Fourth Discourse: Monday Afternoon

If you have a sympathetic attitude toward others, it may not seem like much, but it is of great benefit. That is why our motivation is very important. In Buddhism, we feel that an action may look religious or non-religious, but it is difficult to distinguish whether it is good or bad. The distinction of good or bad comes from your attitude. Behind each action, there is the history of the action in your mind. Every action is interdependent, and it is the attitude of your mind that makes the action good or bad.

I’ll give you an example. There was a rich man who made large offerings to a monastery with the attitude of the eight worldly dharmas, for the purpose of reputation. Outside there was a beggar who rejoiced in those offerings with pure motivation. The beggar rejoiced at the rich man’s action and felt pleased for him. Then the rich man spent a lot of money on a ceremony, or puja, and many thousands of monks came. But when the abbot did the dedication, he dedicated the merits to the beggar who was outside and never mentioned the rich man who had given so much money. The puja or ceremony or whatever was sponsored by the rich man, but the rich man was only concerned with his reputation. He did all these things with a worldly mind. He spent so much money, but there was no pure motivation.

That is a good example. It looks like the rich man is doing something good; it looks like a religious ceremony. But as a matter of fact, although externally there is religious action, inside there is evil. The beggar didn’t do anything; he just rejoiced. But because of his pure motivation, he received great benefit.

Perhaps my example is not so good for the Swedish mind because in Sweden you don’t have beggars! I should give you a Swedish example—but I don’t know Swedish history. I think you understand what I mean. An action may look positive on the outside, but inside there may be an evil attitude, so the action will not be pure.

Normally, if you have a sympathetic pure motivation, even small actions, such as giving just a cup of water to someone, are of great benefit. Okay? It is not the action itself but the motivation that is important, because a sympathetic motivation brings openness and makes you lose your selfish darkness. That is all; that is the main point. Clear or not clear? Is there some good Swedish example or not? Are you clear? As long as you are clear, I don’t need any more examples.

Remember, the nuclear energy of life and the nuclear energy of actions is the motivation, not the action itself. The action is whatever we are doing, but behind the action there is the history of the motivation, which makes the action positive or not.

Yesterday, we said that pure motivation makes an action good and impure motivation brings bad behavior. What is a good action or a bad action? You cannot say “religious action is good, non-religious action is bad.” You cannot say that—it is fanatic. Okay?

Religious action with evil motivation is also bad. Are we communicating? How many wars have we had? How many wars are there in the world right now—religious wars? These are evil. We rationalize, “I should go to war because he is destroying my religion.” That is rationalization. It’s foolish, foolish!

Tibetans have a joking way of saying that a person who kills your father and mother can explain why he killed them. He may have some explanation, but that does not mean he is right. It is the same thing—in this world now religious people and non-religious people are bringing so many problems to humanity because we don’t understand the essence of religious actions. Whose religion says that you should kill, injure, and destroy other people? Whose religion says that?

When religious people engage in a religious war, they explain it by saying, “He is destroying my country and my religion. Therefore, I have to protect myself; therefore, I want to kill.” The moment he says this, it means he is killing his own religion.

From my point of view—I am a Tibetan monk—when the Chinese came, if I had said, “Oh, the Chinese are destroying my religion, I want to kill all the Chinese,” then I would have been killing myself and killing religion. This is my understanding, my interpretation.

We should understand what true religious action is. True pure action means being sympathetic towards others. Though you may say you are acting for religion or Buddha or Mahayana or some doctrine, if you are motivated only by the self-cherishing thought and you kill other people in cold blood, you are completely immoral.

That is why Shakyamuni’s teaching puts so much emphasis on eliminating attachment. He even says that being attached to Shakyamuni is garbage. Shakyamuni was so wise: he told his followers that he did not want them to get attached to him. His followers should not be attached to his doctrine. He didn’t want them to be attached to Buddha or Dharma or Sangha or bodhisattva. He said that was garbage—no exception. All attachment is a problem for the human mind. It destroys human peace. So in the Prajñaparamita he said to stop holding onto the idea of bodhisattvas or Buddhas or whatever as self-existent entities. Both are garbage; you should throw everything in the garbage bag. All right?

