such an important

stage where you accumulate lots of merit by just not having desire – Sakya Pandita

said, the babies, small children – they must be accumulating lots of desire, I mean

lots of merit, at that time because they don't have obvious desire. Also all, some of

those who are impotent, you know like mentally impotent - they must be

accumulating lots of merit too.

But not necessarily they are accumulating the merit. So it is the wisdom; here we are

talking about the wisdom; wisdom of doing two opposites. You see the

Shravakayana and the Mahayana are using, NOT USING it. And Vajrayana is

USING it - the action is totally different. One is using it, the other is not using it; but

they gain the same merit, same profits, so to speak. So this is what we call (Tibetan

phrase), the vast skilful means, skilful means.

So here Shantideva will give us, especially in the second chapter, I believe, is it?

Second chapter, all those swans and, yeah, right; like he will give us amazing skilful

means of, eh, you know suggestions about how to accumulate merit without moving

one finger.. And this is so because of the wisdom again. So in order to achieve,

realize this kind of wisdom, eh, as I said, this time we’re are approaching wisdom

through Shantideva’s teaching referred as Bodhicharyavatara. This is mainly

belonging to the basket of sutras. And if you have the text, translated version; I don’t

know how it is translated but usually in the Tibetan text, it always begins with the

(Tibetan phrase) in the Indian language, Bodhicharyavatara, Bodhisattvacaryavatara

(Tibetan phrase); in the Tibetan language (byang chub sems dpa’i spyod pa la ‘jug

pa); these are, of course, not part of the root text obviously. These are there for

certain reasons.

Tibetans have this, eh; Tibetans look up to Indians and India. Tibetans have this sort

of, eh, for instance, why the title is given in the Sanskrit; even in Tibetan text, it’s

given in Sanskrit – not the actual script but in the phonetic form. And the reason why

it’s there (Tibetan phrase) – this what the Tibetans would say – in order to develop

habit or propensity to understand this divine and holy language. So indicating every

intellectual sort of thinkers or; you know; you know in Tibet, those days specially,

they have a longing or a secret wish to perfect the Sanskrit language. But since not

everyone can do it, they are hoping they can do it in the next life. And okay, we are

bringing up this reincarnation; you can discuss about this if you want.

And in Buddhism everything is conditioning. Conditioning is (Tibetan phrase);

everything is conditioning and conditioning is basically motivation or in other words,

habit, habituating basically. So I think it’s something very similar to what modern-day

people say sub, subliminal, eh, what you call it? You know, I thought it was banned

in America like (“suggestions”.-from audience). No, I heard in the seventies Coca

Cola had one frame of picture of Coca Cola in the movies which you can never

actually look at it, but actually it’s there. But it will actually, but because it’s

subliminal, it will sort of sink into your brain so that whenever you see the actual

Coca Cola, you will have this longing. It’s a bit like that here – a dose, a small

dosage of Sanskrit, you know, here. So that in the future you will have this perfection

of the language.

And (Tibetan phrase) okay, mm, I think the rest is easy; “po byang chub sems dpa’i”

– “dpa’i” is courageous, courage I think. Sometimes it’s even translated as the

warrior, the warrior. Maybe just to give you why we refer someone who has the

bodhicitta – bodhisattva, “byang chub sems dpa’i”, the courageous one, the courage,

someone who has that courage or warrior is, if I explain just briefly. In the

Mahayanasutralamkara, Maitreya said (Tibetan phrase) someone who has the

bodhicitta and someone who has perfect, I mean someone who has strengthened

their bodhicitta – they are usually very stable with their determination of helping

sentient beings. They are not afraid of minor or even major sufferings. They will not

be, eh, what you call it, disillusioned or disheartened by bad companion - three.

The fourth one is (Tibetan phrase); now this is a big, big one. This is probably the

main reason (Tibetan phrase). When, eh, you know when Manjushri taught the

emptiness; this is, this is, this is the Mahayana chauvinism again, okay. When

Manjushri taught sunyata, emptiness, it is believed that five hundred arhats had

heart attack and died. Now, I think it’s actually a complement to the five hundred

arhats. Do you know why? Because, really, you see emptiness is taught everywhere

these days, nobody’s getting a heart attack. So if you’re not having a heart attack

that means two things. One, you’re already enlightened; someone like you know

you’re on the first bhumi bodhisattva, about that, or it’s just passing above, above

your head.

It has to be really, because if you really think carefully, if you even read, you know

like Nagarjuna’s Madhyamakavatara; if you, really it is quite scary. If you really think

because what Buddha is telling us is there is nothing, there is no Buddha, there is no

teaching. There is; Nagarjuna has the whole chapter dedicated to analysis of “De

zhin sheg pa Tathagata”. (Tibetan phrase) There is a chapter that dedicate analysing

the Buddha. No path, no person, nothing and no; not only, not only no path, no

person, no enlightenment, no dharma path to the enlightenment, but also no

nothingness. Really it’s absolutely difficult.

I remember when I first teach, when I first introduce, when I first said that to a group

of Australians - that Buddhism is like a placebo, that it is a trick. You know someone

who is, who think they are sick, usually that’s the case, isn’t it? – Someone who

thinks they are sick – you just give them anything with a good label, you know,

outside; empty capsule maybe filled with some barley flour or something like that.

This is like made in, I don’t know, somewhere really exotic – this will cure you. They

eat this and if they have a strong belief in that, it will cure them. That’s the whole

Buddhadharma.

The whole Buddhadharma is like that. Now when you hear this, especially, you

know, the Australians, you know this group of Australians, but not only the group of

Australians; group, I have also, you know when I say certain remarks like this - like

traditional countries like Bhutan, Buddhist countries like Bhutan, or Chinese, group of

Chinese, traditionally Buddhist – you know, I can feel in their faith that that’s going

too fast, that’s going too fast. You can say a lot of this, a lot of that, but telling us

Buddhists that Buddhadharma is a fake, complete, you know, trick – now that is

going too fast. Well, whether you believe or not, this is what Buddha said. If you read

Diamond Sutra, Vajracchedika Sutra, he, Buddha said, somewhere in the middle you

will see this. You know, Subhuti, Raljor; he said “Did you”, he even referred to him as

Subhuti; “Do you think the Buddha taught?” Subhuti was very good; he was very

smart. He said “No, Buddha has never taught.” Then Buddha said “Yes, very good.

Buddha has never taught. Never really teach all of that; very, very, in a very profound

level.”

Now these words are really big. So the fourth reason why a bodhisattva is

courageous or warrior is someone who can, who can be, who can conceive this kind

of news, this kind of truth. When someone who, when you are, yeah, when you can

chew emptiness, so to speak, when you can swallow sunyata - then you are, you

have the courage. This, this is saying a lot; this is really saying a lot. Right now, not

making a big sense in our heads because we are not really understanding the full

impact of the statement of the sunyata. So it’s, but, this will do anyway. Because of

these four reasons, we call it po, po – courageous, warrior, okay.

And then (Tibetan phrase), eh, then right up to that is (Tibetan phrase), I think so,

yes – homage to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Now this is also not written by

Shantideva. This is what we call translators’ homage. And also this used to not exist

before the Third great king of Tibet, Trisong Detsen. Previously during his father and

grandfather, these translators’ homage did not exist. But after, he during his reign, he

sort of revised almost all the sutras and shastras that, that were translated during his

grandfather’s and father’s; and he commanded all the translators to categorise all the

teachings into three categories – Sutra, Vinaya and Abhidharma. And sutra, if it is a

sutra because sutras are usually a discussion between the Buddha and

Bodhisattvas, then homage is given to the Buddha and Bodhisattvas.

Vinaya, the vinaya is a very, very complicated, eh, very, very refined point of karma

basically. Only the Buddha can explain this. Therefore all the Vinaya, when after

translating, the translators would pay homage to Tathagata only (Tibetan phrase).

And then Abhidharma, because Abhidharma is quite a complex subject, wisdom is

required so King Trisong Detsen commanded the translators to pay homage to

Manjushri. And this also; so therefore the homage, the translators’ homage can

easily indicate that what, which text, I mean which basket the text belongs to, so to

speak…okay.






Now, only now Shantideva’s words begin. I’ll try to read some of these stanzas so

you can also receive like a lung (Rinpoche reads the stanzas in Tibetan) – author’s

homage to Buddhas or the Tathagatas, ‘deshek’, tathagata; no actually not

tathagata, sugatarbha, sugata, right; deshek, sugata. Sugata is a very big term;

many different ways to understand this. ‘Su’ is something to do with the bliss, bliss, is

it? (Feedback from student) Noble, good; mm, (Tibetan phrase) good or blissful;

comfortable also, I think. The path, Buddha’s path is blissful. Someone who has

perfected this path is referred as the Sugatagarbha. You might wonder how can

buddhadharma be blissful path? Don’t we have to sit hours and hours? Don’t we

have to do hundred thousand prostrations? Don’t we have to like refrain from this

and that?

The blissful path – this is what I’m trying to present to you at the moment. Mm, okay,

many reasons: one, eh, in the old Buddha’s teachings, fundamental, fundamentally

the Buddhist teaching tells us that defilement is removable. (Tibetan phrase)

meaning you are not the defilement. This is a very big one, yeah. Maybe some

religion may be telling you that fundamentally you are defiled. You are right from the

beginning, your origins sort of speak, your nature is, you know, dirty or sinful or

whatever - defiled. So the only way you can be saved is ask someone to save you.

Just the opposite in buddhadharma, especially in Mahayana Buddhism, your

fundamental nature is the Buddha. Your fundamental nature is not the bad thing, sin

or defilement. You know you may look, you may appear as angry, jealous, you know

all these negative qualities, but that's not real you. All these are temporary, all these

are removable.

And these temporary emotions – even, Buddhists don’t even have to prove that. You

just have to prove it many times. For instance, anger; you can’t get angry all the

time, constantly frozen with anger. Yes you may be a very; your anger can stay long,

so like that. These prove that anger, desire, jealousy, pride - all these are conditions.

When there is a condition, when there is cause and condition to make them arise,

they will come. This proves that we can manipulate them. This proves that we can

actually get rid of them. So really you are not them. Having that fundamental view is

the path, blissful path.

Can you understand why this is a blissful path? Because you then think – okay well, I

have a hope, so to speak, you understand. I always give this example, you know like

washing clothes. Fundamentally you know that the dirt is not clothes. You know that

even though it looks like they are in union at the moment. They are like inseparable

but fundamentally you know this dirt is removable. That's why machine you wash.

That's why you can afford to wash. That's why there's a tradition of washing. That's

why you have; you can have an effort of washing. So there is a fundamental blissful

knowledge that it can be removed. This is one of, maybe the one of the main

reasons why ‘deshyin shegpe, eh, (Tibetan phrase), the blissful path, gone through

the blissful path…okay.

And then many other, I think some other, what you call it, eh; okay, one minor one is

this - Buddha's teachings are, eh, eh, taught for different, different, eh, different

elements, different emotions, different propensities , so basically you can choose

within your capacity. I mean, eh, you know there’s even a story when Buddha was

alive, there was a butcher who had to basically survive by killing animals. So when

Buddha said you should take a vow not to kill; when Buddha was teaching how

killing is no good. Then he approached the Buddha and said, you know, this is my

job. You know I can see that killing is not good but I need to survive - for the time

being what can I do? Buddha said, for the time being, at least you can begin with as

soon as the sun set then you don’t kill until the sun rise – a specific vow for this

person. So until today you can take this kind of vow. There's not, there is, there is a

seemingly standard vow, but these are all cultural mistake by the way. For instance

even in the Bodhicharyavatara, it will come later (Tibetan phrase) that practice of

generosity; oh, actually Shantideva even suggested to us by accumulating the act of

generosity by giving from the right hand to the left hand. It’s all mind-training

basically.

There's no standard; okay as a Buddhist, you are all not allowed to eat aubergine.

You know there’s no such thing as that. As a Buddhist, you must all wear socks,

there’s, you understand. There's no standard fixed manual or some kind of a; in fact

this is probably from the worldly point of view; now this is, this is again I am now

switching back to my Buddhist jihadist mind; and this is probably why, why Buddhism

always will become weak. Because there’re too many things; there’s so many

choices that everything looks contradictory, paradoxical and contradiction. There’s

no like a court, Buddhist court, somewhere, I don’t know, in Bodhgaya or

Dharamsala (laughter).

And many times it gives us a lot of problems because I do not know whether you

have heard recently. I'm sure you have heard this, this big book, produced from

China and is being distributed everywhere - this guy who claims himself as the third

reincarnation of the Buddha. Have you heard this? Oh, it’s amazing, it is amazing!

And the (student: who’s the second?); second, he has in, there’s a group, eh, but he

calls himself His Holiness Lijing Norbu Dorje Chan, Buddha the Third (laughter) – it’s

very long. Student: “He’s Chinese?” Chinese, yes, and of course, as we read this,

towards the end, we know what’s going on. Because he has a really good tile

factory; tiles, he sells tiles – some are good, I tell you. Maybe he should consider, but

this anyway, this man, he can do a lot, lot of things.

And, oh, just completely; it’s almost like so-bad, it’s entertaining – the book in

English, (student: in English?) and some Chinese also. Wait, there are photographs

since established of avocados and insects, recently a squirrel also through ‘His

Holiness’; so on and so forth exactly. Now the second, the reason why I get so

worked up in America, is because when I got this book - all these endorsements

from the Rinpoches. Endorsements - this is of course a big issue; this is becoming a

big issue as I told you yesterday. Tulku like myself, tulku, reincarnated tulku value;

the tulku value is already gone, long gone. It may be worth only in Tibet, a little bit; it

doesn’t, the value of the tulku is – you can try to sell the title ‘tulku’ in the EBay, I

don’t think you can get better chances there (laughter). The tulku is, the tulku has no

value. Actually, it’s, I would openly say it’s their own doing. Many of the Tibetan

tulkus, they don’t, with all due respect, you know we don’t behave; eh, and many,

many letters really from the highest source.

Okay, I will tell you the full story. And some of these tulkus are really, many of these

tulkus are really young, kind of exposed; lots of exposure, you know. I call them;

many of them are my friends, “I thought you have some brains, why do you give

this?” They say – oh, you know, because His Holiness Sakya Trizin gave an

endorsement letter. But often, we then found out that actually His Holiness Sakya

Trizin never gave letter. They forged a complete letter of recognition and all of that.

