My Wednesday nights with Sangha

Dear Sangha of New York Nalandabodhi and all friends,

I really enjoyed spending time with you. Even in this super fast city you managed to come to the center for group practice and study, which is deeply appreciated.

I often hear in the west that people are busy. This is one western cultural thing that you really need to think about. If you keep saying that you are too busy to practice dharma, you will create a distance between your practice and everyday life. If you keep making the dharma separate from your life then you will never have the real sense of practicing dharma. You will say this is my dharma world and this is my real world. I haven’t met anyone who is not busy in the west. If we think about busy there is no one busier than our teachers, but they never say, “I do not have time to practice dharma.”

Decades ago, scientists had a dream to develop technologies that would do our work for us. So we could do things easily and rest more. Now we have these things. We have planes, cars and trains for traveling, computers, phones and cell-phones for work and communication. Do we think we are resting more? Adults are busy at work. Teenagers are busy texting and surfing the Internet and younger kids are busy playing games on their electronic devices instead of their studies. We are all busy on our own level. We have to squeeze time for dinner with our families and friends.

If you keep saying that you don’t get enough time to practice dharma because of being busy, you are reciting the mantra, “I am busy”. This will deviate you from your path. A practitioner should emerge the dharma in ones own life rather than saying this is practice time and this is work time. While you are on the cushion you will see that everything is okay, but the problems start when you wake up from the cushion and deal with everyday life.

Here I would like to tell a story. There once was a very close student of Patrul Rinpoche, whose name was Tashi. He was a very short-tempered person in the monastery. He couldn’t get along with any monks. One day Patrul Rinpoche suggested that he do a short-term solitary retreat since he had difficulty fitting in the environment where he was living. According to his teacher’s advice he headed to a retreat place for three months. The monastery provided him with necessities in the mean time. After the completion of three months retreat, he felt he was able to be free from anger. This newfound peace of mind threw him into a state of joyfulness. Without wasting a minute he went to his teacher and told the story. Patrul Rinpoche praised him for his achievement and said, “To free oneself from anger is not an easy thing to do, I have been practicing for many years, but still sometimes I get angry. I am very happy with what you have done.” This conversation was overheard by one of Tashi’s old friends. He couldn’t believe mere words. He was curious to find out if Tashi had really freed himself from his anger or not.

One day there was a big puja going on in the monastery. All the monks were participating in that event including Tashi himself. During the puja, the monastery would only serve butter-tea from time to time. Monks come to the puja with their flour pouches.

Whenever they are hungry they knead flour with butter tea and eat. During the puja-break Tashi’s friend hid several monks’ flour pouches. Then he spread rumors that Tashi might be the person who is stealing those pouches because no such things happened while he was in the retreat. Tashi was very upset by what he had heard about himself, but he managed to stay calm on the first day. The next day his friend stretched the rumors saying even Patrul Rinpoche himself was worried by Tashi’s negativity of stealing flour pouches. When he heard that even Rinpoche doubted him, he couldn’t hold himself back and went to Rinpoche’s room, banged on his table and said, “I am deeply hurt by what you and the monks have accused me of.” Rinpoche was astonished and replied, “I didn’t say anything. What happened?” At that moment his friend walked in and told Rinpoche that it was his plan to hide those flour pouches in order to examine whether Tashi had really freed his anger or not. Tashi was embarrassed.

Sometimes we feel we are okay until we encounter unfavorable causes and conditions. It will not be easy. There are all kinds of people out there who we encounter. For instance cab drivers will try to make some extra bucks driving us through detours. And as soon as we get to our destination, the arguments start. This kind of problem with the cab driver happens sometime only. What we encounter most of the time is our family kitchen table, our work place, our boss and colleagues and the staff and members of our dharma center. Those are the most immediate things that we encounter.

Those are not always pleasant, but if we are able to deal with them in the first place with patience and mindfulness that is the sign of transforming unpleasant causes and conditions in to the path. In that way we will be able to control our emotions and help to stop the emotions of others from rising. That is how you benefit self and other and that is why it is called Mahayana, the bigger vehicle. As a Mahayana practitioner it is very important to apply our skill on every step of an action we take in our everyday life. So, we will be accumulating merit all the time.

There are two kinds of accumulations. They are accumulations of merits and wisdom. These two are the most essential necessities to attain enlightenment. It is like a pair of wings. Birds cannot fly from one place to other without their two wings. In the same way practitioners need the wings of accumulations to reach the stage of enlightenment. In Vajrayana it’s also said, that it is foolish to rely upon any method other than practices for gathering two accumulations and the blessing of the glorious guru.