If you look at the world now, you can see what happens. Political people, who are actually non-religious, use religion and religious things to their advantage. They are really not interested in ethical religion, true religion, but they use religious philosophy this way and that way to take advantage. Are we communicating or not?

It is a complete joke, totally a joke. They will use anything. They use religious ideas like candy, using them this way or that way. They use anything, any religious idea, any kind of atmosphere. The most important thing is to confuse people, to turn them against each other, and to destroy harmony—that is all. You can see it when you look at the world. Sometimes you learn so much by looking at the world. You learn true Dharma from humanity, and you learn so many things about the mind from what is going on.

Now, let’s be practical. What can you do practically? Most of you people are workers and have a job to deal with, so in the morning when you get up each day, make a strong dedication: “Today I will try as much as possible to dedicate my life for others. I will do whatever I can physically and mentally and use my life for others as much as possible.” Make this strong motivation and think, “When circumstances bring problems and when people criticize me, I will not become angry.”

With this strong motivation, even if you work as a garbage collector taking garbage from the city, picking up garbage and putting it in a truck, that is still okay. You are doing something for humanity and other people. The most important thing is your motivation.

I think generating the correct motivation is very important, especially in our Western society. Western society people were not made to be great meditators. They were not made for great concentration meditation. Do you understand? We were not made for that situation. But we can dedicate our lives to others. We can dedicate for others, to serve others, to do something meaningful for others. And we can really practice this daily.

I feel this is a more effective way of living life than just saying, “Oh, I have to be a great meditator.” Our society is not made for that kind of thing. But practically, we can dedicate ourselves to others. We can control our anger, control our selfishness, and control our attachment. We can just be open and serve others as much as possible. This we can do.

We also have the good example of the Christian people in our environment. There are many good people in your religion, but you don’t see them. You don’t look at the good religious people, but they have a good heart. To me it seems Western Christianity has much to offer. There are many Christians who are serving others with pure motivation and loving kindness.

In Eastern countries I don’t think there are many monks and nuns working as social workers, amongst people with leprosy and cancer, or as voluntary workers. I haven’t seen so many; it is not my experience anyway. But in the West I have seen Christian people doing voluntary work amongst people with diseases. Even though they could catch the disease themselves, they still give themselves up to serve others.

I think that is so great, so great. To me that is enough. I don’t care if they know about Buddhist philosophy or whether they are religious. In their mind they are completely giving their life for others. What more can you offer? You have good examples in your society of people who have given their lives for others. That is why since you have such good examples in your country, you yourself should try as much as possible to eliminate the selfish attitude and serve others. I think this is very practical, and you can do it. You can do it! It eliminates so much of your confusion and dissatisfaction.

That’s enough now about bodhicitta and enough about renunciation, so renunciation goodbye, bodhicitta goodbye, pure motivation goodbye, and bla bla goodbye!

All right. Let’s talk now about wisdom: shunyata wisdom. Wisdom is simple, very simple. Look at it this way: We have a loving kindness object—other people are the object of our loving kindness. But the problem is that we hold onto that as a concrete self-existent entity. We hold onto our object of love as concrete and our object of hatred as concrete, so we are not really solving the problem. Am I communicating?

You have love, but as long as you hold on to objects as concrete, you are still deluded. In Western religion, for example, you say, “I love God.” People have tremendous devotion and love for God. But if you hold God and Buddha as self-existent, it doesn’t solve the problem—the ego is still there. The ego-problem is still there because you are holding things as self-existent.

Therefore, wisdom is necessary. Pure motivation and pure love are like make-up, cosmetic make-up—they make everything look beautiful. That’s okay, but you need wisdom to see through the cosmetic make-up, to see reality. You have to completely see through whatever is happening here under the artificial make-up. When you see that loving kindness is artificial, that there is some artificial fantasy going on with love, then with wisdom you can see through the cloud of loving. You can see reality.

