MORALITY & ETHICS
(PRECEPTS & PRACTICES)

Karma Tenzing Dorje Namgyal Rinpoche

Edited by Wesley Knapp, September 24, 1994
Karma Senge Gyaltsen, Sakyashasanadhara

Published by: Sakya Namgyal Markham
R.R. 1, Locust Hill, Ontario, LOH 1JO, Canada
Telephone 905 294 7416. Fax 905 294 5920
e-mail: info@sakynamgyal.com
www.sakyanamgyal.com

Copyright 1991, 1994, 2006 by Wesley Knapp
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without written permission.

Introduction

These two discourses were given by the Venerable Namgyal Rinpoche in Ottawa on March the 22nd and 24th 1991. They were recorded, transcribed and edited by Wesley Knapp, with the Rinpoche's permission, for publication and distribution.

Angela and myself, with the assistance of Debbie and Freyda organised and conducted that weekend of Teaching. I would like to thank them and all of the Ottawa people, especially Cheryl and Steve, for making it possible for the Rinpoche to be it's initiator and 'highlight' speaker. We experienced great joy and much growth.

I have tried not to take out any of Rinpoche's words or add in any of my own. This is extremely difficult as anyone who has tried to create a written document from the Rinpoche's spoken words will affirm. His style of delivery explodes with energy, ideas are packed one inside another in each sentence - there are no sentences!

As a transcriber/editor one is faced with the onerous task of trying to create and punctuate sentences and paragraphs without butchering the flow of Rinpoche's speech. From time to time his voice will rise and fall, making it difficult to transcribe from a recording. Words and phrases are lost; the meaning can be conveyed by a look, a pause, or a change of tone. It's hard to capture on a tape recorder, let alone in writing. As always, 'You had to be there'

I know that this effort does not do justice to Rinpoche's thought and speech, but nevertheless I thought it worthwhile to try and share this 'Gift of Dharma'. Any and all errors in the communication of the transmission are mine. There was, as is most often the case with the Rinpoche much joy and laughter during the sharing. So much so that the [laughter] inclusions seemed obtrusive to the text so I left them most of them out.

I was inspired to undertake this by the spirit of generosity shown by Namgyal Rinpoche and lovingly supported as ever by Angela and our children, to whom this is dedicated. Lama Couples can become Dharma Families; Dharma Families can Awaken to Community in Spirit. May it be so…

This web edition is offered with the prayer for a speedy and auspicious return of the Namgyal Tulku and the aspiration that we may encounter the Rinpoche once again in whatever form is taken in order to be of service. May it be soon…

Sakya Namgyal
Markham 2006

Morality - The Precepts

Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche - 'A Working Week-End' - with Wesley and Angela
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 7.30 a.m., March 22, 1991

Rinpoche: Have you any questions while we wait? Yes?

Question: I've been working on the co-ordination meditation: the red, the blue and the purple and when I internalise, it goes back and forth, I get to the brain and internalise it, it's reversed, and that's all right?

Rinpoche: That's all right.

Question: So, I leave it alone?

Rinpoche: Yes. In any case, there is a cross over in most people.

Just while we're waiting, I would like to thank the people in the background who arrange food, and arrange accommodation when I come to Ottawa. It's not too often said, so I should just like to put that in. I would also like to emphasise that there is a tradition in the Teaching about doing service for the lama. But, I think that the people who do this service are, in fact, equally the lama because they make it possible, and they share in the merit of it, and they are an integral part of the Teaching. I hope that sinks in. It's very important because you know, so much in the Teaching is focussed on THE being, the big 'Pooh Bah' up there, and the people who are in the background that make it possible are somehow, just there or something. But I think that is a wrong view and I think that anyone who makes the teaching possible is in fact a Teacher, even if they don't open their mouth. And so I'd just like to put that in. Thank you.

I think also that we should all appreciate… if I have been lax to say so in the past it is because, in the Teaching there is a very strange thing. That is, we don't normally thank people for doing good things. Does that make any sense to you? It's an Eastern approach I think - well, when you do a very positive action it's its own reward and you do it because it actually assists you to unfold on the Path. So you don't hear in the Order... from the Order's standpoint, this is a classic view, (it's not Western behaviour or Western politeness but it's a very Eastern view), that you would be insulting someone at times by saying thank you. Isn't that strange? I mean, it's an unusual idea for you to work with, but if you ponder it a bit you will see it.

Someone's been to Russia? I can see that. These are done by two villages north of Moscow. These are from one of them. This is a box. It's very beautiful lacquer, (may I show them?), and it's a very beautiful miniature, lacquer box. Originally I suppose, from a tradition of icon painting - very fine, very detailed.

Right ho! Shall we begin, it's almost time? Can we have lots of fresh air? May I explain that to you? I'm sure that you will indulge me in it. It's a little bit of an emotional blackmail, but can I use it? When I was quite young, (and for several years when I was living also in Burma - it was only discovered when I went to Thailand); I had tuberculosis in one lung and it healed over, from very early days of being the ascetic. Since that time I have been very vulnerable on the question of good fresh air, lots of air, taken into the lung. So, if you will, indulge that for a bit. You can think that if you get cold you're toughening yourself up with practice…

Namo tassa bhagavato arahatao samma sambuddhassa,
Namo tassa bhagavato arahatao samma sambuddhassa,
Namo tassa bhagavato arahatao samma sambuddhassa.

This evening I would like to correct somewhat… I presume if you have a typical Western being approaching the Teaching, the Eastern teaching, they tend to gravitate towards say, the practice of meditation and it becomes very much the meditational focus. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was once asked, I think on CBC, what Christianity could offer Buddhism and he replied something like, 'doctors and hospitals - Compassionate Works. And then he was asked the question in reverse, what can the teaching of Buddhism offer the West and he said, 'meditation.'

However, teachers say many things on different occasions. On another occasion His Holiness was asked about practice nowadays and he said, 'Well', (this is the gist of it), 'it is very difficult for people to attain nowadays the meditational path - their lifestyle is not quite the same.' You could imagine! And so he said, 'in this day and age what should be stressed is ethics, the moral practice'.

You have to imagine India 2,500 years ago when you had mendicant monks, (rather like the Order of St. Francis), that wandered from place to place and they would in effect tent with an umbrella tent. Imagine an umbrella against the rain and falling from it a type of mosquito netting. And they would just wander for nine months of the year from the Deer Park at Issipatanarama to a forest area and be available for Teaching. And then three months of the year they would retire and stay in one place. Still, sometimes available for teaching, but more or less, to develop the mediation path full out.

So, for nine months of the year, they would travel; and they travelled all the way over, apparently, to the court of Philip of Macedon; down to Sri Lanka, over to many other countries, wandering, establishing 'universities' - teaching centres; but for three months of the year, when they were not involved in their studies, (which we will call for the moment academic, although they were for the attainment of wisdom), they would stay in one place and they would do a meditational retreat during the rainy season. And during that period of time - I'm trying to take you back into that long ago time - they would not move because they didn't want to disturb new life coming. It was like the Spring; because they did not want to break these new shoots that were coming up and - you know, for most of nature this is the mating time for the birds, the insects and all the rest of it - and the offspring are coming in spring - so they can get a good summer feed and prepare for the winter.

So, during that period of time, it was called the rainy season, (which was also very muddy everywhere of course, another pragmatic), they didn't move, basically. And, also because that was the case they could focus on a meditational subject in great depth for three months - twenty hours a day, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one hours a day. And so, many of their insights and their discoveries about the nature of the universe, the dharmas of the universe, came from this very, shall we call it, professional standpoint; total immersion - and it's a bit difficult you understand, to sort of juxtaposition the teachings, the attainments and the realisations that came that way with the present society. Because I think most of you, with all good will in the world and a little bit of effort, might manage an hour a day, something like that - if that? And it's not the quite the same, bringing the same 'oomph' to it. You accept this?

