TEACHING BY DZONGSAR JAMYANG KHYENTSE RINPOCHE

Wheel of Life – Part II

28th JANUARY, 2017 | New Delhi

I hope you don’t have any high expectations. I hope that you will not consider this as a comprehensive introduction to probably the most important Buddhist philosophy of what we call “sipé khorlo”, which is loosely translated to ‘Wheel of Life’.

We had a very brief discussion the last time, and I hope this is a freer interaction. So please feel free to ask, argue – which is a very important tradition in India, which we Tibetans cherish and are still trying to learn from. Before we get into ‘interactions’, I’d like to briefly just go over the Buddhist definition of ‘life’.

Every time we talk about life, Buddhists tend to use the word, ‘The wheel’. ‘khorlo’, or ‘sipé khorlo’, also ‘khorl’ which is also indicative of the wheel going round and round. I know that this jargon is academic and intellectual, but for this context, it is somewhat important. The iconography is very important. I was told that this icon was probably more important than the statues or the images of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. As this symbolic representation of life indicates: For Buddhists, life is something that goes round and round, signifying a cyclic existence. I will have to bore you with some terms first before we get into discussion, because I think definitions, terminology and connotations can be important because many a times, we sort of miss the point and we have to come to some sort of a mutual agreement as to what we mean by life too!

The Tibetan word ‘sipa’ is a rich term. It is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘bhava’. It refers to things like ‘possibilities’, which is very interesting because it invokes questions like – “Are we living? Am I living? Do you have life? Is this life?” So-called life may just be a possible existence – it is merely a possibility, which is a very interesting approach towards life. Also, the word ‘sipa’, life, refers to ‘becoming’. The so-called life that we have is a continuation of ‘becoming’. In addition, the word ‘sipa’ which is translated as life today is also ‘temporal’ – it has the big connotation of something temporary, nothing permanent, always wavering, always moving, always transforming. It is always metamorphosing, taking a different shape all the time.

Then, in the general sense, the word ‘sipa’ also refers to the ‘sphere’ – whether the physical or the mental ‘sphere’, a base. Then easier connotations are ‘living beings’ which is a vague term – because we don’t know what we mean by ‘living’. Exclusively, in Tantric Buddhism, the word ‘sipa’ or life, refers to the state of the ‘intermediate’ – something in between. For instance, right now, this very moment, I’m guessing that we are alive, this moment is all we have, and even as we speak, this moment has already passed. So we are always living between what is the past – a moment before, and what is going to come, a moment later. So this moment is all we have, this is the most precious thing. What you do and how you handle this moment is all that matters – if I am to speak in generalisations, but it’s easier to understand this way.

All these connotations that I am presenting – we use the word ‘samsara’ for them altogether. So I hope I have managed to give you at least a vague idea of what do I mean by ‘life’ before we talk about the ‘wheel of life’.

Obviously, Buddhism is a path. It is a means, and it is not the end. It is not the aim, it is simply the method. Of course, means are important, but what is more important in the

result, the end. When we talk about the path as a technique, as a means – then I’m sure, you know that Buddhists love talking about ‘mindfulness’ in this context. They love talking about ‘awareness’.

So when we talk about mindfulness, what are we mindful of? This is a really important subject, and this is where the whole Buddhist technique of meditation, discipline, ethics, morality – everything is generated from this ‘mindfulness’. All religion seems to talk about some sort of a ‘negative’ force. All religions talk about this ‘ultimate enemy’ – Satan, the devil, the evil force, and if you were to ask if Buddhism has an equivalent of ‘Satan’ or the evil force, then the answer is no. Buddhist don’t believe in an evil force that is external.

If you insist on having one, then Buddhist would say it is distraction. Distraction is the force, the evil force. When we talk about distractions, we are not talking about big distractions such as web browsing, social media or – of course, those are distractions too, but they are on a very ‘gross’ level of distractions. We are talking about very subtle distractions.

For instance, even now, as we talk – you must be thinking of something, you must be listening to me – at least? Do you know that you are listening to me? Probably not! Probably you can only remember the fact that you are listening to something. You are sitting here till I tell you, that you are sitting here – are you aware that you are sitting here? Probably not. If I ask you, what your name is, most of you will probably give a very accurate answer – my name is this-and-that as you speak. But are you aware that you are saying what you are saying? Everything – are you aware of the humming of the air-conditioner, the chirping of birds? Constantly, we are not aware of what is happening in your sphere of consciousness.

We can remember. We can throw our projections to the future. We can even imagine what we will cook tomorrow. But that, you are doing NOW. We can think about what happened last year. You are doing that now too, at this moment. While you are doing it, you are not aware of it AS you are doing it. This applies to lots of things! Even as you are having a cup of tea – you are not really thinking about the tea. Most probably, you are planning, you are thinking about what had happened in the past, you are thinking about the future – THESE unconscious distractions, this unconscious living, basically, is what Buddhists call ‘ignorance’, avidya.

Constantly NOT living consciously is one of those agents that goes round and round. Remember, I was going to talk about what it is, that’s going round and round. Since this is very philosophical, and a difficult subject, I have to keep repeating this - excuse me if I am repeating this – ‘sipé khorlo’, samsara, the cyclic existence – what is it that is going round and round?