But even then, I’m still really a little upset you with the Tibetan tulkus. I always say

there’s something called mobile phone these days. You can always verify whether

such things are.

You know there is, there’s a lot things like this; for instance especially the older

lamas, older Rinpoche’s – they don’t realize what this piece of paper called diploma

can do in the modern world. You see in Tibet, you know this kind of small letter

receipts are given to (Tibetan phrase), like a receipt; you know, receive; it’s not that

big deal, you know. There is no diploma phenomenon in Tibet, used to it. But in the

West as you go to a dentist, how many plagues of, you know certificates. A

certificate is important. I mean Tibetans, young Tibetans are to begin to realise that.

Still the older generation, they don’t know that people can misuse this, so there’s

that.

So, anyway when I think sometimes when we go through this kind of situation, well

we feel maybe there should be something like a Buddhist court somewhere. You

know, there things are decided. You know - oh, you are fake Rinpoche, you must get

out; something like you must be punished. But then you know, when you think about

it, thanks to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha that we don’t have Buddhist court.

Because if we have a Buddhist court, this Buddhist judge, these Buddhist lawyers –

they can be easily bought. You know the corruption can happen. So in a way I would

say the Buddhist weakness of this near form of, you know, tools, rituals and views

and discipline – all these, maybe it’s a weakness because it is not, you know, putting

the Buddhists together and make it very powerful. I think I would say this weakness

of Buddhism is actually a strength because in a way, you know, it sort of travels in

the hearts and minds of the people individually. I think it is a good thing. Now where

did this thing come out? What was I saying? – Deshek, yeah, deshek; sugata,

sugata.






Okay, so homage right, the author’s homage first to someone who has gone through

this blissful path, meaning the Buddha ‘chos gyi sku ma’, ‘chos gyi sku’ and then;

then homage to the Dharma; but this is really an important one. In the ‘byang chub’

(i.e. Bodhicharyavatara) especially - usually there’s a Buddha, Dharma and Sangha,

right - but in ‘byang chub’ Shantideva used really almost like very raw language,

direct language, and amazing.

Instead of ‘sangs rgyas, chos, dge dun’; sangs rgyas or the ‘bde gshegs’, (bde

gshegs, which is same as buddha, sugata) – ‘chos gyi sku’, ‘chos gyi sku’ actually is

sometimes referred as the dharmakaya. So actually isn’t it the Buddha himself? So

he actually very amazingly split the Buddha, one who is gone through the blissful

path; ‘chos gyi sku’, the dharmakaya, dharmakaya or the dimension of the truth

basically. So that is the Dharma. The real dharma is not the scripture. Real dharma

is not tradition. Real dharma is not culture. Real dharma is not the words. Real

dharma is the ‘chos gyi sku’. It’s the truth, the emptiness.

It’s an amazing choice of words, I always think by Shantideva. Instead of referring it

as ‘bde gshegs chos sde’, he referred it as ‘bde gshegs chos gyi sku’ instead; bde

gshegs chos gyi sku - ‘sku’ is like when; ‘sku’ is an honorific language for body. I

think I like the English word ‘body’, because not only is it referring to this kind of

body, I heard it refers to body or entity. So it’s like an entity or dimension, also I like

the word ‘dimension’; dimension of the truth. For instance all of you look at this - you

see a purple flower and I’m looking at it. I also see a purple flower. This is the

dimension that we can see. If a goat comes here and looks at this flower – he will

have a different dimension - it’s a food. A small insect needs a home; so different

dimension. The highest admission is the truth, the dharmakaya or the emptiness,

whatever you want to use, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s something that cannot be

described.

There, that’s dharma, then ‘sde dge dang’ - ’sde’ is the children of the Buddha

meaning the bodhisattvas and also shravakas and pratyekabuddhas and to all those

who are worthy of prostration, eh, Shantideva is offering prostration. And okay, that’s

the homage.

And the next, (Tibetan phrase), pledging or taking a vow to write this text - I shall, I

Shantideva shall expound here in an abbreviated form, according to the word of the

Buddha, I shall present here, eh, the way of the children of the Buddha - the way of

the, yes the way of the children of, the sons and daughters of the Buddha. Mainly

three kinds of discipline; (Tibetan phrases) the way, three kinds of ways – eh, the

discipline of, three kinds of discipline or way – the discipline of how to refrain

ourselves from wrong doing; discipline of how to gather the virtues; and discipline of

how to benefit others. These are the three ways and this is also you would find a

very Indian, I think, habit isn’t it? - (Tibetan phrase) pledging to finish. I think I’ve

seen even in the Jain.

Recently I was reading a; I was in; I met somebody in Yale University who ways

teaching Jain Buddhism, Jain, Jainism, and I was reading some shlokas. I can’t see

any difference with Buddhism. Sometimes really, many times I wonder why this,

such a beautiful religion Jain, is not flourishing enough. These are like fanatically

non-violent, and this is what we are lacking. Most of the religions teach violence.

This, such a beautiful; this alone shows the lack of merit of human beings, I feel –

such a beautiful path.

Mm, and then the next stanzas (Tibetan phrase), even though you know, remember

he asked the Nalanda panditas, should he teach something that no one has taught,

and they said yes. So here he’s actually getting off a little bit – actually I’m not going

to say anything that’s not said before. He doesn’t have anything that is not taught by

the Buddhas of the past. I am not like, mm, Akasakosha, a great poet, I think. I’m not

like them who have so much, amazing, you know, richness and equipped with

amazing wealth of words and poetic language. Mainly this, this manual is written for,

okay; I don't see, I don’t, I don't perceive that this text, therefore because, because

I'm, I have nothing to say that hadn’t been said, my words lack the beauty of

language. Therefore I don't see that this is going to benefit to a lot of sentient beings.

Eh, so what why did I compose this? Mainly to increase my own bodhicitta mind;

mainly to get accustomed to the bodhicitta mind again and again for myself; but, eh,

this does not mean that, to say this in the next stanza, (Tibetan phrase) eh, in order -

I've written this mainly for myself to get accustomed to this supreme virtue, supreme

virtue, which is bodhicitta. I've written this so that it will increase my devotion to this

path of bodhicitta for the time being. And it might benefit other sentient beings who

also share the equal standings or equal eh, qualities like Shantideva, myself.

Therefore knowing that it might be, it might become useful or beneficial to those who

eh, have similar propensity like Shantideva, myself. Okay, easy-to-understand the

actual stanza, but something quite important here - typical Mahayana practitioners’

eh, what you call it, attitude or practice. In the first stanzas he has, he exercises

humility – I have nothing to say here that hasn’t been said. I’m not rich with

language. I'm, I’m only doing this mainly for myself – yeah the first section.

The second section - but it can, I can; why not for someone who shares similar

qualities like myself. This I cannot really sort of eh, say that it will not be beneficial to

those who are similar nature. This is Khenpo Kunpel’s commentary and this is really

good one, because even the style of Shantideva’s composition, we can get a lot of

message from, we can learn a lot of bodhisattva’s attitude. Bodhisattvas are always

told that to have humility and confidence. This game of humility and confidence must

be there all the time. You know, time and again, bodhisattvas are advised – you

should not have pride. You should be humble. But this should not lead to really

making you lose your self-esteem so to speak – like I'm useless, you know my work

will not benefit anyone. Because this, this attitude must be balanced always with

confidence, that yes it can benefit. This confidence and humility - balancing these

two – you will find this throughout the text, actually a lot. This is already the first sign

of a great bodhisattva, what you call it, eh, yes, first sign of a great bodhisattva.

We have fifteen minutes; do you want to ask questions? Or should we just go

through? Ten minutes, do you have questions? I think none. Okay. Why don’t you

shout?

Question: Rinpoche, about the book you were referring to yesterday, plagiarism; I,

within New York, I read the same book and I had exactly the same theory. I met

someone who is a friend of the author and I said it’s just Buddhism. And he came

back to me and said – well, Buddha reveals the truth; isn’t it possible that someone

else can have enlightenment experience and reveal the same truth? I couldn’t

debate that.

Rinpoche: Yes, of course, there is no debate. As I was saying you cannot really eh,

what you call it, eh, I think the only thing you can say - I hope that is the truth. That’s

about the only thing you can say. (Query from another student: What was it you’re

referring to?) - Power of Now – yeah.

Question: I gather it was just Buddha’s teachings but he wasn’t saying so.

Rinpoche: But actually to, you know; strictly if I were really, if you really want to be

meticulous; if really a realized being, we are talking about the Buddha, will not repeat

the same words. Really they will have a totally different style; for instance the next

Buddha, Maitreya is a Brahmin. The choice of birth also makes a difference actually

but I don’t think we can go through that.

Because you see when Shakya, maybe this is not really the time; but when

Shakyamuni taught in Varanasi, he, when he said, the first thing he said (Tibetan

phrase) – that means you must know the suffering. Second, he said you must

abandon the cause of suffering, right. I’m trying to tell you this so that we know at

least the difference. You know, these, okay mm, two words – know the cause of

suffering, abandon the cause of suffering – these words heard by monks like

Oddiyana, Oddiyana right? - And so on and so forth and this is what is recorded. But

there were other audience sitting there, not recorded in the Shravakayana and

Mahayana sutras but in the Tantric records.

There was Vajrapani sitting there, really, invisible though; you know what they have

heard – completely opposite. He said, Buddha said – samsara is blissful – yes;

emotions must not be abandoned, must be used – totally opposite. THE - this kind of

richness offered by enlightened beings - very difficult. I think better settle with

plagiarism. It’s very difficult. Take a break then; okay take a break.


བྱང་ཆུབ་སམེས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ་, སྤྱོད་འཇུག་, Wyl. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug




So; mm, all the sort of prepared, preparations of paying homage to buddhas and

bodhisattvas, pledging to compose this text on this is finished. Now we begin with

the main body. As you know this text is about bodhicitta, the way, the way of the

bodhisattva – you already know that.

It has ten chapters. We’re not going to cover this definitely. We’ll be lucky if we finish

one chapter I think this time. Eh, ten chapters are actually based on three sort of,

three quite important categories. (Tibetan phrases) To plant the seed of the

bodhicitta - three chapters; for those who, for those eh, for whom the bodhicitta is not

planted, to plant the seed or to give birth, I should say, to give birth to the bodhicitta

mind, bodhicitta attitude, bodhisattva’s way - three chapters. Once giving birth to the

bodhicitta or the way of the bodhisattva, to maintain it, maintain this bodhicitta or the

way of the bodhisattva - three chapters. And then (Tibetan phrase) in order to

increase the way of the bodhisattva, multiply the way of the bodhisattva - three

chapters - plus one chapter of dedication so that's ten chapters. These are how the

whole text will be taught.

So we begin with the first three; and first three are - the first chapter is (Tibetan

phrase) the benefit of the bodhicitta. We must really; we must know the benefit as I

spoke yesterday. As a human being this is one question we have. What is it, what is

there in it for me? What do I get by having this for me? What is the benefit, what is

the benefit of having bodhicitta for me? What can I use this for? Does it, would it

work eh, would it make my life comfortable? That’s probably the main question, isn’t

it?

Would it make others’ lives comfortable? Eh, will it, what kind of profit does it have?

What kind of gain is there? Will it help me prevent from all kinds of pain and anxiety,

all these? So for that we have the first chapter – (Tibetan phrase) the chapter for

benefit of the bodhicitta.

So, but before we talk about that, we talk about (Tibetan phrase) which is container

of the bodhicitta. Bodhicitta or the way of the bodhisattva ‘container’ – what kind of

vessel that can; what qualifies a vessel or container that can host, that can upkeep

that? Or if you are talking about planting the seed of the bodhicitta, we should be

talking; first we should be talking about the ground, the field, container – where the

bodhicitta will be planted. What kind of ground? - So for that, to explain that

Shantideva gives us two kinds of container, (Tibetan phrase) physical container and

mental container - more importantly the mental container, of course.

This is a very big subject, especially the mental container, which eh; some of you

may be anxious when will this text ever be completed? – Since seemingly after two

days we’re still going up somewhere; eh, there will lot of sections where I will just

have to, where I can just leave. And really not that easy, I mean not that difficult to

comprehend; but having said that, this is a really big text - so I don’t think that we’ll

finish that easily. Mm, the first container, the physical container - when we say

physical container we are talking about eh, we are talking about what kind of being,

what kind of being can have the bodhicitta mind PERFECTLY. I should use yeah, I

should, we should highlight the word ‘perfectly’. A perfect being that can contain the

bodhicitta, that can engage the way of, that can exercise the way of the bodhisattva -

it’s actually ‘human being’.

This is a big statement because according to Buddhism, even the god beings are not

good. Let’s say you're born in the god realm - you're not good. You, you’re, you as a

god, you are not good, not perfect vessel to contain the bodhicitta; and many

reasons for that. God, god realms have so much luxuries, so much happiness; music

never stops, dancing never stops, food in abundance – everything is there.

Everything is fixed, everything is; there’s no uncertainty until the last moment – right.

Complete, complete certainty; there’s a lot of certainty there. So one would think but

isn't that good? Isn’t, don’t that perfect to; you know then you don’t have to work, you

don't have to, you know, get a job, you don't have, you know you have so much time

- you can practice so much. You might think like that, but no, it’s got nothing to do

with, you know like leisure like that.

First of all, god realm does not have; okay, maybe I should go to the other realms

first. You know Buddhists talk about different realms. Generally, generally six realms

but six realms are very big generalizations. Buddha himself said in Amitabha Sutra –

there are so many, many, many realms – millions! Jamgon Kongtul Lodro Thaye

explains in the (Tibetan phrase) just amazing amount of realms; but all the realms

can be categorized into six realms – eh, hungry ghost, hell realm, animal realm,

human, asura, god – six realms. This group of six realms are actually quite a big

philosophy.

Eh, six realms, according to Buddhism, six realms especially in Mahayana

Buddhism, especially this guy Shantideva – you will, he will explain somewhere in

the middle. According to Buddhism, especially in Mahayana, hell realm does not

exist somewhere underneath our earth. It’s not somewhere you have to sort of, you

get pushed into. There’s no specific place. Actually according to Shantideva, your

aggression, the expression of the aggression is the hell realm. Expression of your

jealousy is the asura realm; expression of your ignorance is the, eh, what you call it –

animal realm, so on and so forth. Actually eh, animal realm; I mean ‘six realms’ does

not exist externally. But having said; okay you know, for instance even in the one,

one course of our day-to-day life, I think the six realms can be experienced.