That wisdom, prajña, is very important in order to cut dualistic concepts completely. Loving kindness and pure motivation cannot cut the root of the problem and the dualistic concepts. They are emotional; they slow down the symptom, but in order to completely cut and completely eradicate the problem, you definitely need prajña wisdom.

We already talked about projections: you put superficial projections on yourself and on others, both good and bad, and neither are in touch with reality. For example, when you see a beautiful object, there is something there. But what happens is that your mind adds more qualities onto that object and fixes it: “That is beautiful. That is my style.” You create your style. You create your own preconception of what beauty is, and then you try to fix beauty as much as possible on that object. This preconception is something that you have projected. The object itself doesn’t have any concrete concept qualities.

Therefore, you need sharp wisdom to break through the projections and touch reality. When you see a beautiful object, you see it as concrete. There is no space. The beauty is dependent on the make-up, but you don’t think of this. Beauty is dependent on water, earth, mucus, blood, and bone; it is dependent on a combination of all these things. But you don’t conceive of the beauty as an interdependent combination. You just think PAM! this is beautiful. You don’t allow for the interdependent characteristic of phenomena. You don’t think about the actual content of the object.

That is why we are deluded. That is why we definitely need an understanding of interdependence in order to break down preconceived ideas of beauty. Then we can see reality. Otherwise we are deluded. Beauty is something—there is something there. But you add more onto it, and in an interdependent way it appears as beauty. Without your mind labelling, there is no outside beauty at all. That is what you have to recognize and then, every day, eliminate dualistic concepts.

I think you can analyse this. In my opinion it is not enough for me to just talk about these things with words, bla bla. You can analyse this right now and see the funny things going on in your mind. You can definitely see them right now.

Whether strong or weak, our hatred concepts and desire concepts are not dependent on the object’s reality. Let me give you an example: Suppose I am angry with her or with him. I build up a strong, strong, strong anger. As I become more and more angry, they become more and more ugly. Are we communicating or not? This is what happens in my mind. I don’t give them any time or space because I am building up such strong anger. Suddenly, they are transformed into something ugly.

This ugliness has nothing to do with them. It is just my projection. Nothing about them has changed—apart from the changes of impermanence, of course. But because my ego rationalizes and my hatred is so strong, I build things up: “He is bad because of this. She is bad because of this. He is not so nice because of this. He is selfish or he is an angry person because of this.” You build this up each time, and they become more and more like monsters.

It works the other way too. If I have a strong desire for someone, I say: “Oh, she is beautiful. Her nose goes a little bit this way—just right,” or, “He sounds so nice,” “She is very hypnotic.” My mind has already decided that everything about them is beautiful. Therefore, everything he or she does, their smile, everything, all five sense objects—form, color, smell, taste, touch, sound—is fantastic. As I have already decided this, they appear more and more beautiful to me every time I see them. It has nothing to do with their reality; it is something that I made up. I make up all this incredible conversation: “Oh, he is beautiful because of this and this and this characteristic,” or “because he is such a good meditator.”

Many of my students come and tell me about their girlfriends or boyfriends. They tell me how they feel. They are very open. They say, “Lama, I have this and this; I feel this and this.” They describe it all to me and I listen—and laugh! To me it is cleanclear what is going on in their minds. They project that she is like a dakini, or he is like Heruka. Wow! Have you heard such things?

My point is that all of this is dualistic—dualistic, unclear concepts. You try to put good or bad qualities on objects, but it is completely your projection, your fantasy. In order to recognize this trick, you need sharp wisdom—that is why we go into the natural state, the clean-clear state. Then you see how much you are projecting, and you can completely laugh at yourself.

When you see how you have been projecting, everything seems unbelievable. You think, “I must be crazy. What am I doing? I have painted all these fantasy relationships, this fantasy world, this fantasy society, these fantasy people.” You can see this clean-clear. That is why we need a lot of wisdom to recognize this fantasy world that we are running around in, all the time, twenty-four hours a day. This is the way that we are deluded. We believe in what appears to us as happy or unhappy, beautiful or ugly. We don’t recognize this as our projection; we believe in these things as if they were self-existent entities. So we become concrete and the world becomes concrete. There is no way to be flexible.