So, the Dalai Lama anyway thought that the Teaching that should be for people is to involve them in mindfulness of right thought, right speech and right action, in the midst of life. I don't want to denigrate or anything by saying the path of the laity, please, because I think that has a lot to teach the Order also.

We find that, in the second oldest meditation book, (which is known in history as published in writing), that at the beginning of it - it's a book called the Visuddhimagga, the Path of Purification - (which is a very voluminous work - a very, very thick work, innumerable pages), is dedicated to a type of teaching which first establishes the morality; and then on the basis of that, the meditational path and then on the basis of the meditational path, the path of wisdom.

Now, understand that it's easier to meditate than to be moral. I hope you… because it's the most confusing subject; I mean it's very easy say, to go and focus on the earth mandala - mandala of earth. Or, go and watch the breathing and stick with it and 'oh, that happened - oh, fine'. That's very straightforward, believe me, the teaching of meditation is very straightforward.

But when you enter the field of morality, you need two things, well three things - two other things, anyway. First of all, you have to be scrupulously honest in what might be called the examination of conscience - and you will see also your moral values change; there are many, many issues involved with it and, of course above all, you have to have a continuum of mindfulness, recollectedness. And, viewing what you are thinking, what you are speaking and what you are doing.

So, this evening I would like to take you through certain considerations. Now, before we go any further, one of the great difficulties is that there is a vast difference between country and country as to what constitutes good morality and even in certain religions what constitutes morality itself. Even in Buddhism, there is a great difference in what constitutes the correct base, the correct motivation.

So, what I'm going to suggest this evening - possibly on Sunday morning we might view some purported higher teachings which come from the standpoint of compassion. But tonight I'd like to speak about what is basic morality, the basic morality. And the basic morality of (may I put it in Buddhist terms tonight? - Only more or less in Buddhist terms), and then you can compare it in your mind with other teachings that you may know of.

The first precept for every Buddhist… I'm not trying to make Buddhists here tonight I'm just trying to tell you, there are millions of them in the world. The starting point of it all is: I undertake to train myself to refrain from killing and harming. Now, I have to before I go any further… most people receive a type of revelation about what constitutes good morality. For example, in Christian terms, 'Thou shalt not this, this, this, this and this.' And in addition to that, (I think I'm being fair, by the way, right?), and in addition to that, in other words, that's a proclamation of what you don't do - from God, from external power.

In addition to that you have the Church or churches declare at different times in history what you can do and what you can't do. It comes from the church - it comes from some authority outside of your being. Is that fair enough? Right? And that's what most people do. Now, in some of the societies in which I have lived it is moral to kill. I'm not talking necessarily about Canada and the United States but peoples that I have visited.

For example, I visited Iringaya and at the time that I visited the year before they had killed a few missionaries - Didn't like them for some reason or other. It was very debatable whether we could visit these Asmat people. And the reason was that they had constant village to village warfare going on. In, if you listen, in that society, if you didn't go to kill, you understand, the other village, you were letting down your people. And it was viewed as an immoral act. There was no question about conscientious objection or anything of that nature. It was condemned. I have actually met people in this life who ate their mother and father and I have met people who considered it a good act. I'm talking about views that exist in the world, bizarre as they may be.

The idea was…May I give you the rationale for eating your mother? You may be interested in it. It was that they had come to a point where they were very decrepit; old, about to die, were a burden on the society and they should go out in style, as among the Naga peoples. What you did was you tied your dear, sainted mother to a tree and you bent it down and then you let it go, (the catapult effect) and you dashed whatever brains your mother had left after bringing you up, right, that was it - against a cliff! And then I guess you also… Do you have a sense of humour? I have an Irish black, what's called the Irish black sense of humour. So, you had your tenderised meat, also, right? This is really black Irish humour - and you ate her because that was to respect. That was respect.

It was a sort of a cannibalism aspect. Even in Thailand the government had a terrible time. The government's Buddhist and they didn't know how to stop certain practices. And one of them was, you had a case where, in a will, someone left their liver and heart to their friends after their death - they had their liver and heart and they ate it. The government couldn't… and you see it was respect to that being - Teaching, please. You understand? I'm not suggesting this practice, please. I'm just telling you.

In the world I have met innumerable views about what constitutes the correct way of living. Before we rush in to declare them all false and this is false, and we wouldn't do that - we have to understand that basically we have a conditioning. And our conditioning on many, many subjects is very indebted to the Puritans, in particular. And there are areas where we are rather inflexible about it. So, I want to however, put a basic Buddhist view before you, a basic one. And what I want to stress is that you see the wording of it, the precepts.

I will talk about the lower and some higher precepts; I will go through them very quickly. I undertake to train myself to refrain from killing and harming. I take that up consciously; and then if you notice, it isn't because it was said by the Buddha or the Order or anything of that nature. I take upon myself voluntarily, from an insight, that that is the best and most wholesome way to live. Not dependent on outer authority, but by a personally arising insight. And you notice it isn't - now there are two views - I have to be very scrupulously honest with you, because some Tibetans treat it as absolute. I will never, never, never, never, never kill or harm.

I think that, however, the prevailing view which I would support is not to be - to realise in advance that you will all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That is, it is a study! I have to be - and now I'm speaking sort of personally on your behalf - if you were saying in your mind, this is what you would have to say. I have to study and apply myself to consider what is killing and how far to take it.

For example, in the Order you carry around with you, I don't know what you call it, like a tea strainer. So, that if you took water from a stream - this is done today by the way in the Order, you don't kill any creature. You take it out and say, 'Here, have a chance.' You saw this last when we were walking in a nature reserve and there were two black mites, (you know what mites are?), that fell on my clothing. You may think I'm terribly virtuous but actually it's very standard and so, two of these black mites. I think other people would just swat and kill them. Scrunch them.

But, you cannot do that in this Teaching. You may think this is a very - you know, I mean, I'm giving you things that go on in my head - this is a very curious creature. Look at it. It's very incredible and wonderful and you take it off your clothing and you put it back in Nature and walk on. And that's - I'm trying to give it to you in practice. And even if a mosquito comes, instead of swatting, killing all the mosquitoes - you cure the humans - and then the mosquitoes don't have the disease to be transmitted. There are two ways to eradicate malaria. And so preferably, I mean there are Buddhists who do kill mosquitoes, right? - Doctors, etc. But, you have to - each individual, each has to work out their salvation with diligence. And diligently be involved, they must study.

For example, the fifth precept: I undertake to train myself (but it is a study, a training, a learning process), to refrain from drugs and alcohol, drugs, that cloud the mind. How far do you take that, individual study? But you have guidelines that you - the guideline is -your study. You're not receiving it; you are thinking, 'That makes a great deal of sense', particularly in this environment, sorry, in this society which is going to disease as purified drugs and hence producing other diseases in the wake of it.

Now, to give you an example of that, one of the teachers at one of the monasteries that I studied at in Burma, the main teacher of that temple, wouldn't take alcohol under any conditions whatsoever. That is, even in hospital he wouldn't take a medicine or even if a doctor prescribed it a tonic that had alcohol in it, he wouldn't take it. Fair enough? - Now, individuality please.

Now this being will occasionally, but not to the point, never to the point where the mind is clouded. You see, for example, if you were a drinker and you went out it might be alright if I got drunk but not really because it would affect someone else. But I might also drive a car and I might ruin somebody - have an accident and ruin someone else's life.

