the three levels of perceptionteaching on the three visions (snang gsum) of the sakyapaby dzongsar...

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

TEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF

THE SAKYAPA

(Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

Rinpoche

http://www.sakyatenphelling.org/buddhism/recorded-teachings/



TEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF THE

SAKYAPA

(Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche … 1/48

We begin with discussing motivation. That got to be a good reason why you are

here. There are lots of things to do, especially during the weekends and you have

sacrificed those. And you are HERE, especially some of you have heard these

particular teachings many, many times and yet you have decided to sacrifice lots of

things and be here.

Of course at glance, we can say we, we are here to receive teachings. We are here

to listen to the dharma and at times we do this because it is a traditional thing to do

or because it is the right thing to do or some of you may be doing it because you’re

obliged to do, you understand. Because some kind of religious teacher happens to

be here and he’s talking and if you are not here, you know especially we Asians, we

might lose face. We, we fill that we should fill up the room at least. That could be the

motivation. We don’t know.

It’s important REALLY to check our motivation. Hopefully the motivation is triggered

with wish to receive these teachings so that one will achieve enlightenment. I say

this hopefully because most of the time when we practice, when we hear teachings

or when we’re practicing the dharma, most of the time we don’t do it for

enlightenment. Enlightenment is almost like eh, if it happens that’s good but if it

doesn’t happen, it’s also okay.

Most of the time, we go to temple, we go to teachings because we like to live

happily. We want to make the life easier, happier, isn’t it? Especially this is the Asian

weakness, I think. We go; we chant mantras for long life. That’s not, long life is not

enlightenment. Long life is long life. And we don’t know by having long life, we are

going to have a better life.

We receive teachings so that one is successful in whatever you are doing. Being

successful is not necessarily enlightenment. So this is why I am stressing – what

kind of motivation do you have, do I have, do we all have? See ideally so-called long

life, success, good health, good marriage, good relationship – all these should be

what we call ‘side bonus’. For the bodhisattvas, for the practitioners like us, these

should be the bonus. Enlightenment should be the real goal, the ultimate goal. That

should be our goal.



SAKYAPA


And I’m stressing this because if, if our aim is wrong, right; if our aim, if our ultimate

aim – I’m, I’m talking about two kinds of aim, ultimate goal or the aim, and the

relative bonus, temporary bonus, relative goal. If our, if we have the right aim,

especially the ultimate aim, then EVEN if something falls apart in our day-to-day life,

the trust to the Triple Gem, trust to the guru, trust to the path – will always be there.

Otherwise in the course of my being Buddhist all this time, I have seen so many

people coming to the buddhadharma, hoping so that, they, their samsaric you know

activity will be successful. That’s their ultimate aim, coming with that kind of

motivation. And then of course our lives – so many things go wrong – the nature of

life. Okay today we’re happy but who knows what happens tomorrow.

A tomato stuck in your throat while you’re enjoying nice food in some of these

wonderful hawker centres and then that will be it. Your life is, has reached to the

end, all because of a stupid tomato. And this COULD HAPPEN. Life is totally fragile.

That’s something we have, that we so dearly clutch and grasp to, and that’s our life

and sadly life the most fragile. Everything is, especially now; so fast, so fragile. And I

have seen many people with this kind of motivation.

They come to the dharma, practice the dharma and then of course, something goes

wrong and then they lose trust to the Triple Gem - oh, you know Buddha is not

helping us. See the approach to the Buddha is very theistic like any religion, like

Christians or Hindus; maybe not Hindus but Muslims. That, if you have that kind of

attitude or motivation, then you, your action, what you’re applying and your view is

contradicting. So this is why I ask to really analyse why we are here. It’s good to

analyse like that, even if it is intellectually.

I am supposed to go through the most profound teaching coming from Virupa, the

saint Virupa, and Gayadhara, Drokmi Lotsawa and all the great Sakyapa masters.

The teaching is called ‘Lam Dre’. Of course I’m not giving you the complete Lam Dre

but the beginning portion, the preliminary portion called ‘Triple Vision’. I think that’s

what it is called although the ‘vision’ is not really the right word, I think. ‘Snang Gsum’

anyway; I will be explaining very briefly with a lot of reasons - first I don’t know it

myself thoroughly, secondly VERY LAZY.

I used to have at least some kind of pride and ego to talk. I’m not saying that I don’t

have ego anymore but the laziness has taken over that. So even talking, teaching is

so tiring. So the laziness, because of the laziness, the teaching is not happening

very thoroughly. And also I guess the timing, but I think between today and

tomorrow, we can approach to the great Snang Gsum, the teaching, the Triple Vision

in a practical way, let’s say, let’s call it practical way.



SAKYAPA


And this is VERY SPECIAL teaching. It has the complete path for enlightenment and

really important. Why we receive this teaching, that sort of motivation or the reason,

is finalized; because you see this is why the word ‘vision’ I don’t like. Is that

translated as ‘vision’? Vision, yeah; I think it’s a little misleading personally. I think I

would call it ‘perception’ because Virupa or the great Sakyapa masters are not

composing a special vision here, you understand. I think ‘vision’ is alright but it could

mislead.

We are not constructing a new vision and inserting this, programing this vision inside

your head so that your vision will change. We are not doing that, okay. See life, life,

so-called life – people ask the question “What is the purpose of life?” But even

before you ask this question: ‘What is the purpose of life?’ – What IS LIFE? This

question you should ask: “What is life?”

According to the Sakyapa masters, life is nothing but a perception. It is a continuous

perception; perception after perception, that’s life. So ‘Snang Gsum’ like this path,

what it does is, it is, it ALTERS so to speak, REDECORATES this perception. We

already have a certain perception, a lot of perceptions which we will talk, okay.

What we are now going to do is we are going to redecorate this perception. We are

going to place them. We are going to manipulate them. We are going to eh, work

with it, work with the perception. AND THEN FINALLY you will have a different kind

of perception, different kind, different way of looking at things; and that is what we

call enlightenment.

Yeah so this is quite important because you hear this teaching. See in our heads

most of the time, enlightenment is something tangible. The moment we talk about

enlightenment, we are talking about a stage, a place, some kind of body, some kind

of dimension which has thirty- two major marks, eighty minor marks and all these

complicated descriptions. But if you really make it very easy and down-to-earth kind

of language, enlightenment is actually; eh, simply enlightenment is an absence of

paranoia. That’s it. I’m, I am sure some of the more conservative Buddhists might

raise their eyebrow but that’s fine. I, I, I can talk with them.

It’s basically an absence of paranoia. And there is so much paranoia ALL the time,

and do you know why there’s all this paranoia? Perceptions – basically you are

looking at me right now – I am your perception. I am looking at you – you are my

perception. Between you and me at the moment, there is no too dramatic perception

because somehow eh, we don’t know so much, right. We don’t know.



SAKYAPA


And between you and me there’s a kind of a big distance, not only physical distance

like you’re sitting on the floor and I’m sitting on a chair, higher. But there’s a certain

sort of advertisement happened before - a Tibetan, a master, this, that. So those,

especially those who, who have never seen me before, you must have a certain

perception about me, you understand.

I’m sure some of you have really very; some of you must think – oh, you know he is

like the bodhisattva you know this and that. Some of you must be already thinking –

'Can we trust this man, you understand?' And some of you are just thinking – 'When

is this going to end?' An hour and a half more, you know depending, depending on

different kinds of motivation again. It's always going back to the motivation. So there

must be lots of perception.

Now I'll give you an example. Okay so we might get closer, right, closer; we might

have, eh, we might talk, and then our perceptions get more solid. And then we might

have dinner or lunches, or we might see more and more. And then perceptions get

more solid and more sophisticated because BY THEN the perception is diluted with

expectation, hope and fear. Hope to see each other more or hope not to see,

depending on your motivation again; okay depend totally on your motivation.

So anyway there is a perception, continuous perception between you and me. And

then some of you, okay let's choose those who like me. Let's say some of you have

decided to like me. Then you can paint all kinds of picture about me - 'Wow, he's the

greatest, all of that; he is the greatest this, this, this, that'. Okay and then I stay with

you FOREVER, let's say.

And then one day someone whom you trust a lot tells you - 'Be careful; you know this

man has a tail; you know tail growing every full moon' (laughter). Very seriously he

tells you - this man has tail growing you know every full moon. I, I bet the way you

look at me will be influenced; it's already influenced. The way you look at me, the

way you relate to me - you will change, right. What happened?

The perception is now altered. It's redecorated; it's now manipulated. Now you, you

will not want to be in the same room, especially in the full moon night alone. You

know you used to be talking to me very freely and no fear, complete trust. But now

you will have to think twice. And every time I go to bathroom, you might be

wondering - Where does he put his tail? Things like that, isn't it? Perception has

changed now about this man and I'm giving just a very vague example. I'm sure this

has happened in your life a lot. I am sure, very sure.



SAKYAPA


How many times have you fall in love? - So many times, those who have been lucky

with the love anyway. And when you are in love, this person whom you love - My

god, they are the perfect, isn't it? You think about them day and night. You can't

taste food properly if you miss them even for one night. That's how you long for

them.

So what do you do? You get engaged, you get married, you have, you settle down

with this person for more than I think two weeks. THEN suddenly something

changes. Even the sight of this person annoys you, makes you revolted almost. This

happens, I’m sure this has happened to you a lot, almost all of you. What has

happened? NOTHING; perception has changed. Your perception has been altered,

you understand. I'm giving this as an example of the 'Snang Gsum' because Snang

Gsum teaching is basically ‘altering our perception’.

So there is a three perception we talk - the impure perception, the experiential

perception and the pure perception. We can talk about impure perception quite a lot.

Experiential perception, we can talk - half-guess and half sort of talk. Pure

perception, we have to do a wild guess and then talk. So these are the three

perceptions we talk, huh, three perceptions.

Now, let’s go back to the motivation again. As I said, first of all your motivation to

listen to this teaching should be because you want to achieve enlightenment, really.

IF NOT, if your motivation of listening to this teaching is to have a, I don’t know – a

successful buying or selling of a share or a stock market or something – WON’T

HELP. I will tell you honestly. All these; not one word will help you. Better go to a

business conference or somewhere where you know, you better read some other

books.

THIS actually is the opposite, I tell you. THIS tells you how samsara is futile, how

they are meaningless, how they are useless. And then yet you go to a teaching and

ask for, and look for a teaching that will make your business successful. It’s wrong. It

doesn’t work like that. That’s the first motivation, okay

The second is a Mahayana exclusive motivation. We should be listening to this

teaching only for the enlightenment of ourselves individually but also for the sake of

all the sentient beings. That is VERY, VERY IMPORTANT. If you are a Mahayana

practitioner, that’s SO IMPORTANT, especially for the Mahayana practitioners.



SAKYAPA


It’s easy to say than done. Just briefly, if we are Mahayana practitioner, you know

how many Mahayana practitioners including myself? We, firstly we don't practice

much. Secondly even though if we do practice, we are so worried about our practice

and the result of this practice. We don't really care about other people's

enlightenment. A Mahayana practitioner should not really care about the failure or

the success of their spiritual practice.

A Mahayana practitioner must be practising dharma for the sake of others. If a

Mahayana practitioner observes someone else doing spiritually or materially or

worldly better than yourself and if you feel envious or jealous, that means the

bodhicitta is not there. That means you are still more important than the others.

THAT needs to be changed and we have to think we receive these teachings for the

sake of all the sentient beings. That's the second kind of motivation.

The THIRD kind of meditation, I would not stress so much but some of you, I think

are old Lam Dre practitioners, I guess. So for those who are, those who have

received Lam Dre teachings before, it is believed, it is said that when you receive

Lam Dre teachings, Lam Dre, not only complete Lam Dre; even the part of the Lam

Dre teachings such as this – you are supposed to think that the place you are

receiving this teaching such as this building is a cemetery, the person whom you are

receiving teachings from is a heruka.

Yourself is not an ordinary being, but also a bodhisattva or a heruka. And all the

companions are also dakas or dakinis and all that. But I think I will not elaborate on

the third motivation so much because I don’t think it’s necessary. And for those who

are already have this knowledge, please do so. So let’s get back to the Three

Perceptions, okay, three, triple perception.

So the first perception, impure perception – let’s talk about this a little bit and actually

... where’s that pointer? Ah there it is. On that throne I’m sure many of you have

seen this painting of Wheel of Life, “srid pa’I ‘khor lo” we call it, okay. In fact in the

future, if your non-Buddhist friend asks you - What is the definition of life according to

Buddhism? What you should do is to go to a bookshop and buy this painting and

show. This is it. This is a description or definition of life according to Buddhism, okay.



SAKYAPA


Just briefly; in the centre you see a pig, a bird and a snake which represents

Ignorance, passion and aggression - which is the delusion that WE HAVE. Now

these three then perceive. When you have ignorance, passion and aggression, then

everything you see is impure. It's like you're looking at a snow mountain, white snow

mountain but you are wearing a blue, red and orange sunglass okay, on the top of

each other. And then you look at the snow and that snow is not white.

You see a purplish kind of snow, so if you ask whether the snow is purple, of course

not. How come you see it purple? Because you are wearing three layers of sunglass;

that's why all your vision or the perception is altered, manipulated. So to begin with,

we already have three sunglass - snake sunglass, bird sunglass, and what was it,

the other – pig, right. Out of this three, as you see things, you see five realms, five or

six realms. So hell realm, hell, hungry ghost, animal, god, asura, human – these are

the six realms that you experience or you, you perceive.

Let stick with our language here - okay this is a ‘Snang Gsum’ teaching so we use

the same language I guess. So that’s the perception you GET, right; that’s the

perception you end up with.

Right at the outside we see a big monster, clutching, holding the Wheel of Life. This

monster actually represents Time, time. Time is like a monster. It’s changing, time

means change of course. If everything is not changing, that means ‘freeze’. Then

there is no past time, no present time, no future time. And we LIKE time, at the same

time we HATE the time.

It’s a monster; it’s really a monster so that wherever…; okay all these perceptions

are subject to time. All these perceptions are subject to time, meaning our

perceptions are going to change all the time, all the time. Of course some take

longer than the other; but no perception ever lasts forever.

So let’s begin with one perception. It’s really important to know, you know especially

in the Mahayana, especially in the Vajrayana like the Lam Dre, and especially Lam

Dre, because Virupa, the great master or the saint Virupa is a great scholar of the

Yogacharya-Madhyamika. He was strong in propagating the concept that everything

is your own mind.

So hell realm, for instance hell – where is hell? It’s not really underneath this earth as

many religions would say. It’s, it’s not like you dig this earth and you’ll find the hell,

right. So hell can; okay, that’s hell. Hungry ghost – where is hungry ghost? We go to

eat and then you’ll find the hungry ghost realm - No. South, west, north, there is no

externally existing, truly existing hungry ghost realm; same thing with all the rest of

the realms. So what, what are these realms? They are nothing but a perception, six

kinds of perception.