One of these agents that is going round and round is this ‘unconscious living’, not knowing while it is happening. It’s not as if you’re dead, or you have suddenly become a stone or a piece of wood. You’re perfectly alive, you have a mind, you are cognizant, imagining, day-dreaming, tasting, planning, recalling – BUT, as you do it, you are not aware of this. This is the central agent that goes round.

Then, this continuous unawareness, this continuous non-cognition, this continuous non-mindfulness, what does this lead to? If you think of something and you are not aware of it, it gives birth to nama (names) and rupa (form). This gives birth to projection, basically. Then you create ideas. I think everybody has this wheel of life picture.

In the outermost ring, there’s the 12 different representations of what we call the ‘nidanas’. The first one is represented by the picture of a person who is blind, which represents ignorance. Then, the second picture – many a times the second painting has a potter making pots – this represents projection. Anyway, out of not knowing, constant not-knowing creates projection – which gives birth to lots of things – forms, names and then, Craving.

Before craving, there come values. You project, and then you give ‘value’ to things. Some are desirable, others as not-desirable. Once you have those desirable and non-desirables, then that leads to hope and fear. Hope to have desirable things, and the fear of bumping into undesirable things, unfavourable circumstances and situations. As you have hope and fear, they give birth to all sorts of emotions like aggression, desire, jealousy, pride, doubt, so on and so forth. By then, there is already an action which is where you try and acquire what you think is good, beautiful and desirable, and trying to escape, avoid, stop or defend yourself from things that are not good. This is action. Once you have projection, and action, it leads us to the result. ‘Reaction’, effect of that action. That is where things do not stop!

Once you have a reaction, you create a reference. The more references you have, the more hope and fear cloud our emotions. And so, these are the subsequent agents. There is ignorance, then there is projection, there is craving, hope, fear, reaction, results, which lead to yet other consequences, and this is what goes on and on – this is called a ‘cyclic existence’

As long as you are bound by this cyclic existence, you are not free – you are bound. This is basically the Buddhist definition of ‘life’, or the ‘wheel of life’.

I’m thinking of actually taking advantage of such a beautiful setting and applying these theories into practice by actually sitting and experiencing HOW the constant ignorance appears, and how many distractions we have by sitting in meditation for a few minutes. But before that, since this is an interaction, I’d like you to ask – maybe ask a few questions. I’ll be happy to answer them. You can also ask questions about the iconography directly.

Q & A – Part I

Q: Rinpoche, one of the meanings of the word ‘sipa’, you said, is ‘in-between’, between the past and the future. So whatever this moment is, living in that moment without distractions is what you said is the Buddhist way of looking at life?

That is a technique that you have to apply, and by doing so, what will happen is that you will not be carried away by the past and the future. Not being carried away by the past and the future means that you have less hope and fear. Less hope and fear means less…defilement. Less of emotions, judgement. You are totally living in the present.

One should not be thinking that you will reach some sort of a vegetative state, or go through some sort of coma. As Shantideva says, even if you are free from the past and the future, and even if you are free from hope and fear, to a certain extent – the way you look at life is how a mother looks at children playing in the sand and building a sand castle. You will look at them, and you might even engage with the children, play with them. But deep inside, you also know that this is not really a castle – this is a sand-castle. So you also have compassion – compassion that you’d play with the children, and also awareness – the wisdom and the guts to say okay, time to pack up and go home.

Q: Rinpoche, could you explain the difference between the second type of compositional actions and existence, because they are both types of karma, and I’ve heard this before and I find it very hard to grasp.

I think that the problem is, that when we talk about 12 interdependent originations, somehow, we think that they come one after another. As if there is a time, a sequence. Most

of the times, it’s not like that. The speed is so fast, the cyclic existence is so fast! In fact, one of the analogies is that of the ring of fire. When you move a singular flame in a ring, and you do it fast, it gives the illusion of there being a ring of fire – but that is not the case.

First, I want to tell you this: The difference between the first avidya and the second avidya – there is not a big gap between them. But having said that – this is very technical, by the way – for those who are new to all this, it may confuse you a little bit.

It’s a bit like this. This is the example that I use often, and I think it is quite useful. Every time we are talking about something – like my hand. When I am shaking someone’s hand, for instance. Whenever we think about the hand, we think in terms of whole units, which is not really true. There is no such thing as a ‘hand’. There is skin, there are bones, there are veins – there is blood, all that comprises of ‘the hand’. But we don’t think like that. We think in terms of units. That’s already the first avidya – ignorance. Then, we don’t think that the hand that we were thinking about, is gone! This is a new hand, so to speak. Yesterday’s hand and today’s hand are different! It has to be! Even this morning’s hand, and the hand at this very moment are different because of the law of impermanence. But we don’t think like that. We think this is the same hand that I’ve had for five decades! So on and so forth, there are so many misinterpretations and assumptions.