Now maybe I’m going a little bit towards the Vajrayana, but; for instance when you

wake up in the morning, when you are drowsy and completely spaced out; can’t

think, can’t make difference between right and left shoes – all of that; you know when

you’re completely not woken up yet – you can say you’re going through animal

realm. And then after shower, lipstick, eh, shaving, what do you call it – splash?

What do you call it? - After shave, tie, all of that – you feel you’re fashion devil, so to

speak at least, and at that time, there’s a little bit of pride; and there you’re going

through a little bit of god realm, so to speak. And then you go to your office and there

probably, you have a crush on your boss’s secretary, I don’t know – desire; and then

maybe this is where you have a human realm. And then your colleague who is, who

is, who you think out of your paranoia, is much more successful, much better

looking, much more efficient – jealousy realm, you know the asura realm. So we can

explain like that.

Physically I think also we can explain. Eh, I mean, I know maybe I’m being

prejudiced here; please correct me, you can argue with me, challenge with me,

whatever. I would say, until recently I would say, maybe many of Western Europe

and North America – one could say it’s like a god realm. Where you know like Santa

Barbara is a god realm; the blue ocean, everything, the palm trees, the massages,

the coffee shops and everything; but, eh, and there’s lot of pride. Pride, you know

pride is usually the cause of the god realm.

Then, but then there is really eh - American psychiatrist has much more jobs than

psychiatrist somewhere in Bangladesh. You understand what I am saying. The

American, you know there is so many emotional problems, and some really, really

amazing problems like – “Should I drive my Mercedes Benz or BMW?” (Laughter)

You understand - should I, which dog food should I get, you know dog food. Like

seriously, I’ve been asked for advice which dog food should I give to my dog - lots of,

lots of ‘bourgeois’ suffering, you understand.

And there are yeah; and then maybe if you go to like maybe South Africa or

Bangladesh, you can say hungry ghost realm. Just amazing, like it is, you know

really the description of the hungry ghost realm in the Mahayana sutras - perfect; you

know when you go to; I’ve, I have friends working for relief, you know organizations

like in Bangladesh, in Kenya, in Ethiopia. Sudan. And it is amazing; it’s just so

disheartening. There are so many people who actually donate have food so much;

but food are stuck somewhere because you cannot deliver it to the place where they

have to deliver. And once it is delivered, finally when it is delivered – distribution

problem. These are perfect; you know descriptions in the sutras, you know hungry

ghost realm – food is right in front of you but it still takes long time to get inside your

mouth, so to speak. These are perfect.

So now, bodhicitta; we are talking about container of the bodhicitta, right? Who is

among these six realms or many other realms; who is perfect being to really plant

the seed of the bodhicitta? Not hungry ghost realm, not animal realm, because there

are so, there’s too much suffering, too much. Not also god realm – why? Lack of

genuine heart of sadness; they don’t have sadness.

So human realm actually has the best chance; mm, yes lots of suffering but also eh,

sometimes you can, you have that eh, - maybe I should just strike off all of this and

go somewhere like something, something like that kind of eh, escaping or

renouncing. Or if not, at least sadness; and this is so important – the human beings

can have sadness. I mean, I’m not talking about the ordinary sadness. I’m talking

about sadness by looking at our lives.

Okay, breakfast, lunch, dinner; Friday, Saturday, Sunday; Monday, back to the

office; breakfast, lunch, dinner – this goes on and on and on. And one day you wake

up – you’re forty-seven years old; you have been doing the same thing. You realized

that you haven’t done anything exciting; you haven’t done anything unusual; you’ve

been wearing the same boring suit for twenty years. You’ve been sort of eh, been,

you’ve been sycophant to the society for the past twenty years, thirty years, I don’t

know; false expectations, false hope. And then you sudden eh; something bit like

middle-age crisis. You know the animals and those people who are really suffering –

they don’t have time for middle-age crisis. You know they don’t have time; it’s only.

You know like animals – I don’t really, I don’t think they have time for middle-age

crisis. They think about the next food, the next food and the next shelter.





Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche....part 14/24

We have time for middle-age crisis. We have time for hormone-change crisis. This kind of we have the time. This then makes you; this is a really good thing. And by the way, I’m not; you know, I’m not making this thing up. Actually in the (Tibetan phrase) Prajnaparamita - Eight Thousand Verses has said; Buddha spoke many, many times when bodhisattvas came to the Buddha and said “I have so much sadness about meaningless and useless the things that I do.” Then Buddha said this is really good. He said sadness is one of the sublime wealth. It is something so precious that one should have. Sadness, feeling awkward with the normal world, feeling dissatisfied with eh, this worldly situation. This is something you can have it in the human realm and this is why mm, in Shantideva’s eh, (Tibetan phrase or stanza). So that stanza talks about how this kind of precious human body is so difficult to obtain. This kind of opportunity, this kind of time is so difficult to obtain.

There are detailed attributes about precious human body which you can refer to the commentaries. I do not go through this one by one. But basic point is in human, as a human being we have at least the ability to have sadness and therefore invest on this sadness. And anyway seeking mind, you understand, searching mind, not just the next food but searching higher truth – human beings can have that. Gods can’t because they don’t have sadness. They think everything is enough, everything is perfect. Animals can’t do this because they have to think about the next food or some other animals attacking them. Human beings have this chance. Therefore human beings are considered perfect vessel in order to plant the perfect bodhicitta mind – human body.

Now, just a side issue; I have realized in Taiwan and in certain places, this statement of precious human body is misinterpreted a little bit. You know Buddhist concept of karma is very much misinterpreted, so much. In the West, I have realized that the Buddhist karma just, the concept of the karma is just a replacement of god actually. It’s almost a karma created the whole world; like there’s somebody called Karma, you understand. Eh, anyway one of the misunderstanding is suddenly when we hear the precious human body then we think “Oh, you know, the dogs - we can mistreat them. They have to finish with their karmic consequences anyway. We don’t have, we human beings, we need to take care of ourselves.”

That’s absolutely misunderstood. Eh, as a being, as an object of compassion, human beings are not necessarily worthy, more worthy than an animal being – nothing to do with that. Equally, all sentient beings are equally objects of compassion. Remember two fields of merit – Buddhas and bodhisattvas and all sentient things – equal. Precious, the word ‘precious human body’ is very much to do with the fact that human beings can become the vessel for the dharma practice or planting the bodhicitta – just because of that. It’s a utility thing. It’s got nothing to do with human beings are higher as an object of compassion. As an object of compassion, nobody, nobody deserves more compassion than the other; human beings just have more capacity. You can say you can; this, this is a very precious opportunity to benefit more sentient beings. Okay that’s it. So that’s the physical container, now the mind container.

I love this eh, this is one of the most, my favourite, my favourite sentence (Tibetan phrase). This is, I have to read it; this is stanza five, no, yeah stanza five. As a flash of lightning runs the night and in its glare show all the dark clouds have lit, likewise rarely through the Buddha’s path virtuous thoughts rise, brief and transient in the world – this is really beautiful. Mm, this is a big one also; really, really big subject. Because here for those who have already heard a lot of Buddhist teachings; see “byang chub” if we are going from stanza one all the way to the last stanza – it’s a gradual teaching. But for those who have already received the Mahayana teachings before, I like to just tell you – this stanza five is first ever, anyway in this text, first ever sort of what, what do you call it? – Peek presentation, preview, coming soon kind of thing, you understand. Peek presentation, a glimpse because you can’t really chew everything so a very simple short presentation of the Buddha-nature.

This, yeah; this fifth stanza is what will become big in the Ninth chapter and actually there’s a whole text written by Lord Maitreya called Uttaratantra Shastra – it’s all about that. It’s all about that, it’s all about that virtuous thought, virtuous thought (Tibetan phrase) – virtuous thought. Mm, many ways to explain; partly, partly when we were talking about the physical container, we have already covered it.

Okay, the example is you know in the pitch dark where there is no sun, there is no moon, there is no star, filled with the dark clouds; certain light flashes, flashing, you know lightning, brief, very, very brief but illuminates sort of sky and earth just a brief moment. Likewise a virtuous thought arises within us, within sentient beings. Sentient beings like us – we don’t have the sun of the Buddha; right now Buddha is not there, yeah. We don’t have the moon of what do you call it? – Eh, instructions what to do and what not to do; most of the sentient beings; not only us, generally all sentient beings. And we have, we don’t have the star of, not only we don’t have the star; we’re filled with the cloud of emotions, it’s a pitch dark. But yet, but yet at times and it could be triggered by something so mundane like falling dead leaf from the tree; and it reminds you – wow, season change; must mean the time is passing.

You know mellow calling song; it could be because of you hearing some sad music, it doesn’t matter, it could be sound of somebody drinking like this, it doesn’t matter but a certain situation triggers you like – okay half of my life is finished. You know I was telling you earlier; breakfast, lunch, you know all of this; done this, done that but still you know haven’t reached somewhere. Still we think that life; I’m still yet to live somewhere. This kind of feeling empty, this kind of feeling awkward about our present existence, feeling dissatisfied – it could be triggered by having a heated argument with your wife or husband, it doesn’t matter. But something makes you feel, you know like tired with all these years, years and years of trying to build a sand castle – something that you can never really perfectly do but you think that you can do.

I used to give the example of three strawberries, I don’t know, some of you may remember. It’s like all our so-called relationship; family building is like building, trying to put three strawberries on the top of each other. It’s just never happen. You know, but the sad thing is; sometimes the sad thing is the second strawberry could sit on

the first strawberry. And that is so such a bad thing because it gives you a false hope that the third will also sit. And not only that, sometimes the third strawberry also, sort of for a split moment, it sort of almost sits together – and that gives you a false hope. False hope, right; and many times these three as you stack on the top of each other, it falls. And it falls, and we just don’t give up. We try to put it all together again, again and again.

And one day many times we hah, you know tired of doing this. This tiredness, this sort of almost likes a depression, I tell you; must because of Chokgyur Rinpoche; I heard he said that certain depressions are very valuable. This depression, this depressing thought, you know sort of like hopelessness which triggers you this awkwardness, which triggers you to search for something higher is what we call virtuous thought. This is like a lightning, flash of lightning, transient, brief, amazing – this is what you need to cultivate because this is the perfect ground to plant the bodhicitta. And everybody has that, everybody, everyone.

If I may confuse you more, this argument; you know according to Buddhism one would think someone like Hitler, how can he have bodhicitta? Someone who is so vicious, someone like Pol Pot, how can he have bodhicitta? Someone like Stalin, how can he, he can never be the vessel of the bodhicitta - but it’s not true. Why? The Buddhists would say the fact they know how to harm others, the fact they know how to harm others, is good enough. Why? Because that means they know what is pain. Somebody who knows what is pain is a perfect vessel for bodhicitta because this is something that they don’t want to happen upon themselves.

See if this ceiling falls on your head, this ceiling, this brick, this, this cement – you can’t teach bodhicitta. Because this ceiling doesn’t know that if I fall on their heads this would create pain on their heads – inanimate. So as long as you, you know what is pain and therefore you’re giving it to others, means not directly but indirectly, you can train them gradually. You can train them by giving them the pain first – okay, how do you feel if you have this, how do you feel? And this is how you can build, so this is (Tibetan phrase) meaning the vessel, perfect vessel to plant the bodhicitta.






Okay, so that’s the vessel; and this chapter is about the ‘Benefit of Bodhicitta’ so generally the benefit of the bodhicitta is (Tibetan phrases). Okay, you know we have

so many kinds of virtuous thoughts and actions, but compared to the bodhicitta, they are all weak. And our weak virtuous thoughts and actions, trying to compete with endless large and strong non-virtuous thoughts and actions is difficult. So in order to defeat these endless non-virtuous thoughts and actions, only through the bodhicitta - there’s, there’s only one way and that is through the bodhicitta. Bodhicitta can unshackle eh, what do you call it, outshine; bodhicitta can outshine all the other virtuous thoughts and actions. All the Buddhas of the past, present and the future have also seen this fact that only the bodhicitta is the ultimate virtuous thought and action. Only through the bodhicitta a being can, not only obtain a higher rebirth, but achieve the enlightenment.

Therefore those who wish to transcend endless birth, old age, sickness and death, not only for oneself but for the others; all of these, all of these, all these eh, those who wish to do, those who wish to perform such an important task should never let go the bodhicitta. The moment a bodhicitta mind is arising within a sentient being, even though the sentient being is still bound by samsaric chain such as desire, anger and jealousy; this ignorant being can be referred as the bodhisattva. And not only will the change of the name but this person would be a worthy object of refuge and veneration or prostration by both gods and human beings.

We can make some more questions now. So we actually, this time we cover eh, stanza nine, verses nine, we have finished up to verses nine, okay.

Student A: Rinpoche, about bodhicitta; would you be able to transmit the bodhisattva vow for me?

Rinpoche: Bodhisattva vow; actually yes there’s a tradition of offering bodhisattva vow. I think it eh, let me think about it. Usually it is good to do just before the Second Chapter but I don’t know whether we will be able reach to there. But we can do a very, very short one. We can just read the Second Chapter; Second Chapter – that’s it actually – taking the bodhisattva vow for those who wish to do. And I would suggest you to do it because really bodhisattva vow is basically a vow of not harming others, helping others. Not just helping; it’s a vow of wishing somebody, wishing others to have enlightenment - basically that’s it.

So there’s really no reason why you should not take. Although for those who, those of you who are not following the Buddha’s path, one thing I need to tell you – it is usually that when you take the bodhisattva vow, you have to take the refuge vow. Because refuge is the must because; and when you take the refuge vow, then you have to take, you’ve to take, you have to take eh; basically it is like this, if you want to go to the right, then you go to the right; you can’t go both to the left and right. This is what I mean about united religion – it just didn’t work.

In Buddhism, we believe in interdependent origination. We believe that everything is dependent arising. Buddhists don’t believe in God as a creator. Buddhists don’t

believe that somebody dictates your life. Buddhists believe that it is your mind that is doing everything. If you, if you, if you want to follow that - you follow that.

