THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTIONTEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF THE SAKYAPAby Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

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/
THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION 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 youre obliged to do, you understand. Because some kind of religious teacher happens to be here and hes 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 dont know.
Its 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 were practicing the dharma, most of the time we dont do it for enlightenment. Enlightenment is almost like eh, if it happens thats good but if it doesnt happen, its 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, isnt it? Especially this is the Asian weakness, I think. We go; we chant mantras for long life. Thats not, long life is not
enlightenment. Long life is long life. And we dont 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.
And Im stressing this because if, if our aim is wrong, right; if our aim, if our ultimate aim Im, Im 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. Thats 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 were happy but who knows what happens tomorrow.
A tomato stuck in your throat while youre 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. Thats something we have, that we so dearly clutch and grasp to, and thats 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 youre applying and your view is contradicting. So this is why I ask to really analyse why we are here. Its 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 Im not giving you the complete Lam Dre but the beginning portion, the preliminary portion called Triple Vision. I think thats 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 dont know it myself thoroughly, secondly VERY LAZY.
I used to have at least some kind of pride and ego to talk. Im not saying that I dont 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, lets say, lets call it practical way.
THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION
TEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF THE SAKYAPA (Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche 3/48
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 dont like. Is that translated as vision? Vision, yeah; I think its 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, thats 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. Thats it. Im, I am sure some of the more conservative Buddhists might raise their eyebrow but thats fine. I, I, I can talk with them.
Its basically an absence of paranoia. And there is so much paranoia ALL the time, and do you know why theres 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 dont know so much, right. We dont know.
And between you and me theres a kind of a big distance, not only physical distance like youre sitting on the floor and Im sitting on a chair, higher. But theres 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.
Im 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.
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, Im 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, lets go back to the motivation again. As I said, first of all your motiva tion 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 dont know a successful buying or selling of a share or a stock market or something WONT 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. Its wrong. It doesnt work like that. Thats 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, thats SO IMPORTANT, especially for the Mahayana practitioners.
Its 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 dont think its necessary. And for those who are already have this knowledge, please do so. So lets get back to the Three Perceptions, okay, three, triple perception.
So the first perception, impure perception lets talk about this a little bit and actually ... wheres that pointer? Ah there it is. On that throne Im sure many of you have seen this painting of Wheel of Life, srid paI 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.
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 thats the perception you GET, right; thats 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. Its 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.
Its a monster; its 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 lets begin with one perception. Its 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? Its not really underneath this earth as many religions would say. Its, its not like you dig this earth and youll find the h ell, right. So hell can; okay, thats hell. Hungry ghost where is hungry ghost? We go to eat and then youll 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.
So in this case, let's say, lets say okay myself okay - Im 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 Im dull, Im murky, eh, I dont know where bathroom door is. Im searching for you know the light switch. You know the stage when you are dull, so that happens to me okay. Every morning Im a bit of an animal basically, so during that time Im experiencing or Im having a perception of animal. Im 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, whats happening? Vanity, you see you have to make yourself beautiful, right. Oh, Im 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, Im 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. Im talking about myself, by the way, not you, okay (laughter).
So what Im saying is after I get up; when I got up, I was becoming animal and then after the shower, I think I was god, Im usually god. Im, Im 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 shouldnt 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 doesnt 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, Im experiencing human realm.
So Im 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.
Jealousy, we have anger, passion and ignorance. You know ignorance, passion and aggression. These three emotions are kind of; of course, they, theyre 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 dont 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 nave and kind of stupid so its okay. But therere 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 cant even have a good date, you know dating, because of the pride. Have you experienced this? Because youre dating with this new friend and because of your pride, you dont to be the one who breaks the ice first. You wait until the other person talks, isnt 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 dont 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. Its a very interesting word. Nal in the Tibetan world, nal actually means natural, natural. Jor is a bit like wealth; so its 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 socalled natural mind and this is what we are trying to achieve.