But, it might be possible and this is my view of it, that the alcohol, the glass of wine, is permissible only for a pleasant state of mind. I'm, in other words, a liberal. However, never to the point where the being would be out of control and may damage their life, commit an error which damages their life or the life of someone else - And only if it were to better their life. St. Paul said, 'Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake.' So, I would assent. I have an Irish background, but strangely an Irish teetotal background. You understand what I'm trying to do? Not that you accept what I say about it because the whole thrust of if it is, what do you say about it? Where have you got with the issue?

And I'm giving you two and I can give you others. There are other beings in, usually in the tantra teachings, who have been known to get sloshed regularly. Judge not lest ye be judged! That's the point. You have enough on your plate to work out your ongoing morality in awareness without terribly much concern about what others are doing. So I'm being very open about that. We have teachers who, for various reasons, have been known to be either alcoholic or near to being alcoholic, that is in the manifestation. What that's on about you'd have to work. I'd just have to speculate. Not to judge, but an interesting point. I'm just sharing what my view is.

But, there is an extreme, there's an extreme in the Teaching. If you don't like teachers being drunk then you don't go to teachers who are drunk. If you don't like teachers that… for example, if you think that tobacco is a drug you don't necessarily go to teachers who smoke. But then, of course, you would close the Teaching to all Indian peoples, by the way. Because tobacco is considered a sacred plant and is used for meditation. So, what are you going to do? You see, there are in every point along the way, considerations.

Now, most people, for example, when it comes to the precept about false speech say, 'Well, it's sufficient if I don't tell a lie.' But, by the way, in the morality of the West there are two major subjects: sex and drugs, and most of the focus of morality goes on those two things and not on certain other things which are of equal importance - that is, what are you doing with speech? I'm going to give a kind of Quaker cum Buddhist view that your yea be yea and your nay be nay. You know, speak to the point. There is nothing so conducive of wasting a lot of the life energy than idle conversations.

You see, I'm, strangely enough on speech, I tend to be far more of a Puritan than perhaps some of the other areas. I'm just being very personal here. And then the interesting thing about that is that even the fantasy, fantasy conversations, are a kind of lie to yourself. You're not in the reality. Not focussing on the reality, you're denying the reality by many of the interior useless conversations.

Heidegger again, said despair or distraction. I think that the number one distracting thing that people do is tell themselves stories and conversations and so on that are very frequently boring or repetitive and go nowhere but occupy the time - the very valuable time of life. So, I really do think that if one is to be a fully moral person you have to see not merely what you're speaking, out loud to other people but to yourself. You have to view these false speeches that you have and then of course, that includes things like boasting, gossip, this, that and the other. So there in your study, you would start to refrain from telling lies but also you would have to go deeper and deeper and deeper into what constitutes false speech.

In the sexual category there are two levels, one of which I will speak about later which is when you go to - well, I will speak about it first. When you go to meditate, you make take it as a guideline that when you are in meditational retreat or in a serious depth study, listen to this very carefully; you should be totally celibate, totally celibate. And the issue behind that is basically the conservation of energy, energy. You may not view that so much as a moral consideration but as a practical consideration. Because if you're not in a meditation retreat then as far as the kamisumichachara category is concerned…normally it is translated as: I undertake to train myself to refrain from unwholesome sexual activity.

And then we come to this most dreaded of all subjects on the face of the earth and its going to require a great deal of energy to plod through it, but there are certain… you see many people want to say, 'Well, should I do this or that? Can I do this or can I do that?' And in this Teaching there are only certain things which are utterly forbidden, utterly forbidden. You may or may not agree, but nevertheless I will put it to you.

First of all, rape is never allowed, never promoted. OK? Let's get that very clear. Child abuse is never allowable. Slavery, sexual slavery is never allowable. Alas in this Teaching prostitution is not on, ever, and so on. There are only about four or five total prohibitives. You can fill in the rest of it. There is a full range in Buddhist countries of heterosexuality of different patterns, sorry about that. The monogamous path may be the preferred and ideal path and we will call that the white path and then there is a sort of, we've already talked about the black and then in between there are some problematicals. For example, there are countries in which several wives is accepted in the culture of that country which happens to be Buddhist. There's also at least one country or two where it is possible, permissible, for a woman to have several husbands. Sauce for the gander, sauce for the goose, right? There are innumerable, we'll call them, greyer study areas. Homosexuality, question? Lesbianism, question? Not totally prohibited, not necessarily ideal, but to be studied. Fair enough? I'll give you the guideline.

Another precept; listen, it doesn't say not - I under take to train myself to refrain from stealing. It says a little more subtly, 'I undertake to train myself not to take that which is not given.' Unless something is expressly given to you, there are no little borrowings? That sort of thing, little smudging of the life. Obviously, stealing is out, for example, but what about profits in business and all that? You see, the study starts to open some little clam type little numbers that people don't want to look at - and you don't see as much scandal in say, the Toronto Star and the Globe & Mail, that such and such a company took two billion dollars in profits over and above...

You know the medieval age, by the way, you couldn't even do that. You weren't allowed to make profit. In the medieval ages the church forbade people the taking of usury, and so on. If you wanted a loan (and unfortunately the Jewish people got stuck with it), if you wanted a loan of any kind you would have to go to the Jewish people. They would be almost the pawnbrokers of the medieval Ages. And, of course, you know what happens about that - hatred, indebtedness, and so on. So, that's part of that legacy there.

I'm not really on the Jewish people, I'm just saying the church wouldn't allow good Catholics to do it and it was against scripture, the morality of scripture, so it didn't occur and there are other ways around it. In fact, there was a terrible scandal of popes who were elected by bribery and things of that nature. I guess it still would be - but, you understand? I mean, who knows how they get to be heads of our political parties by bribery and corruption and you start to open a whole field of study. But, basically not, never mind in the life of other people, what are you doing with it?

Are you getting your wherewithal honestly? And you feel honest and correct about your income, etc. and that you are engaged in a wholesome livelihood. You're not necessarily killing animals or anything of that nature. That would be considered to have broken the first precept in general, please. You see, there are things that come out of all this. You steal from other people you may be killing them; you may be harming them so the precepts are interrelating. I'm just trying to give you issues, views that would be almost an automatic response.

For example, no Buddhist by principle is in favour of abortion. Now before you put in your protests I say, by principle, not in favour of abortion. They would love to have it some other way, any other solution but abortion. Maybe more intelligent sex or whatever it is or not conceiving but it's the last thing. Now, this does not mean to be against choice, strangely enough. Because that's the other persons', that's their responsibility.

A teacher, please understand, a teacher of Buddhism cannot - you can be in favour of the person and sympathetic and compassionately hold and relate to the person who has to have an abortion but you cannot promote abortion. You may lay out the facts in front of the being and they must make the choice. So that strangely enough, you might end up in a position that could be pro-choice and pro-life at the same time. So, please do not accept what I am saying because there are innumerable Buddhists with innumerable studies, personal studies going on. And they have their lives and so on. Fair enough? You hear? So that what we're trying to say to every being is (I've outlined about five precepts there) you become an intelligently involved being and you come to your various conclusions.

For example, life is not easy, and did you know that? For example, what do you do if, the Nazis came to your house and you were hiding Anna Frank, or someone, and they say, 'Have you any Jews here?' 'Oh, yes Mr. nazi officer.' I don't think that's going to be on. Because then you're killing some way or another, or participating. So what do you do? Silence! Or do you sin? 'Oh, no', which is something like a Burmese 'no'.

There is a Burmese 'yes'. In Burma when, if you go to someone, a Burmese person and say,' Would you lend me a million dollars?' They would say, 'Yes.' You may never get it, but they would say - what they are saying in their mind is, if I had a million dollars and because you're such a wonderful friend of mine I would love to give you a million dollars. 'Would you lend me a million dollars?' 'Yes.'