Now, you may ask – what’s wrong with that? Generally, really nothing much is wrong. But if you think deeply, it is fundamentally wrong because when you have that misunderstanding, then you’d have a different kind of expectation. After 56 years, when you look at your hand and you see more wrinkles, you’d think it’s unfair! But it’s not actually unfair, your baby hand is gone. This is how think about everything – about our ideas, about our values. All values, we bundle them up in one unit as permanent, and independent. This is the first ignorance that we are talking about.

The second composition – you are referring to the potter’s image. After this, we interact with the world as if: When I say I’m shaking your hand, I will never say, May I rub your skin, or your sweat and blood and so on. We don’t think like that. Then you get into a big problem, shaking hands with the ‘wrong’ people, not shaking them with the right ones – that really destroy your familial relationships, your national relationships, and so on and so forth –this happens a lot. It could go to the level of an international war – something as ridiculous as this.

We are being very meticulous here.

Q: Rinpoche-la, when you are talking about mindfulness, we often try to disconnect from the past and the future, and we try to live in the present. We try to focus more on the present moment. At that point of time, how do we justify that sort of action? I might be doing something that is very harmful, but I might not know that. I might apply mindfulness there – and justify my actions, stating that it has nothing to do with my past and my future. So how do we differentiate those actions?

So I want to clarify the question a little bit. So what you are saying is – You are probably doing something not so nice, and you are totally in the present regardless. How do you distinguish, then? Is it still a bad thing?

Okay.

This is quite a big, and a very important question. I will answer you from the top, first. From the most sophisticated level. This depends on the meditation master in question, but a meditation master who has lots of guts and a lot of courage and skill would say – You do an hour of philanthropic love and compassion, great deeds, good things – but you are never in

the present – and you do this for an hour. For the rest of the time, if you throw tantrums, are rude, and much worse – but in that, you are actually in the present – the meditation master will actually give you a medal for that! If there is a medal. You understand?

There’s a very good reason why, because: Despite being philanthropic, and showing love and kindness – if these actions are not accompanied with mindfulness, it could lead to all kinds of things. It could plant the seed of self-righteousness, puritanism and so on. When you have these negative actions, and are really in the present; when we are totally in the present, you are not feeding emotion – it’s a train of negative thoughts and actions – this train is unhooked, so the speed and force of this negative train will be disturbed at least a little bit, and when you disturb it a little more, then this train will derail.

So from the highest level, I’d say that this is something that you should be investing in. But of course, not everybody can do that. Even in Buddhism, there are many other techniques. I mean, in the Buddhist shastras, there are prescriptions of how to wash your hands! You should wash it this way, that way, how to walk, how to talk, look at people – all those methods and discipline, which unfortunately ends up becoming a ritual. Once a technique becomes a ritual, or a culture, then that ‘Buddhist’ technique has lost its meaning.

I know that meditation has become a ‘trendy’ thing to do these days. Most of the times, we don’t even know, how many of these meditators want to be in the present, or they just want to recharge their greed, their planning, and their viciousness – we don’t know.

Q: My question is a very basic question. When you were explaining life, you used two words: Power and samsara. Are they exchangeable? Can they be used with regards to one another, or they have their specific meanings?

The word ‘possibility’ – the Tibetan word is ‘si’ – is used in many different contexts. One is, as I was saying, is ‘possibility’. This has a very subtle connotation and it is a very important word. What is really is indicating is that probably you are not there, you think you are just there! We all have life, but are you really here? Who thinks that they are really here? That’s an important aspect of the word ‘existence’. This subject is quite difficult, and quite a big one. Before we even talk about this, we should come to a conclusion as to what we even mean by the word ‘existence’. What is existence in Hindi?

Astitva?

What does it mean?

It comes from ‘bhava’, meaning coming into being.

Yes, and then the second connotation of it, is ‘becoming’ to ‘being’ is very important. Say that suddenly, I’m thinking of a grape. For no reason, I’m thinking about a grape. Now, the grape has taken life in my mind. The ‘becoming’ of the grape has occurred. I can think about dry ones, fresh ones, then it leads to the grape-vine; one becoming leads to many, many other becoming’s – and if you stop there, that’s fine. But, it usually doesn’t stop there. You have projections, you have hope and fear, and you have value and once you have the value that you place, lots of other emotions arise. You fight, you suffer.

When we suffer, we try reacting to that suffering and usually, we apply some sort of method of escape, or remedy – and we get addicted to that remedy. We become slaves to that solution. Yes, problems aren’t nice things to have, but solutions also may not be the nicest things to have! Ideally, you should never have solutions.

Q: You said distraction is a form of evil. What is wrong with distractions? Sometimes, we all get distracted, and that leads to something beautiful. So what’s the…

Okay! Well, when you are distracted – yeah, very good – when you are distracted – probably the word ‘distraction’ is not the right translation of the Tibetan word ‘yeng’ (Tibetan phonetic: nampar yengwa, Sanskrit: Viksepa) Tibetans use this word, and I don’t quite know where it came from – presumably Sanskrit, and it’s a very powerful word. When you are yeng, basically, you are ‘not there’. Which is quite a bad thing, right? You’re not there, and it’s not so good!