SAKYAPA


So in this case, let's say, let’s say okay myself okay - I’m getting up after a long flight

from Europe, a very... And a sleeping pill maybe and then I get up. The moment I get

up I’m dull, I’m murky, eh, I don’t know where bathroom door is. I’m searching for

you know the light switch. You know the stage when you are dull, so that happens to

me okay. Every morning I’m a bit of an animal basically, so during that time I’m

experiencing or I’m having a perception of animal. I’m nothing but an animal at that

time; REALLY just like a pig, just got up.

Then after I get up, I drag myself to toilet, take shower; shower and shampoo and

the soap and what else; eh, scrub and facial, what do you call it? You know

moisturizer, all of that. NOW, what’s happening? Vanity, you see you have to make

yourself beautiful, right. Oh, I’m becoming fat. Oh, you know, my skin is peeling off,

more wrinkles like this – vanity. You know at the same time you think you are

beautiful, of course. Of course you criticize yourself – Oh, I’m older, I have more

wrinkles, my skin is dry. But at the same time, you love your look. That stupid vanity

comes in the bathroom. I’m talking about myself, by the way, not you, okay

(laughter).

So what I’m saying is after I get up; when I got up, I was becoming animal and then

after the shower, I think I was god, I’m usually god. I’m, I’m experiencing god realm,

you understand. And then comes to the table; breakfast, sunny side up, cappuccino,

you know what do you call it? Chocolat, touton, this eh, croissant, and all that, smells

nice and then you EAT, you know really GREEDILY.

Even though a lot of calories is not good for me, even though I have high cholesterol,

I shouldn’t be eating chocolates. Lots of calories mean I have to later go and what,

do more treadmill, is it? Treadmill you know, run or swim more laps. That doesn’t

matter; when the breakfast is in front of me, sausages, what is it? Eh, ham, you just

HAVE TO EAT, irresistible, DESIRE. At that time, I’m experiencing human realm.

So I’m giving you example within the one day, not only within one day; within one

hour one could go through all these six realms, experiences. The Mahayana and

especially the Vajrayana concept of six realms is not externally. It does exist within

oneself.



SAKYAPA


Jealousy, we have anger, passion and ignorance. You know ignorance, passion and

aggression. These three emotions are kind of; of course, they, they’re not good of

course but within the five emotions you know – ignorance, passion, aggression,

jealousy and pride – if you were to ask me, which out of this five, which is the worst,

right? I, according to my own experience, ignorance, passion and aggression is –

you know I don’t mind them so much.

Because with the passion you get things done, you can read because of the passion.

Aggression also, gets things done. Ignorance is kind of naïve and kind of stupid so

it’s okay. But there’re two ‘loser’ emotions, pride and jealousy; they are such a loser.

You gain nothing out of being jealous or you gain nothing out of being having so

much pride.

Pride, when you have pride, with the pride your perception is different, SO

DIFFERENT; I mean I cannot even finish talking about it. Someone who has so

much pride, because of the pride, you can’t even have a good date, you know

dating, because of the pride. Have you experienced this? Because you’re dating with

this new friend and because of your pride, you don’t to be the one ‘who breaks the

ice first’. You wait until the other person talks, isn’t it?

Pride, because of the pride; you know pride makes you so fragile – more pride you

are, easier to get hurt. And because of the pride, your world is SO LIMITED. Your

perception, your perception of the world has become so limited. You don’t make

friends. You, you make yourself very limited.

Jealousy is another continuous paranoia so much. As we were talking earlier, so

many stories you write because of the jealousy; so much imagination – all of these is

created by jealousy.

So the five emotions – they create five different kinds of perception and these are the

five perceptions that we have to alter, we have to get rid of – IMPURE perception.

Okay, bottom line is this. Impure perception comes because of impure subject.

Impure because of defiled or as I was telling you the example before because you

are wearing a lot of filters. At the moment, let, let, let me put another way.

You must have heard the word ‘yoga’, yoga. Yoga in Tibetan is called ‘naljor’, naljor.

It’s a very interesting word. ‘Nal’ in the Tibetan world, ’nal’ actually means ‘natural’,

natural. “Jor’ is a bit like wealth; so it’s like wealth of being natural, okay - so yogis

are considered those who have this wealth of being natural.

Based on this, if you ask – What is prajna, what is wisdom? What is wisdom in

Buddhism? It is our mind that is in its height of being normal or natural.

COMPLETELY NATURAL MIND is the wisdom – unaltered, unfabricated,

uncontrived, not manipulated, completely LEFT alone. THAT kind of mind is so-

called natural mind and this is what we are trying to achieve.



SAKYAPA


But normality, so-called normality is very difficult to define because what is normal

for some people are not necessary normal for others. What is normal; sublime

beings, saints, and the sublime beings the way, when they look at us – everything

that we see, they think is not normal, not natural. And the reason is when we

perceive things, all our perceptions are filtered, contrived, fabricated through six

kinds of filters or the five kinds of filters – anger, passion, aggression; I mean eh,

aggression, passion, ignorance, jealousy, pride and many, many other emotions.

All our perception is perceived through these kinds of emotions, that’s why,

perceptions, everything what we see is ABNORMAL. Everything what we perceive,

our perception is not right. What we see, what we experience is not what it is.

Maybe just to let me, let us sort of; I want to see whether we are communicating well.

You can ask me some questions if you want. Because there's no point of me talking

two hours and if you don't understand what I'm talking; so I have to know whether

you're, you are getting what I'm trying to tell you. So ask me questions if you have or

I will ask you.

Student A: Rinpoche, what is the difference between perception and conception?

Rinpoche: They are almost same. Perception is more objective and conception is

subjective. (To another student) I can't hear you. Can you...pardon? I'm hearing a lot

of echo. Yeah, that's better, good. Yes, well ... (inaudible question)

Okay right and wrong; okay right and wrong - let’s discuss this a little but because it

is quite important. Right and wrong, mm; last night I was somewhere discussing

about this and I think it's quite important.

In Buddhism, it's really important that you place wisdom above all, okay. Wisdom is

the most important. Like Shantideva said, just beginning of the Ninth Chapter, he

said (Tibetan phrase) - All the other branches of bodhisattva's activities are taught so

that the bodhisattva can apply the wisdom, okay. Wisdom is the most important. And

I tell you this because at times when we talk about a religion, religion yeah; when we

talk about a religion, IMMEDIATELY our human mind talks about ethics.

I've been, I have been asked many times by one; you know sometimes I'm flying in a

plane and they know I'm kind of religious person. So they ask - What are you? Are

you a Muslim or a Buddhist or what? Then I say I'm Buddhist. Then the immediate

question is - So as a Buddhist, you can't eat meat, isn't it? You understand; that’s

how they define a religion. Immediately a religion is eh, measured by what you can

do, what is wrong to do, and what is right to do, and all that. I think it is true with

many other religions but it is not true with Buddhism. In Buddhism, you cannot define

Buddhism because of its ethics, not at all.



SAKYAPA


I will tell you one thing. Why? - Because if you define Buddhism based on ethics,

then Buddhism will contradict itself too much. In the, in the Vinaya Sutra, for

instance, Buddha said whatever is offered, must eat; the monks must, they must eat

this. So meat is offered, they eat meat. In the Mahayana, Buddha said a bodhisattva

should NEVER eat meat (Tibetan phrase) – you, you should, Mahayana should

never eat meat; he, he emphasized that. See it’s a contradiction. There’s many like

that; eh, many, many contradictions like that.

In the Maha, okay in the, in the Vinaya, a person must hold the pratimoksa vow,

pratimoksa vow such as bhikshu or bhikshuni; you know; a vow as you protect your

life you must really, the VOW is the most important. Whereas in the Mahayana, if it is

going to benefit the sentient beings, you can kill, you can lie, you can slander, you

can eh, say bad things. Basically you can do except the three non-virtues, non-

virtuous actions of mind, a bodhisattva can do anything. See it’s a contradiction,

right?

So right and wrong is a very ethical term, ethic. It’s a very ethical and moralistic

oriented question, okay. Now when we talk about Snang Gsum, the pure perception,

the Triple Perception or the Triple Vision, we use words like impure perception

(Tibetan phrase) impure perception. Now this judgement of impure is not moral or

ethical. The impure is nothing to do with because Buddha said this is impure, you

understand.

So now the question is how do we judge what is wrong and what is right, or what is

impure and what is pure? We judge with the object, the manifestation of the object.

Okay we look; we experience something okay; we have a perception, okay. These

perceptions when we experience, first of all it doesn’t last. It is impermanent, it’s

impermanent. Secondly it’s interdependent. Thirdly it has no truly existing nature,

truly existing entity.

So what you see is like a mirage. It has no essence. It, it does not, it does not last;

it’s not a permanent. And THIS is what is defined as impure. It’s not a moral thing;

any other questions?



SAKYAPA


Student B: Rinpoche, eh, in the Mahayana Buddhism, the buddha-nature is

emphasized very much and also in the Verdant. (Rinpoche: Also in…?) Verdant,

Hindu Verdant, the Vedas, Upanishad; it’s spoken about the ‘atman’. Could you

please give us your eh, right perception, pure perception of whether there’s any

difference between the buddha-nature and the atman?

Rinpoche: That’s a very difficult question. I’m a very pro-Hindu by the way. I am a

very pro-Hindu. I think Hindu, Hinduism is one of the greatest philosophies. And I tell

this to many of my colleagues and I believe; I’m not, I’m not just joking. I always say

that if I’m not a Buddhist and if I’m not allowed to be a Buddhist, and if I have to

choose a religion that is not Buddhism but all the other – I would definitely choose

Hinduism.

It is a very, very sophisticated; it has been marked by a lot of political upheaval and

all of that – very sad, very, very sad that happened. Also maybe the Brahmins, you

know, they have destroyed the image of Hindu a lot. Other than that, Hinduism is a

very; it’s, it’s a very profound teaching. And yes, this question has been asked by

myself to many lamas, whether there IS any difference between atman and buddha-

nature.

Very, very difficult to answer this in one way but on the other hand, the Buddhist

fundamental view of emptiness always helps. Buddha-nature is emptiness,

emptiness is buddha-nature. Emptiness is not other than the buddha-nature and

buddha-nature is not other the emptiness. You know, that’s pro-quote Heart Sutra.

So basically buddha-nature is not a phenomena. It’s not a phenomenon. Whereas

atman, the ways the Upanishad talks about atman, it seems to be indicating that it is

a phenomenon. And that maybe is one of the biggest difference between the Hindu

concept of atman and the Buddhist concept of eh, buddha-nature.

I’ll tell you. See buddha-nature is what we call (Tibetan phrase). It’s a result of

elimination. You got it – result of elimination. If you were to ask me how can you

prove that buddha-nature exists? Show me buddha-nature - very difficult, right. But

there’s something I can do. And that is I can prove that defilement is destroyable.

You got it. That ignorance is destroyable; aggression, passion, ignorance, pride,

jealousy – all these are destroyable. They are temporal, temporal? They are

dependent. They are cause. They are condition. With effort we can destroy all of

them. That I can prove easily.

Let’s say you are an angry person, right. Even without using the Buddhist method,

somebody can pat your shoulder, calm down. Calm down; so we know that anger is

not a permanent entity. It is something that can be manipulated; it’s something that

can be destroyed, okay. I can; so I can prove all these negative emotions can be

destroyed absolutely.

So what I’m saying is I can prove the EXISTENCE OF ABSENCE OF IGNORANCE

and THAT proving, that absence of ignorance is PRESENCE OF THE BUDDHA-

NATURE. Other than that, if you want me to show you a buddha-nature with light

glowing from his head, six arms, eight legs – it doesn’t exist. And if it does exist, then

it becomes an entity and then it is very dangerous. Then Buddhist concept of

buddha-nature becomes like a Christian concept of soul.



SAKYAPA


See the Christians talk about saving the soul, isn’t it? Save my soul, save his soul.

You do not save buddha-nature. Buddha-nature itself is a saviour. It’s the Buddha.

Buddha cannot be saved; two different things. Okay if there is no more question, we

will have a break, toilet break.

I’m trying to emphasize the concept of perception because you could read the text

Snang Gsum and I, I have a feeling that many people forget the essential which is

the understanding that Virupa is talking about perceptions. Actually in his vajra eh,

root text he says (Tibetan phrase) - for the beings who are defiled, impure

perception. This says a lot.

I am emphasizing this because many Buddhists, they, the way they practice

Buddhism is like way they practice Christianity, really. They treat Buddha as the

God. They are afraid of him. They think that they will be punished if they are not

behaving well, not necessarily by the Buddha but by something called karma. And

they feel guilty if they eh, happen to forget practicing eh, I don’t know, going visiting

temple. It’s like the Christians, if they forget to go to Sunday morning church, then

they feel they have missed out something, isn’t it?

Many Buddhists, especially now, seems to be practicing Buddhism as how a

Christian would practice Christianity. That’s dangerous, not good; you have to

change that. Buddhism in general, especially here in the path and fruit teaching of

Virupa of Sakya tradition, we are not trying to PLEASE the Buddha. That is never our

aim.

But I can understand why people feel like that because you see we make offerings.

We make offerings of apples. We make offerings of water, food and in some cases

we make offerings of so-called ‘torma’ which is kind of alien for you. It’s a Tibetan

cake actually, like a ritual cake.

But we make offerings; we bathe; like if you go to Thailand we, there is a ceremony

of offering bath to the Buddha. We pour water on the Buddha and all that. We offer

incense and with a good perfume we offer. All of these make you think that – Oh, this

is a lunch time, Buddha must be hungry so we must put some food or it’s about a

week now, Buddha needs a bath. Buddha must be dirty.

This kind of theistic approach is not a Buddhist way to practice Buddhism. In

Buddhism, especially in the Sakyapa tradition, the root of practice of the dharma is

changing the perception. Really it is so important. This is what Snang Gsum is about

– changing the perception. And changing the perception is REALLY, REALLY

IMPORTANT. Perception is ruling us all the time. In our every day-to-day life, it rules

our life and we have always - all our perception is mistaken perception.



SAKYAPA


As you know, last night we talk about and I can give you this example again. Like for

instance, like we look at our hand, yeah we look at our hand. And every time we look

at our hand and we talk about and think about our hand – we have three mistaken

perceptions.

The first – we think this hand is the same hand that I had yesterday, isn’t it, the same

hand. That’s a mistake. That means that you are saying the hand is permanent.

Yesterday’s hand and today’s hand is same. That’s what we think. You got it? That’s

a big mistake. That’s not true.