And all the rest of the dialogue is not necessarily said. So you can ask people for certain help and it may or may not be forthcoming. They will try to help you but they will always respond to a friend with a 'yes'. And I suppose with a Nazi you always say 'no'. And you're not necessarily telling you a lie. I haven't any of those that y they might have thought of as vermin or inferior, 'No. there's none of those people here.' I think I have a precious friend there but you didn't ask about that. You asked about this picture that you have. So, there are many deep subtleties between the letter of the law in which you can ascribe the entire scene.

You've heard about that one, haven't you? In the Bible you're all so pure but you're not really pure because there's a guideline of what constitutes good morality. And that is, if an action of yours makes you feel not in the state of love, unfriendly - in other words, it breaks your state of friendliness, it is an unwholesome act, it is a sin. You have an inner guideline; your body will tell you that. It's very, very simple and straightforward. If your action breaks compassionate involvement you have broken the essence of the precepts. If your action breaks unitive joy between people, joy, shared joy between people, it has broken the spirit, not the letter, of the law. If your action breaks serene union, unitive feel, your union with the universe in which you are, then it has broken the essence, it's an immoral act or an unethical act. So you look at what the action does to you.

Hopefully, you develop wisdom gradually that your actions help others to enter into a state of loving kindness, compassion, joy and serenity. But first of all, you definitely - all beings have to focus on their own being, and study. And in the course of study you come to insights. And a much better feel and sympathy for what other people are going through. And so therefore, you fulfil the high precept of compassionate, loving kindness, compassionate, joyful, serene involvement with all beings that you meet. So, there are guidelines.

And the guidelines are in the interior, not just an abstract light but what you actually experience. The body doesn't lie. Your brain can do all sorts of things and your conversations but your body doesn't. And you know it's compassionate to you to observe a moral path because you feel better inside - Loving kindness. And you're not punishing yourself. That's a wonderful guideline: be compassionate to yourself not to have unwholesome activities; its compassionate for your existence and it leads to more joy in your being to be a moral being and it definitely also, leads to more serenity in your being. Fair enough?

So, we go back. If you use the precepts to fulfil the moral path you will come to awakening. All you have to do is have a constant awareness present of whether or not you are in a state that is wholesome. It is called sukha state or moral state. That's all. There are, however, if you go for special study programs of meditation and I may also give it as a - I know it's going to sound very strange - but even if you went to, say, university and you were committed to a program where you wanted to take any program in depth, the precepts might have something to say to you. And they're rather more not so much as you might think of them as morals as to help you to unfold to deeper understanding.

I'm going to call it sort of, the Quaker principles here. One is, I undertake to train myself to not to, if you translate it, not to eat at unfortunate times or out of time, literally out of time. [in Pali: vikala bhojana veramani sikkhapadam sammadiyami] That is a pragmatic, please - instead of stuffing yourself with fast foods and erratically so. You go to the ads for senna pills: be regular. That is a great basis. It's a very important principle. You know, you might actually be a more moral being if you ate wholesomely and regularly. I'm going to let you work on it. But when you particularly need your energies for depth study you should start taking the higher precepts.

Another one: I'll give you examples; avoid - this is the real Quaker, Puritan you're probably not really conversant with this one - is you give up singing and dancing and movies and television and 'ta da'!. Oh, no. No. No. I didn't say, see there's five precepts and the five precepts say nothing about that. Go and sin, in love. Go and sin. You might feel you want to relax with television, fine. But, when you go for meditation, can you intuit this? You are getting lost into other subjects. First of all the quality of the television and this, that and the other is not a very high standard in any way, I'll just say that out of the side of my mouth anyway. But it's splitting your attention. It's a pragmatic because it splits your attention so that's another one.

Another of the precepts, (the higher precepts, are very Quaker, I'm sorry about this, some of you are guilty, right)? You give up adorning your body and cosmetics, this is also addressed to men, and by the way, they don't use Brut. They don't put the emphasis on that subject - the narcissistic mirror number. That takes your attention away from unfoldment in meditation. So, you dress simply. Don't use - not that necessarily the cosmetic or the perfume - I can assure you that in Buddhist countries people do use cosmetics. They use perfumes - they - if it leads to - if it helps other people also to be particularly happy they do so. Alright?

But it's called a higher precept because when you want to do higher or deeper things you need an extra oomph to it. So, you just pretend, if you wish, that you're in a Carmelite convent, (you understand what I'm saying?), and you drop that level, just drop it. Off from your body come all the little needs that you have to sort of keep yourself up a bit by and try to develop keeping yourself up from within. Not dependent on another. Not dependent on your husband or your wife and all this type of thing. And even, of course, when you do depth study work you give up, (some people would be very happy to give up, I'm quite sure), definitely meaningless interpersonal relationships, totally. And, it's highly dubious whether you should have even the focus outside of the interior. But, you can debate it and walk on.

What else have we got? Oh, you're constantly sitting, I can see it. Now, you have to give up high and luxurious seats. Whatever is that about? In those days and still today - did any of you see 'The Last Emperor' and you saw him, in other words, high and luxurious seats were ego posturings in the society. So, you enter with a type of feeling, may I give it to you of: you're all dressed the same, you sleep on the ground, you are one of the - rather Islamic type of approach - you're one of just the millions of the spawning humanity. You have no position in society. This applies to lamas, too, by the way. They should not have any consideration of that. They should be quite prepared to lie on the floor, you understand, or take a very lowly position as if we're just from the earth. Give up all these posturings and pretensions in this society to be somebody and all that. So, the precept of giving up is the symbol of giving up society recognition, the search for society recognition.

And the last precept of the higher ones is: I undertake to train myself not to handle gold and silver. Because, again in those days - well, nowadays, I know you you're very technical beings, you see. You're letter of the law beings. I know you. You'd be that type of being that doesn't take alcohol under any conditions. So, you will come to me, I know you, because you're a letter of the law being, you'll come to me and say, 'Well, I haven't handled any gold and silver.' We probably haven't had that in Canadian money for years. Right? 'I've just handled green paper, or orange paper. I've just been handling paper.'

But, the meaning of it was when you are going for a depth study thing, meditation or something else, please. Try to fulfil the precept of putting down business, if you can. Clear the decks. Clear it for the study. Pay your bills and forget it and, you understand? then it will be easier for you mind let go into the studies or the meditation. So, I've seen a lot of people no sooner than do they begin a meditational retreat say, 'You don't mind if - I've even had one being say, 'You don't mind if my broker calls me up?' I'll say, 'Well, you've broken the precept.' You've still got your hands over there. You've still got your little mental hands, you know, out there just 'save me', 'save me' in case the meditation goes nowhere. 'In case I don't become a Buddha, fully awakened.'

You are in essence Buddhas by the way, all beings. I want to stress that, that Buddhas, by the way, are not male. Right? All beings here present are Buddhas. At least you're Bodhisattvas. You're Buddhas to be and you have Buddha nature and it will awaken. And then you'll be an actualised one, a practicing one. Now, but, you know, 'Well in case that doesn't occur I want to make sure my business affairs don't deteriorate.' In the meantime that I have a home and a house, you know, to come home to and a bank account, etc. But, it is not good because it splits your focus and you need - there's a fivefold focus - I'm going to conclude with this, there's a fivefold focus that you need for the path, for spiritual work.

Shall I just outline it for you? Do you hear these higher precepts against that? One of them was already enunciated: when you're going for depth work - for that period there may be other periods but that's something else that you do - but during that period you must be totally celibate. Got it? In addition to the high and mighty places and the no monies and the no adornments and the regular meals and not give up your frequent Mac attacks, etc. Give all that up. But, you need five things. It's from a sutta that the Buddha gave. It's in the Majjhima Nikaya; it's about the sixteenth, around there. It's called Cetokilasutta, The posts of the aspiring mind, of which there are fifteen.