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, thats 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 - lets 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; thats 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.
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 its a contradiction. Theres 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, nonvirtuous actions of mind, a bodhisattva can do anything. See its a contradiction, right?
So right and wrong is a very ethical term, ethic. Its 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 doesnt last. It is impermanent, its impermanent. Secondly its 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; its not a permanent. And THIS is what is defined as impure. Its not a moral thing; any other questions?
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; its spoken about the atman. Could you please give us your eh, right perception, pure perception of whether theres any difference between the buddha-nature and the atman?
Rinpoche: Thats a very difficult question. Im 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; Im not, Im not just joking. I always say that if Im not a Buddhist and if Im 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; its, its a very profound teaching. And yes, this question has been asked by myself to many lamas, whether there IS any difference between atman and buddhanature.
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, thats pro-quote Heart Sutra.
So basically buddha-nature is not a phenomena. Its 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.
Ill tell you. See buddha-nature is what we call (Tibetan phrase). Its 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 theres 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.
Lets 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; its something that can be destroyed, okay. I can; so I can prove all these negative emotions can be destroyed absolutely.
So what Im saying is I can prove the EXISTENCE OF ABSENCE OF IGNORANCE and THAT proving, that absence of ignorance is PRESENCE OF THE BUDDHANATURE. Other than that, if you want me to show you a buddha-nature with light glowing from his head, six arms, eight legs it doesnt 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.
See the Christians talk about saving the soul, isnt it? Save my soul, save his soul. You do not save buddha-nature. Buddha-nature itself is a saviour. Its the Buddha. Buddha cannot be saved; two different things. Okay if there is no more question, we will have a break, toilet break.
Im 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 dont know, going visiting temple. Its like the Christians, if they forget to go to Sunday morning church, then they feel they have missed out something, isnt it?
Many Buddhists, especially now, seems to be practicing Buddhism as how a Christian would practice Christianity. Thats 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. Its 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 its 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.
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, isnt it, the same hand. Thats a mistake. That means that you are saying the hand is permanent. Yesterdays hand and todays hand is same. Thats what we think. You got it? Thats a big mistake. Thats not true.
Yesterdays hand is gone, todays 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 dont know. It has to change. If the same, if we have the same hand, then imagine when you are fifty you still have a babys hand. It wouldnt even look nice. Every time the hand is changing, changing, changing but we dont see that. We think it is the same hand. Thats 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 dont see it as in parts. We dont 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 dont, we dont 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 Ladens hand Oh, thats very special. Dalai Lamas hand, Mother Teresas hand, celebrity Brad Pitts hand Wow, thats even better, isnt it? Brad Pitts hand is the best. And maybe Christian Zeta-Jones what, Catherine Zeta-Jones, ah, thats the best.
So we have, we have this kind of misconception, eh, misinterpretation, misperception; thats 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; Im, Im 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, isnt it? Or day after tomorrow divorced, stuff like this happens because you think its the same.
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. Its almost like Picasso or you know like Mondrian picture, you know, its 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 armpits smell (laughter). For instance like the way he snores, I dont know; the way he eats too much garlic or the way he is so obsessed with eh, I dont know anchovy pizza, things like that. There are so many things that you dont like but usually when you first meet this boyfriend, we ignore all that.
We focus on one thing. Because you like his nose, thats why you have fallen deadly in love, right; because youve fallen in love with his nose, his finger, whatever doesnt 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 dont know, all kinds of things that you know. What Im saying is perception is a big thing in our life. The Snang Gsum teaches that; although my examples you might think its something eh, new but I am really not, Im 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. Thats 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 youre having relationship with the guru, because of the impure motivation, all the perceptions are also impure.
Ill 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 dont 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 dont know. I think they have the same problem.
But because right now were, I mean the Chinese society lets 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, isnt it? The lineage holder (laughter), isnt it, lineage holder? And many of the Kung fu films are about two students fighting about who becomes the lineage holder, isnt it, yeah?
Not only in the Kung fu films but you read in the like eh; eve n whats his name? Master Hui-Neng, Hui-Neng isnt it? Hwei-Ning, Sixth, Sixth Patriarch, Hui-Neng he had a tough time because some of the students didnt want h im to be the Sixth Patriarch; didnt want him to have the begging bowl and the robe. There was a lot of tough time. So what Im 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 Im someone special (laughter), you know. You better do; you better do what I say. You understand Im kind of special. Therere 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 thats why we have pain. Why we call impure perception is because it brings you pain. It really brings so much pain.