When you have tremendous, incredible polluted energy inside, your concrete concepts become so strong that you see objects at the peak of beauty. As long as your concrete superstition is strong, at its peak, you also see objects at peak beauty. As the polluted energy of concrete concepts slows down, the object’s beauty also slows down. Then you start to see something ugly.

All this has something to do with the inside energy of concepts, the ego. I think it is very important to know this. It is like a kind of trick really. The whole thing is a trick, here (Lama indicates his heart). The trick happens here, and then you make an incredible bubble outside there. This is very important.

At first you may fix one object as being perfect; but as time passes and the energy slows down, you think, “Oh, maybe this is not the only perfect thing,” and you begin to look around again. First you think that this is the most perfect thing in the world, then after some time when the energy has slowed down, you start making comparisons again. That is dualistic thinking. You have one thing here, then you bring something else and immediately start comparing them. You compare two things so there are two things conflicting in your mind. That is what we call the dualistic concept.

As long as you have dualistic concepts, you will never find one perfect thing, I can tell you! I bet you, as long as you play this game of having two things inside the mind, there is no way that you will find one thing that is perfect: religious things, non-religious things, or material things. This is what Buddhist philosophy and psychology have discovered. There will always be two things fighting inside your mind.

For example, first of all you don’t have a car. Then you buy an ordinary car. The next day you look at another car and the car that you have is no longer any good. Who can satisfy a rich man in the Western world with a car? He is never satisfied, never. That is why cars keep on changing, a little bit this way or that way, cars always have to be changed according to fashion. Fashion, design, cars, and material and manufactured things in Western society are all good examples of the dualistic deluded character of the mind. All right?

As a matter of fact, you can see that since we were born up to now, we have been living in a completely hallucinated and deluded vision of the world. We have believed our own ego’s vision of a hallucinated and deluded world. That is what we are living in, isn’t it?

Now it looks like we are terrible! Are we living in our own hallucinated worlds or not? How do you feel? Do you feel that you have been living in a hallucinated fantasy world of your own ego since you were born up to now and that you are going to be living in it until you die? Let’s do a scientific examination here. Do you feel that way? (People give different answers, some say “Yes” others “No.”)

Lama : Do you feel that way?

Student : Sometimes.

Lama : Sometimes? She is right! Then you? You don’t feel that way? All right. You?

Student : Sometimes.

Lama : Sometimes? Thank you so much—he is so serious, you know! All right.

Student : Well, I have forgotten which is positive and which negative.

Lama : All right. And mama?

Mama : Mostly.

Lama : Mostly you feel that way but sometimes not? You?

Student : Sometimes.

Lama : Sometimes, yes. Sometimes you feel what? Repeat that again. Sometimes you really feel you are living completely in your own fantasy projection world? Then what do you do? What is your solution?

Student : I think about it.

Lama : Oh great! Great, congratulations! Thank you, that is good enough. Then when you think about it, do you overcome it or not?

Student : Sometimes.

Lama : But sometimes it is not possible? Yes, okay. He is a young boy but still he is checking. Great. Then what do you feel?

Student : I don’t know really.

Lama : Sometimes you just give up?

Student : Two times.

Lama : Two times? All right. So you don’t feel that you are living in a fantasy world?

Student : I misunderstood. I thought you asked if we felt we were leaving our fantasy world.

Lama : No, no, living in. Not going away, staying in the fantasy world.

Student : I cannot say I am leaving it because I am in the middle of it.

Lama : Maybe my language is not clear sometimes. When you check up, when you question your own notion of reality; your relationship with the world, the inner world and outer world, and the feeling you have of your relationship with yourself and the world, do you feel your mind is making something up or not? Thinking: “I am this, the world is this, therefore I should do things this way or that way.” Not clear? What is your name?

Student : Aino.