I’m not saying that someone who believes in God, someone who believes in Almighty, other beings – they are wrong. I am sure they are right. They have their, you know, benefit. You follow that. You can’t sort of mix these two because it’s impossible. One believes in salt, the other believes in sugar. Well, actually sugar and salt is possible to mix, isn’t it? - I think so, it actually creates good; but you know what I mean. You can’t really; this is two; quite a stark difference there.

One is, one is dependent arising believer; the other is sort of interdependent arising believer. So this is something that you have to decide. Other than that, I will encourage you to take the bodhisattva vow. But if we do it tomorrow, we have to do it very, very short. We can’t do big ceremony; probably we can do it the next time…okay.

Student B: Rinpoche, this question is linking Chapter Nine with Zangdokpalri; if the nature of the mind is emptiness and if the self does not exist, then what is the dimension of awareness that links the bodhicitta with the container?

Rinpoche: With the container, that’s good, okay. I’m sure you know, even though many of you really don’t want me to do this, but I can’t help but I have to quote Osho (laughter). Many times I really like his statement. I saw in one of this writings, he said – in the Buddhist ‘no’, okay, meaning emptiness; in the Buddhist ‘no’, it’s not an ordinary ‘no’. He said in the Buddhist ‘no’, there’s billion ‘yes’ – you understand? So that’s quite, that’s quite an amusing way and really I, I really like the statement.

Eh, when we talk about emptiness, we should never separate that from clarity. And I can give you a good example. We, we have in the Mahayana statement called (Tibetan phrase) – while it’s emptiness, while and during its emptiness, it is clarity. While it is clarity, it is emptiness like a reflection of your face in a mirror. This is a good example. Your face in the mirror is not truly existent. It’s not there really. Your face in not there - right; but yet it appears.

Now this is a, now this is quite a difficult to; intellectually kind of easy to understand but emotionally quite difficult to understand. Why? Because we are talking about harmonizing chaos and order together – you understand. For instance, this example is good. Every time you look at the mirror, your face appears; not a cup, you understand. Every time you look at a mirror, your face appears; not a cup, not a pen, not a, I don’t know, hamburger, you understand.

So this makes you puzzled. Okay, you know this is how we human beings judge or validate something, an existence of something. You wave and it waves. So human beings usually validate something, something as something through conception eh,

function, time also. For instance, this house must exist; this can’t be an illusion. It has been there for quite a long time and many people also see this. It’s not like I’m, I’m the only one who see this, you understand.

These are the reasons why we validate existence of something as more true when in fact, just like the reflection of your face in the mirror – even though it is very orderly, only your face happens, not the hamburger. Yet this does not prove that the reflection of your face in the mirror has become more and more REAL every day. It is still emptiness. Likewise when we say mind is emptiness, that emptiness is not divorced from the clarity. There’s always, you know, cognition or awareness all the time.

Otherwise, this is a very good question, because otherwise if the Buddhists’ emptiness is like evaporation of moisture or exhaustion of fire – then it would become very similar to Nietzsche’s emptiness, nihilism. Buddhists, how can Buddhists say this wall does not exist, you understand. We cannot say that as a negation – we cannot. It does exist in our perception…okay. No questions; okay, very good. So what should we do? Break? – We have no break, no.






Student C: Why don’t we do the bodhisattva vow?

Rinpoche: Okay yeah, why not? Do you have the text book? Do you have the text? Yeah. How many people have the English text? Oh, I see not many; maybe you can share, you know. Yeah, you have in Sanskrit but then there will be even less people. Okay we will do it tomorrow in Sanskrit, okay; eh, okay, but then there will be less, even less people.

Student C: It’s entirely up to Rinpoche, if you say a verse and we recite.

Rinpoche: Okay, okay, that’s good idea but mm, just to make a little bit of sense, what we can do is maybe (pause); okay, Chapter Two, page 39, stanza 1 to stanza 23 – can you read it together? And also by the way those students who are not really following the buddhadharma, eh, those who are not really a Buddhist or whatever ism, whatever; eh, you can sit here and observe. You don’t have to feel obliged that

you have to also take bodhisattva vow; otherwise the Buddhist won’t give you lunch or something (laughter).

Okay, so can you please read from stanza 1, second chapter, okay, to stanza 23, in English this time; okay shall I begin?

To the Buddhas, those thus bound and to the sacred law, immaculate, and to the Buddha’s offspring’s… (Students recite English bodhisattva vows from book)

Rinpoche: Stanza 21? - Okay, now in case you’re wondering why we recite this – this is to accumulate merit because when you take the bodhisattva vow, you are taking a, you are really about to have something so precious. You are about, according to the bodhisattvas, the most precious thing in the whole samsara and nirvana – the bodhicitta. So when you, when you obtain, when you’re about to obtain this, when you’re about to plant this, you have to make yourself ready by accumulating merit. And Shantideva’s suggestion in the second chapter, as you read, you know offering all these things is like a means of accumulating merit.

Now eh, we will actually take the bodhisattva; first taking the refuge vow, please fold your hands and maybe repeat after me. (Tibetan refuge vow)

JANG CHUB NYINGPO… (Three times)

So that’s taking the refuge. Now to take the bodhisattva vow, please repeat this. (Tibetan bodhisattva vow)…CHITTA..

Okay so generate this; first sit straight and generate the motivation that you will like enlightenment, you will from now on you take a vow that whatever you do, whatever, however you exist, may all become beneficial to all sentient beings. And we say beneficial we are not only talking about temporary benefits such as food and shelter but ultimately offer them ways to the enlightenment – so generate this motivation. (Pause of silence and contemplation)

Okay, now as simple as this taking the bodhisattva vow, now in order to create joy you have to tell yourself that today my life has become fulfilled, today my precious human body has become purpose eh, have at last reach its purpose. Today I’ve become the heir of the Buddha. Today I’ve become the servant to all the sentient beings. So thinking please repeat after me … (Tibetan vow, TENDU…)

Okay, so now that we have taken the bodhisattva vow, in order to practice the bodhicitta; bodhicitta, there’s two kinds of bodhicitta – relative bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta. Ultimate bodhicitta is basically emptiness meditation or emptiness, understanding of emptiness. Of course this is very vast. We can only do something very symbolic so please sit straight… (Students meditate)

And whatever comes in your mind, just watch that. And it doesn’t have to be anything exotic or holy. If you are thinking about that drilling machine now, just watch

that. If you are thinking about the ‘chapatti’ just think of that. Just watch that. Do not try to make something holy. If you have some really hideous evil thought, do not try to get rid of it. Just watch that. If something very divine or wholesome thought arise such as devotion, compassion, do not get excited or do not try to register or keep it. Just watch that. (Meditation silence and pause)

Okay that you can say is a kind of symbolic approaching to the ultimate bodhicitta, okay. Now relative bodhicitta has two also – application and aspiration. Application is basically doing, engaging such as generosity, giving, whatever. You know giving small flower all the way to giving your limbs, your flesh and bone, so on and so forth. At this point, since we, we, we’re already maybe doing it or maybe we don’t have the time to do it but since we are sitting right now, what we can do is aspiration bodhicitta; so please eh, thinking as Shantideva said here (Tibetan phrase) - this is suggestion of Shantideva. So as I recite this just think of that.

“This is aspiration bodhicitta, so you are aspiring. For those who don’t have protector and those who are in need of protection, may I become protector. For those who are lost, those who are in need of a guide, may I become a guide. For those who need to cross ocean or river or those who are in need of a boat, may I become a boat or a bridge. For those who are in the ocean and longing for, longing for an island, may I become an island. For those who are who wish to have a lamp, may I become a lamp. For those who are in need of bedding, may I become a bed, mattress, blanket or a guest house. For those who are in need of a service, may I become their servant.

May I become wishful-filing jewel, wishful-filing vase. May I become a mantra so that those who can recite, those who recite this mantra will fulfil their wishes. May I become medicine for those who are in need. May I become wishful-filing tree. May I become the earth so that I can hold. May I become a sky so that I can give space. May I become a sustenance, nutrition, railing, stairs, in short may I become whatever is desired by sentient beings and gradually lead them to the enlightenment.”

Today I begin with talking about the term ‘buddha’. I believe that ‘buddha’ in Sanskrit is awakened, awakened is it? – Awakened, awakened one, does it refer to person? ‘Budh’ - is it a state also? Buddhatwa, buddhatwa…it’s quite a big term but anyway mm, in Tibetan they add one word. I think this is to make the word more eh, sort of, for the, for the composition of the language - ‘gye’ which is something, which has something to do with for the completion.

Anyway, at this point the word ‘Buddha’, awakened, awakened one; first when we talk about Buddha, I guess we all automatically think about a person. So it always refers to an Indian prince who came 2500 years ago, who eh, abandoned all his wealth, and who eh; well, in a more common language; who got enlightened under the Bodhi tree. Basically who achieved awakened state, awakened mm; so and then eventually someone who passed into parinirvana or in a very sort of crude language, who, who died in Kushinagar.






Okay so when we talk about Buddha, most of the time we are referring to the, to a person, I guess but for a trained practitioner or a student, Buddha can also refer to a state – awakened state. And this awakened state if you go to places like Japan and if you, if you are talking with Zen masters, this kind of awakened state can be achieved, eh, a small amount of it, awakened can be achieved eh, like you know. I, I guess that’s a lot of different interpretation but it’s almost like mm; remember I was talking about certain chemicals that farmers didn’t know that these chemicals are poisonous. Eventually or in reality but then someone tells them this is poisonous, and when the farmer, up, up to this information, up till this realization that this chemical is a poison, the families ignore it.

And once he or she has received the information and when this person understands this information practically meaning this person is awakened from that state of ignorance. Therefore he is now awakened from that dark sleep. So this kind of, in this sense Zen masters which I actually really kind of appreciate this quite a lot because in Tibetan, generally because of a certain cultural background, when we talk about (sangs rgyas nyid go ‘phang) the Buddhahood or the state of the Buddha is like a LONG away. You have to really work hard to get that thing; much after you know like cutting off a lot of limbs and feeding a lot of tigers and much, whereas in Japan…

But having said that, actually the Tibetan intellectuals would realize that if you read a sutra, there is many mentions of (bden-pa don) so and so has; for instance like even there is a story about how an old illiterate monk was forced to teach, even though he was really reluctant. He was really forced to teach by young monk, young monks to make him eh, like fool and this old man was talking to himself saying that ignorance, ignorance is pain. He was talking to himself because “I don’t know the dharma, now I’m in pain”. Ignorance Is pain, ignorance Is pain; he repeated that and there was an old woman sitting in the audience. She got it, sort of – wow, yes, of course ignorance leads to the pain. Ignorance is the pain. So she got what we call ‘bden-pa don’. ‘Bden-pa don’ is almost like what Zen masters referred to as ‘satori’, I think.

I appreciate this kind of approach because in this regard, you can almost, you know like achieve this kind of enlightenment or awakened state even after a few, few months of meditation. For instance, if you are doing the shamatha-vipassana

meditation or any kind of meditation or mind training; I mean scientifically one has to accept because you see if you are touching something, if you’re poking something, it will move. So when you are meditating, you are working with your mind or I don’t know, not working. Basically you are penetrating your mind and because of that, certain habits will change even though it may, the change of habits may be, may be not so significant – such as in the past you have your obsession of putting your sleepers very orderly before you go to bed. This is an obsession like sometimes you might, you know get up five times to make sure whether the sleepers is still in order or not, after you sleep. This kind of obsession, you have.

After few months of meditation on shamatha-vipassana, anything you know, like (Tibetan phrase) all these different stages of meditation, one day you know, you might, might even sleep with the sleepers, you might not even care about it. You, you couldn’t care less whether sleepers inside your mattress or whatever. That in a very pathetic, in a pathetic way but in a very sweet way also is a little bit of satori there. Because you are released, you are liberated from this ridiculous sort of obsession of order of a sleeper which will not really make a big difference in the world or your life. But such obsession we do have, a lot of us - small obsessions like putting the shoes together orderly all the way up to all kinds of obsessions as we know.

So Buddha can be referred to as state and awakened state which can as, as according to many Zen masters, from what I gather this kind of state – Buddha, Buddha. Eh, Buddha according to Maitreya or many Yogacharya scholars, Buddha can be referred to the nature of your mind, your real you, so to speak - the quintessence of all of us, the real, you know the absolute nature of all of us is the Buddha. So I want to tell you this because we are talking about wisdom. Wisdom is basically eh, I don’t like to use the word ‘mind’; but wisdom is basically, depending on, you know the maturation or you know, how complete it is. Basically wisdom is something to do with our awakened state, awakened. And THAT is the power of the Buddha; that is the power of the Buddha.

See I come from eh, first of all East, especially a very hard-line Buddhist family, very superstitious and all of that, I think. I don’t know any of you have read books written by people like Isabel Allende, or this, South American writers like Gabriel Marquez yeah. When they write their stories, there is a certain conviction; they believe in like green hair, orange eyes – you can almost tell that the author really believes in it.

Eh, I come from a family or a culture that believes in power, all kinds of things. I do remember when I was very young, growing up with my grandfather, my mother’s father this is. He has a student. I think he’s still alive, actually. We can’t, we haven’t found him. And he’s not seen in public, he’s always in the meditation in the mountain. But he’s quite mischievous, this, his student; his name is (Tibetan name), his long beard. He also looks very mischievous. And he has a certain power. What he does is for instance when he bake, eh, not really, eh, roast I guess bread, he would you know, like chapatti but very thicker. He would put on the charcoal, on the fire and he would; he’s really powerful with the mantra. And with my own eyes, I

have seen many times that he would flip the, he would flip the, what do you call it – bread with his mantra like this (Rinpoche demonstrates and laughter from audience). It will move; I was very young. I get so excited and asked him to do it again and again.

So one day I talked to my grandfather how’s he doing that, and then my grandfather summoned him and he gave him the scolding of a century. “Who do you think you are? Are you here to perform magic, blah, blah, blah?” All kinds of eh, so much scolding; my grandfather, by the way is practitioner of Drupka Kagyu lineage, Shakya Shri’s student. And Drupka Kagyu known for really eh, you know what you call it, eh, just like what my grandfather was doing – really anti - this kind of thing, this kind of you know, sort of magical power, whatever.