Yesterday’s hand is gone, today’s hand is new. And after, in about twenty years your

hand is going to even look different - have more wrinkles, less hair or more hair, I

don’t know. It has to change. If the same, if we have the same hand, then imagine

when you are fifty you still have a baby’s hand. It wouldn’t even look nice. Every time

the hand is changing, changing, changing but we don’t see that. We think it is the

same hand. That’s one mistaken perception.

Another mistaken perception is we think when we look at our hand, we look at

(Tibetan phrase) - we call it. We look at as a whole. We don’t see it as in parts. We

don’t see it as skin, blood, vein, yeah. When we say – let me shake your hand – we

never say ‘Can I shake your bones and eh, skin and your hair’. We don’t, we don’t

say like that.

So we have created this perception called ‘a hand’. Then some people are so proud

that they have shaken hands with George Bush or Osama bin Laden or whatever,

you understand. Hand also has many different kinds of hand, you know. This is a

very ordinary hand, you know like pathetic, you know sort of ordinary hand. But

Osama bin Laden’s hand – Oh, that’s very special. Dalai Lama’s hand, Mother

Teresa’s hand, celebrity Brad Pitt’s hand – Wow, that’s even better, isn’t it? Brad

Pitt’s hand is the best. And maybe Christian Zeta-Jones what, Catherine Zeta-Jones,

ah, that’s the best.

So we have, we have this kind of misconception, eh, misinterpretation,

misperception; that’s a perception. Another problem we make is we; we forget that

the hand is dependent nature. The very movement of the hand, the existence of the

hand, and the liveliness of the hand – all depend on food, elements, SO MANY,

MANY different factors this we keep on forgetting. So this is how we perceive things

all the time, always, always making; I’m, I’m only using the hand as example.

Use it in all our matters, relationship. Okay you have a boyfriend, you have a

girlfriend. When you look at your boyfriend, you make three mistakes again. You

think this is the same boyfriend as what you had yesterday. And it will be same as

today tomorrow, but it is not. Tomorrow he is quite irritating, today he is quite loving,

isn’t it? Or day after tomorrow divorced, stuff like this happens because you think it’s

the same.



SAKYAPA


And then when we look at our girlfriend or the boyfriend, we also look at as, look at

them as an abstract ‘boyfriend, my boyfriend, my girlfriend’; an abstract picture. It’s

almost like Picasso or you know like Mondrian picture, you know, it’s an abstract

idea so-called ‘boyfriend’. Because if you really, really you know separate each part

of your boyfriend, there are things that you might not really like, for instance like his

armpit’s smell (laughter). For instance like the way he snores, I don’t know; the way

he eats too much garlic or the way he is so obsessed with eh, I don’t know anchovy

pizza, things like that. There are so many things that you don’t like but usually when

you first meet this boyfriend, we ignore all that.

We focus on one thing. Because you like his nose, that’s why you have fallen deadly

in love, right; because you’ve fallen in love with his nose, his finger, whatever doesn’t

matter. After two years you begin to realize all these mistakes one by one, because

then you are beginning to take them apart. The anchovy, the armpit smell, I don’t

know, all kinds of things that you know. What I’m saying is perception is a big thing in

our life. The Snang Gsum teaches that; although my examples you might think it’s

something eh, new but I am really not, I’m trying not to, you know go away from the

actual original teaching of Snang Gsum.

Snang Gsum is teaching that. Snang Gsum is telling us that when we have

defilement, we have impure perceptions. Impure perceptions – meaning everything

is permanent, everything is one, everything is solid, everything is unchangeable and

all kinds of. And we can go on and on talk about this impure perception, so much of

it; so much hope, so much fear, not only on the ordinary, you know ordinary eh, what

do you call it? – Mundane worldly life.

Even in the spiritual world, if you are not careful, impure perception can arise. This is

why I was telling you right from the beginning – what is our motivation here? What is

our motivation? Is it really to achieve enlightenment? If it is then everything is,

everything will become easier. Things are less complicated. But it is not; for instance

like you know just now during the break, many people were asking me about

questions such as the relationship between guru and the student. That’s another big

subject.

And many of the guru-student relationship does not work or falls apart because first

coming with the wrong motivation. Secondly, well wrong motivation is an impure

perception already. And while you’re having relationship with the guru, because of

the impure motivation, all the perceptions are also impure.



SAKYAPA


I’ll elaborate this okay. You go to a guru okay. You go to a guru okay, and your

motivation is not for enlightenment. But your motivation is eh, to be near the guru,

you understand, to be near the guru. I, I want to stress this a little bit because I don’t

know somehow watching many of the Kung fu films, you know Kung fu, the Chinese

Kung fu films, and also the Chinese histories; I mean this is not a problem with the

Chinese society alone. Tibetans have the same problem. Indians, I don’t know. I

think they have the same problem.

But because right now we’re, I mean the Chinese society – let’s talk about this. It

seems to be a big problem, you know. What do you call it? They call it what the ‘Big

Brother’, ‘Da, da er ge’ or something, is it? You know when one Kung fu master dies;

he has to have a successor, isn’t it? The lineage holder (laughter), isn’t it, lineage

holder? And many of the Kung fu films are about two students fighting about who

becomes the lineage holder, isn’t it, yeah?

Not only in the Kung fu films but you read in the like eh; even what’s his name?

Master Hui-Neng, Hui-Neng isn’t it? Hwei-Ning, Sixth, Sixth Patriarch, Hui-Neng – he

had a tough time because some of the students didn’t want him to be the Sixth

Patriarch; didn’t want him to have the begging bowl and the robe. There was a lot of

tough time. So what I’m saying is some disciples, some students, some people come

not for enlightenment, but to become the ‘Da er ge’, you understand the ‘Big

Brother’, the lineage holder or they want to become all. There are so many stories

like that.

People come so that they can take photograph with the Rinpoche; or the highest

lama is the best. And later they can show it to a lower student – ‘See I’m someone

special (laughter), you know. You better do; you better do what I say. You

understand I’m kind of special’. There’re so many, I have noticed this. And these are

all what I call impure perception because in Buddhism, REALLY the sole, sole

purpose of practising the buddhadharma is to achieve enlightenment.

WHO CARES ABOUT lineage holder or to become the second in command? You

know, anyway you should not be aiming for the second in command. You should be

aiming for the first in command, which is the enlightenment. That should be the real

purpose but this is easier to say than practised. Many people, many disciples, many,

many disciples – because their motivation is to be close to their guru – sometimes if

the guru ignores them for about half a day, they go through a depression for about

six months (laughter).

Depression; they eat Prozac, they eat Prozac, is it Prozac? Yeah, and SO MUCH

PAIN, so much and then if another student also becomes slightly favoured, favourite

boy of the guru, then your situation becomes very insecure. Oh, oh, I have a comp,

competitor; I have, you know competition, you understand. All these stem from a

wrong motivation. Your motivation is not for enlightenment. Your motivation is to be

recognized; to be the recognized person, and that’s why we have pain. Why we call

impure perception is because it brings you pain. It really brings so much pain.



SAKYAPA


Look at everything. Look at, let’s go back to our hand, yeah. We have six kinds,

three kind’s misperception about our hand, isn’t it, because you know wrong ideas

about our hand? So, so many more moisturizer you can buy, so many and none of

them work, none of them. They work for like five minutes but it doesn’t matter.

Even though like I’m forty-three, and for forty-three years one moisturizer, not one

moisturizer HAD WORKED sort of ultimately (laughter). It doesn’t matter. If I walk on

the street and if I see a moisturizer advertisement, I will fall for it, of course. I will

think this moisturizer, I don’t know Yves Saint Laurent or whatever, Chanel or Body

Shop or whatever; if they say – This is the best, extracted from the mountain water,

extracted from such and such herbs, good for face and that – I will just fall for it, buy

it, apply it. Of course, works for like a day or two and then back to square one. And

that again you have reached to the pain, all stemming from the wrong perception.

We don’t, we don’t really have to you know think six realms in terms of existing

somewhere outside, where you will go in the future if you are not careful. We don’t

have to think like that. We should think about all these realms – hell realm, hungry

ghost, animal – exist within this, within this world.

I mean even externally speaking look at our world. Look at; I always think that

America, if you just watch CNN, maybe not the European edition, the American, you

know the American edition. Like the Fox; do you say Fox, Fox Channel, Fox News?

You should watch Fox News and you will see it’s a god realm because the

Americans don’t know the other countries exist even. They think they, they have

everything and then everything, everybody must act, you know what they say, and

when someone is not obedient to them, they think – How can this is possible? It’s

like sacrilegious almost. This is how they think. I think the Americans are a bit like

god realm; really so much pride, so much ignorance and pride, LOT OF PRIDE.

And big highways, so big cars – so it’s a god realm you know but consuming. They

consume probably more than half of what is world-producing just to feed like ten

percent, not even ten, maybe two percent of the world’s population. The war is

waged, innocent people are being killed, all of that. Pride, you know there’s so much

this pride – We are the best. Our democracy system is the best. Everybody must go

through this, I think.



SAKYAPA


And then when you go to places like Ethiopia or South Africa. I’ve been there

recently. And it is amazing because the food aid they receive from the World Food

Fund and all the Red Cross is ENORMOUS. But there are just thousands and

thousands especially kids dying of starvation. And the reason is just ridiculous -

nobody to transport the food from the food centre to the location.

I thought this has to be hungry ghost realm because in the hungry ghost description,

if you read Snang Gsum (Tibetan phrase), you know all this - some of the hungry

ghost beings, even though they have food, they can’t eat. Even though they can just,

it’s like within, you know hand’s reaching distance, you still can’t use it. It’s like that.

They can’t use it; SO suffering with starvation because of the past, anyway; anyway

that kind of perception.

And then if you want to see asura realm, you don’t have to go anyway; just go to

Middle East – Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting from the day one. They

have been fighting for all kinds of things. Jealousy, all they do is fight and fight and

fight. It’s almost not the news anymore, you understand. Like this is how our human

mind is. It’s like we are immune to it. Okay, six, six people died in a suicide bomb

today in Jerusalem. And we are drinking coke, sipping cappuccino, okay; it’s not

even sinking in our head because it has been done so much. I think that’s asura

realm, you know; even in this earth, you can see that.

And there, somewhere there, I think we will also find hell realm where people suffer; I

mean our children here, they are so lucky. In Afghanistan, in some of these places,

boys and girls at the age of seven and eight, they carry gun. They are shorter than

the gun. They carry gun and go and fight. So lucky; maybe Singapore is a bit of god

realm, I think, not realizing that they’re lucky, you understand, a bit of a god realm -

mixture, mixture of god realm, human realm and animal realm exists everywhere I

think.

Basically all we consumer society, all of us, all of us consumer society – why do we

consume? Why do, why do we love McDonald’s, why do we like McDonald’s? Not

so many reasons; actually I can a hundred reasons why we shouldn’t like

McDonald’s. Junk food is bad food, it’s really bad for health, all of that. BUT

McDonald’s is doing so well. They are doing so well, and do you know why? - All

because we have fallen into the trap of advertising.

This shows we are so ignorant, just like an animal. A hungry donkey – all it needs is

a radish in front of it, carrot; and then all the time when we are looking at Guess

Jeans, what else - Banana Republic, Gap Jeans or I don’t know, Giordano, is it?

Giordano, cheap $99 point what, $15.99 dollars reduction sale, clearance sale, what

else? Christmas, oh yes, of course Christmas is coming soon. Even, even the holy

sort of concepts such as Christmas, I mean it’s a very holy concept. You know it’s a

very special occasion. But even that is turned into a consumer’s benefit.

Very soon we are going to have a Vesak Day shopping, I tell you (laughter). There’s

not many Buddhists right now, otherwise – Oh, Vesak Sale, you understand; Vesak,

Vesak cake, Vesak; well the tree’s already gone with the Christians. I don’t know

Vesak water or something like that. So everybody’s buying bucket of water to put in;

all this because we buy for it.



SAKYAPA


I really think in a way all of us, if you think we’re, we are, of course we all have our

own suffering; of course we have, I mean this is a human realm. We have birth, old

age, sickness, death. What we don’t want, we have. What we want, we don’t have.

All kinds of problems; of course we do have but some of us we’re actually quite

OKAY. We’re actually doing fine.

Just the other night, I was talking, for instance like looking at myself. If I, if I live in

this world eighty years, okay eighty years - that’s asking quite a lot. That’s asking a

lot. That’s expecting a lot. That’s, that’s, there’s a hope, there’s a big hope. If I’m

living eighty years in this world, you‘re asking a lot because everything is so

dangerous – traffic, pollution, so many cause and conditions to kill me, destroy me

and yet I’m asking to live eighty years.

It’s too much asking but anyway let’s say eighty years; then half of my life is gone;

more than half is gone. Now I only have forty years left, huh; thirty-nine okay, thirty–

nine years left. In this thirty-nine years, what do I really need?

Okay, calculate; maybe I don’t need more than ten jeans. I don’t need more than

sixty T-shirts, maybe two wrist watches, eh, eh, maybe about two hundred tooth-

paste tubes, about a hundred toothbrushes. We can budget like this, you now. If you

budget out like that, I think our life is not that expensive, economical at the same

time kind of comfortable. But we don’t think like this.

For instance, when I go to shopping I will shop as if I’m going to live one thousand

years (laughter). So ten jeans is not enough, one hundred jeans; you know some,

some of the closets we have – how many jackets do you have? About forty jackets;

most of the time you don’t even wear it. It’s a waste; might just, might as well go for a

good trip, trip to, I don’t know, Morocco or Ulan Bator or somewhere exotic and see

something new and eat something new; instead of spending on this kind of

consumer things again and again which will satisfy you only for one afternoon and

tomorrow you will be looking for a different fashion and you will want that.

See becoming a victim of a consumer society is the very reason why I think we are

all animals; really like a donkey with a radish in front. We are all like that. We’re all

do whatever the advertisement says.



SAKYAPA


Okay insurance – goodness this. Do you have insurance, insurance? NOTHING,

NOTHING WHATSOEVER can insure you. Okay, that’s the bottom line. There is NO

INSURANCE that can insure you completely. You will have to die. And when you

die, you will not even see how your belongings have been enjoyed by others; you will

not even see it. We, we, you know we human beings we really, we are so ignorant,

especially the Confucius society like us. We are really ignorant. We’re, we are in love

with the family, name, honour, all of that.

What do you call this, you know the Chinese family ancestor’s name on the shrine

and they prostrate? Yeah, name; it’s the name of the family, isn’t it? – The ancestors’

right; and who knows, who knows maybe you are one of the reincarnation of these

ancestors. You are prostrating to yourself (laughter), you understand but we have

this kind of illusion in honour of our ancestors, in honour of our family, in honour of all

kinds.