Look at everything. Look at, lets go back to our hand, yeah. We have six kinds, three kinds misperception about our hand, isnt it, because you know wron g 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 doesnt matter.
Even though like Im forty-three, and for forty-three years one moisturizer, not one moisturizer HAD WORKED sort of ultimately (laughter). It doesnt 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 dont 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 dont, we dont really have to you know think six realms in terms of existin g somewhere outside, where you will go in the future if you are not careful. We dont 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 its a god realm because the Americans dont 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? Its 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 its 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 worlds population. The war is waged, innocent people are being killed, all of that. Pride, you know theres so much this pride We are the best. Our democracy system is the best. Everybody must go through this, I think.
And then when you go to places like Ethiopia or South Africa. Ive 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 cant eat. Even though they can just, its like within, you know hands reaching distance, you still cant use it. Its like that. They cant 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 dont 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. Its almost not the news anymore, you understand. Like this is how our human mind is. Its 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; its not even sinking in our head because it has been done so much. I think thats 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 theyre 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 McDonalds, why do we like McDonalds? Not so many reasons; actually I can a hundred reasons why we shouldnt like McDonalds. Junk food is bad food, its really bad for health, all of that. BUT McDonalds 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 dont 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 its a very holy concept. You know its a very special occasion. But even that is turned into a consumers benefit.
Very soon we are going to have a Vesak Day shopping, I tell you (laughter). Theres not many Buddhists right now, otherwise Oh, Vesak Sale, you understand; Vesak, Vesak cake, Vesak; well the trees already gone with the Christians. I dont know Vesak water or something like that. So everybodys buying bucket of water to put in; all this because we buy for it.
I really think in a way all of us, if you think were, 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 dont want, we have. What we want, we dont have. All kinds of problems; of course we do have but some of us were actually quite OKAY. Were 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 - thats asking quite a lot. Thats asking a lot. Thats expecting a lot. Thats, thats, theres a hope, theres a big hope. If Im living eighty years in this world, youre asking a lot because everything is so dangerous traffic, pollution, so many cause and conditions to kill me, destroy me and yet Im asking to live eighty years.
Its too much asking but anyway lets 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 dont need more than ten jeans. I dont need more than sixty T-shirts, maybe two wrist watches, eh, eh, maybe about two hundred toothpaste 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 dont think like this.
For instance, when I go to shopping I will shop as if Im 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 dont even wear it. Its a waste; might just, might as well go for a good trip, trip to, I dont 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.
Okay insurance goodness this. Do you have insurance, insurance? NOTHING, NOTHING WHATSOEVER can insure you. Okay, thats 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. Were, we are in love with the family, name, honour, all of that.
What do you call this, you know the Chinese family ancestors name on the shrine and they prostrate? Yeah, name; its the name of the family, isnt 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). Its 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, were 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, thats what, thats what it is.
See its because of this in Buddhism meditation is introduced because when you meditate, you know like in the Zen tradition, zazen; I dont know whether Singapore has Zen centres. I think the Zen is so good. Im very inspired by the Zen method. I think its really good for the modern people, especially the concept, the method zazen. You dont 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.
Otherwise try this today when you go home. Sit on your sofa in your living room for two minutes doing nothing. You cant. Youll not be able to sit two minutes doing nothing. You see youll 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 doesnt 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, isnt it? Little bit of beer, alcohol and then that doesnt satisfy you, then it has to be even more kinky like LSD, I dont 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 dont 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 cant, we cant 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, dont 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. Were not talking about migrating to New Zealand okay. Were talking about the real life hasnt 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 thats it, thats 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 dont think that what I have taught and the text is different. Im 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.
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. Isnt 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 dont 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 dont know - think Im 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, its facing, facing the door. Its 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.
Im, Im 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, husbands obsession that wife must do this and that. Wifes obsession of husband must do this and that, you understand? We have certain rules we make and expect the other people to perform. Thats 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 dont know. Left shoe goes right through the bathroom and sink into the what do you call it toilet. You still sleep; nothing, you DONT CARE A BIT where it went. Thats enlightenment (laughter and applause).
You still sleep; nothing, you DONT CARE A BIT where it went. Thats enlightenment (laughter and applause) - No more obsessions, no more clinging, couldnt - theres a short form of that. You know in America, we call it CCL, Couldnt Care Less