But I know what you mean. The reason why we take Panadol is so that you are not there with the pain, for four hours – so you have to later take it again. That’s why we drink, that’s why we socialise, that’s why we throw parties, go shopping – all kinds of addictions. We apply them, so that we will be distracted! Of course, the consumerist societies love it. If everyone becomes a good meditator, and they do not get distracted, the market will collapse! Business will collapse.

But I don’t think we’ll have to worry too much about that. We long to be distracted. I understand why we love to be distracted – they are nice, they can be very blissful, but, it then leads us to more distractions. And then you get entangled – that is the word, entanglement. You get entangled, and you try getting out of that. Applying another method.

So knowing about the distraction would able us to manage distractions?

Yes, interesting. So this is maybe what we are going to do, after the break. Knowing that you are distracted, is really bad news for distraction. Already, the distractions are not so happy. But we are talking about a very subtle level.

Don’t you want to have a full life? Or do you want to have a mediocre, unconscious life? I think everybody would like to have a full life. Life in its full measure, so to speak. The Buddhists would argue, saying that if you live a life full of distractions, you are not having a full, hundred percent experience of life. You are thinking about something else – the fast of the future.

Q: Rinpoche, from the word ‘Bhava’ and ‘sipa’ in Tibetan – we are always becoming, never being there – unless we are non-distracted, is that what you are saying?

Yes, we are always becoming – there is no problem with that. The problem is not knowing when we are becoming. You understand? When you are asking questions, I’m sure you are getting more entangled with your questions than being aware that now, you are asking these questions. And me too! I’m so caught up with trying to listen to you, and having to put up a front, I have to give a good answer or Suresh will never talk to me, and so on. There is so much entanglement, so much hope and fear!

Q: So I think that this is a continuation of what you said. How do we distinguish between the ‘becoming’ and the past? By the time you know that it is becoming, it is already the past, isn’t it?

For some reason, this morning, most of your questions are very philosophical. Which is good, it just proves that I am with Indians.

You know actually, there is no such thing as a part and a future, apart from the present. But there is an illusion of the past, and an illusion of the future that we unnecessarily get entangled with. Which is ridiculous! It is really ridiculous! The past is gone, the future hasn’t

materialised YET – we plan about the future, brood about the past, we get so influenced about this illusory past and the illusory future.

Actually, for that matter, in the strictly Buddhist sense, the present is a label. But for the sake of our conversation, there is some sense of what is happening – you are talking, I am hearing it, I’m not like a piece of stone, you are not a piece of wood, there is some sort of inter-reaction, there is cognition, there is awareness: See? We are hearing, we are experiencing, we are feeling.

Q: Rinpoche, you defined ignorance as constantly not living consciously and mindfully. So, mindfully means: you have to be mindful of your present moment, you said. But if you are mindful of your present moment, and you are not distracted, you are not there actually. So if not being distracted cannot take us to the present moment that mindfulness can take us to –

I didn’t really get your question. Relatively speaking, you are there – only on the relative level.

If I am mindful of when I’m in pain, how does it help me get rid of my pain? If the answer is, you won’t be there – and if you’re not distracted as concerns the past and future, then you’re not really in the present?

In the beginning, you will still go through pain, and all of those things. I must also stress that mindfulness practitioners should still take Panadol when they are in pain – still do all the things that you would, when you are in pain. I mean, whatever you need – web-browsing, meeting a psychologist, whatever it is that you do.

But the suggestion is, if you are mindful and are aware of this present moment, chances of you not getting entangled with hope and fear are lesser, lesser are the chances of you getting entangled with the past and the future, and you’ll remain more sober. So there is less fear, less hope.

So I’m still confused. When you are mindful of your present, how does that help you not have hope and fear? I agree that you won’t have the concerns of the past and the future, but if you’re more mindful of the present, the pain you have in the present, then that will also entangle you. What happens at the end that helps you suddenly?

Most of the pain – I would actually say 99.99% of it is derived from hope and fear. When you are in the present, you will not entangle yourself with the hope and fear. So that’s already taken care of.

Let me try to give you an example. After the break we probably sit and experience what we’ve been talking about – after that, then, if you still have the question, you can ask again.

However. It’s like tackling an illusion. Imagine that you are thirsty in the desert, and you see a mirage – and you think its water –for the first time. After that you know, that it’s not water, it’s just a mirage. You are already liberated from all the delusion of thinking that, that illusion is real. That will save you a lot of walking!

By the way, for the fun of it, you can still go to the illusory water knowing that it is water – that’s fine, that’s what many practitioners do! Knowing that it is an illusion, you go to it for the fun of it! But we don’t know it’s an illusion. We struggle. We reach there, and we find that it’s just an illusion. Then you get more disappointed, more frustrated.

Q: I’m referring to the cyclic life and the factors that make up unconscious life like actions, reactions and feelings. I feel that from my experience, some of my actions feel like they are coming from an inner space, sort of an inner need, that make me feel like these kind of actions are a part of an aware life. Can you try to elaborate on that? This action-reaction system is not very clear to me.