Lama : Yes, “Aino.” “I am Aino. I do things this way or that way. This is what I am. This is my quality. And the world is this way and that way. So I go on in the world like this….”

Student : And it doesn’t function the way I think it will…?

Lama : I say it functions exactly as you project yourself and the world. That is what you feel is totally true?

Student : There are…well…

Lama : Now, I think we are communicating.

Student : It doesn’t function the way I wish it could, as my imagination thinks it could.

Lama : Okay, that is why you are living in a fantasy world. We agree now—we completely agree. That is what I am saying: It doesn’t matter how intelligent I am or how clever I am, my ego puts limitations on me. I say that I am this, then I project that the world is like this.

I say Sweden is like this—actually I have no idea of the really long history of the Swedish people, Swedish ladies and gentlemen— but still I make a projection; I put something together. So I am living in my own fantasy world of Sweden. That is what I mean. I am living in an illusory world. All right?

I think that is enough with this section. Now this section— how many people feel that way?

Student : Yes, sometimes.

Lama : Only sometimes, not always? When are you not living in your own fantasy world? When you are sleeping or what? Well, that is a good question. I would like to know. When are you not living in your own fantasy world? When you were a baby?

Student : No.

Lama : This is good education. We are being scientific. We are all in college checking human experience. She said many times that she lives in her own fantasy world but not always, so my question is: when is she not living in her fantasy world?

Student : When I see things very concretely, like in this room, and I don’t just have ideas about them.

Lama : Pardon? Wait a minute, you be careful what you are saying. (Laughter)

Student : Sometimes I feel everything is very concrete. I can catch everything; I am not just figuring something out in my head.

Lama : When are you not figuring yourself out in your head? When are you not identifying yourself as a beautiful Swedish girl? I think you have to check up. Check up—you are going to have a big realization, I think!

You think that when you are not thinking about things in your head you are not in a fantasy world. But that is not true. There is a conscious and an unconscious way of identifying that you are this way or that way, doing this or that. So that means you are always living in your own fantasy world.

Student : But the world is not a total fantasy, of course. I mean, as you said, we see people suffering, and there is some truth in that, isn’t there? I mean, the world we see and the world we make up have some relationship to the true world. We create everything we know, it has a kind of relationship to us and the world. So what we make up is our fantasy, of course, in relationship to who we are.

Lama : Yes, I think that’s clear. Right. What he means is that there is something that we make up that is a fantasy, but at the same time there is the truth. Hungry people or suffering people are there—there is something there—but when you start saying that this is good or this is bad, then you are adding your fantasy. When you begin to say good or bad about something, you are putting your fantasy blanket on it. Yes? All right, I think we are communicating.

In Buddhism we talk about shunyata wisdom. Wisdom means seeing; you penetrate through the obstacles and see your fundamental nature, your true nature. That is shunyata. And the true nature of you and of me is non-duality. Therefore, when you discover the true nature of yourself, you discover the totality of all existence, the totality of all beings. At that moment, in that experience, you don’t have any fantasy projections of good, bad, evil, and all these things. There is no such thing as a good friend or a bad friend. You don’t have any love object, and you don’t have any hatred object; you are just completely one unity. I am talking about experience.

 

Well, I think that is enough. Now I have to make a conclusion. The conclusion is that when you leave your mind in a natural state, the natural state of your own consciousness, it naturally or intuitively leads to the experience of no existence of good or bad, evil or good, friend or enemy. This experience leads to almost the zero of I or self-existence. Concrete concepts disappear. That is the whole thing.

Then when you experience that, you should not be scared. As much as possible, stay in that state and comprehend that state. Comprehend. Comprehend that state with intensive awareness and determination and no intellectual thinking. Stay there as much as possible. Then you discover non-duality. That is all.

Now, questions. I think I will stop for questions. I think it’s better to have questions and answers rather than me talking.

Student : I don’t understand how it is possible for a person like the Dalai Lama to have a continuous stream of incarnations when there is a doctrine of “no self ” in Buddhism.