But, five of them - there is a fivefold principle. You must develop the concentration, condensing. In other words: concentrated work. Not concentration, but the concentration of concentration. Now, before you get complex about that one, the first thing that you have to do - you have to have very strong intent, determination. You must state in your mind what it is and develop the aspiration, the will to, for example, know a certain subject and achieve a certain thing. You need intent.

The second thing that you need is not merely the thought of enlightenment but you need the energy for enlightenment. You better conserve your energies. Concentrate your energies. They're not scattered all over. And that's what the five precepts, the five higher precepts, are on about. Look, it's very, very simple - if you wanted to become, (don't you believe?), That if you wanted to become a great musician, a concert pianist or you wanted to become a highly skilled surgeon, or you wanted to achieve mastery/ mistressy, whatever you want to call it, you know, conquest in a certain field; that you make sacrifices for it. Right? You don't let your energies go all over the place. You really conserve energies.

So, the second thing that you have to concentrate is energy. And then you have to concentrate - the third thing is you have to concentrate concentration. That is, you have to maintain a continuum of focus on the subject that you want. Just keep with that theme, dropping other themes. The third concentration that you need is the concentration or intensity, intensification of exploration, of investigation of the field that you're involved in. Not merely read it but really examine it.

I used to work in a laboratory, I don't know about any of you; it was in a department of parasitology. And one of the works that we did was, strangely enough, with preying mantis, the creatures. It was on the road to see about the affect of cancer cells, strangely enough, the work was with cancer. And - but, investigation. I'm going to call it, sort of the microscope principle. So, you're concentrated on a subject but you've got to bore into it and really get in there and look at all the details, and so on. Not just gloss it, but get the details - the same as with the question of morality.

And the fifth thing is a word which is translated normally as effort - it's viriya - but, in fact, the word should be translated a different way. And with apologies for the women here but I think you will note, you will know what I mean by it: manliness, or the heroic principle. (From the audience, 'gumption!'), Gumption! Very good! Gumption, Guts! But, be prepared to face, you know, the overcoming of the wimp tendency if some new discovery comes up and, you know, it upsets you. You've got to be willing to go on. So, the word viriya is either normally translated as manliness or heroic. And you need the heroism of many mothers, by the way. They keep plodding on and working on with the hope that will go through something. So, that's the extra fifth push that's needed.

And this gives you an idea. The reason that I put those five in is because the general immorality wastes a lot of energy. Nothing is so conducive to wastage of energy as when you don't have any subject, you feel defeated just wandering around. That's when the devil finds work for idle hands. And there is depletion of energy. All right you can get basic morality in place but the extra dimension is the question: How can we get more conservation of the energy? And that was why I put in the other five. Killing and harming takes energy away from you. False speech takes energy away from you. Unintelligent sexuality without what you call a meaningful relationship, generally, also takes energy away from the being. Being motivated to exploit other beings takes energy away from the being. I mean, away from the Path. And, of course, drink and drugs waste energy. But even if you got through those five there is an extra dimension which I've already explained to you in terms of the other pragmatics - an extra dimension.

Don't waste too time with too much involvement with food. Get your act together. Get it happening at correct times so that the digestive process is not taking too much energy away in your being and dulling your mind. And you're not being motivated to, you know, 'put the dog on' kind of number. That takes energy to do that, by the way. To paint yourself up and I mean that - dress and paint and be the doll, male or female doll - takes a lot of energy in life to maintain that level. To maintain the pretension in front of other people you know, your status. That takes a lot of energy, etc., etc., etc. Well, now you've heard it and what I want to re-emphasize along with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I seem to be in very good company on that point, that this is a meaningful path for any being. You have no excuse. You can get full awakening if you only hold the question, what is moral - and you studied it. What is an ethical practice?

So, may you be well and happy... "Sabbe sutta sukhita hontu". That means: May all beings be well and happy. So, that's it. You'll notice I've cut off discussion because I think that gives you something you can go and study in more depth and that's what you should be doing. If you need more instruction about it or more exploration about it, there will be a class on Sunday morning. They haven't told me what time. Tomorrow is a work day and I think you will find it tremendously supportive because it's direct work. And so we will work directly together, I and other beings will help you in the course of the day. And you will put in what we called it in Toronto - we did it at the Rudolph Steiner School - a normal working day. I consider these studies to be normal for a human being. I do not consider most of the stuff that goes on, particularly in Ottawa, the civil service etc, (that's my slight Torontonian dig) to be that meaningful. You know what I mean? A little bit abnormal. What they've sold humans into, really. It's very abnormal.

Many of the things that go on in the whole business, economic world become a great revelation, shock to you. It has very little to do with being a human being. Distorted view? False view? Do you ever get a sense of...? Did it ever really hit you when you pick up a paper and get a sense of unreality? That sense of unreality - that this is abnormal. How do human beings get into this? How can...? You couldn't even read it in science fiction. No science fiction author could ever do it. It's bizarre, bizarre. And strangely enough, the more you practice awareness the more bizarre it becomes. I can understand why the first monasteries were never - that was then 2,500 years ago - they wouldn't allow a decent monastery to be in a city. That was then, and it hasn't got any better. It really hasn't got any better.

The city people today they live in the strangest states. The only thing that can be said is that it's a commonly held neurosis. They're actually insane. Really! By any heavenly standards of outer space - I'm sure if other beings came down from outer space and looked what was going on in humanity they would say, 'They're insane.' (Heidegger again - the dreadful has already happened). They're split off. They're living in fantasy world. I mean. I don't want to belabour the point. I mean, money is fantasy. It's actually a fantasy. The government, the whole country is bankrupt. It's the truth! It's the truth!

May I just make one more point, one more comment. The Minister of Finance gets up and he says, 'Now, we've cut the deficit.' This is utter trash, bilge. All that's happened is that they've cut it, there's not quite as much debt being added this year as last year. It's only 30 billion or whatever it is. It's only 30 billion! And what people say, 'Oh, oh things are getting better.' They're not, they're getting actually worse. But I think money is a very good thing where you see people live on promises, fantasy promises. Just fantasy promises. And so on.

Anyway, I think maybe tomorrow we'll do a normal working day. To me the most normal thing you can do is become a healthier, happier - very trite, eh? - healthier, happier human being. That actually has the most pragmatic effect on other beings. That's the cause of peace in the world.

Anyway, again: be well and happy...

Question: Sir, for those who aren't coming tomorrow what time will we meet on Sunday?

Rinpoche: You have to tell me... Don't consider me. I mean, I just have to drive about four hours and back to my house over icy, bumpy roads but don't consider that.

Question: How about 7.30, is that too early?

Rinpoche: Not for me! These poor creatures, I've told you already, these Canadians lack, they are noted in the East as weak, wimps. They're noted for it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. In Thailand and Malaysia they say these Canadians that came to practice they just seemed to be unable to put in the number of hours. Not like the Japanese and the Israelis or other people, nationalities all over the world. Right? They cannot just put the time in, you understand? Softies but at least you have a record - and I don't say this, strangely enough, for ulterior motives - of being the most generous people. Now, isn't that interesting. I thought you should at least know that. Yeah. So, if you don't, I've got you, if you don't give you're not very Canadian. It's interesting. They're usually good hearted, and a generous people. But, it's understandable, they don't drive themselves. That's why I kind of push the concentration, the fivefold concentration.