I am very sure that many times, we act consciously. We act with awareness, we act with mindfulness. So many times. Probably not 100%, but quite a good amount of awareness, consciousness and mindfulness. That is the time where the basic goodness of human beings shows itself. Compassion, and all these things surface. The moment we get entangled with hope and fear, we forget that. Then basic human nature gets lost in this sort of muddy, hope and fear and all kinds of defilements.

I want to point this out. There’s a common misunderstanding – that the practise of Buddhism is to do good things. Doing good is the ultimate practice. Good karma, let’s call it. That’s not necessarily true. Actually, to be free from bad, negative actions (of course you don’t want to do those) but to be free from good action – Buddhists would say, it doesn’t matter how you are bound. You can be bound by an Iron chain, or a golden one – as long as you’re bound, you’re still a prisoner. Even these so-called good actions can bind you.

I always quote the great Indian master Chandrakirti. He said that an idiot will do bad things and go to hell. An idiot will do good things and go to heaven. Only the wise will transcend both good and bad, and then be liberated. This is important for Buddhism – to be liberated from getting entangled. The whole point of this – what we call “sipé khorlo” is to be liberated from the chain that is going round and round, in this cyclic existence.

We shall have one or two more questions, and then to actually make it applicable, more hands-on, so to speak, some sort of meditation or exercise.

Q: My question is, these 12 links of dependent origination, it seems that the deepest layer of dependent origination comes from mere mental imputation. I mean, the philosophy is very deep and to really habituate the mind which tallies with this sort of reality, it seems like a very profound thing. In our day to day life, how do we incorporate this?

That’s exactly what we will try to demonstrate anyway – we shall keep this question aside till then.

Q: My question is – earlier you were discussing that we should not have distractions, and we want to live to our 100 percent.

Okay, I want to be a little careful here. When we say that we should not have distractions, specifically. I don’t want to make it sound very dogmatic. It is better if you phrase it like this. If you are distracted, you will get entangled. And who wants to be entangled?

What do we mean by entanglement? Entanglement means, you don’t have control. Who is not a control freak here?! Everyone wants some control – at the very least, I want to control my own life. I want to actually be sober about my life. I want to control you too (chuckles).

That control of myself can only happen when you are sober. Otherwise – you can bribe me by giving me some praise. I will fall for it. OR you can criticize me. Even a few harsh world will do, I will throw my tantrums. I will always fall for that. The reason why we fall for these things is because we are habituated to getting entangled. How do we not get entangled? Developing mindfulness.

But then what are we supposed to do? Like you said – distractions such as shopping, entertainment etc. exist – what do we do about them?

Okay. Well, there’s a Buddhist sort of answer for this, which we will discuss as we go through the more experiential components of this discussion. I think we can start now – is there one more question?

Q: With your permission. You spoke of being and non-being in a sense. I’m a little confused. My question is that, are being and non-being manifestations of the same larger reality, if there is such a thing? Are there different types of selves? The wise self, the higher self, the base/lower self, an immediate self, a deeper self – I don’t quite know.

Well, strictly speaking, the Buddhists don’t even believe in an inherently existing self. They think it’s a totally imputed label. It’s actually just an idea. We don’t really want to get into that because we are discussing a difficult subject as it is. I mean, it’s difficult just because of our habit! Actually, philosophically, it is not difficult. We will get into this.

The idea of control, self-control – so if there is no tangible self, what are we actually asserting control over?

Exactly. Actually, we are not. But even though we don’t have an inherently existing self, the point is: This is again a classical Buddhist example. Let’s say that you are having a nightmare and a terrible time, being stomped over by an elephant. The fact of the matter is, there is no elephant, so what are you trying to get rid of? What are you trying to awaken from? That kind of philosophy doesn’t actually work when you are having the nightmare.

When you have it, the elephant is really there! Even though there is a bucket of water to wake you up – the bucket of water is not going to shoo away the non-existent elephant, but it does help! The point is, you have to wake up! I know that the method is totally a trick. It’s important that you know this – the whole path is a trick, actually.

On this note, maybe we will try to cover all this.

Now, we talked about the definition of – I hope that there is some sort of an understanding of what life, samsara is, from mine, or the Buddhist point of view. We had many questions – very good questions were asked. What is it that Buddhists are trying to achieve?

Their real goal is to simply understand the truth. That’s it. There are beautiful names like ‘nirvana’, sometimes very deceiving. The language itself is so poetic. So you end up thinking, that there must be an exotic place called nirvana. But actually, that is not true. Nirvana is understanding the truth. When I say this, I am not talking about some exotic, supernatural truth. Not at all! I’m talking about very, very simple truth. It is so close to you, yet, we don’t know.

For instance: Forget other truths. Even certain truths like all compounded things are impermanent. Or in other words, we are all going to die – from the time we were born, we are dying. A big part of us is already dead! Intellectually, we may understand this – technically, scientifically, you may understand this. But emotionally, we don’t! We plan as if we are going to live forever. We shop as if we are going to live another 1000 years. We make plans!

Even me, supposedly a follower of this path: I have made plans to go to some place in April, 2019. Somewhere. Pledging people there – oh, I’m going to turn up there. Somehow never really managing to accept the truth. Who knows, I might die today. Tonight. Even this blatant, obvious truth, we cannot accept. Not philosophically – but habitually, we cannot accept it.