You know people commit suicide; people you know like the Japanese – they have a

GREAT TRADITION, amazing, artistic, aesthetically, beautiful tradition of how to kill

themselves (laughter). It’s amazing you know because I like watching films. The, the

whole film based on hara-kiri, you know satori; these films are amazing, so beautiful.

I believe they do it like that because they are stuck with this so-called honour. All this

proves that we are animal. We are everything; we are hell realm, hell, hungry ghost,

animal at times. When you go to California, bit of a god realm. When we walk along

Orchard Road, we’re bit of god realm, I think.

So basically this is a perception. Nothing, all this is our perception and these

perceptions come from what? – Insatiable desire, unstoppable aggression, deep

ignorance, completely jaded pride, paranoid jealousy. Every time we look at things,

that’s what, that’s what it is.

See it’s because of this in Buddhism meditation is introduced because when you

meditate, you know like in the Zen tradition, ‘zazen”; I don’t know whether Singapore

has Zen centres. I think the Zen is so good. I’m very inspired by the Zen method. I

think it’s really good for the modern people, especially the concept, the method

‘zazen’. You don’t do anything. You just go to the Zen temple and sit. All they tell you

to do is sit. You sit, sit, sit, sit, sit – nine hours, six hours, three hours; you just sit

facing a wall. You just sit; wonderful idea – because when you sit, at least this door

of perception you know is closed. Then you are at last looking inside.



SAKYAPA


Otherwise try this today when you go home. Sit on your sofa in your living room for

two minutes doing nothing. You can’t. You’ll not be able to sit two minutes doing

nothing. You see you’ll be looking for remote control to switch on the television. You

will be looking for some novel or a newspaper to read. And you will do all of that; and

EVEN they become boring. You switch on the TV and five hundred channels you flip

through, you understand. You can basically chant and count your mantras based on

the channels these days (laughter) and what else? And then you read and that

doesn’t satisfy you. What, what do you do next?

Call a friend, arrange a party, and the normal party with like bit of eh, what do you

call it? – Mooncake, all of this becomes a little boring so it has to be slightly kinky

party, isn’t it? Little bit of beer, alcohol and then that doesn’t satisfy you, then it has

to be even more kinky like LSD, I don’t know - cocaine or at least marijuana. And I

have been to the world where even that is not even satisfying. I have been to the

world where; I don’t know whether in Singapore this exists. They use chains and

whips and handcuffs (laughter). Our mind has reached to that level of you know.

We can’t, we can‘t sit still and be alone even for a few seconds. Why? Too boring,

really boring; we have to do something. Entertainment is what we need. We want so

much entertainment. One entertainment is not enough. That's why there's five

hundred channels – more entertainment the better. But more entertainment means

more BOREDOM. Because you are now limiting yourself; you are now trying

everything out. And then slowly, slowly you begin to lose the reference and then you

begin to develop a certain depression. You really get so depressed. I mean – have

you ever think like this?

You know those who are like my age – FORTY YEARS, EVERY DAY, breakfast,

lunch, dinner, meet friends, fight with friends, don’t talk with them for a month, again

reconcile – same thing has happened again and again and again. And we still hope

that life is elsewhere. All, all of us, we think we are still yet to settle down

somewhere. We’re not talking about migrating to New Zealand okay. We’re talking

about the real life hasn’t begun yet. Everybody isn't it? All of us, including me; we are

preparing to live; we are preparing to settle somewhere. This is the kind of mentality

we have developed.

So that’s it, that’s impure perception. I, I try to do it slightly, using our modern day,

day to day life examples. If, if you read the classic text, ‘The Triple Vision’, you might

not find some of these examples but don’t think that what I have taught and the text

is different. I’m using just some examples. Basically what you need to know is that

we have impure perception all the time and what do we do? We have to apply

experiential perception and that we will talk tomorrow.



SAKYAPA


You can ask some questions now okay. Wait, wait one question already. Eh, can,

can I answer this first? Where does the ignorance comes from? That's the first

question. When we talk about first ignorance first comes from, you're talking about

evolution, isn't? You are now asking a genesis, question of genesis. In the beginning

the God created hamburger (laughter), you know that kind of thing. Isn’t that what

you are talking? Yeah; well the genesis is one subject that if you want to know more,

should read Nagarjuna or Chandrakirti. They don’t believe in genesis.

There is no such thing as ‘in the beginning’. Therefore ignorance, if you are asking

the first ignorance, there is no such thing. Ignorance is again a relative entity. Did I

answer your question? Okay. Enlightenment, basically you want to know what is

enlightenment. As I said enlightenment is an absence of paranoia; okay I will tell you.

Okay, we have so many obsessions, yeah obsessions, certain impulse obsessions

too. You understand - obsessions. Obsessions coming from our own habitual

tendency that is coming from past lives or obsessions taught by our mother, father,

grandparents or obsession that is taught by the great Confucius master. Obsession

that is coming from our culture, all of these; and these obsessions really bind you,

make your life limited. I give one example.

Okay maybe you are the very right, very person, I don’t know - think I’m giving you

example. You know sometimes when we go to bed; some people have this

obsession that they have to put their shoes in order right next to the bed. You know

not, not eh, really right in order, facing the door, not to the bed. They go to sleep.

They wonder – ‘Did I put my shoes right?’ You know, maybe not. You check; you

look at the shoes. Yeah, it’s facing, facing the door. It’s not upside down and then

you sleep. Half an hour – ‘was that my dream or did I really put it?’ You get up and

check.

I’m, I’m just giving you a very extreme example but if you think all our life is a bit like

that. Our life; there is so much obsession like parents’ obsession that the kid must

study this, this, this. Eh, husband’s obsession that wife must do this and that. Wife’s

obsession of husband must do this and that, you understand? We have certain rules

we make and expect the other people to perform. That’s what we call obsession.

As you practice the dharma, you practice and practice and practice; one day you

KICK OUT your right foot with the shoes. The shoes land maybe on the shrine, on

top of the shrine, I don’t know. Left shoe goes right through the bathroom and sink

into the ‘what do you call it’– toilet. You still sleep; nothing, you DON’T CARE A BIT

where it went. That’s enlightenment (laughter and applause).



SAKYAPA


You still sleep; nothing, you DON’T CARE A BIT where it went. That’s enlightenment

(laughter and applause) - No more obsessions, no more clinging, couldn’t - there’s a

short form of that. You know in America, we call it ‘CCL’, ‘Couldn’t Care Less’

(laughter). Yeah, you have reached that level. CCL is the American version of

enlightenment, couldn’t care less. But this is, this, this; but then again, it is

accompanied with compassion though. Not only you have CCL, you actually want

other people to have CCL. Yeah, that’s important.

Yes, yes, yes, all same. Vajrayana vow; vajrayana is a path; path you know path.

And the path, Maitreya, Maitreya said (Tibetan phrase) – a path has to be

abandoned. Path is like a boat. You go to the other shore, use the boat; you reach

the other shore – what do you do? You abandon the boat. You don’t stand on the

boat because boat looks beautiful, because otherwise you are not on the other

shore.

Yes the boat looks beautiful, boat is so smooth, boat is so and you have the best

time with this boat. But your aim is to reach the other shore. Likewise when, when

you reach the Buddhahood, all, not only the Vajrayana, all the other yanas are gone,

has to be, okay.

Oh, karma is a perception, it is. That’s a good question. Karma is basically cause,

condition and effect; and all of that is a perception. When; perception happens when

there’s a mind perceiving it, okay.

Student A: Rinpoche, I want to ask you eh, in Buddhism there’s this contemplation

of Four Thoughts, so can you explain like how do we contemplate on the Four…

Rinpoche: Four Immeasurable Thoughts?

Student A: No, four thoughts like impermanence, precious human birth…

Rinpoche: Oh, goodness, I forgot. Somebody has to remind me this one. Yes,

impermanence – you think that everything is impermanent.

Student A: I mean like what do you mean ‘to contemplate’? Do you mean sit there

and keep thinking, thinking? It is like don’t know how to do it.

Rinpoche: Okay, okay; you can do many ways. You can do sitting. And contemplate

– it’s more liked analytical. You, you sit and watch a thought, okay. And in your

thought comes a beach, a beautiful beach, you understand; and you just watch that

beach. And then because of that beach, it reminds you California, because twenty

years ago you’ve been to California and you saw a beach, okay. Then your mind is

now in California.

And then because it is in California, now you are thinking about Hollywood. And then

you think about some actors, you understand. So within one sitting, your mind travels

from one continent to another continent, one life to another life, you understand. This

alone proves that mind is changing all the time. Yeah, that’s one way.

You breathe out, you breathe in. When you are breathing in, you are a step closer to

the death. You are step closer to decay. You are step closer to old age, stuff like

that. BUT I have to tell you something. Impermanence is not necessarily something

like bad news. I think this is what many people think – the Buddhist meditation on

impermanence is always something pessimistic. It’s not true.

Do you have a Ferrari? Ferrari, you don’t? You might have it tomorrow, all because

of its impermanence (laughter), you understand. See today you don’t have a Ferrari,

you understand. And usually people not knowing the essence of impermanence,

they think – Oh, I have no Ferrari. How pathetic I am. They feel sorry for themselves.

But some who knows a little about impermanence, they think – Well we never know.

I might end up with six Ferraris tomorrow (laughter). And this could happen. So

impermanence is also very good news, really good news. It’s just the reality; it’s a

fact, fact of life. It changes all the time. That is if you only want Ferrari, yeah.



SAKYAPA


I forgot an example of the perception. Perception is also like an idea, idea, idea

okay. You read Motor magazine and this magazine; it says Rolls-Royce is good car.

Now you have an idea that Rolls-Royce is good, the best. Now the Rolls-Royce

perception is embedded in your life. You work for Rolls-Royce. You work so hard,

spending every saving to buy a Rolls-Royce; maybe even managed to buy one. And

when you drive Rolls-Royce, constant paranoia that it might get bumped, scratched;

and by the time you have finished buying a Rolls-Royce, there's a new model, a

sharper, sleeker, faster Rolls-Royce. This is how perception works.

You can read Cosmopolitan magazine huh, and then it says 2004 - How a leg should

look like. You know legs, legs, yeah, shape of the legs. Then goodness, millions

while in Africa they have nothing to eat, the millions and millions of others eat less so

that they have this leg (laughter). And plastic surgery, all of this, all because of a

perception; not because of Cosmopolitan magazine - yeah it's all a perception.

It changes; I mean during what, what is it? Tang Dynasty, is it? I think a fat, sort of

plump is considered beautiful. And I don't know which dynasty, a small feet - I heard

that the woman try so hard to make their feet so small, so that the man likes it, right?

It's the same thing; still it's the same thing.

You know we may laugh at those you know ancient times, uncivilized, do you

understand? Those were the days that unenlightened, uneducated, uncivilized but

it's not true. Same thing; during the Tang Dynasty, maybe the women are binding

their feet so that their feet look small. Nowadays millions of people are starving

because they want to reach a published hip or leg (laughter). It's always like that; so

ruled by perception - that's what we need to change.

Virupa, the great saint Virupa; he's so up to date. This is, this is, this is a teaching,

not taught only during the Nalanda's days, you understand. This is a teaching taught

for NOW, year 2004 it works, 2010 it will work, 3004 it will work. Any more

questions?



SAKYAPA


Student B: (A lot of background noise making the question garbled and difficult to hear and understand.) Rinpoche: Uh, I think eh, yes depends with the strength of the motivation. If you begin your practice, even making offerings with the refuge and bodhicitta – usually all the deeds should be very powerful. That’s why there’s always a refuge and bodhicitta right at the beginning. You know you take refuge and then you say – I will do such and such so that it will benefit this and that. And then to make it even better, at the end you dedicate the merit; so that should take care of your merit. Student C: Eh, Rinpoche, I got three more questions to ask. Eh, first is if we get empowerment, is it all the three, three Yana vows, we get all of them. And then the second question is eh… Rinpoche: Three Yana vows when we receive the initiation? (Student C: Yes) Yes, most of the time, every time we receive initiation, abhisheka, you always have to have refuge definitely. Okay you have to have refuge and bodhicitta also. Without the refuge and bodhicitta, there is no ground for abhisheka. And then you receive the Tantric vow but it depends. If you are receiving the Kriya Tantra, you don’t receive the full eh, like the Buddha family vows. Sometimes you only receive like eh, Ratna family or Vajra family only. But let’s say you’re receiving like Hevajra abhisheka, then you receive everything, the whole Buddha family. Student C: Then that means for lay followers, the five precepts also received. (Rinpoche: Yes) And the bodhisattva vows, those are eighteen root...

Rinpoche: Yes but I don’t know. I think but you see when you are the receiver of the three vows, you have to emphasize the Vajrayana vow as the main one, and then the Mahayana and then the Pratimoksha. You got it? Yeah. Student C: Then do we like go for separate ceremonies to get five precepts, the lay five precepts? Rinpoche: You, you can; you can. Student C: That means that when we get empowerment, the main focus is on the Tantric vows? Rinpoche: Yes, the main focus is on the Tantric vow. Student C: But if we break the, the eight precepts, the Pratimoksha, it’s the same; the result will the same as we break… Rinpoche: If you break the Pratimoksha vow as a Vajrayana practitioner, that does not necessarily mean you’re breaking the Mahayana, bodhisattva vow and the eh, Tantric vow BUT having said that, it’s almost no independent Pratimoksha vow once you are a Tantric practitioner. There’s almost none. What are you talking about? Give me an example. Student C: Okay, for example eh, we get eh, like in Sakya there is a Vairochana initiation? So last time when His Holiness Sakya Trizin gave, he said there are five precepts; so in five precepts eh… Rinpoche: Maybe you can, you should put it this way. Okay, let’s say you have become a monk, okay. You took in the full ordination. And if you are quite serious about it, then as a bhikshu, you should not be eating from the midday onwards, right? Okay, now you have taken a Tantric abhisheka. In the Tantric abhisheka you have taken the Mahayana and the Tantric vows. So one day, somebody comes and says – Please have some dinner. This will make two hundred people happy. Two hundred people are going to listen to you and they will take bodhisattva vow from you. They will engage themselves into the holy path of the dharma. Now what will you do? Should you stick with the Pratimoksha vow and refuse the dinner? Right, so that time you override the Mahayana vow, I mean you override the Pratimoksha vow by the Mahayana vow. That’s how you do it, okay.