Well the reason why I’m telling you this is the power of the Buddha is nothing to do with flying and seeing things far, you know being able to touch somebody’s head and then takes care of the headache or toothache or anything like that. That is not the power that we should be aiming for or aspiring for. Power of the Buddha is knowing the truth. When you know that pesticides are poisonous, that time you have a certain power, because you are awakened from that ignorance. Awakened from that ignorance is the power. Not having the ignorance is the real power.

All the other powers are; I mean it can be used by some certain bodhisattvas in order to lure sentient beings whatever. There are stories even in the Buddha’s Jataka tales of Buddha’s deeds, that Buddha performed this and that miracle. But usually it is used as a tool; definitely it is not something to be aiming for. Awakened state, none other than the wisdom, is what we are aiming for.

And I like to tell you this. When we say as a Mahayana; this is really important - you note this down. As a Mahayana practitioner or as a Buddhist, we pray – may all sentient beings become enlightened, may all sentient beings become Buddha, may all sentient beings reach the awakened state – NOT may all sentient beings become Buddhists. Really important, you understand; many people think Buddhists have NO agenda to make the whole world, you know, Buddhist. This is not, not agenda. If anybody has that, if any Buddhist has that, that Buddhist has to be eh, a little bit off. A little bit off; it should not be. But you can pray – may all sentient beings become the Buddha. And Buddha is not a Buddhist by the way. Buddha is not a Buddhist. Buddha is awakened one. We pray to make, we pray all sentient beings become the Buddha, not necessarily Buddhist. This is, this is important, when; because there will a lot of this, you know.






The bodhicitta, bodhicitta is wishing, well this will come today, bodhicitta is basically wishing and aspiration, aspiring and eh, applying an action in order to enlighten, awaken sentient beings from ignorance. Now of course, we have different particular; we have a unique definition of ignorance. Probably this is something that is of course differing from other religions or whatever. Ignorance eh, yes for instance mm, we have to, we have to awaken all sentient beings from the ignorance; and what is ignorance?

Yeah, the definition of the ignorance may be different from other religions. Maybe because some other religions believe in soul to be saved, to be, to be transferred to somewhere but Buddha, the Buddhist; I, I actually don’t know what this soul is. But if it is something to do with the self, then the Buddhist, the fundamental Buddhist definition of ignorance is thinking that there is a self or a soul truly existing. THAT is one of the most vicious, fundamental ignorance that one has to be awakened from.

To awake from this assumption, this fixation, this obsession of thinking that there is me, I. Me, I, my, mine – THAT is the fundamental cause of all the problems. More of this, I’m sure will come later, but today we’ll try to go through some stanzas so that at least, my reputation will not be in jeopardy. I’m sure you, many of you – oh, I was there, I receive Bodhicharyavatara. How many pages, chapters? – Not even one chapter (laughter).

Okay, just to, as a summary; all, the whole text is presented with three main categories; for those, for those who have no bodhicitta, to initially to plant the seed of the bodhicitta – three chapters; to maintain – three chapters; to in order, yeah, to maintain, three chapters; to multiply - another three chapters and then dedication. We’re talking the first one. First and the first chapter within this first category is “Benefit of the Bodhicitta”. This is explained today with some examples.

(Tibetan phrase) This is; well let me summarize all of what we are going to say today. Eh, when I was in Bodhgaya; this is with Khabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche; and we were walking down the Stupa, and there were some Burmese monks giving ordination to some young Burmese lay people, shaving their hair. And His Holiness, with tears in his eyes, folding his palms together, he said – it is so amazing that after, in this degenerated time that such a sight is available. You know, like there is still a sight of renunciation, act of renunciation.

And then we went, then we went, when we reached the Bodhi Tree; this is where His Holiness used to sit under the Bodhi Tree for many, many days. And then, then he suddenly, spontaneously he talked about the bodhicitta and one of the examples which he quoted from one of the Mahayana sutras which I don’t remember. I’ve

written down somewhere. Mm...He said that if there’s five hundred arhats – we’re talking about arhat eh, non-samsaric being – if there’s five hundred arhats and they are all sitting inside one chariot. There’s no horse dragging this chariot, nobody dragging this chariot. And then if the Buddha is walking by, Buddha might consider dragging this with his eh, toe or something like this; but probably five hundred arhats don’t have enough merit to let the Buddha do this.

But if there is, suddenly if one person who has HEARD bodhicitta, not even have; heard bodhicitta that such things exist – wishing enlightenment for all sentient beings; if this, this ordinary being who has HEARD bodhicitta, hopped into this chariot – Buddha had to drag this chariot with his neck. So this much praise of bodhicitta. Again and again, in many, many Mahayana sutras which will be here, I mean starting with how, the first chapter, I mean the first stanza which I just read is like the example is alchemy. Eh, with the wisdom of alchemy, one can transform even ordinary things such as metal into gold. Likewise, this ordinary body, this ordinary mind that we have, okay this seemingly impure body, seemingly ordinary body, ordinary mind that we have – can be instantly turned into something so precious just because of the bodhicitta.

You’ll, you will realize actually why even in the Tantra why bodhicitta is considered the root (Tibetan phrase) that the bodhicitta of, bodhi, the bodhicitta is like the root of all the buddhadharma. You will also realize later, why we don’t do this; I mean you will also, you will also be puzzled later why don’t we do this? – Because it is so easy; really the bodhicitta mind, especially the aspiring bodhicitta is so easy. It is something that doesn’t, it doesn’t cost anything, it doesn’t weigh anything, it doesn’t, it has nothing. Really there’s no eh, no pain, there’s no; you, you lose nothing, you gain everything. Eh, it is eh, like a...eh, source of all the happiness.

And it is, most importantly it is something so easy, it is something so easy to begin with. And we, when you read this, you will wonder why don’t we just do this? Why is it, what is it stopping us doing this? And not only that, what is stopping us doing this and go to complicated things, such as this? You know like really; not only like climbing Mount Everest but like eh, lots of mantra chanting, lots of all this kind of form practices. Why don’t we just do this one if this is, if this is so simple yet so powerful?

The second example; (Tibetan phrase) some of these examples maybe we will, we will have to get familiar with some of these examples. I’m sure Rajiv can tell us this - in many of the ancient Buddhist texts, I’m sure it’s with the Hindu texts, there’s always a referring to you know all these merchants going to a treasure island, is it? Collect treasures; there’s so many of that again and again in the Buddhist shastras and sutras. Anyway the example here is the merchants going to the, you know, jewelled island – lots of ordinary jewels and precious jewels. But some, someone who’s really good at analysing the jewels would pick, pick the good ones because you don’t want to fill up with just mediocre jewels and come back probably to sink the boat and so and so forth. You want really good ones to really eh, you know, have the maximum you know, benefit.

Likewise eh, Shantideva’s saying – of all the seemingly, of all the precious teachings and methods and skilful means and the wisdom, this bodhicitta is handpicked by the tathagatas, bodhisattvas as the most precious item. So therefore, one should revere this. (Tibetan phrase) Eh, we have lots of; this is, this is a good one. We have lots of so-called virtuous action and virtuous thoughts. Actually to a certain extent, human beings like ourselves; we do a lot of good things. But all these virtuous deeds, most of these virtuous deeds are like a banana tree – gives you one fruit and that’s the end. This actually has a lot of side meaning.

Eh, eh, let’s come back to the bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is mind wishing enlightenment for all sentient beings remember; mind wishing awakened state. Awakened to what? – Awakened to the truth. So what should; we are not only talking like examples that I’ve given to you like chemicals and all that. We are basically, at the end we are talking about the emptiness. At the end we are talking about understanding the sunyata. Eh, I’m trying to link this with this stanza. If you, let’s say if you’re eh, doctor, I don’t know, philanthropist, psychiatrist, rinpoche, whatever doesn’t matter; and you’re trying to help somebody, right.

Let’s say you’re psychiatrist; you’re trying to make somebody less abnormal whatever, whatever that means or more normal, whatever that also means. Exactly you see, so; you know I was telling you whatever that means, that’s quite important, huh. Because if I’m a psychiatrist and I’m trying to cure this man because; I’m, I’m trying to cure this man because I have read Mr. Freud, okay. I have read Mr. Freud and according to Mr. Freud so and so is a sign of abnormal and so and so is normal. So this is and actually what Mr. Freud is explaining to me probably it’s not what I’m imagining that this is what he is explaining to me; you, you understand what I’m saying. That’s all this interpretation going on.

So then, using this knowledge I will look at to him and then I can; you know all kinds of signs; oh he’s flaring his nose – ah, abnormal, (laughter); he’s gazing at me – oh, it’s abnormal; all of these. I create the disease in him and then also I create what, what should be normal; and then trying to work with him - you understand. That can happen. When we are talking about the sunyata, we have to go beyond the abnormal and normal, you understand. So such kind of wish; you see one wish is to cure a problem and it may, and I think it does for a lot. I’m really not going against psychiatrist actually. I, I really think it’s important to have all this therapy, all of this. But they will give one fruit, one limited fruit.






You, you’ve to have the bodhicitta mind because it is aiming towards that state of awakened one which is eh, awakened state which is not other than understanding the sunyata – meaning one is goal-oriented, the other is not. When you are goal-oriented you become dependent. What do Californians call it? – Co-dependent, that’s right. When, when you’re not, when you are not goal-oriented you are not dependent. You know so much, so much benefit; actually what did Maitreya say? Maitreya said a lot of things about this.

For instance, see this is an important message because okay, so I’m trying to cure this man and he’s sort of, he fluctuates like a roller coaster, sometimes he’s good, sometimes he’s bad; TWENTY YEARS I’m trying to cure this man. Well if I’m only looking for my income, which I can suck from him, you understand, charging him; then you know, doesn’t matter. There’s no even, it’s not even a virtue in this case.

But I really believe, I’m not even interested in money or anything. I really want to cure him. I’m obsessed in curing him. And you know like, like he gets better a little bit and then got really worse; and then you have to pull him right from the bottom and he’s going up, up and then he’s going falling – all of these. If you don’t have the bodhicitta, such kind of virtuous thoughts and actions can really make you tired, disappoint, disappointment towards yourself, disillusion, disillusionment, eh, loss of your own confidence – all of these can happen because you are clinging to one-sided, narrow-minded goal. So this is what, what is being said here (Tibetan phrase). All these kinds of virtuous thoughts and actions – they’re like banana trees – they give you one fruit and that’s it; not with the bodhicitta.

(Tibetan phrase) Even though you have done the worst things such as killing your father, killing the arhats, if you can apply the bodhicitta – instantly one can eh, liberate oneself from this fear of this wrong doing. Like if you need to cross a very dangerous zone but if you have a companion, courageous, knowledgeable companion, you will have no fear travelling in this dangerous zone. Likewise this bodhicitta is like a reliable companion.

(Tibetan phrase) What do you call this – at the end of age fire? What do you call it? - This (Tibetan phrase) Fire, fire at the end of the aeon? (Answer from assistant – fire at the end of the aeon, yes; fire at the end of time) this is again, this is again something to do with the Hindu mythology; I have a feeling, is it? This; Hindus and Buddhists and Jainism share a lot of these things. They share cow, they share (laughter), they share like a lot of things eh. And not only that actually, you know when you go to places like Ajanta, Arola, it’s so nice to see Buddhist temple, Hindu temple and Jain temple together. Eh, of course the Hindus and Buddhists have also verbally; towards the end, I think they, I think there were some physical fights, what do you call it? Generally Hindus and Buddhists have a lot of philosophical argument. And Hindu’s and Buddhist’s and Jain, Jain’s philosophical argument – you should not consider it as equal to the religious fight today.

It’s absolutely different because Hindu’s and Jain’s and Buddhist’s argument has really matured the wisdom. It has made; because there is a lot of discussion and it is amazing. In fact, I forgot the name of this king. There was a king in India who basically lost his kingdom to the Moguls because even though the Moguls were right next to the…eh, next to the palace, he was busy, you know, listening to the Hindus and Buddhists and the Jain debating. And he loved it so much. I forgot the name; anyway partly this is being Indian. You know, Indians from the ritual dailies to all the Prime Minister – they like to talk and discuss. They have to talk and discuss - argumentative, therefore argumentative Indians, isn’t it therefore?

Eh, so again at the end of time there’s supposedly; haven’t said this, you know in the (Tibetan phrase), or not only in the (Tibetan phrase), in the Abhidharma, in the Buddhist cosmology Buddhists talk about you know, the sort of; yeah the cosmology – there will be in the future like first two suns and then the three suns. I think this is a lot similar to Hindus again. Therefore all the way up to the seventh sun, and then the world will be burned and so on and so forth. Eh, you know to a certain extent, it’s kind of true isn’t it? – Global warming and all of that, you know. Seven suns does not necessarily mean that there’s actually you know like two sunrise, something like this.

It, it does feel like, especially in Bir these days. You know in the midday, it’s so hot. I’ve been here for twenty years but the sun seems to be getting hotter and hotter every year. Maybe I’m getting older; I don’t know but anyway at the end of the time – the fire like that kind of fire burns everything instantly. Likewise bodhicitta will burn all the sinful activities and thoughts; so who will not rely on such a precious entity?

Okay (Tibetan phrase) and then here Shantideva, as always, this is a very; THIS, THIS, this makes, THIS distinguishes the modern authors, and many of them nowadays Buddhist authors and the past authors as I was telling you, remember. Nowadays they plagiarise from here and there and they never; they really like to say that it’s coming from them, it’s their revelation. No one taught me, I got this all by myself; but if you read it, you know it’s all here and there. Here Shantideva’s saying – you know I’m not the only one who’s talking this, actually Buddha taught to eh, Manibhadra, - Manibhadra, is it? – Sudhana, oh yeah, okay. There is a Sutra, there it was; in the Sutra, bodhicitta is praised and the eh…in the Sutra where the discussion happened between Buddha and Sudhana, there’s a detailed explanation by the Buddha, the benefit of bodhicitta.

Anyway within that Sutra too, there’s so many, so many, seven hundred pages or something but to abbreviate all of that – you can say bodhicitta has three main benefits. (Tibetan phrases) Bodhicitta is, bodhi eh, actually I can say this, yeah; bodhicitta is the ONLY path that will lead you to complete enlightenment. (Tibetan phrase) Bodhicitta has the side effect of multiplying the virtuous thoughts and actions. And bodhicitta is the only path that can purify all defilements completely. So these are the three major benefits.