The aim is to, thus, understand the truth, but it is very difficult to understand even simple and blatant truths like everything is impermanent. Why is that? What makes you forget this truth?

Buddhists think it is distraction. You are distracted. As I said this morning, we are not talking about gross distractions such as web browsing. We are talking about constant distractions. And that is what makes you get so entangled. Then you forget the truth. What can we do? Lots of things.

One very popular thing – in Tibetan it is called gom – I think in Sanskrit, its dhyana – meditation. It is not really a good translation, but it is the word we use right now. The moment we talk about meditation we think in terms of sitting straight, or some sort of posture. Sitting in a quiet place, in a designated area, at a designated time. But actually, that is really not the case. Meditation is allowing yourself to have – it doesn’t matter if its momentary, a few minutes, or a few hours – allowing yourself, disciplining yourself, habituating yourself in bringing yourself to this present.

But, the ritual, the discipline of sitting straight, cross-legged, closing one’s eyes, and your posture – all of those things could help. The chances of you being mindful sitting straight are higher than when you are lying in a hammock – you may fall asleep in a hammock. The chances of you developing mindfulness on a dance floor, dancing with friends – especially for the beginners – may be difficult. Once you are good at it, it doesn’t matter – the posture ceases to be important.

The bottom line is that you bring yourself into the present. This is something we can do even now. For instance, you are sitting here. I’m not asking you to change your posture. Actually, try not to really sit straight – be however you are. You must be thinking of something, you must be feeling something. You must be hearing something. During the break, when you were having tea, did you look at the tea? Did you really look at it? Probably not. Dis you notice the tea? Probably not, because you just have a general assumption, that that is tea. There is a general assumption that the tea kind of looks brown. We are so distracted – that even if someone comes to you and gives you tea with a quart of water in it, you might not notice it – that’s how distracted we are. We are feeling the breeze. Okay, now, I’m going to ask a friend here to play the flute and let’s hear it – don’t like it, don’t dislike it, know that you are hearing.

Just be conscious. Don’t get hooked by anything else – this is a very good tune. No judgement, no liking, no disliking – just being conscious of it. If you want something with more ritual – so let’s just sit straight. We are doing the same thing, okay? Let’s sit straight and try not to get distracted. You must be hearing things. You must be feeling things. Just be aware of those. Do not judge, do not paint, do not describe, do not define. Just like a small child looking at a fresco. So when you sit like this, you probably may have heard the camera clicking – did you? And then immediately you may have thought – that’s a camera clicking. You thought about a camera, a unit. Okay? That is distraction. Probably, some of you are trying very hard to meditate, and this cameraman came your way, clicking – and you said, what is this? Noise bothered you. You don’t want to be disturbed. What is happening? Action, nama, rupa and the craving to properly meditate. Craving to concentrate. Until the death of your mindfulness, which is symbolized by this dead body here.

It’s not necessarily the death of meditation, it’s the death of wanting to meditate. So the 12 nidanas, or the 12 interdependent co-originations happen all the time. But the moment you hear the camera clicking and the moment you simply hear it and don’t judge, you don’t value it, you are not entangled by the camera noise, you have killed this – no more ignorance. Just

for a short time, of course! Old habits comes that. If you eliminate this, the next one cannot occur. You will not compound, compose, you are not the potter. If you do not compound, you are not the potter, and there is no form. If there is no form, there is no name. If there are no names…so on an and so forth, then there will be no more hope and fear, and craving. If none of these exist, then there is no ‘death’, or the extinction of what you’ve been wanting to, or not wanting to have.

What does more of this do? The more discontinuation of this cycle that you have, is breaking out of samsara. I want to talk to you more about the inner workings, but we demonstrate that right now. I will not emphasize on sitting – do whatever you want to do, but try being in the present.

If you are annoyed, be aware of it. If you are blissed out, be aware of it. If you are agitated, be aware of it. If you’re thinking of what to ask, just be aware of that too. If you’re hearing birds chirping…be aware. Nothing exotic, nothing religious. Nothing supernatural, nothing complicated.

Okay let’s stop here for a few minutes. Now let’s try sitting still, this time. Again, be aware of what’s happening right this very moment. If you’re thinking about Paris, just know that that is what’s happening. Suddenly, if you’re thinking about Rome, you don’t have to go back to Paris. Be in Rome. You don’t have to finish this here.

Let’s try to now explain the inner circle. So, when you are trying to be aware of the present moment – maybe for the first moment, you were aware. After that one, I’m sure you were distracted and you were so distracted that you didn’t even know it. You were thinking, Am I distracted? Am I’m doing it? Am I concentrating? That’s what you would have done.

This is my advice – if you think you may not have been distracted, chances of you being distracted were very high. If you were paranoid about being distracted, you might have done exactly that. For beginners, this paranoia is normal. That’s all you can have for now. Then what happens? This distraction becomes fatter, grosser, and more tangible. Very simple distractions! You hear a noise, you think about water, or tea. This entanglement then, becomes fat. Big. Gross. Tangible. Generally speaking, Buddhists believe that this entanglement is categorised into 5-6 different categories. Let’s say you become aggressive. With aggression, you project your thoughts onto the world and you see unpleasant things. That’s called the Hell Realm. It’s actually just a projection of your aggression. Buddhists don’t believe in the Hell realm underneath somewhere – it can happen this evening, when you lost your temper.