SAKYAPA


Rinpoche: And similarly; its, it’s this the, my answer to your question? Student C: Eh, partially but that’s a very good circumstance where you can benefit others. But say, let’s say I get all the three vows, I get an initiation, I get all the three vows. And then I go and steal or I kill some human being; so I think I broke the Pratimoksha vow, right in this case? Rinpoche: Let’s say you do what? Student C: Let’s say I steal or I kill a human being. (Rinpoche: Yes) Then I’ll break the Pratimoksha vow, right? Rinpoche: Pratimoksha vow, yes. Yes, okay when you steal; okay we have to define this. Okay, you kill a person out of your own desire, anger and ignorance, okay of course, definitely. But like a bodhisattva, if you are supposed to kill this person so that you will, you are stopping him, the victim, to engage into such a hideous bad karma – yes, you still break the Pratimoksha vow, you break the Pratimoksha vow but you gain the merit. So these three vows, you have to study something called Triple, eh Snang Gsum, that’s something where it’s taught, okay. Did you want to ask some questions? Okay working with the perception… Student D: (not audible) Rinpoche: Rather than? An event… (Student D: inaudible) Yes, yeah, yes but you see Siddhartha managed to overcome all the obsessions, that’s why it became an event. (Student D: inaudible) Enlightenment with a choice? Oh, yes of course but we don’t choose, do we? That’s the whole thing, that’s what we call practice of the dharma, trying to make a choice. Mm, how to make a choice? – Oh, everything; meditate, hear, contemplate, all of that. It’s all, all this so-called dharma practice is how to choose, basically art of choosing, of course but that’s difficult because there’s so much temptation. It’s like you know smoking is bad. You have heard the doctor said cancer, that, this but the moment you look at the slim, white, what do you call it? Cigarette and the lighter, and the whole procedure of smoking, holding it in between two fingers – all this is tempting, very tempting. Student D: Say eh, all those, those write-ups about impure perception, out of them then why are certain places so much detail, detail offer bad…what are we accusing them? Are we accusing ourselves …? Rinpoche: Yes, well the rituals are like eh; they are also perception really. It’s like if you have a thorn inside your palm, you need another thorn to take it out. So ghosts; okay now before answering this question, I have to clarify something. You said if ghosts and what? Demons are just a perception - you said that. Now that ‘just’ word,

‘just’ is something that I have to clarify. Because when you say it’s just a perception, then you are devaluing the perception. You think – Oh, it’s just a perception, right, it’s just a perception. Yeah, but I have to correct you because first of all, there is no OTHER THAN A PERCEPTION. You know when you say - ‘it’s just a perception’, then you are indicating okay this is just a perception but this is real. But in Buddhism, EVERYTHING IS A PERCEPTION, okay – one. Second; when you say – ‘it’s just a perception’, as I was saying you seem to be sort of putting down perception as if it is not that important, it’s not that powerful. Now this, you are wrong. Perceptions are VERY powerful. Remember the legs, Rolls-Royce? They are all perception. They are as; in fact they are worse than the ghosts (laughter), you understand. At least the ghosts, Tibetan lamas can chase (laughter and applause) but the legs – oh really difficult (laughter), very difficult, very difficult.



SAKYAPA


But as Buddha said; okay this might shock you, shock many of you. I think

Buddhism; the whole dharma practice is a placebo. You know placebo? Placebo,

you know placebo, yeah; placebo is a pill, it’s a fake, its, it’s not a medicine.

Sometimes you give it to someone, saying that this will work. And they eat and they

think it works. The whole Buddhism is that and Buddha said so. It’s not as if I’m

making it up actually, Buddha said that.

The path (Tibetan phrase) it’s a, it’s a deception but it’s a NECESSARY deception.

It’s a necessary deception. Let’s say you and I are in the desert. You are very thirsty.

Everywhere you look, you see mirage. You think this is water and you said you really

want to go to this water. Now I have been to the desert and I know that you are

hallucinating. Now I can be very unskilled, a little bit of compassion but not, no skilful

means, no wisdom. And then I can say – Hey, you shut up. This is not water, this is a

mirage, you just, you know. That’s not going to help you, you understand.

So if I’m compassionate, skilful then I might say – Yes, even knowing that this is not

true because I know you, you. I know that you will not hear me saying ‘This is not

water’. I will have to say - Yeah, let’s go, I might even go with you. And as we get

closer, you yourself will see it’s a fake. And this is what we call ‘skilful means of the

Buddha’. There is thousands of that; how many? Eighty-four thousand placebos

(laughter).

Student E: (unintelligible due to ‘noisy’ microphone)

Rinpoche: Yes, yes because why not, actually why not, placebo why not? Placebo

cure, cure much more than the real medicine, I heard (laughter). What do you mean

by real medicine? You mean truly existing?

Student E: (unintelligible due to noise)

Rinpoche: I will, I dare say Buddhadharma is a trick. It is a trick DEFINITELY; it is a

trick, do you know? It’s a WONDERFUL TRICK. It’s an amazing, compassionate, full

of wisdom trick (laughter). I’ll tell you something. Do you know he could have just

said – Hey guys, you are Buddha. That’s all he needed to say. Does it work? That

doesn’t do anything. We have the buddha-nature; all he has to say – Hey you are

Buddha. That’s all he needs to say.

But simplicity is not something that we are used to. We need complication. That’s

why he said eighty-four thousand teachings, hundred thousand prostrations,

mandala offerings, incense, lamps, Tibetan ritual, bell, damaru, all kinds of

complications. And we love it, we love it, we love it (laughter).



SAKYAPA


Student F: Rinpoche; eh, okay nowadays because when we follow a guru, we need

to check him right for three years; that’s traditionally the (Rinpoche: Three years?),

now we, we, I think most people won’t do that. So and then the essence of

Vajrayana is pure perception and that starts from the guru. We have to see the guru

as pure. That’s, I think that’s been one of the requirements for being a qualified

Vajrayana student. So but then if we follow a guru without checking, sometimes eh,

know we might think this he did something that we don’t think so, so…

Rinpoche: Checking, checking is important. That’s why you have to study first. You

should always study (Tibetan phrase) we call it. Here you should hear, you should

contemplate; you should really study. And then you should check but keep in mind

when you check the guru, this critical mind is not other than your own mind. You are

not bringing a sober mind to check. It’s your mind doing it.

So what I’m saying is you’ve to be, you have to have a little bit of a balance here

because you can check and check and check for next five hundred lifetimes, and it

does not mean that you will not find the fault one day. As long as you have impure

perception, you will always find one, right. But when you check, keep this in mind

(Tibetan phrase) – All this do not depend on a person but depend on his teachings.

Like it doesn’t matter whether he uses fork or chopstick when he eats noodle; that,

that shouldn’t matter.

But it does matter when he’s teaching you emptiness or soul, you understand? It’s

REALLY important; I’m, I’m serious. Some people choose guru just because they

use chopsticks over the fork. No, people do that because you can relate, that’s how

they do. You know we love our guru to have a similar quality like us. We love

anchovy pizza and if our guru likes; oh it’s bit like choosing wife actually (laughter).

You have to have a common, what do you call it? Something common to share with.

It’s a relationship; it’s really a big build-up of a relationship. A relationship is always

so complicated. Do you know why? Because we like our partner to have something

in common with oneself – Beethoven, I don’t know, Mozart, jazz, I don’t know,

Jennifer Lopez (laughter) I don’t know, something to talk about, right. But we also

want our partner to be slightly SPECIAL; because if he or she is completely like you

– boring (laughter). So human mind is so complicated; so is bit like guru, you know

guru is same.



SAKYAPA


We like our guru to be human. I mean imagine you have a guru. Whenever you invite

(him) to a restaurant for lunch, he flies in (laughter), sits on the table, looks at the

food, sucks in all the, you know food instantly – well if you have some superstitious-

ridden fans, they might get impressed but your normal friends, I don’t think they have

a good time with, you understand. You don’t like to have this superhuman quality at

all the times. Human mind is so complicated. We like our guru to be human but at

the same time slightly superhuman, not too superhuman (laughter).

So bear all this in mind and then analyse. What you need is the path to

enlightenment. Is he going to give this or not? Does he have this or not? And most of

all, is he or she interested in your enlightenment? That’s is SO IMPORTANT.

Because especially if you’re a Vajrayana practitioner, basically looking for a guru

means looking for someone to destroy you. You are basically hiring someone to

destroy you. You are giving him the payment of body, speech and mind, quality and

activity and all your belongings, and everything so that he’s going to destroy you.

Guru is someone who you don’t negotiate; no negotiations, no discussions, no

negotiations, no compromise, NOTHING. No scheduling, no; basically almost all the

questions that begin with ‘Wh’ has to be abandoned – WHY, WHAT, WHEN, WHO,

all of that. It’s difficult, very difficult. But if you want a quick enlightenment, it is a

necessity. It’s not necessary for everyone. If you’re, you know a Mahayana or

Shravakayana practitioner, guru devotion like as Vajrayana taught is not necessary.

You don’t need this burden of guru. Really it’s a burden; why would you like to have

someone to destroy you? (Laughter) No need.

Student G: (Too much noise, unintelligible)

Rinpoche: I don’t know whether they had one.

Student G: Rinpoche, when we do confession right, there, there is four powers that

we need right? One is not to repeat the bad karma again so, so we have to tell

Vajrasattva I promise not to repeat again. But I know tomorrow I will do it again; so

sometimes difficult to convince myself that I’m doing it sincerely.

Rinpoche: Yeah, that’s a good question. I should tell you something about that. First

of all, this makes a big difference between the Buddhist confession and other

religious confessions. In Buddhism confession is, confession is basically exposing

the ego, ego. Ego is always resting in its hideout. You TAKE IT OUT. You EXPOSE

IT. That’s the essence of the confession, you understand.

For that you see, you see normally the confession I think many religions, the

confession works like this. You do something bad. Every week you go to a

confession place. You confess and then you’re alright. Such kind of mentality suits

very well with the ego. What does ego want? Comfort, isn’t it? Sometimes ego feels

a little guilty because it has been bad boy so it needs some boxes to go and say –

Hey I have done this and that. And somebody from behind says – Oh, yeah okay

fine, now that you have (laughter), you understand.

Whereas in Buddhism, once and for all you have to destroy the ego. This is why

there’s that pledge of not doing. Of course as you said it’s difficult but that is the

determination and the motivation you have to have. As long as you have that

motivation and determination, even though we know that we will end up doing it – the

deed will be much weaker, so keep on doing it.



SAKYAPA


Student G: (Unintelligible due to noise from microphone)

Rinpoche: Yes, exactly, exactly. Yeah no ego also, of course. Ego is already kicked

out and in its place, a white guy holding a vajra and bell who calls, who calls himself

Vajrasattva sits (laughter), it’s different.

Student H: (Noise in recording – unintelligible)

Rinpoche: If your perception does not invite more jealousy, more pride, more anger,

then you are doing, becoming normal. Yah, if your perception is not bringing you

more trouble, there is (Student H: For yourself or for others?) Both, okay; so I think

that’s the impure perception today. Tomorrow we will discuss experiential perception

where having impure perception, now what do we do?

We try to get in touch, I mean we try to manipulate this impure perception with a

yogic method. That’s what we are going to do; what, what we are going to talk

tomorrow.

And then as I said the pure perception is beyond, maybe not beyond you but it’s

definitely beyond me. But we can intellectually talk a little bit. Pure perception; you

know it’s supposedly how an enlightened being look at things. That how, what I’m

supposed to talk. How, what kind of perception does enlightened beings have? Very

difficult to talk.

I can only give you some examples like an enlightened being will never enjoy a

detective movie (laughter). Do you know why? Because the whole reason why you

enjoy a suspense thriller is you don’t know what’s happening until the end. That’s

why you watch (laughter and applause). Okay that’s it.

(New day) So you’re going to, you have been going through the Triple Perception or

the Triple Vision. Again as we discussed yesterday, it’s good to give some moments

contemplating on why you are here, what kind of motivation. I’m stressing this

because the motivation, your motivation will determine or interpret your perception.

Some of you may be quite new with Buddhism; so for those who are new, I really

admire because it’s kind of a honeymoon period, really inspiring. Buddhism for many

of us, those who love wisdom, those who love intellectual approach to the spiritual

matters – it’s wonderful. Buddhism is very logical, rational; at the same time, it has

sort of endless depth. Therefore to be inspired by the Buddha, his teachings and the

example of his followers is AMAZING! It’s really, really wonderful.

But those who are jaded like myself, those who have been Buddhists for many,

many years or those who have been born as a Buddhist – jaded Buddhists, I call

them. Callus, is it? You know under our feet, there’s a part of flesh that has become

almost insensitive, you know like no feeling – the ‘callus’ Buddhists, jaded Buddhists.

These Buddhists like myself – we really need to seriously think about the motivation.

Motivation really makes a big difference.



SAKYAPA


As I stressed yesterday, for many of us, in the beginning we come to the Buddhist

path because we think Buddhism is going to fix your problematic life. That is not the

right motivation. That’s a very theistic motivation. Many do that. Christians do that.

I’m sure Muslims do this. Actually you don’t need Buddhism if you need to just fix the

problems in your life; you don’t need Buddhism.

Actually to tell the truth, Buddhism is not the best solution to fix your problem in your,

you know, in your life. Buddhism, I dare say is actually adds more problems

(laughter) because you hear all this information like impermanence, right. That

doesn’t help. It’s very sad - things like egoless-ness, all this doesn’t help.

Many of us, we come to Buddhist path because we think that Buddhism; I don’t think

blame you actually. The blame must; if there is any blame, it should go to the

teachers, especially the Tibetan teachers, I think. The Tibetan teachers, they portray

Buddhism as some kind of shamanistic ritual - ritualistic sort of okay you have this

problem, this is the remedy. Okay do this puja, do that puja, become do this, do that.

And if it is coming from the right view, right act, right meditation, right explanation –

wonderful. The Tantric methods are powerful, enlightening and compassionate –

amazing.

But if it is coming from purely a motivation to solve a temporal program, it’s

dangerous. It’s being, it’s misleading. And it’s because of this many of you guys, you

end up trying to learn Tibetan culture instead of learning Buddhism. I mean if you are

a Tibetologist, by all means go ahead. That’s what you are here for. But if you want

enlightenment, you don’t need Tibetan education, you don’t need the Tibetan culture

as the ultimate necessity.

Of course, whatever is given by the master - that is a necessity. I’m telling you this

because I’m, I’m questioning the motivation of many of us, including myself. You

know until today, as a Buddhist I can proudly say to the world that in the name of the

Buddha, Dharma and the Sangha, we have not yet massacred a lot of people,

caused bloodshed, invade others, other countries, convert them by force – we

haven’t done that YET; and I strongly emphasized the word ‘yet’ because it can

happen.

I think there is a tendency that it can happen because you know why? Because most

of the Buddhists, we are so much in love with the cultural aspect of Buddhism, not

the Buddha-dharma itself. A very important question to be asked, I, I believe, okay.



SAKYAPA


The second reason why I’m questioning this is – Why are we becoming Buddhists?