(laughter). Yeah, you have reached that level. CCL is the American version of enlightenment, couldnt 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, thats 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 dont 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. Thats a good question. Karma is basically cause, condition and effect; and all of that is a perception. When; perception happens when theres a mind perceiving it, okay.
Student A: Rinpoche, I want to ask you eh, in Buddhism theres 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 dont know how to do it.
Rinpoche: Okay, okay; you can do many ways. You can do sitting. And contemplate its 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 youve 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, thats 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. Its not true.
Do you have a Ferrari? Ferrari, you dont? You might have it tomorrow, all because of its impermanence (laughter), you understand. See today you dont 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. Its just the reality; its a fact, fact of life. It changes all the time. That is if you only want Ferrari, yeah.
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?
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. Thats why theres 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 dont receive the full eh, like the Buddha family vows. Sometimes you only receive like eh, Ratna family or Vajra family only. But lets say youre 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 dont 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, its 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 youre breaking the Mahayana, bodhisattva vow and the eh, Tantric vow BUT having said that, its almost no independent Pratimoksha vow once you are a Tantric practitioner. Theres 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, lets 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. Thats how you do it, okay.
THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION TEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF THE SAKYAPA
(Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche 26/48
Rinpoche: And similarly; its, its this the, my answer to your question? Student C: Eh, partially but thats a very good circumstance where you can benefit others. But say, lets 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: Lets say you do what? Student C: Lets say I steal or I kill a human being. (Rinpoche: Yes) Then Ill 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, thats something where its 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, thats why it became an event. (Student D: inaudible) Enlightenment with a choice? Oh, yes of course but we dont choose, do we? Thats the whole thing, thats 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. Its all, all this so-called dharma practice is how to choose, basically art of choosing, of course but thats difficult because theres so much temptation. Its 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 badwhat are we accusing them? Are we accusing ourselves ? Rinpoche: Yes, well the rituals are like eh; they are also perception really. Its 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 its just a perception, then you are devaluing the perception. You think Oh, its just a perception, right, its 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 - its 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 its just a perception, as I was saying you seem to be sort of putting down perception as if it is not that important, its not that powerful. Now this, you are wrong. Perceptions are VERY powerful. Remember the legs, RollsRoyce? 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.
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, its a fake, its, its 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. Its not as if Im making it up actually, Buddha said that.
The path (Tibetan phrase) its a, its a deception but its a NECESSARY deception. Its a necessary deception. Lets 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. Thats not going to help you, you understand.
So if Im 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, lets go, I might even go with you. And as we get closer, you yourself will see its 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? Its a WONDERFUL TRICK. Its an amazing, compassionate, full of wisdom trick (laughter). Ill tell you something. Do you know he could have just said Hey guys, you are Buddha. Thats all he needed to say. Does it work? That doesnt do anything. We have the buddha-nature; all he has to say Hey you are Buddha. Thats all he needs to say.
But simplicity is not something that we are used to. We need complication. Thats 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).
Student F: Rinpoche; eh, okay nowadays because when we follow a guru, we need to check him right for three years; thats traditionally the (Rinpoche: Three years?), now we, we, I think most people wont 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. Thats, I think thats 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 dont think so, so
Rinpoche: Checking, checking is important. Thats 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. Its your mind doing it.
So what Im saying is youve 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 doesnt matter whether he uses fork or chopstick when he eats noodle; that, that shouldnt matter.
But it does matter when hes teaching you emptiness or soul, you understand? Its REALLY important; Im, Im serious. Some people choose guru just because th ey use chopsticks over the fork. No, people do that because you can relate, thats 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 its bit like choosing wife actually (laughter). You have to have a common, what do you call it? Something common to share with.
Its a relationship; its 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 dont know, Mozart, jazz, I dont know, Jennifer Lopez (laughter) I dont 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.
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 superstitiousridden fans, they might get impressed but your normal friends, I dont th ink they have a good time with, you understand. You dont 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? Thats is SO IMPORTANT. Because especially if youre 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 hes going to destroy you.
Guru is someone who you dont 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. Its difficult, very difficult. But if you want a quick enlightenment, it is a necessity. Its not necessary for everyone. If youre, you know a Mahayana or Shravakayana practitioner, guru devotion like as Vajrayana taught is not necessary. You dont need this burden of guru. Really its a burden; why would you like to have someone to destroy you? (Laughter) No need.