Or, this entanglement ends up becoming greed or stinginess. That gets projected into what we call the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts. If the entanglement leads us to becoming very dull, ignorant – then it is called the projection of the animal realm. Then, sometimes, this entanglement manifests as jealousy. This is the Asura Realm. Then, the entanglement may also manifest as desire, which is the Human Realm, and then, distractions may manifest as Pride, which is the Deva Realm. I remember telling you some of this in our last discussion. Don’t think that these 6 realms exist outside somewhere, they can be manifested throughout the day.

You could wake up in the morning after a very ‘busy’ night, you could wake up groggy, dull – not thinking straight. You’re experiencing the animal realm. You are an animal. Then, after that, we groom ourselves – moisturize, aftershave, foundation – looking at the mirror, happy with yourself, you are presentable, attractive – all that, and you are in the God Realm.

You go to work, and you meet a colleague that you are jealous of – who’s your big competitor – envy, and you are going through the Asura Realm. Your boss scolds you, you lose your temper and then you’re back in the Hell Realm, and so on and so forth.

So, all 6 realms can be happening within the day. I think we talked a lot about the innermost circle the last time, so I’m not going to speak too much about that. Basically, all this is happening within these few moments of minutes of us getting distracted, all the time. And then, all of this is under the clutches of this big monster which is the representation of Time. You are a victim of time. Meaning nothing, is certain. Everything changes all the time.

To get out of it, there is a symbol of the Buddha here – you need to be free from getting caught up, getting entangled. When you are free from entanglement, you are free from time and space, and thereby you don’t have any more experience of these 5-6 realms – that’s what the Buddhists term ‘liberation’. Again, I have to elaborate – this is NOT a state. It’s not some sort of a place. It is a realization of the truth. I think we can somewhat understand this with the analogy of watching a movie. You can watch a movie, get totally engaged with it in one sense, the love story, the suspense, the thrill and know that this is just a movie. You can always pause it – rewind it, fast forward it. You have the guts to pause it. But this movie, that’s happening right now, we don’t know how to pause it, rewind it. We don’t know how to fast-forward it. We are totally under the control of this delusion.

If you have any more questions, I will be happy to answer them – I don’t know if this helped you understand the concept.

Q & A – Part II

Q: In the corners of all four quadrants, there is a celestial being. What is the significance of that? Second question – Every human endeavour, especially when it comes to livelihood, requires some degree of hope and fear, and some projection. If you’re a teacher, you’re hoping that your students understand. If you’re a designer, you’re hoping that what you create is beautiful and you’re constantly making fine judgements about this. Is it possible to engage in this samsaric activity without getting entangled and caught up?

Yes, yes. Firstly, I’ve noticed that this thangka or painting comes from a particular school of thought in Tibet. Anyway, the 6 Buddhas represent the fact that no matter from what realm you are, or what you are – you have the Buddha nature in you. That is actually the real antidote.

If this cup is dirty, the fact that it can be clean is because the dirt is temporary. That is the ultimate antidote. We always think that the antidote comes from outside – but Buddhists always say that the antidote comes from within you. Your basic nature itself is the antidote. You really use that, and don’t depend on outer antidotes. Outer antidotes can lead you astray and entangle you. This comes from a very extensive teaching called “Bardo” – the intermediate state, which is taught specifically in the Nyingma tradition by a great teacher called Karma Lingpa.

As for your second question. I think I’ve already addressed this – just as how a mother plays with her children, you can also generate awareness and have the compassion to play with the world. Also, it is important – that when you learn to ride a bicycle, you can’t simply learn it only in your living room. You have to go outside and face the rough world, where you will learn more. Dwelling in your world, as a father, a mother, in a normal job, all those could actually stimulate, or sharpen your wisdom. You’re playing a very dangerous game here, but it’s always going to be like this. Working with habit is the most difficult but it is doable. At

the same time, the good news is, habit is not your true nature. So, it is removable. This you have to bank on. This is simply habit, and it is temporary.

Q: I also noticed that depending on which realm you are in, the appearance of the Buddha also changes. For example, in the Deva Realm, he is holding a musical instrument. Is there any significance of that?

Okay! (Laughs) You are very good! The Deva Realm has distractions. What are their distractions? Pleasure. Music, harps, swimming pools, swans – the Deva Realm descriptions always have all these pleasure objects, which tremendously distract. To teach the Deva, you need to use their way! The path is very tricky. If the path is very skilful, and if it is good, it really should look like the problem that you are trying to counter. So it’s almost like using pleasurable objects to defeat the pleasurable object.

The 6 Buddhas are a Tantric teaching actually, which is why the symbolism is quite sophisticated. Like in the Asura Realm, the Buddha is holding the armour and the sword. Again, using the emotion as the path.