Why are we following the dharma, the path of Dharma? And what is it that we are

following? I think for many of us, we think Buddhism is just a discipline. It is a

discipline. It is some form of ethics, especially Confucius people like us. We love

ethics. We thrive based on ethics. We have heard a lot to be obedient to the father

and the mother, the grandparents, the ancestors, the master, all of that. Yes, I have

a sense, I have a feeling that again this sense of putting too much emphasis on

ethics, morality and discipline – is overriding the real Buddhism.

Real Buddhism, as we talked yesterday is an ART to destroy the paranoia, an art to

destroy obsession. Remember the example of shoes, the bedroom shoes? When

you manage to throw up in the sky and then you relax. That’s Buddhism! Really

C.C.L. – ‘couldn’t care less’, that’s real Buddhism! But we instead try to become, we

have become so paranoid. I will tell you, as a teacher I will tell you - I’m constantly

worried about if I do such things. Okay this I will tell you an example, not example, a,

a quote, a certain experience.

Recently I spent some time with my father. My father is considered a great

Mahasandhi master. And for so many years I didn’t really formally receive teachings

but I went there this time to ask some teachings. Of course, most of the teachings

are in the form of scolding, and thesis and all that (laughter).

But something really, something what he said really stuck me for days, for months;

really put me into another world, and really make me think for days. And after that I

really, really appreciate his words that came out of his experience. You know not just

being scholar. You know in Tibetan, we call it ‘mkhas btsun bzang po’, scholar or

learned, ‘btsun’ discipline, and ‘bzang po’ kind. I think many of us are attracted to a

learned scholar. I mean that’s already quite admirable. Please go ahead but we

should more admire those who are disciplined and learned.

But these two qualities can still be forgotten if we; we can still bypass these two if

you meet someone who is kind. And kindness comes through experience. So

anyway one thing that my father said was; he said, pointing at me he said – ‘You will

never achieve enlightenment in this life because’ – and I was sort of surprised and

you know stunned. And he said – ‘Do you know why? - Because you are so rational.

Rational, you are trapped by so-called rationalism’.

And that is so true because all the time, every time what I do, I do so that people will

not be upset, so that people will like me; almost so much so that sometimes I do

things so that people will praise me.



SAKYAPA


Discipline, you know we try, we, you know like someone points a camera at you, you

go like this (Rinpoche acted a pose). (Laughter) Because that’s what the Rinpoche’s

supposed to do, you know like smile a little bit, you understand and if you are bare

you know chested, immediately you try to cover it, you know like if somebody’s

seeing (laughter).

All this is called ‘sged chos’; ‘sged chos’ - it’s basically a vanity. It’s a VANITY. It’s

not difference between the legs and the breasts we were talking yesterday.

Remember Cosmopolitan type; this is a spiritual Cosmopolitan. It’s a complete show,

its hypocrisy. Nothing inside; all you’re trying to do is behave nice so that people will

like you. You’re deceiving yourself and you are deceiving others.

And do you know where this comes from? Thinking that dharma is a good discipline

or a good morality or a fixer of problems in our life. We have to TRANSCEND this.

So what do we do? Well, use any teachings such as the great mahasiddha Virupa,

the great Sakyapa master’s pith instructions which in this case is Snang Gsum.

So instead of having such kind of motivation, what kind of motivation should we

apply? Motivation to change, alter, rearrange our perception. That’s all Snang Gsum

is, Triple Vision, right? We have impure perception. We have impure perception

because all our perceptions are stemming, coming from ego, jealousy, pride; we

talked about that yesterday, remember, lengthy we talked. All our perceptions, our

friends, our enemies, what was it? Eh, Rolls Royce, legs - remember we talked

about that. I mean all this is impure perception because it stems from hope and fear.

It comes from you know wanting to be, to fit into the society.

I’ve a good example. I use it many times, and I will use it again. It’s like wearing tie.

You know we, we wear tie. This piece of cloth, tie, is actually the most useless thing.

It doesn’t have holes to keep coins. It’s not big enough to keep you warm. It chokes

you while you are eating. But I’m sure many of you know this piece of ‘striped rope’,

basically is one piece of clothes that takes long time to choose. When you go to the

shop, when you buy you have really know how to choose a tie? Which goes with this

tie, you know work with a certain suit that you have or the belt or the colour of your

shoes. Everything has to be matched, isn’t it?

It’s most difficult and also when you put it ON, it’s difficult. It’s not like a jacket you

sort of put it on. You have to tie and all that. And moreover, I’ve noticed that you

know sometimes when I go inside an elevator, you know in a big building. You,

you’re in an elevator; the lift has mirror. As soon as some executive, so-called

executive businessman – they walk in, if there’s a mirror – they all look at the mirror,

well like that, a little bit (laughter). They are all fixing this. It’s really, it’s like; that is a

constant PARANOIA basically. It’s a constant paranoia from the day, the time that he

has put on in the morning until he took off. It’s paranoia, constant paranoia, that’s so

much.



SAKYAPA


AND some of these ties are so expensive. Designer ties are SO expensive. One tie I

think can feed almost one thousand kids in Ethiopia for a month. I really think so;

they’re, they’re so expensive.

Now here in, by the great saint Virupa, what is he saying? He’s not saying that you

should not wear tie. No, not at all; if you say okay, the tie is useless, it’s ridiculous,

it’s not, it’s not good, therefore you should not wear tie. He’s not saying that because

if he says that, then its bit like Shravakayana path isn’t it? Escapism, renounces,

renounce the tie, get rid of the tie – he’s not saying that. What is he saying? He’s

saying you should wear the tie, but know at the same time it’s ridiculous.

Wearing the tie and you should really wear it nicely and keep on thinking this is the

most useless, ridiculous piece of cloth I’m wearing (laughter). Impure perception

okay, this is the, this is my impure perception but I’m putting it on so that my boss will

be happy, so that my colleagues will be happy, so that some people might get

inspired by my looks, you understand. Now if you can combine this, then this is what

we call accepting ridiculousness of the samsara into the path.

The Vajrayana tantric path is like a big recycle machine. You know you; you collect

all kinds of garbage and make it into something useable. That is the whole purpose

of Tantra.

So impure perception is something that we have discussed, I believe yesterday. So

today we sort of briefly discuss experiential perception. Okay we have all these kinds

of impure perception so what do we do? We try to alter this, we try to change this

with practice. That’s what we call yogi’s experiential perception, that’s what we are

doing. Very briefly, no time and I don’t know anything anyway - the time is just an

excuse.

There’s many different ways to alter this perception. One, most popular and most

economical, user-friendly (laughter) eh, what do we call it? Risk-free, a lot of bonus,

lots of profit is called ‘love’ meditation, meditation on love, loving kindness, yeah.

See you are now beginning to change, alter this perception.

Loving kindness; loving kindness is basically a wish to make sentient beings; you’re

wishing them to be happy and not only wishing them to be happy but you wish so

that they know how to gather or they have the cause of happiness, you understand.

That’s, that’s loving kindness meditation.



SAKYAPA


But of course; okay so you wish them happiness; you wish the sentient beings

happiness. That’s a big term, huh. Happiness is a very big term. I mean for some, a

gentle stroke is happiness; for others, whips and chains is happiness. So as a

Mahayana Buddhist, are you giving both? Whoever wants yeah stroke, whips and

chains – are you going to distribute? What is happiness for George Bush is

unhappiness for Saddam Hussein (laughter). What is happiness for Saddam

Hussein is you know ‘turned on’ for George Bush.

So how do you then meditate? So actually we know the happiness – when the

Buddhists talk about, when the Vajrayana talks about happiness, they are talking

about related to the dharma – everybody wants to be happy. There is no dispute

between the Buddha and the sentient beings as far as wanting to be happy. But the

sentient beings don’t know how to gather the happiness. Instead they end up

creating, gathering cause and condition that will make them SUFFER

So now that you know ANYTHING coming from emotions; jealousy, pride, anger,

desire give you unhappiness. Any kind of experience coming from an absence of

ego, absence of ignorance, jealousy, pride and all the rest gives you happiness. And

this is the happiness that you are wishing the sentient beings to have.

Few tips; it’s easy to think “May all sentient things have happiness”; kind of abstract

idea. It’s very easy because you don’t have, because it’s ALL sentient beings, you

don’t have much responsibility actually. So you should think like many Kadampa

masters say - while thinking 'May all sentient beings have happiness', you should

actually care each and every individual's happiness. So pick one; if you want your

practice to be, you know to be effective pick someone who, whom you don't like so

much. Or pick someone who you feel threatened by, your competitor, you know

competition. Your competitor is not necessarily a business competitor or anything.

Competitor can be anywhere, right.

If you walk along a beach and then suddenly you see a beautiful person, a girl or a

boy, and you two are alone - no competitor, right. Then you're about what, what do

you call it? Chat her up, right; chat her up; you're about to pick on a conversation and

just as about you want to talk, somebody walks in. He's also quite handsome,

dramatic. Oh, now you have a competitor, another soul. So competitor is everywhere

in your thinking, in, in our every day to day life there is a competitor; there's always

somebody competing with you, to take over your position, to take over your ...

THEY MIGHT NOT actually, they are not, they, they didn't come there to take over

but you, your paranoia thinks because you, you're paranoid. You have so much

impure perception you think - 'Oh, oh, here comes a competitor'. For all we know,

maybe this person is there to help you so that you can actually do what you want to

do, but we don't think like that. We are always paranoid. We think that somebody is

going to take over your position. So pick an individual being and then start doing the

loving kindness meditation.



SAKYAPA


If that, if you still need some kind of format, then use Atisha Dipamkara’s method

such as tonglen – breath out and give all the happiness and cause of happiness;

breath in all the cause of suffering and suffering of the others, stuff like that.

Okay what’s happening here? Big alteration of impure perception, can you see that?

See in the past, you have impure perception because you think you, whatever ego

has interpreted is the most important but now you are changing that. In the past, you

think you are only thinking about your own happiness, you are not really thinking

about others. Now you are forcing yourself – May the other person be happy. May he

or she has the cause of happiness.

See there is a disruption of impure perception. If you keep on doing this loving

kindness meditation, such a yogi will have so-called EXPERIENTIAL perception. Do

you know what that is? Let’s go back to the beach. You know a yogi is walking on

the beach and yogi is seeing a beautiful person and about to start a conversation

with this. Somebody walks along and interrupts, ah, yogi oh, happy – May he or she;

yeah please you two go ahead, you know have conversation.

You walk; experiential; see the perception has changed now. No paranoia; you,

you’re okay, that’s good, couldn’t care less. They can talk to their heart felt, to their

hearts’ content they can talk, talk and talk. See perception really, remember

yesterday we were talking. We were talking about me actually; about you know

PERCEPTION. You know it really doesn’t take long at times to change our

perception.

You know your beloved boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife whom you have

been together for twenty years; it will take just one afternoon, one conversation –

someone tells that your boyfriend has tails or six navels or I don't know, three nipples

or something like that. You will want to look at it, you understand and out of

paranoia, you might even find one (laughter). From then on, you will like to sterilize

all your things. Every single space that your boyfriend or girlfriend touches, you'll feel

very strange. Yeah perception; perception is easy to change, easy, it's really easy. I

have seen this a lot. I'm sure you have experienced this a lot.

Some, some of us here, you know, we make such a good friend, remember. Really

you know they, they even introduced - Oh, Rinpoche, this is my BEST friend. And

then they travelled along like a shadow; everywhere they go, they were together.

They shared everything, everything; all the cigarettes they share. Six years later.

with one stupid reason; it can be as stupid as a dry maple leave falling over your

head. Really it doesn't take any profound reason. It could be a very stupid reason

and that reason can trigger a big misunderstanding.

Now you are in a big trouble. Do you know why? - Because the other person knows

all your secrets (laughter). He can sue you, he can blackmail you. There are

photographs that you have taken together, you understand. And there are so many

things you two have done secretly. No one has known, your parents definitely didn't

know and he or she is going to, is threatening - I'm going to show this photo. I'm sure

some, something like this, maybe not to that, this extent. But something similar has

happened to you if you can recall.

And then what happens. Your best friend has now become the worst enemy.

Perception has changed.



SAKYAPA


The perception is easy to change, really. Please think, from now think that dharma

practice is an art to change perception. And once you change the perception, really

then you are released from all this paranoia and that’s enlightenment. This is how

you check, how you’ve to educate yourself.

Why are we chanting mantras? You know some of you, especially the Sakyapa

students, reading all these sadhanas, Hevajra, Vajrayogini like this, like paying tax

you know like paying tax. Every year we have to pay tax to the government

(laughter) you know like this uh, maybe a remote control on the television you know

what. And then maybe some of you listen to the mobile phone on the horse race or

who’s winning, Manchester United or Liverpool; still going like this, reading because

somehow we have been told that since you have received the abhisheka, you must

read this sadhana. So this has now become a BURDEN! It’s a burden, even the

SIGHT of the sadhana really makes you sick (laughter) .They’re this thick, they’re

this thick.

But if you think in terms of changing the perception, especially the sadhana

practitioners, really important - I mean like the Hevajra sadhana. Even though this is

not the right time; I will not be talking too much otherwise I’ll be breaking the samaya

of leaking things. You know those who are practising the sadhana, like the Hevajra

mandala, just creating the mandala, you know the eight cemeteries, the dakinis, the

eh, siddhis, the Cause Heruka, the Result Heruka – they are just the most

sophisticated way of changing our perception - changing the eyeball into what

(Tibetan phrase) mm, the, the dakini of ignorance, right, stuff like that. You know

that.

Basically it’s, you’re trying to change the perception, so loving kindness that’s risk-

free, economical, eh, handy, hands-on meditation – way of changing the perception,

way of changing the impure perception.

Next comes compassion, a wish to free the suffering of sentient beings and the

cause of suffering. Very similar, I’m not going to elaborate this, so love, compassion

and then the bodhicitta. Bodhicitta – now that is the essence, quintessence of the

Mahayana teaching. Without that there is no Mahayana path. Really important; it is

because of the bodhicitta, a bodhisattva never gets tired helping sentient beings.

So in the bodhicitta okay, there’re two kinds of bodhicitta – relative bodhicitta and the

ultimate bodhicitta. Relative bodhicitta; okay bodhicitta is not just wanting sentient

beings to have some kind of good time. Okay that’s, that’s really kindergarten you

know stuff; everybody has you know. It’s not just to, just wanting them to have nice

time. Bodhicitta is wishing the sentient beings to have enlightenment. It’s just, the

subject is very big. If you keep on talking about it, I will never reach Johore Bahru

tonight (laughter), I think.