Now by the way, all this up to here is the ‘Benefit of the Bodhicitta’ in general. But now eh, separately, (Tibetan phrase) bodhicitta is mm, divided, is sort of divided or categorised in many forms of categorisation; but in short, you can, you can categorise all the bodhicitta into two – relative bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta, okay. So let’s define the relative bodhicitta first. Relative bodhicitta comes from (Tibetan phrase). Maitreya said (Tibetan phrase) – Relative bodhicitta; wait (pause); relative bodhicitta comes from several cause and conditions, okay. One (Tibetan phrase) - meaning through companion; spiritual companion we are talking about, teacher or the bodhisattva, another bodhisattva. You got to have a reference, someone who has it – reference, friends, spiritual companion, master. That is yeah, that’s one cause or condition.

Then (Tibetan phrase) is very close to what I was talking yesterday. You know in the first stanza, I think in the second or third stanza with example of lightning coming in the darkness; you know like feeling awkward, you know in the middle of something – you feel something is not enough, something is not right, that has to be something more than this. That if you, if you can invest on that, if you can lengthen that, if you can strengthen that, if you can; yeah if you can strengthen that, then what it does is (pause).

So we are talking about the value basically; we are talking about the value, value system, sort of. Right now to all of you, if I say up on the peak of this mountain there is vanilla ice cream – do you want to go? Well, you think you’ve to walk and all of this, you know not a big value, you understand. But let’s say, you are really, really, really hungry or thirsty or something. Yeah, you are really thirsty and then I say – on top of this mountain there’s a glass of water. And then there is the only glass of water. This glass, this glass of water has become very valuable.

This (Tibetan phrase), this feeling awkwardness, this feeling awkward about the samsaric life does not come that easily. Do you know why? – Because of our education, our society, our environment has taught us from the childhood different kind, different kinds of value system. So we, for instance we like value, we value like fame, we value no criticism, we value gain, we value friendship, all of this. So you’ll, okay so; let’s say like the three strawberries, you try and try and you even have several relationships. You’ve changed, you’ve married five times, I don’t know, change all of these. And then suddenly you realize – I’ve been doing this, I’m quite famous but still you know, nothing really seems to be happening, you understand. Not everybody has this, huh? – But some of us, we have this.

When you have that and then, a master; remember the first condition – a master who talks about bodhicitta, wishing enlightenment for all sentient beings; and when you hear this – wow, this makes sense. Tears in the eyes, goose bumps, all of these – that is a sign of what we call awakening, sign of (Tibetan phrase), it’s like eh; eh, your, your potential is sort of awakened. And that is one condition.






And then the third condition is compassion; and when we’re talking about this compassion, we’re talking about the standard compassion such is sympathy, you know feeling sorry of other people basically – not the, not the Buddhist grand compassion; just standard compassion.

And then hearing the dharma – this is another condition. And then, very important one, (Tibetan phrase) (Tibetan phrase) is mm, habit or strong habit or maybe, in other words, you’re accustomed to virtue. Right now, we’re not accustomed to virtue. This is why we can play mah-jong or a card from the whole night until the sun rise – still not tired, still you know diligent, you understand because you’re accustomed to that. Just a LITTLE bit of meditation, four or five minutes of meditation is also, four or five minutes of meditation takes like four or five years. The clock, the, you know the time doesn’t go fast, why? – Because you are not accustomed to this. So another, another condition is accustomed to the virtuous thoughts and actions. Now these are what are necessary in order to develop relative bodhicitta, okay.

Ultimate bodhicitta, okay wait; yeah, I think that will do. Eh, ultimate bodhicitta is much more difficult. Ultimate bodhicitta, generally speaking comes from, comes with conditions such as samadhi meditation. So in a way, what I’m saying is ultimate bodhicitta and; ultimate bodhicitta comes from relative bodhicitta, so to speak, okay. What time is it? I’ve forgotten, mm. (10.30 response from attendant) Okay, just a little more on ultimate bodhicitta. Ultimate bodhicitta is basically eh, (Tibetan phrase) – it is mind that understood the selflessness of ego and selflessness of phenomena. Basically it is the mind that understands emptiness. That is the ultimate bodhicitta.

To make it practical, let me tell you this. Vipassana; for instance like vipassana, four stages of vipassana is also, can be completely the ultimate, eh, tools you know sort of to generate the ultimate bodhicitta, but it can be also approaching to the ultimate bodhicitta. So, just briefly, very briefly (Tibetan phrase) – first is you know mindfulness of the body. Mindfulness of the body is basically being mindful of your body.

See okay, now we are talking about meditation. Those who are interested in meditation – maybe this may be good. Eh meditation is not really, I don’t know meditation, ‘sgom’ – is not, is it meditation? Meditation is never; it will do, but we are never really happy with the word ‘meditation’. I think this is what you should know

that we are never happy with the word ‘meditation’; and then use the word ‘meditation.’ I think that will do, you understand because lots of reasons why we are not happy, okay; very few reasons why we use it.

Okay, basically it is this, when we say me, I, he, she, they, right? – Identity, we’re always referring to four things - has to be your form, feeling, your mind, and dharma. In this case, the dharma can be translated, can be understood as a reference, ‘chos’, reference, reference or distinction or something like that. Not the holy dharma, dharma, yeah; but that’s, that’s actually not just something religious, you should think about it – is it, is it or not? I, I don’t think you find any other way.

When you say me, you’re referring to your form, your feeling, your mind, or a certain reference. Your body such as short, tall, black, blue, I don’t know whatever; thin, skinny, whatever you want to use, okay; feeling sad, depressed, happy, whatever. Mind, you know all kinds of things - kinky, wholesome, whatever. Dharma, in this case, reference, reference - husband, wife, you know; you’ve have lots of reference – I am somebody’s uncle, I am somebody’s wife, I’m somebody’s husband, I’m somebody’s king, I’m somebody’s slave – you understand all these reference. I’m a human being, you know fundamentally. So these are the four.

Now when we actually; vipassana is a tech, vipassana is a technique of bringing mindfulness, right. Mindfulness, purpose of mindfulness is this; okay, what is the real purpose? – Remember fun, fun always, don’t forget that. We really want to have fun, isn’t it? That’s the only reason why we’re here – to have fun. That’s the only reason why we should practice the dharma, to have fun. Now question is – how come we, why, you know how do we have fun? The Buddhist answer is – well, usually your mind is going somewhere all the time; so you’re not really, you are not really having fun because you’re occupied with something else.

Okay, so how does this work in the vipassana? For instance, where the body; actually all you have to, ideally, ideally, theoretically being aware of your body right this moment. For instance, I’m holding, if I’m holding this, being aware of my two hands going like this, being aware of my legs like this, being aware of my head moving, being aware of my, I don’t know, lips moving. As simple as it sounds this is really good, you know because you, because that’s something that you don’t do.

Because why? – Your culture, our culture, our society has taught us, instead of looking in; we, we’re supposed to look outside. You know like shampoo – this is something to do with the body, isn’t it? – Moisturizer, vitamins, you know weight lifting, yoga stretching, eh, straight-cut, baggy-cut, eh, what do you call it? – All kinds, skimpy dress, G-string, all of these; you know it’s all something to do with the body, so to make the body more beautiful or desirable or not desirable; I don’t know, whatever the agenda. Of course, depending on what conditions you’re going; if you’re you know travelling in some alleys in certain parts of the world where there’s lots of horny men or a woman, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter; you’ve to, you have to really sort of dress in a certain way, isn’t it?

So whatever; usually we rely on these things more outside, but here looking inside. So in the vipassana because you need a certain technique, we usually ask people to sit straight. And you know cross legs, sit straight, don’t move, don’t, you know don’t scratch, don’t yawn, don’t, you know all of that. These are important; these are the technique but the POINT is to be aware of your body and its movement. Just, just be aware of your body; I mean ask yourself – have you ever visualize your body? Have you ever thought about your body just in general? I don’t think anyone has. I don’t think if, if I ask you to think about your body now, you will have only a vague idea of my body. You don’t have a clear picture – ah, my body, somewhere this is six inches long – none, none of that, you understand, okay.

So the reason why I’m telling you this because through this kind of vipassana, you then develop what we call ultimate bodhicitta, because you reach to the last one – which is the dharma, reference. So then you realize by just; okay, let’s say you’re; okay, reference, big reference – ‘I’m bad’. Being, being mindful about this reference of ‘I am bad’. When you’re mindful of this reference – ‘oh I’m bad’; then you will not get carried away by that – ‘oh I’m bad’. You know usually, oh I’m bad because someone else’s good; you know all these - you’re carried away, not being mindful.

So with all these, I’m talking about vipassana, I’m trying to abbreviate everything so condensed so maybe some of you are already confused but anyway - point is to really, really not, yeah to really have a complete mindfulness. And when you have complete mindfulness, you will not surrender to conditions. When you’re no more under the influence of conditions, then that is called enlightenment. And that part is called ultimate bodhicitta, okay.

Okay now going back to the root text, (Tibetan text) in, in brief, Shantideva’s saying bodhicitta; okay there’s a relative bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta, now we are dividing the relative bodhicitta also into two – aspiration bodhicitta and application bodhicitta. And aspiration and application bodhicitta, differences of these two are very simple. It’s like basically - one is wish and the other is applying that wish into action.

(Tibetan phrase) Aspiration bodhicitta has so much benefit but compared to application bodhicitta, the benefit is not endless. Because for the application bodhicitta, once you have the application bodhicitta; I’ll give you the example later after this. Once you, once you apply then from then on until; because application bodhicitta is aimed until enlightenment then from the time such as this moment, from the time you apply the application bodhicitta all the way until enlightenment, whatever you have done – the merit of this will just multiply even while you’re being distracted, while you’re not mindful, such as you know sleeping or playing. Eh, the merit of the application bodhicitta will continue endlessly. So these are the differences between aspiration bodhicitta and the application.






Now having said this, just as an advice to the bodhisattva, Longchenpa, this is the great Longchenpa, he said – application bodhicitta; okay relative bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta, ultimate bodhicitta is difficult, so let’s try relative bodhicitta. Within the relative, there is ultimate, I mean there’s aspiration and application, application is difficult. Small things easy such as doing prayers, I mean like giving one or two coins to a beggar, I don’t know incense like…

But Longchenpa advised us aspiration bodhicitta is what a young bodhisattva must practice as the main practice because when you really develop that aspiration bodhicitta again and again, application bodhicitta will become easy because you have developed yourself to have this habit of giving and habit of, you know really like the kindest, kindest of the kindest thought. You would have no qualms or no difficulty in performing that. So Longchenpa, someone like Longchenpa advises us to do (‘monlam’) aspiration prayers, in fact in certain sutras it’s said that bodhisattvas until they reach to the first bhumi, their main practice is the ‘monlam’ or the aspiration.

But let me give you the example of the application bodhicitta you know, effect. Okay it’s a bit like this. Like yesterday we took a vow of the bodhicitta. That is application bodhicitta because we’re doing something. Vow is necessary if you want to have merit.

For instance right now, see right now you and I – we don’t go and kill beings, human beings, whoever, doesn’t matter. Do we? – We’re not. Okay some of you, some of us, we’re, we’ve taken vows; but let’s say you haven’t taken any vows, you’re just here, just to, just out of curiosity. But you’re not killing; why are you not killing? You’re not a Buddhist, you’re not a nun, you’re not a monk, you have not taken a vow – you’re still not killing. Mainly just because you don’t have the guts to do so, I think; and you have no reasons to do it and you have no weapons to do it. And actually you’re kind of scared to kill somebody isn’t it for a lot of us? For some people I think it’s not that difficult.

But the point is this. If you don’t have a; okay the point is just because you are not killing anybody does not mean that you accumulate merit. You’re just not killing because you are not killing. But let’s say you have taken a vow – I shall not kill from now until enlightenment. Then even your weakness of not killing anybody because

you just have, you just don’t have the guts to kill anyway – but because you have taken a vow of not killing, that weakness has become already an aid to your merit making, sort of skilful means.

So vow works like that. It’s really important to take vows. Like I’m sure you don’t, I mean most of us here don’t steal; just a lot of reasons like you know we don’t steal, we don’t get caught, we don’t want to be like looked upon as a thief, we don’t, we want to be good, you know all of these. But you’re not collecting any merit if you don’t have a vow. But if you are, if you’ve taken a vow; and this goes on, you know actually like, it’s a bit like eh; yeah a vow, a vow is a very good tool to accumulate merit.

(Tibetan phrase) This is what Nagarjuna said – vow really makes it easy to accumulate merit. Ah, a lot of things, okay; I don’t know, I hope you understand what I’ve said. Let me put it this way. You don’t; when you go to the temples, you don’t fart, not because, nothing to do with like not wanting to fart or anything; just because you’ve been eating beans or something like that, as easy as that. But if you take a vow from now on till enlightenment or till somewhere, till tomorrow or something – I shall not fart when I go to temple only, huh (laughter). Then you’re accumulating merit just through this vow of not farting – I’m serious. This is; from then on you’re not farting just because you’re, you just not in the mood, for instance; doesn’t matter but you are still accumulating merit. This is important. Okay so we take a break.

So Buddha with a lot of detail in the sutra where the discussion, the discourse with Subahu, Buddha explained why the application bodhicitta has endless merit. Now here briefly eh, the reason why the application bodhicitta has so much benefit is because actually it is something quite infinite. Where shall I put this one?

Okay, first the object of bodhicitta or compassion is endless, is infinite – ALL sentient beings, not just your loved one, not just your neighbour, not just your nation, or your, I don’t know, your neighbouring countries or something. But ALL beings, not only human beings, all beings – so it’s infinite. That’s what you are aiming for.

(Tibetan phrase) Application bodhicitta ultimately is aiming, aiming to pacify ALL suffering; not only, now this is, this is a very big remark – ALL suffering. When we talk about the suffering, we are talking about; usually when we talk about the suffering we’re talking about the suffering such as a famine, flood, I don’t know, mm, separation from the friends or family, death – those are like the most gross, sort of very, very gross level of suffering. But there are many, many, many other sufferings. In fact, from the Buddhist point of view, all source of happiness that we have are actually either suffering or gearing towards the suffering. They will end up becoming suffering.