Q: Rinpoche, this point of emotions as the path, could you elaborate on that a little bit?

In the Vimalakirti sutra, it is said that the lotus will not grow in clean water, or on a clean surface. It only grows in muddy, dirty water. Likewise, Buddhahood cannot be found in a clean place. Buddha is only found where there is dirt, which is emotion. This is a very big Mahayana teaching. It may also be confusing for people.

When you lose your cow, you follow its footprints to find it eventually. According to tantric Buddhism, it says that emotions are like footprints of wisdom, where, the emotions are out of your control without mindfulness. They entrap you, enslave you and control you. When you have mindfulness, it is actually these emotions that are like footprints which will lead you to wisdom, because after all, where is life if there is no darkness? Where is light, if there is no shadow? If you want to know what light is, you need to have a shadow. Of course were are strongly referring to Tantric Buddhism.

The reason is this. Emotions, if you examine, them – let’s say jealousy. What are you experiencing? You are experiencing pain, ignorance, delusion and all of that. But a big chunk of jealousy is also an acute awareness, cognition, there is consciousness – you are very much there! If you are really, really jealous about somebody, you can try resolving it with web browsing and so on, but it will still go back! So strongly! It will still exist. Instead of trying to escape from it, you can try taking advantage of that vibrant, present force. Jealousy is also consciousness, despite being mingled with ignorance. But nevertheless, it is very sharp. That needs vigilance. It is very much influenced by Tantric Buddhism, but is also talked about in Mahayana Buddhism.

For instance, if you have no emotion at all, what are you trying to achieve then? You have already achieved it! If you’re not dreaming, or sleeping, even, what are you waking up from? We are assuming that we are dreaming, having a nightmare and then you can throw water so that you awaken from it. If you’re having a mediocre, vague and not-so well-scripted a dream, it is very hard to wake up from that. You may not even wish to get up – but if you have a nightmare of a spider crawling all over you, you’d want to get up from that! So that needs to be taken advantage of.

Q: Respected Rinpoche. I think one understands the value of making the present, the now your friend. Just like, when you show anger you don’t necessarily have to be angry – can’t you live life in two planes? One is the emotional path where you are in the now and in the present, where you do not suffer from the past and expectations from the future. At the same time, in your physical state, reflect on your past, its teachings and its lessons and be prepared for the future? So can you not live life at two levels?

Very much so! You’re referring to planes? One of my meditation instructors always says, you should have two sets of eyes on your neck. One that is watching the watcher. The true eyes. These are the eyes that we use to watch the external, but you should also have another set watching the ‘watcher’, that is you.

I think this is similar. This is what the Buddhists call ‘Upaya’. Skilful means. Then life becomes very humorous – and this is where the great Mahasiddhas play all sorts of games to really benefit others. They stage how miserable they are, how jealous, how doomed, how ignorant they are. Especially for Mahayana Buddhism, a big part is to help others. To benefit others. For that, having that awareness is very important.

I’m running out of things to say! (Laughs)

Q: Rinpoche, one question. When you say that we should follow the footprints of your emotions, how do we progress and become aware and distinguish that from becoming dull?

This is a little difficult, yes. But there is advice. You are playing with fire, and since you decided to play with fire, you should play with it for a short time, but many times. Especially in the beginning. If you play for it for a long time, it may burn your hand. You understand?

You are playing with emotion – before it grabs and controls you, you should hide and escape! Don’t escape for too long, don’t hide for too long – quickly come back and play with emotion again.

Fundamentally, it is like this. Buddha-dharma is like a tempering a knife. When you sharpen a knife, you have the whetstone and the knife and you rub them against one another. What happens? The stone and the metal both wear out. This results in a sharp knife. Likewise, you have emotions and defilements – and you have wisdom – both should wear each other out. Never can you think that you can get rid of emotions all at once and take this wisdom home like a souvenir! It is useless to have wisdom when you have no emotions! At the end, Buddhism has to be weaned off, it has to be abandoned.

Maitreya said this – If you go to the other shore, you take a boat. Once you reach the other shore and are still standing in the boat, because you’re so in love with Buddhism, the boat, because it is so beautiful and all of that – you have not reached the shore! But meanwhile, there are many ways to play with emotions. That’s why there are many yanas, vehicles – there is Mahayana, Hinayana – they all have a different approach. Somehow, this morning, we ended up talking about Vajrayana but the sharvakayana there are methods of imposing quite a lot of restrictions on oneself so as to not get distracted.

There is the discipline of vipassana, sitting straight, meditating – which is probably better for the beginners. Then lying down or dancing, or shopping or whatever. After a while, you should actually shop and meditate because if you’re only good at meditating on a cushion in a quiet place in a designated area and time – when the situation arises, you can’t fetch the cushion! There is no time for that. You’ll be bombarded with all kinds of circumstances, so you’ll have to utilise your awareness there and then – as the situation arises.

You slowly expose yourself more to the dangerous terrain and areas, within your capacity. Once you’re really good at it, then by all means, play along and roll over in your emotions again and again, until there is a time, where there is no difference between your emotions, and your wisdom. Then there is no hope, no fear, nothing.