Student G: (Too much noise, unintelligible)
Rinpoche: I dont 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 Im doing it sincerely.
Rinpoche: Yeah, thats 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. Thats 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 youre alright. Such kind of mentality suits very well with the ego. What does ego want? Comfort, isnt 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 theres that pledge of not doing. Of course as you said its difficult but that is t he 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.
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), its 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 thats 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. Thats 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 its definitely beyond me. But we can intellectually talk a little bit. Pure perception; you know its supposedly how an enlightened being look at things. That how, what Im 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 dont know whats happening until the end. Thats why you watch (laughter and applause). Okay thats it.
(New day) So youre going to, you have been going through the Triple Perception or the Triple Vision. Again as we discussed yesterday, its good to give some moments contemplating on why you are here, what kind of motivation. Im 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 its 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 its 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! Its 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, theres a part of f lesh 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.
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. Thats a very theistic motivation. Many do that. Christians do that. Im sure Muslims do this. Actually you dont need Buddhism if you need to just fix the problems in your life; you dont 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 doesnt help. Its very sad - things like egoless-ness, all this doesnt help.
Many of us, we come to Buddhist path because we think that Buddhism; I dont 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, its dangerous. Its being, its misleading. And its 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. Thats what you are here for. But if you want enlightenment, you dont need Tibetan education, you dont need the Tibetan culture as the ultimate necessity.
Of course, whatever is given by the master - that is a necessity. Im telling you this because Im, Im 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 havent 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.
The second reason why Im 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. Thats Buddhism! Really C.C.L. couldnt care less, thats real Buddhism! But we instead try to become, we have become so paranoid. I will tell you, as a teacher I will tell you - Im 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 didnt 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 thats 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.
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 thats what the Rinpoches 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 somebodys seeing (laughter).
All this is called sged chos; sged chos - its basically a vanity. Its a VANITY. Its not difference between the legs and the breasts we were talking yesterday. Remember Cosmopolitan type; this is a spiritual Cosmopolitan. Its a complete show, its hypocrisy. Nothing inside; all youre trying to do is behave nice so that people will like you. Youre 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 masters 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.
Ive a good example. I use it many times, and I will use it again. Its like wearing tie. You know we, we wear tie. This piece of cloth, tie, is actually the most useless thing. It doesnt have holes to keep coins. Its not big enough to keep you warm. It chokes you while you are eating. But Im 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, isnt it?
Its most difficult and also when you put it ON, its difficult. Its not like a jacket you sort of put it on. You have to tie and all that. And moreover, Ive noticed that you know sometimes when I go inside an elevator, you know in a big building. You, youre in an elevator; the lift has mirror. As soon as some executive, so-called executive businessman they walk in, if theres a mirror they all look at the mirror, well like that, a little bit (laughter). They are all fixing this. Its really, its like; that is a constant PARANOIA basically. Its a constant paranoia from the day, the time that he has put on in the morning until he took off. Its paranoia, constant paranoia, thats so much.
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; theyre, theyre so expensive.
Now here in, by the great saint Virupa, what is he saying? Hes not saying that you should not wear tie. No, not at all; if you say okay, the tie is useless, its ridiculous, its not, its not good, therefore you should not wear tie. Hes not saying that because if he says that, then its bit like Shravakayana path isnt it? Escapism, renounces, renounce the tie, get rid of the tie hes not saying that. What is he saying? Hes saying you should wear the tie, but know at the same time its ridiculous.
Wearing the tie and you should really wear it nicely and keep on thinking this is the most useless, ridiculous piece of cloth Im wearing (laughter). Impure perception okay, this is the, this is my impure perception but Im 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. Thats what we call yogis experiential perception, thats what we are doing. Very briefly, no time and I dont know anything anyway - the time is just an excuse.
Theres 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; youre 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. Thats, thats loving kindness meditation.
But of course; okay so you wish them happiness; you wish the sentient beings happiness. Thats 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 dont 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; its easy to think May all sentient things have happiness; kind of abstract idea. Its very easy because you dont have, because its ALL sentient beings, you dont 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.
If that, if you still need some kind of format, then use Atisha Dipamkaras 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 whats happening here? Big alteration of impure perception, can yo u 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? Lets 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, youre okay, thats good, couldnt 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 doesnt 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.