One thing is they don't particularly trust. You see, when you really trust and you get excited by an idea you begin to put passion into it. And it's difficult to - may I just say this - to arouse passion in anything. You might do it with a European but you will not do it with hewers of wood and drawers of water. The image, you know. It doesn't suit the image somehow or another to go right out there, right? Is there an easier way? Show me. Do you mean I really have to meditate? I know you're secretly hoping, 'Do I really have to meditate nineteen hours, twenty hours a day. 'Oh, no, no, no - You don't have to do that.' All you have to do is twenty four hours a day of morality.

Question: the Voyageurs came to mind...?

Rinpoche: Yes, yes, but they were French, European. They probably weren't born in this country. They came over to explore the country. The explorers did it, right? Ever since you've been living in your little log cabins and hoping that the wolves don't get you.

Any questions?

Question: Couldn't drawing wood be a meditation? ***

Rinpoche: Yes. It could be a meditation. Yes. There are other things that count. OK? But playing tiddlywinks could also be a meditation you understand. It depends on you being recollected on what you're doing. Being focussed, anything can be used for the Path. That's a great saying in insight - anything can be used for the Path, particularly wholesome things, of course. But, even if you have unwholesome things present at least try to learn. I have seen people who experienced bombing attacks in war and lots of hate was arising in their being but they somehow heard it and were able to transmute it and learn from it. So, even if you get the upwelling of the shadow in your being at least, be aware! Maybe you have a possibility. I think the ones that really don't get liberated are the ones that have no awareness that they are in a state of sin.

May I tell you one very funny story; you have to be European to appreciate it. We got on a Dutch vessel that was going out to India and we stopped at Cape Town to take on water and then there's this 10 days after that you get over to Sri Lanka, 10 days at sea. So the group of dharma students we decided, for the New Year to make, please we are Buddhist, we are not Hindu, right? Hindus may consider us to a certain extent. Anyway, you will appreciate this story. So we decided to make an image of Kali. For fun, excuse me. 'Pour amuse, pour passé le temps', and we made a huge statue out of many, many balloons, of Kali, and decorated her, because we were going on our way to Calcutta. And in Calcutta there is Durga Puja every year. And they take the statue of Kali, or Durga, which is the destructive element and so on. Decay, corruption, the passing of time - Kali is time. Time destroys everything, that type of motif.

They take this statue rather like you might have in Italy the parading of a Madonna, right? In Sicily they may throw almonds at it and that kind of thing. And anyway, what happens is you take this figure down to the river side and you throw her in and that takes your sins away. So, we made this out of balloons, a quite passable Kali figure and painted it and decorated it with garlands and bracelets - just using imagination.

And we took it out to the decks, a small deck; and the captain of the ship who is Dutch and Friesian, Friesian, from Friesia, came out with a Germanic type of voice, 'Voss is das?' What is this? What is this? He was from a very much evangelical Protestant background. And so - we were innocent children, I can assure you, only innocent children. 'Well, this is Kali.' We thought we would just sort of give our sins to Kali and then we throw her overboard and she would take our sins away, you see - a very symbolic type of thing. The Tibetans do it to you. Just visualise your sins disappearing into the void of the universe, the Great Sea. Dissolve it, you see.

I mean, we're not even - we were only semi-serious, you know, allow sins, of course, sins to go away. So we turned to him and, oh, I think it was Cecilie who said, 'Well, why don't you', you know, 'think of your sins being here.' "I, haff, no, sins!" he said. Alas, alas. None are as damned as who have no sins. Then I guess you'll pass through a period of time when you think everything you do is a sin and, at least that might slow you up and begin to transmute. Better the sins you know than the sins you don't know.

Right ho, carry on! Kali, Kali.

What time then? There is a proposal then for 7:30 on Sunday. Can you imagine what this will do to you? Your one day off! May I propose 8:00 as a Libran compromise? Would that be alright? Just a trifle later, 8:00. Fine! I hope you will make effort, remember that one, effort and have a little manliness about Sunday morning because it is an extremely important question and I want to deal with the law and the spirit and the search for that, really. There we are. I think the people in the West need ethical teaching, I really do think so. Before they approach meditation they should know moralities and ethics.

Ethics - Practices

Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche - 'A Working Week-End' - with Wesley and Angela
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 8:00 a.m., March 23, 1991

Namo tassa bhagavato arahatao samma sambuddhassa,
Namo tassa bhagavato arahatao samma sambuddhassa,
Namo tassa bhagavato arahatao samma sambuddhassa.

I was just reading, what I think is sort of a guideline of life, a threefold phrase which is;

May I deal with honour, may I act with courage and may I achieve humility. I think, not entirely laughing about it, that people who come out on a wet Sunday morning are acting with courage, because it's so much easier to stay there a little longer and not rouse the being; so to act in all things with courage - so, a few ideas. Now having got you, apparently, out here, there are not going to be any big revelations and exotica or unusual exercises. I just want to share a few simple points with you.

In the coming of the teachings of the East to the West most of the focus, as you probably realise, has gone on meditation. You remember the quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 'What could Buddhism offer the West?' And he said, "Meditation". And of course that is a great lack throughout this society.

I turn on the television and I see vast audiences for jokesters. In Montreal I saw one program where 2 or 3,000 people turn out for a night of entertainment. All right, but superficial. Then you turn to the next channel and there are even more people turning out for a rock concert - must have been up to 20 or 30,000. Again, wherever that is, with or without it's merits, but I don't think anyone could really claim a depth profundity number there. There is something lacking (to jump back a bit) in the religious life. I mean you can go to services and you can hear discourses, but there's not very much teaching about the development of the interior life; St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, just are not taught.

Apparently these days most of the Teaching has gone over into active work - Social involvements, again with merits, very 'Bodhisattva-ish'. I'll put it that way, perfectly in accordance with many Eastern teachings. I think you could develop a full path of social activism (and I am going to speak on it at the Academy), a full Path of social activism. (I'm just trying to share with you a concern of mine, and that is), in this hiatus of no teaching - and to study the interior life, people have sort of grabbed, you know, just jumped! to do meditation of different sorts.

And of course there is a certain difficulty - India; (between Hindu, Buddhist, and other teachings like Sufi; followers perhaps, of the Sikh path of work), but it tends to go with even the basic meditations, they are not necessarily very valued. You tend to go for the exotica meditations. Do you hear me? You know it goes like that, far out (you know that phrase from the sixties?) far out, better meditations. The secret, 6 yogas, of Outer Mongolia! maybe, or the tantras! - and everybody goes, so what's that about? So there's this sort of looking up to those things.

Now they have their merit, but what I'm going to suggest is that someone coming to, say Buddhist meditation, should first of all, no, second of all, should establish themselves in very basic meditation such as the meditation on peace, or the meditation on breathing, or the meditation on the Brahma Viharas; the clearance of the emotional; loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and serenity. I'm just sharing my views.

Now other teachers have other views, please. But I think I'll call that the second step and then after that, only when you have a full grounding of that, possibly you turn to the more complex, further out we're going to call them, the far-out meditations, that are illustrated in the Tibetan teachings of yab-yum, etc., etc. In other words, I think that you need a period of time of very basic type of meditative foundation and then maybe do extra work on the foundation, it's a certain step. Now you notice that I said the second step. I think that the first thing that has to be done is a moral foundation.

You see, when the Teaching comes to the West for this or that reason it really doesn't deal with morality. Because of the needs of people, they want to go right into meditation. You can excuse the teachers and the order, of this. People come and they make their statement, 'I want to meditate Rinpoche, give me a meditation'. Fine, so I guess they fall into that number and then it's 'oh well if you want a meditation, here's a meditation'. After all, teachers are supposed to be dedicated to helping people and people have to declare their interest. And you see the teachers go by the declared interests of different people.