What makes Mahayana practitioners different from Theravada is the motivation. The motivation is to benefit oneself and others through generating Bodhichitta, awakened mind or loving kindness and compassion. Theravada teaches about self-libration, but in the Mahayana it teaches liberation of self and all sentient beings. That is why it is called great or bigger vehicle as I mentioned earlier. “Maha” means Great and “yana” means vehicle, space for oneself and others. We take the Bodhisattwa vow, which will empower our motivation of loving kindness stronger and help us refrain from doing negativities.

Now the question is how we apply our loving kindness to other beings. We cannot just go out wanting to love others. Our human ego mind will not let us do that. We have to orient the mind and teach the mind why it is that we need to love others. Why it is that we need to practice nothing but loving kindness and compassion to other beings.

Therefore here it says while wandering in Samsara, the cyclic existence of birth and death, since beginning-less time even my enemy in this life has been my father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, uncle and aunt, brother and sister, wife and husband, and son and daughter, has befriended me and brought me benefit. How could I return this kindness without malice?

In this life why are we so attached to those we are attached to? Because they give us love, care for us, and we have received tremendous kindness and warmth from them. If we are able to look carefully and see how we cannot acknowledge the tremendous amount of gratitude that we have received, the kindness that we have received, the gratitude we must feel for all sentient beings. Who do we think there has not been someone who has not contributed to us?

Drinking a sip of tea is the contribution of not less than one hundred beings. We cannot do anything independently. We are all dependent on others. We are all interconnected with each other. We rather think each of us is a fraction of whole body. Our small movement makes difference to the whole system.

Even the very dharma we are practicing is the kindness of our teachers. We learn about great teachers traveling place-to-place, carrying backpacks, very simple provisions not carrying other than food and basic needs. They put their lives in danger to collect these teachings, traveling months and years from Tibet to the noble land of India despite of all harsh weather, beasts and robbers on their way. Today we hesitate to put the little effort to take the elevator from our apartments, walk a few blocks and take a subway to come to the center. In former times in India a student never hesitated to cut a limb in return to receive four lines of teachings. Today we study those teachings and think that is our intellectual property and take a pride on our knowledge.

Since then practitioners still demonstrate such things, but still there are good side and bad sides. Dharma is a remedy to lessening our ego, self-attachment, which is the root of all suffering. We should always pay our attention whether dharma is becoming the remedy to free our attachment, anger and delusion. Otherwise dharma will become an element to strengthening our ego. When we listen to our teachers activities of loving kindness and compassion we are aspire by that and once we start our path and to flow our extreme knowledge, weather we choose a suitable vessel to contain the teaching or not. That is questionable.

If we don’t spend time to understand the worth, profundity, value, and truth of the teaching, it is always going to be difficult to actually practice the teaching. We are always going to fall in love with a very romantic notion of the path. Of course the practice is good but on the other hand it will not be sufficient to bring about a full change of oneself.

When we practice on six-paramitas, six enlightened activities, the paramitas of generosity is to give up our attachments, discipline is to be mindful, patience is to free our anger, exertion is to remain constant what we have been practicing and contemplation is to stabilize our mind. These five are the method to accumulate merits and wisdom is to accumulate wisdom.

Generosity does not mean to give away your wealth and end up empty-handed. It means to have a sense of contentment on one self, to have a sense of satisfaction with what we possess. Contentment is the most profound wealth among all the wealth on the earth. Otherwise if you keep piling up things, it is like drinking ocean water to quench our thirst. Not having wealth is a suffering because we feel poverty mentality. Accumulating wealth is a suffering because we need to put our effort, working hard etc. Having wealth is a suffering because we need to guard it all the time. We do not want to lose them because how much time and energy we have spent for collecting them. And of course losing our wealth is definitely a suffering.

Discipline does not mean to put you in a situation of dos and don’ts and make your life miserable. It means to have mindfulness all the time. Your mind is only clear to yourself whether it is engaging with positive thoughts or negative thoughts. There are no designated police in any country in the world keeping eyes on your mind. It is fully up to you whether you want your mind to flow on wrong directions or be under your control.

Here again I would like to tell a story. When Buddhism was flourishing in India not long after the Buddha Shakyamuni was passed away. There was a king who decided to invite a noble monk to his palace and make an offering. The king invited the noble monk inside his palace with a lavish ceremony of singing, dancing and music. When the monk stepped inside the palace and seated on cushion, king asked to him. “O noble monk, was the singing and music pleasant? Was the dancing good?” The monk replied. “I did not hear or see any of those things you mention.” The king was surprised by the monk’s answer and said. “Hundreds of people witnessed this event here today. How it could be possible to you not to hear any of the music or see the dances?”