Lama : Good question. In the English language “self ” has at least ten or twenty different meanings. From the Buddhist point of view “there is no self ” means that there is no concrete self. When you fix “I am this,” you make this your essence, but you don’t exist in that way. Why not? Because your ego is identifying the quality of self as being permanent and unchanging. It identifies the self as permanent, self-existent, and independent, but the self doesn’t have these qualities. This is only your fantasy and projection. Clean-clear?

Student : What about a person like the Dalai Lama who has continuous reincarnations that are identified as the same?

Lama : That is different. That refers to the existence of a continuity of consciousness, but it is not self-existent. Take yourself, for example. Since you were born up to now, your consciousness has been continuously existent, but it does not have an unchangeable self-existent character.

Okay, if there are no more questions, we will go on with the refuge ceremony. If you have any questions, you can write to her (pointing to Karin). She lives here in Sweden. Or you can write to me in the East. We are responsible for what we have told you.

The world is so small, you should not worry. I can still face you. I can still come back to Sweden; I am not afraid of what I have told you. It is my responsibility and I have to make everything as clean-clear as possible. Please write to me if you are uncomfortable and I will try to clear up any confusion, okay?

Student : How do we use the chakras?

Lama : Chakras? I have chakras, and you have chakras; we both have chakras, right? Remember, I told you: Your entire body becomes rainbow light, and in the space where you brain is there is a white OM, at your throat a red AH, and at your heart you visualize a blue HUNG. Meditate on this. These are your chakras, and this opens your nervous system and loosens the tightness in your heart. The tightness at your heart loosens— that is what we call open. Okay? Thank you. All right.

Anyone who wants to take refuge should remember that taking refuge means having determination. Before, we took artificial refuge in temporal pleasure; now, you discover that that is wrong, and you want some clean-clear state of wisdom. That wisdom is the object of taking refuge, not some samsaric object. So you determine that from now on, as much as possible, taking ultimate refuge is really worthwhile.

Okay. Now maybe according to this man, it would be a good idea to visualize your heart chakra. In your heart chakra is a moon disc, and on the moon disc is your clean-clear state of wisdom manifested as Shakyamuni Buddha, with a yellow radiating light rainbow body. This manifests at your heart, and you take refuge. You take ultimate refuge in his wisdom, the Dharma, and his clean-clear state of Buddhahood. You take refuge.

Determine that from now on you are going to take refuge in the clean-clear state of intensive awareness of Dharma, instead of taking refuge in samsaric objects, material objects. You determine to do this as strongly as possible. Close your eyes and determine with sincerity.

Think: “For the rest of my life, I am going to act peacefully and follow the path to liberation. Especially, I am going to observe my body, speech, and mind and put them as much as possible into right livelihood.” And determine: “Loving kindness is my path. Therefore, I will never harm anybody from now until I die. I will never harm anybody.” Contemplate this; just contemplate and meditate. Have strong determination: “Taking refuge in inner intensive awareness is essential; this is the way for me to take ultimate refuge.”

Also, have equal compassion for all beings. Visualize your father, your mother, your relatives, and all universal beings around you. Wish that they all take refuge in the intensive awareness and clean-clear state of Dharma. And outside, the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions also pay attention to you, giving you inspiration to be successful in your determination.

At the same time, from the OM of the Buddha in your heart, white radiating light comes; and from the heart chakra, infinite blue radiating light energizes you. Generate the determination that: “From now on, I am going to take ultimate refuge in the inner intensive awareness of Dharma and the inner intensive complete state of developed consciousness of Buddha.” At the same time, you repeat this while you are meditating. (Everyone recites Tibetan prayer.)

From the Buddha at your heart comes radiating light, purifying countless collections of impure body, speech, and mind. (Lama prays.)

Okay, simple! That is all. Taking refuge is very simple; you just recognize your clean-clear state of wisdom, Dharma. And when you have developed that, that is Buddhahood. That is all. Have confidence in your own wisdom. That is all. I think what you can do is to determine as much as possible not to harm anyone but to have compassion. That is all.

Thank you so much everybody. I enjoyed my stay here very much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you.