SAKYAPA


Anyway I want to clarify something here, just out of my experience huh. You know

sometimes we go to see the lamas, yeah. And then some of these lamas are SO

gentle, so soft and they don’t scold their students who have so much ego, so much

pride, so much jealousy. They just, they’re so nice to them and what do we say? Oh,

he is a great bodhisattva. It’s because of his bodhicitta he’s being so compassionate

but I can’t stand these guys! Yeah, I think it’s a good example.

This kind of thing intrigues me because I DON’T KNOW whether the lama is a great

bodhisattva or not. Sometimes you go and see these lamas, okay, some lamas who

do not give a DAMN about what people think or what his disciple…Okay, he, he

might scold this disciple not for some petty thing but because he wants to destroy his

ego and pride. And he is risking it because he might lose his disciple by scolding.

Okay next door there’s a very good Rinpoche who is gentle, soft and all that

(laughter).

And this Rinpoche is going like this, scolding, grill him and mince him – RISKING, it’s

a big risk because he might go to the other. But this Rinpoche doesn’t care; he, he

needs, he says what he needs to say. He says what he, what the student NEEDS to

hear, not what the student wants to hear. I think he is a bodhisattva.

Why? I was talking about the bodhicitta, remember. Bodhicitta is not just a wish to

make someone sort of happy and sort of give him a lollipop and you know like; it’s

not that. Bodhicitta is really concentrating on making the other person get rid of their

ego, pride and all these emotions and make him reach enlightenment. And what is

enlightenment? CCL, absence of paranoia, remember. Bodhicitta is a wish to cut the

chain of these unnecessary formalities and all these rituals, and habitual patterns

and inhibitions. I mean ‘inhibitions’, that’s right, that, that’s the right word.

We have so much inhibition. First of all we have an inhibition as a human being.

Secondly we have an inhibition as a Chinese. Then we have an inhibition as a

Buddhist. We have then inhibition as Mahayana Buddhists, all kinds of inhibitions.

We collect more and more inhibitions and each time we collect, the inhibitions are

more sophisticated. Sophisticated inhibitions mean more difficult to overcome

inhibitions. That’s what we do. So you know what, what I mean – a Bodhicitta is a

wish to enlighten others. That’s a relative bodhicitta anyway, very necessary;

amazing, so special. Without that Mahayana has no path.



SAKYAPA


In all this talk of impure perception and experiential perception, there’s something

quite important to know especially based in the Sakyapa view. When we say

‘perception’ you see everything is your perception and all this perception is divided

into three – impure, experiential and pure.

We are not indicating that these are our perceptions but there Is something ELSE

truly existing as a perceiver or something beyond these perceptions. We are not

saying that. That’s all there is – impure perception, experiential perception and pure

perception. What we see is all our perceptions, and these perceptions change all the

time. And they do not exist as a truly, independently, unchanging, unchangingly –

they don’t.

We have explained this again and again - like a friend, you look at your friend and

when you’re looking at your friend, you are perceiving a phenomenon that which you

refer as ‘my best friend’ for now anyway. With a little bit of wrong information or

something happens between you two, overnight changes. Tomorrow you look at this

same phenomenon, then you’re looking at someone who cannot be trusted,

someone who has betrayed you, ugly, irritating, yeah. Neither that good guy nor this

bad guy; neither that good guy yesterday, good guy and today’s bad guy – they do

not exist as externally, independently, truly out there. THAT’S THE, that’s the really

fundamental Sakyapa view, has to, you know you have registered that.

So you know, we talked yesterday, what is LIFE? Life is just a ‘continuum’

perception. And if we have impure perception, we will suffer; therefore we should

change this impure perception – with what? - With love and compassion meditation

and the bodhicitta meditation. Through that we will alter this impure perception.

That’s how you should understand.

Okay, now for the ultimate bodhicitta. Ultimate bodhicitta, you know we were talking

yesterday – in Buddhism, wisdom should be emphasized. Wisdom is above

everything. This is very much we are saying when we are talking about ultimate

bodhicitta. There is a relative bodhicitta which is the wish to enlighten all the sentient

beings; not just giving them some food or drinks, not just save them from temporary

suffering but REALLY take them to the enlightenment. But the ultimate bodhicitta is

absolutely necessary. If without ultimate bodhicitta, yeah, then relative bodhicitta

would not work.

Just now as I walked in, someone asked me a related question which is good so I

can explain to you now. See a BODHISATTVA, when he or she is helping sentient

beings, this bodhisattva helps with an understanding of relative and ultimate

bodhicitta, both. When we talk about ultimate bodhicitta, we are saying everything is

emptiness, everything is just your perception, nothing exists externally. This

information is SO IMPORTANT.



SAKYAPA


Remember we talked about the doctor yesterday. The doctor, maybe not here,

somewhere else; my mind is becoming like a jelly so I don’t remember anything. See

a psychiatrist, trying to help a crazy person; for this non-bodhisattva psychiatrist,

okay, psychiatrist that’s not a bodhisattva or maybe a small-time bodhisattva but not

a bodhisattva who understands the ultimate truth. This psychiatrist, way he or she

works with this crazy person is like this.

As a psychiatrist, you develop a goal, saying - okay this man is crazy, I have; this

man is abnormal, I have to make him NORMAL. I’m just giving a very general

example and you develop a notion called ‘normality’ - through what? Through the

books, through the education you know, coming from Mr Freud. Mr Freud has

caused more problems than help sometimes. Mr Freud has designed a so-called

normalcy, normality. Every psychiatrist believes that THAT is normality, okay.

And then the psychiatrist is helping and trying so hard to make this abnormal person,

so-called abnormal person to reach to this normality when in fact this person should

be normal but normal in HERE and different kinds of normality. But the psychiatrist

doesn’t accept this kind of normality because it’s never written in the book. This

wasn’t part of your degree in your university and this was after all not taught by Mr

Freud or Jung, you understand. So you end up making a, a normal person

ABNORMAL most of the time (laughter).

And do you know why? Because most of these people think so-called normalcy does

exist truly, so-called disease does exist truly whereas a bodhisattva who

understands the ultimate truth, for him or her so-called normality and abnormality are

all interdependent. There is no such thing as truly existing normality, truly existing

abnormality. The only thing that is real peace is going beyond normality and

abnormality which is the enlightenment, yeah. That’s the, sort of really general

example of ultimate bodhicitta.

And this ultimate bodhicitta must accompany with everything even like lighting a

lamp, yeah, candle. Okay let’s say you’re opening a shoe shop somewhere in, I don’t

know, Lucky Plaza is it? Yeah and you go to one of these fortune-tellers or a LAMA

actually (laughter) and he tells you – You should light some butter, what candle

lamps, you know candles, so candles, basically lots of candles.

When you don’t have the ultimate bodhicitta, what does that mean? No ultimate

bodhicitta means that you really think that the shoe shop exists. Therefore success

of the shoe shop exists; failure of the shoe shop exists. Therefore you hope for the

truly existing success of the shoe shop. You fear for the truly existing failure of the

shoe shop, yeah. So you now offer a truly existing candle and because you are so

much clinging to this truly existing candle if it doesn’t burn properly you worry. It

creates some superstition – Oh, it’s not burning well. Is it a bad sign? And then you

do another more. You do another, you go to another fortune-teller and ask – My

candle didn’t burn properly. Does that mean something? Should I do another round

of rituals?

Like that, it goes on and on because the base, the non-existence of all these is not

understood. But this is DIFFICULT; of course this is REALLY, REALLY - that is the

understanding of emptiness. That is a really, really difficult to come but anyway

briefly ultimate bodhicitta is ‘understanding the nature of everything which is

emptiness’, okay.



SAKYAPA


So what do we do? To do that, to really realize the emptiness, first Shantideva said

(Tibetan phrase) – only with insight wisdom, only with the wisdom can penetrate the

cause of impure perception which is ego, yeah. The cause of the impure perception

is our ego, our emotions. You can only penetrate them with the wisdom, wisdom of

understanding that things do not exist truly. But this kind of insight wisdom can only

happen when you have a really good shamatha as a ground, as a foundation; so

Shantideva said must, one must fly apply shamatha method before the vipassana.

And even this shamatha, shamatha can only come when you have a proper

renunciation and revulsion towards the samsara. Renunciation mind - I think we

talked about a little bit about renunciation mind earlier. Remember we were talking

about this tie – What should a Vajrayana practitioner, how should a Vajrayana

practitioner understand renunciation? Just like a tie; it’s ridiculous, but you wear it

still. You keep on thinking it is ridiculous – that’s, that’s really the best form of

renunciation. Don’t deprive yourself with the tie because if you do that, then it’s bit

like a sort of Shravakayana kind of renunciation.

Basically you have to realize all this so-called worldly pleasure, worldly success,

worldly gain has no essence. And if you look at it carefully it is true. They have no

end. There is no essence. We have done SO MUCH and we have acquired so

much. We have managed to achieve so much, but never enough. We still want more

and we think it’s necessary. And many times it is not.

Remember like shopping; maybe the twelfth jean is enough, but you shop as if

you’re going to live for one thousand years. Remember that bit we talk yesterday;

because our mind is; you know why do we have, why, why the renunciation is

difficult? Of course a big part is attachment and attraction towards this beautiful, you

know like Armani, what else? - Giordano, Chic, Durable, all this but partly because of

insecurity, insecurity of thinking one, one don’t have enough - not really,

You know I always think in the West, during the Sixties, during the Beatles’ time, is it

changed now? It’s become so, you know, you know the whole hip, the whole hippie

culture actually initiated with a kind of renunciation but they, you know somehow they

got distracted. I, I wish they, they revive the real hippie culture. I was reading this a

little bit and I’m really interested with this. During the Sixties there was all this hippie

movement, bohemian movement, sort of hippie life-style. And it actually came up

from a very interesting thought. Because what they think was the society structure,

structure that is given and designed by a great man up there, President, Prime

Minister, you know Parliament is just created by someone else.

And why should we follow this? Why should we become a slave of a consumer

society? Why should when, when, when Giorgio Armani says – This is the best jean

– why should we give in to it? You know when, when McDonalds says ‘This is the

best food’, when Coca-Cola company says ‘This is the real thing’, something like that

– why should we, why should we give in to that? Why, why don’t we plant our own

tomato? Why don’t we plant our own vegetable gardens? Why don’t we knit our own

clothes? Why don’t we be self-sufficient? It actually, the hippie movement in Sixties

actually was quite, quite an enlightening one I always thought. You can even hear

from some of these songs, you know the Beatles and all that.

But it, it has then again got corrupted, you know like all the other spiritual paths. You

know the hippie movement has now; now everybody is like hippie outside but yuppie

inside (laughter). There’s really no point.



SAKYAPA


What we should we be doing; you know the Vajrayana practitioner, what is the

essence of Vajrayana practitioner? - Hippie inside, yuppie outside (laughter); not the

other round. Nowadays most of these hippies – they have a big account, credit

cards, all of that. They just wear ragged clothes when they go to Kathmandu. That’s

about it. But there’s no letting go, there’s no sense of not being a slave of consumer

society.

And, and most of us especially Asians, we are, we are in a way very much obedient

society. We have been so obedient with Mr. Confucius, what is it, Guangzhi is it? -

Zhuangzi, yeah so sad. I cannot understand why the ancient Chinese didn’t give,

didn’t surrender to someone like Lao Tzu. I think his wisdom is for me, much more

dynamic, free-thinking eh, but then again I can understand because like Buddhism.

Buddhism can never be misused by political leader. Do you know why? No political

leader can come up and say – ‘Hey you guys, better behave otherwise emptiness

will punish you’ (laughter).

Like, like, like Christians and Muslims, all these, Confucius you know again – ‘You

better behave otherwise the ancestors will look up upon you or the god will punish

you and all that’. Basically we have built a certain structure or a society that CCL

(Couldn’t Care Less) is just impossible. CCL is just impossible. The very teacher who

teaches you how to be CCL, they also create another pattern so that you fall into a

certain trap so that you become NOT CCL. You become completely contrived,

completely hypocrite - all because of lack of understanding of the ultimate bodhicitta.

Anyway renunciation mind is what we apply and then do the shamatha, shamatha

meditation. Of course, there’s many different ways. In the Sakyapa tradition, initially

we use a flower, a blue flower but that doesn’t really matter. But anyway if you want

to pursue the ‘Path and Fruit’ teaching of Sakyapa, Lamdre, then the blue flower is

really good because blue colour not only represents the emptiness but it represents

the colour of Hevajra’s body. So you already get used to this kind of symbol; you get,

you get already connected to this kind of deity. All of that – please get your personal

instructions from your personal guru. It’s not my, my job and this job shouldn’t be

given to me also, anyway with a lot of reasons. I am just not responsible person. I

am very selfish. Really try to think this - don’t look for a teacher like me (laughter).

Do you know why? Really try not to be my student because the problem is I love

myself too much (laughter). I don’t care about your enlightenment. So if I, since I

love myself so much, if you come and if you make mistake…remember earlier

example I gave you. I will say – 'Okay, don’t worry' (laughter) you know. So I will

have more and more population, members of my disciple you understand. I will not

go and say – 'Don’t do this, don’t do that' - because I’m so scared I will lose you.

Feeling of rejection, it's terrible; being rejected by your student – Wow, that’s, that’s

PAINFUL, you understand. So if you want enlightenment, I’m not the right person to

be teaching you, really, seriously – from the bottom of my heart, I’m confessing this

(laughter). I’m not joking or anything like that.

If you, really if you become my student, I will tell you what you want to hear. Hardly I

will tell you what you need to hear. That’s one side of me. The second side of me is I

am just impossible to handle, I tell you, impossible. REALLY, REALLY the most

obnoxious, most spoiled, most selfish, most hard to find anyway you know so just...



SAKYAPA


There are so many, many great enlightened beings and especially the members of

the Sakya centre here, you are so blessed by the presence of the great Vajradhara

HIMSELF, His Holiness. He is, I mean it is amazing to think sometimes you; I

sometimes think it's just amazing that His Holiness Sakya Trizin, actually IN FLESH,

WALK on this earth.

I mean maybe in this age because we are such a jaded person like a Parisian who

still haven't gone to Eiffel Tower because the Eiffel Tower is right there and we think

- Oh well, I'll go tomorrow - so they end up not going for generations. So sometimes

His Holiness is so kind of available and we just call him in Rajpur, we just email him.

When he comes here, you can just talk to him. So we get so jaded and we don't

appreciate. I really think in about, I don't know; in many years if you think back, you

will realize it is just AMAZING that someone like His Holiness Sakya Trizin has

actually WALKED on this earth, WALKED in this room, SAT on this throne, talked.

Actually we have HEARD a voice, his voice - so much blessings.

When there is no more of these great masters, then you have no choice but to settle

with jackals like us (laughter), you understand. Then you have no choice but right

now you have so much choice, and you have a good choice. So much merit; you

have to appreciate your own merit, having met great masters like His Holiness.