The monk asked to the king. “In your prison there must be some prisoner on death row.” The king replied. “Yes noble one. There are several.” The noble monk asked to the king to bring those prisoners and present them with a bowl filled with sesame oil and ask them to circumambulate the palace without spilling a drop of oil. Let them walk along with dancing, music and dancing. Tell them they will be free from the death sentence if they are able to do so. When they finished the circumambulation ask them whether they heard or saw the music, singing and dancing.

The king ordered to his ministers to bring those prisoners and apply the way, which was guided by the noble monk. All prisoners are able to complete the circumambulation around the palace without dropping a single drop of oil. The king asked each of them whether they have heard the music and singing and saw dancing while they were circumambulating the palace. The answers were all similar, “No.”

The king asked to the noble monk why so. He answered: “These prisoners were being mindful not to drop a single drop of oil in order to free themselves from death just once. I am practicing mindfulness to free myself from the death forever. How could I be getting involved in those distractions?” The king was amused by the words of noble monk and freed all the prisoners in his kingdom.

A lack of mindfulness will always lead us to downfall.

Practicing the patience paramita does not mean you let other people do or say whatever they want to. It is to control our anger from rising. Anger is a poison that will kill you millions of times if you do not control it. It is a fire, which will burn you and others too. If you are not able to tolerate in small matters in this life and let your anger arise this anger will eventually lead you to take someone’s life. Like killing your enemy. If you kill your enemy then his or her family and friends stand up against you. First you had to deal with just one, but now your enemies have multiplied by more numbers. Shantideva said in his text Bodhicharya Avatara, “It is equal to cover all land with leather just by making a pair of shoes from piece of leather and put it on.” It worth billions of years to be patient in this life rather than getting angry. If you are not able to do so, you will be thrown in prisons or killed by other people in this life and next life your karma will throw you in the hell realm and you will suffer there for a long time. This will take a long path to achieve enlightenment.

So, it is very important to control your anger from the very beginning otherwise it will lead you into wrong directions. You have to extinguish the small fire of anger, which is easy; otherwise it will burn you and others too.

The paramita of exertion, or diligence, is to continue your practice what you have started such as loving kindness, six paramitas, mind training and study curriculum etc. Not only continue, but with delight and joyfulness. Having a sense of satisfaction with your practice rather than taking it as a burden. I often hear complaints from ngondro/preliminary practitioners. How difficult doing prostrations etc. Ngondro is the foundation or the gateway to the Vajrayana world. The teaching of Vajrayana is very profound and sacred. It is a path of faith and devotion. Practicing Ngondro is to make oneself a suitable vessel to contain those profound teachings and generate devotion towards our teachers. It is totally up to you whether you are making yourself suitable vessel to hold the profound teachings or become a miserable person by making your prostrations in frustration. The definition of exertion is to have sense of joyfulness toward once practicing dharma.

The paramita of concentration, or samadi, is to tranquilize our mind doing practices of calm abiding meditation and so forth. If our mind is tranquil then we can see the reality of phenomena clearly. It is like a clear lake without waves and dirt so one can see the objects in lake clearly. The waves of desire, anger and delusion and dirt of excitement such as daydreaming and lethargy. Calm abiding meditation is base of all meditation.

The wisdom paramita is free from cognitive obscuration, holding the concept of subject, object and action. They are called three spheres. In “Bodhicharya Avatara” the first five paramitas are described like blind people and wisdom paramita is like a person with eye, which can lead those five paramitas to the right direction. So, what happens if the wisdom does not lead to those five? When we are practicing those five paramitas we have this holding sense of “I”, I am the giver. This is the object I am giving. This is the person who is receiving this object. They are called three spheres. The main purpose of practicing dharma is to cut the root or samsara, which is self-attachment or ego clinging, “I”. If we practice dharma with those three spheres it will take long time to liberate ourselves from the cyclic existence of birth and death, samsara. The wisdom paramita is to free from those three spheres. Not holding towards subject, object and action. If you are able to practice all paramitas free of three spheres, this is the way you can gather accumulations of merit and wisdom in union.

So while we want to practice loving kindness, generate awareness of Boddhichitta, awakened mind, or the six paramitas and emptiness, lessening self-attachment becomes very important. That must be clearly understood, one couldn’t enter the path of Mahayana naively with some kind of hope that you can sustain the values of compassion and selflessness without compromising the importance of self-absorption.

AL

Brooklyn April 2010