And not only that; when we talk about three kinds of suffering (Tibetan phrase) – all pervasive suffering. Some you know, I don’t know whether you know this or not – even the tenth bhumi bodhisattva’s meditative state is supposedly a suffering -

meaning only the Buddha is beyond all this suffering. So we’re talking about the last suffering, uh. Usually when we talk about, you know compassion and bodhicitta, we are always thinking about like very narrow small things like famine somewhere there, you know like wars somewhere here, I don’t know, family dispute next to your house, or somebody missing someone else, stuff like that.

But here bodhisattva, bodhisattva’s compassion and the bodhicitta towards the suffering, the suffering is enormous – as long as; I think this might help you – the definition of the suffering in Buddhism but I guess again here it comes the word, I’m sure Rajiv can give much better explanation on this ‘dukkha’. Again we are never happy with the word ‘suffering’ are we? We are not happy with this word ‘suffering’ but anyway eh, the suffering from the Buddhist point of view has to have the element of change.

As long as you are subject of time, meaning; okay as long as you’re subject of time, that means you are subject of uncertainty. Because you are subject of time so something is uncertain. If something is uncertain, isn’t it suffering?

Uncertain or change; this is why even the tenth bhumi bodhisattvas forget eh, both meditation, even the meditative state. You know this is a bodhisattva who, if he wishes to see – I forgot the number according to Chandrakirti – I think something like a hundred billion buddhas. Instantly a hundred billion buddhas will come in front of him. If he wants to manifest his body into hundred billion, he can do it instantly. If he wants to speak hundred billion languages, he can do it, so on and so forth. But even he or she has the suffering of all-pervasive.

We are not talking about you know pain, sort of tears, that kind of suffering. Of course, we are talking about that. But we are talking about change and why? – Because he’s still a tenth bhumi, meaning that tenth bhumi has to be shrugged off. Until this is shrugged off or you know sort of; until this is abandoned, you have to realize this, huh? You have to really realize this. Let’s say we’re on this stage, right; and this is the first bhumi, this is the tenth bhumi and this is the Buddha, let’s say. The garbage of this person that he is trying to throw, get rid of, is the wealth we are trying to gain. It’s always like that. So the tenth bhumi still has garbage, and this means that he has suffering.






So therefore (Tibetan phrase) or the compassion or bodhicitta, bodhicitta of, application bodhicitta when we are talking about (Tibetan phrase) you know pacifying the suffering; the wish to pacify the suffering – it includes amazing, infinite amount of suffering. So this is why application bodhicitta gives you infinite merit also. I am trying to give you the reason according to – I forgot the name – the discourse of Sub, Subahu..? (‘Subahu’ response from assistant) Subahu I think, yeah – his discourse with the Buddha. It’s, it’s because of (Tibetan phrase) we call it, the grand monk (Tibetan phrase), grand monk, grand action therefore infinite or infinite, yeah, infinite motivation, infinite action, therefore infinite result, infinite merit – it’s because of this.

For instance, it’s like this; if you have taken a vow of not farting basically for three days, then that is not infinite, is it? After three days no more accumulating merit even though you don’t fart for centuries, only for these three days you will accumulate merit. But here in the application bodhicitta, you are saying I will offer this flower to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas so that it will benefit, it will enlighten ALL sentient beings. Now see this is infinite aim. So until this is done, merit because we have taken a vow, merit is that much.

So it’s the attitude; bodhicitta is an attitude, by the way. It’s an attitude; it’s a study of an attitude. It’s a practice of an attitude. Attitude is important, isn’t it? Man has an attitude, we say; attitude, attitude is what makes the character. Attitude is, attitude towards things but really works; it’s really, really… Eh, anyway maybe too many words; I really have to try to finish this chapter.

Eh, okay, so; okay more of that actually; (Tibetan phrase) now we are back to the benefit of aspiration bodhicitta again. Shantideva’s saying – you know, in this worldly situation, if somebody is concerned about your headache, let’s say; you know this somebody’s not even giving you medicine, not massaging your head and then doing nothing but just a concern, shows a concern – what does it do to you? It touches you right? He’s concerned and we, we appreciate that kind of concern.

You know, don’t we say this, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it? Isn’t that what we say - somebody wishing just to get rid of our headache, concerned; doing nothing though, not applying any application? It’s considered wholesome, it’s considered kind, it’s considered. You are touched by such an attitude. Shantideva’s saying – if a bodhisattva, not only just a mere headache, but to pacify ALL kinds of suffering and REALLY meaning it and working for it, wishing for it – isn’t it something to be more cherished? This is what he’s saying here.

Then eh (Tibetan phrase) ha, ha, there’s a little bit of sarcasm towards Hindus now; not only the Hindus, but what do you call it? – All the other religions; this, this is normal, you understand. You, you have to sort of bear with this. Well, beginning with, well even our parents don’t have that kind of kind wish. Our parents want us to get the education, our parents want us to you know become rich, no sickness. Our

parents want us to get married, I don’t know, all of this kind of things, right? Kind wish, kind thought, but our parents, even our parents don’t wish that we get enlightened. And our parents, you know in the worldly sense, maybe not anymore, but in the worldly situation, our parents – parents are supposedly like the utmost most sort of kind to you, but even they don’t have this kind of wish.

And, now this is the sarcasm; eh, even the Brahmas (Tibetan phrase), Brahmas, gods, almighty sponsors, all these people, even these people – they don’t have the wish to enlighten all the sentient beings. Forget about these gods and Brahmas and almighty creators, forget about them wishing enlightenment for others – they don’t have it for THEMSELVES. The Hindus can argue with me later, you know.

Okay (Tibetan phrase) it’s going on more. These beings such as parents, gods, powerful gods - they haven’t even dreamt about such a kind thought. You know don’t, don’t forget we are talking about the kindest thought of not just wishing somebody to be happy. We are talking about someone wishing someone to be awakened. That is the bodhicitta; not just, not just kind thought but to be awakened, because that’s saying a lot, that’s saying a lot. That means you know like someone who has that kind of attitude to awaken you; okay someone who wants just to give you happiness will give you happiness, whatever happiness, it could be sugar. But someone who wants to enlighten you might give you salt because enlightenment is the ultimate agenda, not just to make you happy. This, this is a big difference there.

Mm okay, then (Tibetan phrase) these people even for their OWN benefit, such kind of wishing for enlightenment mind, hasn’t arisen in their mind stream. Therefore having this kind of wish, having this kind of wish, a mere wish to enlighten all sentient beings coming in, inside your, our minds – a mind that is so polluted, so muddy and crowded with all kinds of emotions – growing, it’s like a beautiful flower growing in the midst of all this you know, garbage. It’s a bit like that; it’s such a beautiful, endless, it’s something so beautiful that is growing in you when you have that wish to enlighten sentient beings.

(Tibetan phrase) Benefit of this kind of wish, wish to enlighten all the sentient beings – cannot be measured. It is said that, it is stated that just to benefit, just a mere, mere thought of benefiting sentient beings; this is actually quoted from a Sutra. The Buddha said actually if somebody – we’re not talking about the bodhicitta now – if somebody, nothing to do with the bodhicitta, but a mere thought of helping someone else out of kindness, just like ordinary kindness; having this kind of kindness towards someone is much, has much more merit than making offerings to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. This is what Buddha said, and he’s comparing that with – this is not just an ordinary mere kindness. This is actually a thought of enlightening sentient beings, all sentient beings – the merit of such mind is measurable, immeasurable.

All sentient beings do not wish to suffer. They don’t have any, you know they don’t wish to suffer but yet because of their ignorance, they jump into the cause of the suffering. Every sentient being wishes to be happy but because of their ignorance,

they, they destroy the cause of the happiness as if it is their enemy. Sentient beings who are deprived of happiness, sentient beings who are, who are you know like filled with suffering – to these sentient beings the bodhicitta wishes to satisfy them with the source of all happiness, pacify all the suffering. Such a virtuous thought – there is no peer virtuous thought. There is no other spiritual companion that is better than someone who has such a wish. There is no other merit that is equal to this.

(Tibetan phrase) In the world, in our world if someone, what do you call it – re, rec, reci...? - (‘reciprocate’ from attendant) Yeah reciprocates with a, if somebody is kind to you and if you sort of repay their kindness, in our world it’s considered wholesome and decent act. A bodhisattva with, a bodhisattva who is performing the kindness, kindness act without sentient beings offering him any help or kindness - is far more venerable and precious. In our world some of us, we perform generosity act, not to all sentient beings, to small handful amount of people. We give them, we don’t give them everything; we give them only like maybe food. We don’t give them all the time; we just give them like sometimes when one feels like. And when we give them, we don’t really give them with the respect. We give them with a little bit of despising attitude because they’re better and all that. Yet we, in this world, venerate such act as a generous, generous act and we venerate this kind of person as a generous person.

(Tibetan phrase) A bodhisattva giving enlightened mind or awakened state or wishing to give the awakened state not only to few sentient beings but to all sentient beings, all the time with the respect, with the right attitude – what, what need is there to explain the merit of such a wholesome act?

(Tibetan phrase) If an ignorant being has evil thoughts to a bodhisattva who possesses such a kind mind, it is believed that with these evil thoughts, countless of eons, these evil thoughts will lead this being into the hell for countless of eons. (Tibetan phrase) In contrast if one encounters, if, if a, if one encounters a bodhisattva who is practicing wishing enlightenment to all sentient beings, and upon seeing them, if you have rejoice and wholesome thoughts after this bodhisattva - it is said, it is stated that you will have immeasurable merit.






(Tibetan phrase) Therefore for the bodhisattvas, bodhicitta is the most precious. You can do without; this stanza is actually one of the, eh, one of the aspiring stanzas for all the Kadampa people. Kadampa people always give us lots of advice. You know they always make us eh, feel depressed sometimes, unfortunately. For instance, they say, you know Kadampa masters; they say what? (Tibetan phrase) These are Kadampa’s sayings, huh, Kadampa masters like Atisha - they have all these small, small sayings. One of the sayings (Tibetan phrase) meaning you can afford to; you know profit and loss, loss and profit, yeah? The Kadampa masters advise us – there’re three things that you can afford to lose, and that is food, clothes, and ‘gtam’ which is fame.

Now at glance, it looks very kind of almost like petty, small but it, it has quite a lot; because in the commentary, Kadampa people say – well there are people who can, who can sort of afford to lose food and clothing but very difficult to afford to have a loss on fame. In fact there are many monks and lamas, many, many spiritual, so-called spiritual people who – they try to have very bad food and really you know like ragged clothes so that they will have bigger fame. You understand, stuff like that. These, these stanzas are where the Kadampas have aspiration from.

So here basically Shantideva’s saying – for the bodhisattvas, bodhicitta is the most important. All the others are not important; bodhicitta has to be the most important. (Tibetan phrase) Because only through the bodhicitta you’ll, you will refrain from the non-virtuous action, only because of the bodhicitta virtuous action will arise effortlessly. Okay now the conclusion of the chapter.

(Tibetan phrase) Eh, this can be understood in several ways. This can be understood as Shantideva prostrating, offering veneration to a bodhisattva who has such kind of quality; but this can be understood also as Shantideva prostrating to us, people like us who’re listening to today here. He’s assuming while; his assumption is almost like a request huh. He’s, he’s almost like - I’m assuming you have this; therefore I’m doing prostrations to you. It’s almost like; so for those who have this kind of precious mind eh, okay; what time is it? (Ten o’clock from attendant) Hmm, for those who have such a precious mind, to this person I prostrate.

(Tibetan phrase) This is such a beautiful stanza; such a beautiful stanza, this last one. Prostration to those, prostration to someone who has this kind heart and also take refuge to someone – even if you harm them eh, through this link you will eventually bring one who is performing the act of harming to liberation. Eh, this sounds a bit like contradiction to the earlier chapter, I mean the earliest stanza. In the earliest stanza, Shantideva said you know if somebody with unwholesome thought, you know, disturbs a bodhisattva, he will go to hell for thousands of eons.

And here; this is a famous quotation again in the Tibetan, especially Patrul Rinpoche long life, Patrul Rinpoche’s disciples – they always quote this. (Tibetan phrase) If you have a connection, a good connection to a bodhisattva then within this life, enlightenment is guaranteed. If you have a negative connection to a bodhisattva,

end of samsara is guaranteed. Can you see the point? Good connection to a bodhisattva is enlightenment guaranteed, okay. Bad connection like beating him and stealing from him, slandering him means that your samsara, end of samsara is guaranteed because of the bodhisattva - nothing to do with you, of course, because the bodhisattva will work on that.

Bodhisattvas will, those; you know in the Buddhist prayers there’s always, even in the Shravakayana – those who give me food, those who give me respect, those who give me drinks, may they have enlightenment. Those who beat me, those who slander me, those who say bad things about me, may they also have enlightenment; it’s a bit like that. Actually I heard that in Tibet, in the nomads, Dropas, those who are very, very poor ones; they have nothing to offer to the lamas so what will they do? They will go to the tent of the lamas and beat, sometimes beat the lamas, break the lamas’ cups and tables, chairs and stuff like that. Because they believe that if you have created the karmic link, this link because he’s a bodhisattva – he will make my samsara end eventually. It’s good thinking (laughter).

Anyway to this person I take refuge, so that’s the end of the first chapter, the chapter of ‘Benefit of the Bodhicitta’ and because of my endless blabbering, we have only managed one chapter. Maybe eh, some of you, many of you, you know, might not necessarily continue this – it is no problem, no problem. You just, you can do this and then you don’t have to do the rest. You can always miss the next one, then start again with the one after that. Eh, there’s no restrictions but those who wish, those who have the wish to complete the text, please think that this might take a little bit of time – four or five years, I think; if you have questions?

Student A: garbled and unclear (due to microphone)

Rinpoche: Okay, that’s a good question, this is why, this is why I’ve been repeating again and again and again the bodhicitta is something to do, you know, the way of the bodhisattva. It’s something to do with the wisdom and method together. It’s never just one, you understand. So it really will help us; okay say you have a plan – you have to I don’t know, photocopy this and that, confirm this and that ticket, I don’t know, you have to finish your work. Yeah, that’s the skilful means.