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 thats enlightenment. This is how you check, how youve 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 whos 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! Its a burden, even the SIGHT of the sadhana really makes you sick (laughter) .Theyre this thick, theyre 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 Ill 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 its, youre trying to change the perception, so loving kindness thats riskfree, 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, Im 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, therere 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 thats, thats really kindergarten you know stuff; everybody has you know. Its not just to, just wanting them to have nice time. Bodhicitta is wishing the sentient beings to have enlightenment. Its just, the subject is very big. If you keep on talking about it, I will never reach Johore Bahru tonight (laughter), I think.
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 dont scold their students who have so much ego, so much pride, so much jealousy. They just, theyre so nice to them and what do we say? Oh,
he is a great bodhisattva. Its because of his bodhicitta hes being so compassionate but I cant stand these guys! Yeah, I think its a good example.
This kind of thing intrigues me because I DONT 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 discipleOkay, 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 theres 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, its a big risk because he might go to the other. But this Rinpoche doesnt 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; its 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, thats right, that, thats 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. Thats what we do. So you know what, what I mean a Bodhicitta is a wish to enlighten others. Thats a relative bodhicitta anyway, very necessary; amazing, so special. Without that Mahayana has no path.
In all this talk of impure perception and experiential perception, theres 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. Thats 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 dont.
We have explained this again and again - like a friend, you look at your friend and when youre 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 youre 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 todays bad guy they do not exist as externally, independently, truly out there. THATS THE, thats 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. Thats 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.
Remember we talked about the doctor yesterday. The doctor, maybe not here, somewhere else; my mind is becoming like a jelly so I dont remember anything. See a psychiatrist, trying to help a crazy person; for this non-bodhisattva psychiatrist, okay, psychiatrist thats 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. Im 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 doesnt accept this kind of normality because its never written in the book. This wasnt 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. Thats 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 lets say youre opening a shoe shop somewhere in, I dont 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 dont 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 doesnt burn properly you worry. It creates some superstition Oh, its 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 didnt 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.
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; its ridiculous, but you wear it still. You keep on thinking it is ridiculous thats, thats really the best form of renunciation. Dont deprive yourself with the tie because if you do that, then its 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 its necessary. And many times it is not.
Remember like shopping; maybe the twelfth jean is enough, but you shop as if youre 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 dont have enough - not really,
You know I always think in the West, during the Sixties, during the Beatles time, is it changed now? Its 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 Im 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 dont we plant our own tomato? Why dont we plant our own vegetable gardens? Why dont we knit our own clothes? Why dont 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). Theres really no point.
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. Thats about it. But theres no letting go, theres 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 didnt give, didnt 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 (Couldnt 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, theres many different ways. In the Sakyapa tradition, initially we use a flower, a blue flower but that doesnt 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 Hevajras 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. Its not my, my job and this job shouldnt 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 - dont 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 dont care about your enlightenment. So if I, since I love myself so much, if you come and if you make mistakeremember earlier example I gave you. I will say 'Okay, dont worry' (laughter) you know. So I will have more and more population, members of my disciple you understand. I will not go and say 'Dont do this, dont do that' - because Im so scared I will lose you. Feeling of rejection, it's terrible; being rejected by your student Wow, thats, thats PAINFUL, you understand. So if you want enlightenment, Im not the right person to be teaching you, really, seriously from the bottom of my heart, Im confessing this (laughter). Im 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. Thats 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...
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 hes kind of you know age-wise hes sort of like junior to me but he has really eh, I dont know, worldly speaking matured. But not only matured, hes more than ma tured. He had, hes 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).
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 doesnt matter really. Basically like zazen, the Zen tradition, you just sit. Sit and sit and sit and you concentrate on an object. Thats all you do. Its 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 dont 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, thats REALLY impure perception, isnt it? And then one perception is not enough; theres about fifty channels of impure perception. If thats 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. Its 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 its so, makes you feel that you have practiced at least. You know its like how do you feel when you finish doing your sadhana, huh? (Laughter) So such a big relief (laughter), isnt 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 dont do it, yeah its like that.