And one of the REALLY eh, sort of encouraging, incredibly encouraging eh, source

of happiness is both heirs, both Dungse Rinpoches, they are really arising as a great

master.

And then the young Luding Khen Rinpoche, I have seen recently in eh, Taiwan and I

was so touched because I know him from very young. You know he’s kind of you

know age-wise he’s sort of like junior to me but he has really eh, I don’t know,

worldly speaking matured. But not only matured, he’s more than matured. He had,

he’s very special, not only a combination of two great families, the Khon family and

the Dagchen Sharpa family which comes, which where the Luding, or the Luding

lineage actually arise from.

But I think eh, masters like Luding Khenpo, the young Luding Khenpo is really a

great hope for us. Not only that, they are someone whom you can handle, whom you

can be with and you can find them also, because they are, they are not difficult and

spoilt and just impossible eh, person like someone, some of you know. Right, like

you know so you think like that and eh, get as many teachings as possible from

them. Anyway where were, where, what track were we? I completely lost my track

now (laughter).



SAKYAPA


So the shamatha; so first we develop the shamatha okay, whatever way. Some of

you, those who are practicing the Lamdre, use the blue flower or whatever. Some of

those who are Theravadan or Shravakayana path holder, breathing in and out, it

doesn’t matter really. Basically like zazen, the Zen tradition, you just sit. Sit and sit

and sit and you concentrate on an object. That’s all you do. It’s an INCREDIBLE

method. Do you know why?

Remember all this time we have been talking about impure perception. Do you know

why you have this endless chain-like impure perception? Remember we talked

yesterday, you think about a beach. This beach relates to California. California

beach relates to Hollywood, Hollywood relates to Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer Lopez

relates to - something else, I don’t know. It goes on and on and on. Impure

perception like a chain, endlessly so strong, so solid – comes in our being just

endlessly. Do you know why?

Because you give them the chance to happen this way; you give them. Remember I

was telling you – you sit in the living room for two minutes, you get bored, you search

for remote control. Switch on the television – more impure perception. Of course,

that’s REALLY impure perception, isn’t it? And then one perception is not enough;

there’s about fifty channels of impure perception. If that’s not enough, you have to

throw a party and then remember all the way to the kinky stuff. All kinds of things we

have impure perception.

And this is because we, we need to have impure perception almost. It’s like we are

ADDICTED, we are addicted to impure perception. Even for one minute, we cannot,

cannot sit still without some kind of injection of kind of entertainment, songs, dance,

or music or a television or a novel to read.

And lastly dharma also; dharma is also a bit of entertainment because it’s so, makes

you feel that you have practiced at least. You know it’s like how do you feel when

you finish doing your sadhana, huh? (Laughter) So such a big relief (laughter), isn’t

it? This is why I do in the morning. If you do the sadhana in the evening, my god, the

whole day you have to worry (laughter). So doing the sadhana is like – do it and GET

DONE WITH IT; and if you don’t do it, yeah it’s like that.

We need constant injection of entertainment and that’s why they are coming, coming

and getting you more and more, and you get more and more obsessed. So during

the shamatha, what do you do? You completely let go of them. And all you are

thinking is some stupid blue flower. All the others, when they come, you just go back

to the flower. By doing so this chain of thoughts, this chain of impure perceptions is

becoming; you know like as you’re thinking, all these thoughts come normally. But

this time all you think about is the blue flower or the breathing.

THEN SUDDENLY the impure perceptions, they are shot, they don’t know what to

do with you. Because normally you’re, you are waiting there hungrily opening your

arms and mouth, you know like not, not enough. But this time suddenly you are not

paying attention to them. That’s it. Shamatha meditation is basically an art of

ignoring entertainment, an art to ignore the impure perceptions.



SAKYAPA


As you only concentrate on the breathing or the blue flower, all the rest, impure

perceptions, they don’t know what to do. So for first few months they will really

bother you with their bells and sounds – Hey, you know pay attention to us, you

know like a, like a spoilt brat. They, they like you to, you know pay attention to them;

don’t care. All you look is this blue flower. And then impure perceptions slowly,

slowly give in. Then you know what to do with them.

If you want two impure perceptions, you can have two. One of them if you want to

dismiss by three o’clock, you dismiss; so impure perception is under your control and

that’s what we call experiential perception, you understand. Now that’s just a very

brief introduction to the shamatha. We have no time.

Now the vipassana; after developing a good foundation of shamatha, you then do

the vipassana. There are many, many ways of doing the vipassana. Basically

vipassana is a wisdom that understands egoless-ness. That you can do as normally

what the Shravakayana and Mahayana does – analytical meditation, kusuli’s you

know concentration meditation.

But those who are practising for instance Lamdre like Lam Dus, you know the

Hevajra practice – Hevajra practice is actually not other than the vipassana

meditation. I mean actually the whole sadhana consists of both shamatha and

vipassana. For instance if you are concentrating you know, okay; okay let’s start with

the Refuge.

You visualize the Refuge object in front of you; guru in the form of Hevajra, all of

that. EVEN THAT even that has a little bit of vipassana and shamatha, by visualizing

the guru as a Hevajra - that has both shamatha and vipassana. You know why?

Okay you visualize the guru in front of you as a form of Hevajra and concentrating on

that has the shamatha effect, right. That is the shamatha and you don’t; normally

when you visualize the guru, you don’t visualize the guru as how you see. You know

like His Holiness Sakya Trizin, for instance, but you transform him into Hevajra.

His Holiness Sakya Trizin has only two arms, right? (Laughter) Right but we, we

transform him with sixteen arms, blue colour with Vajra Nairatmya, wrathful, fangs

and all of that. What does this do? This cuts the impure perception of His Holiness

Sakya Trizin, a Tibetan, two arms, one who lives in Rajpur, one who goes to toilet

sometimes (laughter), one who eats, one who eh, one who does eh, walk when he

needs to come downstairs but one who doesn’t fly down to the, you know throne. All

these are impure perception.

And this impure perception comes from the ego so that needs to be cut out. So that’s

why we transform him as because after all, it’s your idea. Right now we have enough

merit to see His Holiness as you know the kind Tibetan lama who is so humble, so

gentle. That’s the only merit we have. If we accumulate our merit more and more,

maybe in few years – bluish colour, sixteen arms, all of that. And then we

accumulate MORE merit, more and more merit. One day you realize that guru is not

other than your, your own mind.

Then there’s it. That’s the end of the, end of the Buddhism, end of the Vajrayana. No

more going to the teachings at last; no more sadhanas’ reading you understand, no

more of those.


TEACHING ON THE THREE (SNANG GSUM) OF THE SAKYAPA


So even in the sadhana, like just visualizing the object of Refuge, it has both the

vipassana and the shamatha. And then you take refuge; at the end of the Refuge,

what happens? Object of Refuge dissolves into you; see ‘refugee’ yourself and the

object of Refuge become inseparable. That’s the vipassana, that’s the non-duality

that is completely different from ego – that’s the vipassana.

So likewise all the path is designed to DISORGANIZE – chaos, right chaos.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche has such a good term; he calls it ‘orderly chaos’

mandala. The whole concept of mandala is basically a chaos. You are creating a

chaos. When you are practising the sadhana, all you are doing is creating chaos

because your impure perception is so organized. They have, they’re really

organized, scheduled-wise, what do you call it? They are so; notes, eh, calendar,

task, eh, reminder, alarm clock, schedules; everything’s so organized - all this

impure perception.

The moment the sadhana is applied, impure perception, organized impure

perception is now becoming chaotic, and that’s the mandala you see. Anyway this is

a brief introduction to experiential perception, the second perception.

Now the third; do we have enough time? Yeah, anyway the third is very short. As I

told you – cannot, cannot talk this one. This is pure perception you see. Pure

perception is BEYOND US. It’s as I said how you would have, how would an

enlightened being see or how would an enlightened being have what kind of

perception.

If an enlightened reaches here today, will he see things like this? Will he still go to

hawker centre and have to go through the burden of choosing, going round and

which one is good and which one is not good? Enlightened being, what does, what

does that mean? Enlightened being means someone who has no ego, no pride, no

jealousy, no attachment, NONE of these emotions. Sure we can only guess, we can

only do the guess job, okay.

See when someone who loves durian, durian is it? Durian, looks at the durian, even

the shape of the durian is beautiful. That’s why some of them even went so far to

design a house (laughter) that looks like yeah. But for some of us, those who hate

durians, can’t stand it, right - so dualistic perception, dualistic perceptions.

Now I wonder someone who has no dualistic, dualistic mind is offered a durian, what

kind of perception will he have, will she have? Oh does, is he or she? No, he is

beyond he and she; this is why always in the sadhana also; like if you are reading

the sadhana - Vajra Nairatmya, the consort of the Hevajra, is not other than him,

right. We are not talking about transvestites though, okay; transsexuals, you know

transsexuals, we’re not talking about transsexuals by the way. We are talking about

beyond male and female, beyond dualistic.

So this is what I mean yesterday like if you are asking me whether I want to achieve

enlightenment? Seriously I don’t think so. You know why? Because most of us, do

you why? Most of us when we say enlightenment; we want to achieve enlightenment

– all we want is a slightly better life than what we have – no need to work, maybe six

days of holiday, one day working; maybe no need. That we can take leave

(laughter), eh, no need, no. no red lights in the traffic, I don’t know eh, sofa seat that

can be turned into a bathtub with one press of button, all kinds of things. This is what

we are imagining, isn’t it? Really this is how it is.




You know I will tell you. You know we read sutras and then in our minds, we

compose a suffering of samsara, intellectual samsara. And then we read sutras and

we compose an intellectual nirvana, okay. Now there is a real samsara and there is a

real nirvana. So we Buddhists we are trying to abandon the intellectual samsara and

trying to achieve the intellectual nirvana. And we are not even one inch we’re going

to give up the real samsara and we don’t even think about the real nirvana because

real nirvana is beyond our emotions, really.

Our, you know like for one thing if I’m enlightened, I will never be able to enjoy a

football match (laughter) because since an enlightened being, I know everything

instantly what has happened in the past, present and in the future INSTANTLY. So

the whole point of a football match is ‘who’s going to score first?’ (Laughter) Who’s

going to win? That’s our so-called FUN, isn’t it? The fun, 99.99.99 percent of our fun

is gone during the enlightenment (laughter) because so-called fun in our lives is

usually a product of our insecurity like a detective film. You watch a detective film.

You enjoy it JUST because you don’t know what’s happening until the end.

And the relationship is like that. We have a relationship. You know the whole

relationship, boyfriend-girlfriend, boyfriend-boyfriend, girlfriend-girlfriend relationship

– I am trying to be politically correct by the way (laughter). All these relationships; do

you know relationships work, do you know how the relationship works? Because

there is an insecurity. As long as there is an insecurity relationship works. So if you

ever find someone who is a little insecure about their boyfriend or girlfriend, tell them

– Ah, its working (laughter). Now you have a relationship, really.

If one of them has no insecurity, relationship won’t work. Let’s say you have a

girlfriend who doesn’t care what you do, right. You can go around with like, you can

even sleep with an elephant (laughter), she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care and

suddenly what do you think, you think? You feel very bad because you think she

doesn’t love you, right. This is how human mind is. She’s giving you a freedom but

you think she doesn’t care. We want her to be jealous. We want her to be

possessive but not too much, a little bit (laughter). A LITTLE bit, only a little bit; if too

much, suffocating.

So all everything so-called fun is actually based on insecurity. Like drinking coffee,

like smoking cigarette, like a drill you know and don’t think that you are an exception.

Really you are not exception. If you are not an enlightened being, none of us are

exceptions.




Since I’m, I’m such a, you know film, movie-buff; you know I watch a lot of films. And

ONE film that really haunted me; actually it really created some depression. Really I

am serious. It really depressed me for months, even now when I think of it

sometimes it takes me to some kind of depression. I couldn’t eat for days; I couldn’t

think of things and that one movie is ‘Deer Hunter’. I don’t know whether you have

seen this, the film called ‘Deer Hunter’. Robert De Niro is acting there and that film

really stunned me for years.

There’s a scene where they play Russian roulette. Remember Russian roulette, one

bullet in the pistol and they shoot. It’s, it’s betting basically and then you bet that you

will not get killed. And then you count and then you shoot yourself. One of them, you

know there’s two people in, in the, when you play this game; and whoever gets shot

is lost. Such a bad, daring game during the Vietnam War and there’s an American

soldier – he was forced to play this game by the Viet Cong. And he has been so

lucky; every time he shoot, empty right, blank, so he always wins. Years later you

know when the War is ended, he is still in Vietnam doing this, out of his will. Why?

Because he is so attached to this thrill of not being shot.

And the reason why it made me depressed is I was thinking - I have the complete

tendency, tendency like him. I can do this. I can see myself doing the Russian

roulette and getting addicted to this. Really it’s amazing, it really scared me. I was so

scared that I have the whole tendency for liking such a game, for loving or getting

addicted to such a game, thrill, thrilling, such a thrill. So this could, this kind of thing

can happen. Anyway I’m not supposed to talk about this kind of depressing things.

I’m supposed to talk about the pure perception (laughter).

Pure perception is basically a perception that is perceived without any dualistic mind.

So all we could do is guess. At the moment we can say we, we have a name,

beautiful name. It’s called (Tibetan phrase) - jnanas and kayas, bodies, dimensions

and the wisdom; so how they look like – we don’t know. And I am the last person you

should be asking.

Well we have managed to kill our time. So that’s about all. Please those who are

interested in the practice, keep practicing like this long and short, both ways. And

spiritual practice is VERY EASY; it’s a matter of thinking. It’s not a matter of

chanting. Try to incorporate your spiritual thinking in your day-to-day life, really. Drink

a cup of cappuccino. As it travels from your mouth and through the throat, and as it

lands here – think that actually is worthy of a celebration, because it could have not

happened. Moment by moment we can appreciate our life. If you look at a beautiful

flower; suddenly a beautiful butterfly’s flying you see, amazing. Appreciate that, dwell

in that moment. And that’s how you incorporate your life and, and the spiritual life.

Dwell in the present, not to the past – no use, gone. Don’t dwell too much on the

future – no use, it’s not under your control. Basically the ONLY thing that you can

control is this whatever you have – this moment. Past you can’t control, future you

can’t control. What you can control is what you have RIGHT NOW, this minute. And

how do you control? Not with chanting mantras, not with binding them with your

rosary but by just looking at it and appreciating it. That’s it and happy to see you, and

I hope to see you again soon. (Applause)

THE END

(transcribed from audio recording ‘THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION (SNANG

GSUM’) … Singapore 2003)

by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche



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.

the three levels of perceptionteaching on the three visions (snang gsum) of the sakyapaby dzongsar...

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