In my experience it would be better if you have the moral foundation. Now, the other night I talked about what I call the negative morality. The extension of, 'Thou shalt not'... I undertake to train myself to refrain from killing and harming; I undertake to train myself to refrain from false speech; I undertake to train myself to refrain from unwholesome sensual indulgence, (that's not just sexual, there's also other things like eating that may be a sensual indulgence); I undertake to train myself to refrain from taking that which is not given (you know, the stealing number and the complexities of the study); I undertake to train myself to refrain from drink and drugs that cloud the mind. Now we went through that the other night. I think that is good, because it's teaching you first of all (at least) avoidance.

But this morning I want to talk about guidelines for the meditation state. And I have already talked also about the higher precepts, but I think, over the years as I have pondered it, that that's not enough in the moral teaching - because there is a problem... All right, you could say that you refrain from unwholesomes. The Buddha said, "Cease to do evil", (however, also), "learn to do good, purify your mind". Now 'purify your mind' we'll put under the heading of meditation and the development of wisdom. 'Cease to do evil' is fine, you have the precepts, and you learn, study, get involved and you stop, avoidance. 'Cease to do evil', at least you're not adding to the unwholesomes. But I think there is a learning to do good, before you do meditation.

I say that because (and by the way, I'm not trying to stop anyone from, notice the language, the odd hour or so, during the course of the week, whatever that's about) but certainly I think I would give as a guideline, a personal directive, don't attempt to do depth meditation, you know a three month retreat, or six months or three years, (three stars, three moons and three suns, that's the long foundation retreat), absolutely locked away for that period of time. That is, three years three months and three days. I wouldn't really suggest intensive meditation periods unless you feel good about yourself, or you feel good in there - and I'm going to put it under self respect.

Look, since I have come to the West I have met a lot of very peculiar people; in fact I'm more likely to meet the peculiar people with incredible hang-ups, (is that good enough English for you?), and neuroses and difficulties, and they've been with people that have probably been through physical, emotional and sexual abuse because they've been turfed out of the system. These people have fallen by the wayside and have a certain degree of, (you don't have to apply it to yourselves, by the way), but they're not the norm. The norm is the people at the rock concert, or this or that or the other and they're lost into society, and that's it.

So whoever society has sort of turfed out, they're the people with the problems, and that's the problem! So the Teaching automatically suffers a distortion by attempting to be involved with people who've been through that. It's not being the nice teaching that you might get in Thailand and Burma; do you hear me? It isn't even allowed to be basic Buddhism, because teachers are thrown into weird scenarios which they would not get in a Buddhist country. They're not likely to.

What I have noticed, and what I think for one reason or another people don't have - they have lost the self respect because they've broken away from what Freud called the super-ego, so they don't feel respected in the society and by other people. So there's a lot of negativity about themselves and you see that negativity about yourself is not really dealt with by mere avoidance. You can refrain from killing and harming, you can refrain from false speech, you can refrain from peculiar sexualities, you can refrain from stealing, you can refrain from drinking and drugs, but you still haven't yet come to a position where you respect self; and by the way, not trying to get the respect from other people - that's not the issue! How many women try to get their fullness from a man (and vice versa by the way), expecting somebody else to give you the self respect? Now that's not on.

I don't want to go through all that, please; you have some degrees of intelligence. I'm sure, you can compute it out. But what you have to do is, you have to feel that you have moved to not merely refraining from killing and harming but, (and here I'm going to put the five basic precepts in the positive form), for you to get self respect, you have to have a feeling that you are a life giver and a healer. Now, you might get that to a certain extent, (please one can speculate, not too wildly), from being a mother.

You feel that you've given life and that you're supporting life; but male or female, you really have to have the feeling, inside of your motherhood, or fatherhood, or humanity, that you are one of the supporters of life. And maybe not merely to just be against killing but possibly, even in social activism that you've done something to save the whales or this, that and the other. It could be little gestures, that you have a discipline of letting the cat in, you feed the birds etc. You know, the small acts, (they don't have to be big); that you are on THAT side of the ledger, rather than merely just refraining from something.

I think also that you have to, (when you move into the realm of false speech), feel that you have wholesome speech, that it is involved with good reading and good studies; that you are supportive when you speak to other people by the way; that you are supportive when you speak to other people, not merely just even, in terms of the negatives.

My father at one time got up to acting Chief of Police of Toronto. Well, after thirty years on the police force seeing every type, (and by the way Lamas and Father Confessors are in the most dangerous positions because they see everybody's sins very easily), so every time he met anybody it was, 'were they guilty or...?' You don't necessarily meet people at their blossoming aspects because the poor pathetic wretches are dragging themselves in, "Oh Rinpoche, help me with this problem." They don't necessarily give to you their positivity or the good things that they've done, they only want to unload (can I speak in simple English?), their crap on you. So anyway, my poor father over quite a number of years got very cynical. I can sympathise.

But, to go back, you have to move into being a supporter, not a picker of people, but attempting to see people really in terms of their good aspects. Instead of being hypercritical in speech and aborting people you have to have positive speech. Now there's a whole range of that. But you have to feel that your inner conversations are positive conversations, that they are involved with, say, natural history. You understand what I'm trying to say? That inside, your dialogue with your own being is positive. Before you attempt to meditate!

So what is meditation? One aspect is that it concentrates everything and if you have an essentially negative view of your being meditation will release an energy focus that will put even more of a spotlight on that. It will have a danger of increasing the negative view. I'm talking about intensive meditation, when you get to the real guts of meditation.

For example, (please don't make the Teaching guilty of this, the Teaching is quite innocent), a supposed black magician in England called Aleister Crowley (I don't say that he's black or white but he had a reputation of being a black magician) and I knew someone who had actually been in his house after he left. There was blood down below and all sorts of things written on the walls. (She wasn't in that teaching, she was just searching for a house and this one was shown to her). But, he went in his youth to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and he studied meditation. He attained the jhanas; he really did attain jhanic meditations, full absorption meditations.

But you see it only augmented what was there, it didn't liberate the being. Because the only thing that can liberate the being is in fact, the transcendental experience, or cosmic consciousness, or the Path, whatever you want to call it. That's the one that really purifies the depth of the being. So, it is possible for you to meditate and just simply augment the defilements that are present. Because to me it hinges on self respect.

And so, the third one; at least if you go into meditation you should feel I think, that you're supported - (and not during the intensive meditation period by a neurotic sexuality, by the way, that would be ridiculous and not even necessarily sexuality so much), as that you feel that you are supported in the meditation. You feel the good support that the Buddha called, quite innocently, kaliyanamitta. That means supportive friends, not sexual partners, but friends, and you feel uplifted by that.

You also feel that you don't have any big negative (not so much negative, but over-balanced), crush for anything. In other words; something unresolved, such as addiction to food, to sex, to business affairs, etc., etc., pleasures of the senses: That you are able to attain a feeling of serenity over that level of physical needs, and that you're able to go in, and that you feel within, that you can give bliss-happiness rather than sex.

I think that with this kind of view, (because you feel good within, you feel radiant within, loving kindness) you have to turn in sex, (may I put it this way?), for the wholesome interpersonal (and here we're not talking yea or nay about sex itself), but you feel, just simply, radiant love at that level. And that has to be in place before you meditate! Because meditation is supposed to augment the love you already have, the honesty that you already have, the life giving tendencies that you already have.

So then we come to the next one, that you are a giver, not a taker. You have to feel that you have something to give. That has to be in place first, that's very essential to the positive view of the being. You see, as long as you go to the Lama (and I'm sorry about this but I want to speak personally, you are, well I don't want to say YOU, I have to speak positive speech don't I?) [Laughter] lingering on the edge of... what I would like is, that people, when they come to meditation, and to relate to the lama, feel that they have something to give, not to merely take.