We need constant injection of entertainment and thats 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 youre 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 dont know what to do with you. Because normally youre, 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. Thats it. Shamatha meditation is basically an art of ignoring entertainment, an art to ignore the impure perceptions.
As you only concentrate on the breathing or the blue flower, all the rest, impure perceptions, they dont 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; dont 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 oclock, you dismiss; so impure perception is under your control and thats what we call experiential perception, you understand. Now thats 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, kusulis 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 lets 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 dont; normally when you visualize the guru, you dont 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 doesnt 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 thats why we transform him as because after all, its 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. Thats 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 theres it. Thats 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.
THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION 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. Thats the vipassana, thats the non-duality that is completely different from ego thats 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, theyre really organized, scheduled-wise, what do you call it? They are so; notes, eh, calendar, task, eh, reminder, alarm clock, schedules; everythings so organized - all this impure perception.
The moment the sadhana is applied, impure perception, organized impure perception is now becoming chaotic, and thats 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. Its 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. Thats 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, cant 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, were 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 dont 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 dont 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, isnt 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 were going to give up the real samsara and we dont even think about the real nirvana because real nirvana is beyond our emotions, really.
Our, you know like for one thing if Im 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 whos going to score first? (Laughter) Whos going to win? Thats our so-called FUN, isnt 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 dont know whats 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 wont work. Lets say you have a girlfriend who doesnt care what you do, right. You can go around with like, you can even sleep with an elephant (laughter), she doesnt care. She doesnt care and suddenly what do you think, you think? You feel very bad because you think she doesnt love you, right. This is how human mind is. Shes giving you a freedom but you think she doesnt 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 dont think that you are an exception. Really you are not exception. If you are not an enlightened being, none of us are exceptions.
Since Im, Im 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 couldnt eat for days; I couldnt think of things and that one movie is Deer Hunter. I dont 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.
Theres a scene where they play Russian roulette. Remember Russian roulette, one bullet in the pistol and they shoot. Its, its 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 theres 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 theres 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 its 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 Im not supposed to talk about this kind of depressing things. Im 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. Its called (Tibetan phrase) - jnanas and kayas, bodies, dimensions and the wisdom; so how they look like we dont know. And I am the last person you should be asking.
Well we have managed to kill our time. So thats 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; its a matter of thinking. Its 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 butterflys flying you see, amazing. Appreciate that, dwell in that moment. And thats how you incorporate your life and, and the spiritual life.
Dwell in the present, not to the past no use, gone. Dont dwell too much on the future no use, its not under your control. Basically the ONLY thing that you can control is this whatever you have this moment. Past you cant control, future you cant 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. Thats 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 http://www.sakyatenphelling.org/buddhism/recorded-teachings/
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 l pa May all beings, without exception, de yi sa la g par shok Be established at that level.

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTIONTEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF THE SAKYAPAby Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

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THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTIONTEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF THE SAKYAPAby Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

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THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION TEACHING ON THE THREE VISIONS (SNANG GSUM) OF THE SAKYAPA (Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar

Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

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

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

Rinpoche: Four Immeasurable Thoughts?

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

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

(Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche 26/48

Student E: (unintelligible due to noisy microphone)

Student E: (unintelligible due to noise)

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

Student G: (Too much noise, unintelligible)

Rinpoche: I dont know whether they had one.

Student G: (Unintelligible due to noise from microphone)

Student H: (Noise in recording unintelligible)

THE THREE LEVELS OF PERCEPTION

(Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche 46/48

(Singapore 2003) by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche 47/48

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

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