What you need to have again and again at the least, okay of course, ideally of course emptiness meditation and all of that; but AT THE LEAST you have to realize, you have to know that none of this can work, none of this will, this has to work, none of this has to happen, and this makes the balance. You know chaos and order I was talking yesterday; like I can plan, which I do, which is terrible actually. I really don’t like planning but 2010 April 5, eh, I don’t know, visit to I don’t know, Manjushri, something like that, Bombay, something I read. So then, the thing is that you know, to start with our life’s so short; life is so short. So much life is gone and not only the past life is gone, but the FUTURE life is also gone now, the April 5, you know, 2010, that’s also gone. And then in-between there is so much tension to not contradict to that.

But you’re right, we live in a world of, you know modern world is so designed, it’s designed to really make you fall for this kind of thing, almost like…Chatral Rinpoche, such a great teacher - one of his students came to me and we were having a casual conversation. And then this student said; and I asked him so what Rinpoche advised you. He said Chatral Rinpoche advised me that I can’t, I am not allowed to make any, any plans above three months. Then I told him – okay from on, I told him actually, the exact words I told him – there goes your excursion fare ticket (laughter). You can’t buy any more cheap tickets, isn’t it? So the modern world is not really compatible with some of these things. But as I said I think we have to, we have no choice, we really can’t move one inch now without planning, without almost like obsessive planning towards doing anything.

But actually this is not even, not only Buddhist thing; this I read in the Arthashastra, even Chanakya, even you know, in his own planning he talks about this. Like at the end, you have to know, you have to tell yourself really that none of this has to work; and it may not work. More likely it will not work. What it does is it gives you a balance so when it doesn’t work, so you’re already prepared, you’ve already expected the worst. So this, I think is so important. This is a little bit, small time union of wisdom and method; small time and when this becomes big…

Like many great masters such as Chatral Rinpoche and all of these; they are amazing, they have no, they you know, no bowing down to the social expectations – that’s difficult. Such kind of courage is difficult. Not many lamas can do, even the lamas you know, from my very, very limited, narrow-minded; you know I don’t have devotion, I don’t have pure perception, very…So when I look at the lamas, very; now most of the lamas like myself – we bow down, we kowtow to the social expectation, so we, we actually begin to become slaves of what society expects us to do. And then when we do that, vice versa, dharma really doesn’t happen AT ALL - where is the dharma in this case? Whereas someone like Chatral Rinpoche – he doesn’t give a damn about what people think, what people say; he doesn’t really – there’s no planning. There’s really, really no planning.

Like a; I remember the First Nyingma Monlam, the Nyingma prayer festival in rdorje-gdan in Bodhgaya, so many people made offerings to you know, donations, all of that. Chatral Rinpoche was there at that time; people asked him – what do we do Rinpoche, we have so many leftover money? SPEND ALL OF IT! - Buy this, buy that, you know like buy stuff like, put in the water, wash, wash this road, all of that. You know I think some people sort of wrote up this – how about we put it in the bank so that we can do next time even grander prayer or we can continue that. He was not happy at all; because these are very worldly thinking. But I must say somehow this weakness is everywhere.






I think I can only speak for the Tibetans. The Tibetan, in the Tibetan society monastery became such an important institution in the Tibetan society. It’s a centre of learning, a centre of education, it’s a centre of medicine, blah, blah, all of that. And then the head of the monastery becomes also an important figure, not only just doing ‘Mo’ but giving I don’t know, advices of marriage, all of that.

So social expectations; then you know, like even the choice of dress; when I first went to Tibet, when I first went to Tibet, some of my older attendants – Oh, Rinpoche, you must wear a yellow brocade (Tibetan phrase) you know yellow brocade which I hate, really I don’t like. I feel like...I don’t know somehow but they said I have to wear this yellow, yellow brocade because it makes the people think – ah, Rinpoche, yellow robe, yellow brocade – you understand what I’m saying. So giving in to that, giving in, bowing down to that, this is where the corruption of the beginning happens; and it’s kind of sad.

If you look at our forefathers, you know if you look at our original people, Tilopa, Naropa, Virupa; they’ve no, no brocades, they, they... I think if they come to our monasteries, we will not let them in (laughter). They all look like really shaggy, not washed, someone of them even not clad properly, completely naked. But social expectations, this is; spiritual materialism is one of the biggest problems, of course, spiritual materialism. I think at the least, we can talk about it; at the least we can discuss about it. I don’t know how much we can do it.

But you know again I must tell you this. On the other hand, this I am sure some of you will be upset with me, but what the heck! Completely from the other extreme, you know when people say a lot of strange things about Rajneesh, Rajneesh Osho, Rajneesh – like okay, some other things like you know to the latter stage of his life, there were all these things going on in ashrams, this I don’t know. I was actually reading a book called ‘Life, growing up with orange colour’ or something, a book. It’s a really good book actually written by an English journalist who grew up in the ashram. It’s really good, but anyway there was, you know I do remember – oh, Rajneesh, spiritual materialism, why forty-nine Rolls Royce or ninety-eight Rolls Royce?

You know, come to think of it, you know if you have one Rolls Royce – yes that’s spiritual materialism. But when you, when you have the guts to have forty-nine Rolls Royce - you understand what I mean because you are not giving a DAMN about

what people think. I, if you are asking me, I have no courage to have forty-nine Rolls Royce. Yes, I do like to have one Rolls Royce BUT, but I have to exhibit my humbleness and humilities in the, in this society, so I bought an Ambassador (laugher) you understand. I bought an Ambassador, you understand. Of course, I want to have a Rolls Royce (laughter); just one, just one but forty-nine Rolls Royce, that’s, that’s difficult. You’ve to have certain guts, you have…

I will tell you something. You know what; I think it’s said somewhere mahasiddha, mahasiddha, accomplished one, ‘sgrub thob’; you know what ‘sgrub thob’ is, what mahasiddha is? Mahasiddha is someone who can do, someone who will do something very neurotic; something completely, you know, off but someone who doesn’t feel that he needs to apologise. That’s mahasiddha – he doesn’t need to, you know he doesn’t feel that he needs to apologise. That’s difficult, that’s really, really difficult.

So don’t just think that just because somebody’s walking bare feet, like very humbled you know, renunciant like or someone who’s going with forty-nine Rolls Royce; just don’t be too quick in coming with a conclusion – ah, this is better because this is more serene. It’s very difficult, very difficult to judge. Okay, what time is it? Seven more questions, then we will...

Student B: (garbled and difficult to understand)

Rinpoche: Yes, we have taken bodhisattva yesterday with the request of this nun here.

Student B: (difficult to understand – had to be assisted by others in explaining and qualifying the meaning of the question)

Rinpoche: Oh, to follow the bodhisattva’s life? - If I met a real bodhisattva? Oh, I see if I met someone who lived up to this book. Well, yes, yes, yeah, that’s what; yeah, yeah you’re right, yeah. Yes, from my point of view, of course, I can only talk from my point of view. Yes, I think I have met because I can tell you a lot of things. One, when I think of those guys today, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. So I think they’re great bodhisattvas; it makes me feel guilty; it makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Eh, for instance, like one of my very important, one of my root teachers, His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche – okay one, everyone who sees him, they all say, the smallest to the biggest, they all think that they are, they had, they have been treated the most specially, you understand. Now I; he has like how many, so many people following him, right? I have like a few handful people, I’m the opposite. Everyone following me – they think they have been ignored by me (laughter), you understand.

Well this must mean that he’s great bodhisattva quality. You know if someone can do that, if someone who can manage to do that, and I don’t know because he wasn’t speaking or he wasn’t really doing anything. He was just sitting there, he was just there, but yet he managed so that to me, that’s quite important. And all kinds of things; working for the dharma just tirelessly. They, I don’t think the meaning of holiday or a break – that meaning exists in his system. Stuff like that makes me feel very uncomfortable, very guilty; so I would say yes, I’ve met bodhisattvas, I think. I’m supposed to not only think that I’ve met bodhisattvas, I’m supposed to think that I’ve met a Buddha, more than the buddhas which I don’t really think all the time. But I’m supposed to think like that; okay, any other questions?

Student C: Eh, Rinpoche, this question relates back to the first day – that you spoke about time and reincarnation. And I’m now speaking about the absolute bodhicitta. Would you say that the absolute bodhicitta is a root thought or a seed thought which has the ability to transmigrate?

Rinpoche: Yes

Student C: So it would actually move, and it does not depend on the person. It depends more on the thought, in the sense that you know when it transmigrates, it is, it adopts different names and forms; and hence it is the bodhicitta which actually creates the bodhisattvas.

Rinpoche: Yes, yes, okay good. Yeah, like the bodhisattva vow, you can take till enlightenment, meaning you will die many times in-between and you’re still holding the vow. Yeah, whereas monk vow, getsul vow – you can’t take after the death, yes.

Student C: Now, if I relate this to the Diamond Sutra, and I’m just seeking your interpretation of one dimension. When Subhuti asked the question, the first question and the Buddha replied and he said that you know - even after you liberated all sentient beings eh, do not mean that a single being has been liberated – and that is because it is about thought, cleansing thought…

Rinpoche: Yes, about thought, time and number, yes.

Student C: I just want to know.

Rinpoche: Very good. Yeah, that’s because yeah, that’s very much related to the ultimate bodhicitta I was talking about – the goalless, journey without a goal, so to speak. Because time, number; you know, okay it’s a good thing that you brought.

See all this time, I’ve been using the word ‘infinite sentient beings’, ‘all sentient beings’; in a way, kind of unskilfully I have used those words. But those are the words that traditionally we use - .words like ‘infinite’ and ‘all’, which can frighten you;

because in your mind, infinite means like lots and lots and lots, and all means lots and lots and lots isn’t it? But actually in reality ‘infinite’, ‘all’, is just an interpretation; it’s a relative. What do we mean by infinite? It doesn’t have to be many, many, many, many as we think; so when you go beyond that, that as Buddha said in the Vajracchedika Sutra, you know – don’t think that you are enlightened, you know, even one sentient being; one, two, three, all these are numbers. You have to go beyond numbers and time, space, colour; all of that. Okay looks like there’s no question. Yeah, okay.

Student D: The question is could you explain how it’s possible that once you have application bodhicitta, you accumulate merit even if you discard it or…?

Rinpoche: Because of the vow, because of the vow, yeah; vow is always like that. Yeah, you take a vow and even you may, you may forget it yeah; you may not necessarily always remember. Monks when they a vow, they take a vow; that does not mean every second they have to think I’m a monk, I’m a monk. When they sleep, they don’t think. They’re still a monk sleeping. Okay so I guess we will end here.

Thank you for coming and I’m doing this Bodhicharyavatara with a, trying to have the right motivation which is to actually propagate the bodhicitta, but also I chose to do the Bodhicitta, Bodhicharyavatara because I think it is important for us to really understand the richness of the Buddhism. Buddhism is just not some kind of survival kit which has a list of what to do and what not to do, and what to eat and what not to eat. It is not a narrow or sort of; it’s not made for only Indians or Tibetans. All compounded things are impermanent – that statement applies here in Bir all the way up to Mexico. Everywhere it’s the same thing and this richness of the buddhadharma is what needs to be understood.

I like to also kind of extract buddhadharma from the culture a little bit, not that I’m against the culture. The culture, whether you’re against or not, culture is inevitable; it’s always to accompany. As a human being, it will come, but sometimes to really you know, appreciate something you need to take out that, independent from the surrounding and look into it, focusing it. So my motivation of doing the Bodhicharyavatara is also to extract buddhadharma from the culture, especially you know like Tibetan or I don’t know, mainly Tibetan I guess but Indian, whatever culture.

I like to sort of, at least just to point out that, which will come in second chapter, even though Shantideva’s offering to the buddhas and bodhisattvas has a lot to do with offering bath, drinking water, which has a lot to do with the Indian habit; an American can always offer buddhas and bodhisattvas Jacuzzi or Coca Cola or cappuccino or something like that. Because eh, this is serious, because I have seen many Western Buddhists who are running up and down trying to find black tea for offering. And when I said why do you need the black tea? – Oh, offering to the Mahakala - coca cola, don’t need round and round, Buddhists don’t say only black tea, you

understand. And I was thinking you know, luckily it was not, what do you call it? – Churned, ‘bod ja’ what do you call it? - Butter tea, salt tea.

Sometimes, somewhere along the way culture is taught more and the buddhadharma gets left behind. And then in Tibetan we call it (Tibetan phrase) - means you know like whatever you do, even though everything is impermanent, whatever you do, your endeavour should have a sort of solid, concrete end. Of course the worldly activities have no concrete end. Dharma practice has a concrete end. Culture has no concrete end. Dharma practice has a concrete end. So I feel sad when I look at some of the, you know, people who are trying to practice culture which has no concrete end, which is not going to, you know, bring them anywhere.

For instance, no matter where you are soaked in, deep in, marinated, you will, many of you will never become Tibetans. It is just not possible (laughter). It’s just not possible. Like me, it doesn’t matter how many hamburgers I eat, how many chewing, chewing gums I chew, how much CNN I watch, I will not become American, you understand. It’ just, you know, and trying to become that is a waste of time. But I can go to America, I can go to, for instance like I enrol myself to a; I think next year I enrol myself for a few weeks Stanford University to get a leadership training. Those things I can learn because Americans are so good at it. Americans – they really know how to teach, how to divide things, categorize things and give you a course.

And I feel that we, we Tibetans, especially as rinpoches, we need leadership training in the modern day, modern day. We don’t have that. We don’t know how to organize things. We don’t know how to keep the funds. We don’t know how to delegate things. We don’t know how to, well there’s one problem – we can’t fire anyone, that’s the problem (laughter). These things I can do. I’m giving you an example. Likewise you can come to the buddhadharma to study buddhadharma. Yes there will be a little bit of culture here and there, inevitable but aiming towards the buddhadharma. And this is one of my main purposes to present Shantideva’s because Shantideva’s work – this can be used as a skeleton or outline to study those things.

(Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche - Way of the Bodhisattva (Deer Park, 2008; transcribed from audio file)

END OF FIRST YEAR TEACHING 2008

Dedication of Merit

ge war di yi nyur du dak Through this merit, may I quickly

orgyen lama drub gyur ne Accomplish the level of the Oddiyana Lama and through that dro wa chik kyang ma lü pa May all beings, without exception, de yi sa la gö par shok Be established at that level.

bodhicharyavatara 2008, bir - dzongsar jamyang khyentse rinpoche

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