Now you being you (I can't be Irish without saying you being you - we might have to look quite a long way to find what that could be), however it must be in place, and you must feel that it is not - that's why the other day I took care to praise the people, although the Order does not normally do that, it's a personal statement. In the east you don't praise people for doing a good thing, you just simply don't do it and you don't say thank you. And I think with the North American Indians you don't say thank-you either. But this society expects that so I say thank-you for the work that you have done, right?

But in addition to that I think there is another dimension, that people who do work, whether they call it service (it's not 'serve', its slave!), they are servants of the Teaching, they are servants of all people when they do support work. And to the extent that they do support work and give, they are Lama, because that's what the Lama principle is about. That's what the Bodhisattva Path is about! So they are Bodhisattva when they do that work; so is a nurse, so is a doctor and so are many other people in this world, it's not restricted to this teaching. But again, they are a giver and so on. They're not seeking mastery over anyone they are seeking the path of humility, which is to really verify the way humans think.

Here we have the earth. As the earth is fertile they are a fertile being that has many gifts, much outpouring from their being, 'my cup overfloweth'; they don't feel that it is hard to give they just give. But they must have that feeling; not "I'm taking"; because, guilt, guilt, guilt; tilt, tilt, tilt! [Laughter] You know, I used to be as a child (not now of course, I wouldn't do such things now) I used to spend hours with pinball machines, I really liked flashing lights - bong, bong, bong, that's what finally led me to the Path of Meditation! [Laughter]

By the way, people have very negative views about themselves, always seeing themselves (and even the Lama), in terms of negative views, the sins, that they, would have done. But by and large, as far as this being is concerned, (I at least have the erroneous view); my morality is actually very, very good - sorry about! Because people have negative view they cannot get out of the trap of, 'they must be doing negative things because, I do negative things, so everybody else must do negative things!' [Laughter]; and you know, 'I have no respect for the precepts, so therefore they have no respect for the precepts'!

But they are guidelines. You see the fifth precept is about drink and drugs and I think that you have to feel that your intake is not harming you. Because that's involved also, with what comes forth from your being. And you are not attempting to drug other people - that's also very important. But there's something there I think that, before you go in, you have to have had clearance. Strangely, its best not take meditation as the cure of these allergies and so on, but that you've passed beyond that before you meditate.

Because what I've seen with people, by the way, is that when they start to meditate they become more allergic. It spreads out and they become more and more paranoiac. So I think you have to get to the point where you feel that whatever intake you have is not drugging your system, it's actually benefiting your system.

And I think for example, that before you eat you should do the very simple practice of saying grace, which is done in the Order. I think we should declare a few things for you because it's a guideline. I, personally, (I have to say this, I'm sorry, but because it's personal, therefore it might be believable); before any meal that I take I say, "May this be for the welfare and for the happiness of beings." And if anyone gives meat I have to pray for the liberation of the being that was killed. The normal thing that you say is, "May this food conduce to Enlightenment." In the case of the Teaching (which you also are involved in), you say, "May this food, (this intake) be for the salvation, or the awakening, or the enlightenment, of all beings". So you just don't stuff! And by this, by this saying of grace, you can maybe transmute, you can take up poisons and not be affected thereby.

I even went, recently, and I was not affected, (it was really a minor miracle,) I went to a Kentucky Fried Chicken. [Laughter] Yes. I'm sorry, I confess, I fell from 'Grace' momentarily; I fell... but I was saved by grace! [Laughter] I actually ate it, with a good heart and goodwill, but having done the prayers of liberation first. So it wasn't being an intake in a rush, or in hatred, but in a slightly apprehensive compassion. [Laughter]

That's the sort of thing that you have to transcend... It's important to transcend the drug, (I'm not even talking actual drugs, but the wish to have something drug you, and space you out, instead of seeing and insight), vipassana - direct seeing, and being heroic, sorry about that. It's not fashionable nowadays for heroes [Laughter], (by the way heroes are passé). I don't believe it, I simply don't believe it! You have to have the hero or heroine feeling, in the meditation. Even if you are a nice, super nice Canadian, you are going to have to face whoppers and you need to steel your being to go through the deep...

Well, there are times. I'm speaking personally, I've been out with sharks - you need to be heroic, you need to stand there and face it and not run, what are they on about? You actually discover great things about them; they can be sweet, gentle creatures, strangely enough. They've had a very bad press and it isn't entirely deserved. They're far more intelligent than we credit them for and wouldn't probably want to eat you anyway. Who in their right mind would want one of those stinky, rubber suited... do you know about scuba divers? Have you ever smelt that thing? Anybody scuba dives here, and you have one of these outfits and after a week...? Phew! [Laughter] Even you best friends don't want to know you never mind a decent shark. They have been known to take a bite and go, 'Ugh!' and not come back. In this room, in all of Canada, there are two shark experts, [Laughter] (I just wanted to say that) [Laughter] well, 2 out of maybe 10; we've seen more sharks than probably anybody in Canada! [Laughter] You're hearing the authentic word here!

But, to go back, you don't want meditation as a drug. You need the heroic to pass on through certain situations, avalanches of the interior plane, the depth. You have to go in meditation sometimes like you're going on a path as in Borneo, where there are snakes around and you have to be very alert. And they're actually there and you have to be careful where your feet go because there are, unbeknownst to you 'deadlies'. They may not be actually that deadly, but you have to take care with going in to the inner. You better do it in very good spirit and a good feeling, because that's the only one that's going to feel heroic. If you're in the state of loving kindness, if you're quite sure that you're a compassionate being, if you're quite sure that you're a radiantly happy being, if you're quite sure that you're a serene being, you can dare. But you dare intelligently!

Most people, when they go into the jungle... I've gone with groups into the jungles, and it's very dangerous to go with other people into the jungle sometimes; there are tour groups which you sometimes get stuck with inadvertently, and they go in front of you, they are very dangerous! I usually go in the other direction in Borneo, because they talk and talk and talk, and they chatter about inconseqeuntials, and it's very dangerous to go into a real jungle talking. First of all you don't see anything because any intelligent creature takes off at the sound of the human voice. (They can also hear the hysteria in the voice). They don't have to know your language; they've heard your apprehension! The silent being that goes into the forest sees the animals. The other thing is when you talk you're distracted, there's much more danger from an attack, you don't see the dangers, and so on.

I just want to share one other thing with you. I went once with a group and we went to an island in the Seychelles. Now this island has only about a dozen pairs of black parrots left, if that. In the entire world! (Alas! going with people. I like you sometimes but, I'm sorry, I must confess, not all the time! You're not nice to be with, sometimes, you know that yourself, right? You should avoid people; they won't like you if you're out with them, right?) But these people they nattered and talked - screamers. (It's an Australian term for little children they have on trains; you know the ones that run up and down? Well, they make great effort to keep the families in one compartment and all the screamers in one place). These people went into the forest, a jungle type of thing, and of course, they were apprehensive. And you could hear it.

I knew, if they're here we won't see anything, so I deliberately fell back from them and started to go down another path. I was joined by Peter (I don't think Phillip was there [to Terry] was he, just Peter?) and he said, "Have you seen the black parrot?" He's the ornithologist 'par excellence' and he wants to see this. So we just wander and wander, very, very quietly, and then all of a sudden, (just for about 5 or 10 seconds) we saw in the Coco de Mer a black parrot. Just it's wings, not what they call a terribly, terribly good sighting but at least we were sure we saw a crow colour with a little bit of blue in it. A black parrot! So, in other words, what am I trying to say to you?

You need certain sensible things. One of them is silence of course, a lot of the chatter having gone out; wholesome speech, which may just be no speech, just sheer observation; good motivation and a really intelligent togetherness in your being. I think, before you go for exotica, because then you're likely to get it, the real, true and genuine mystical experience. Otherwise you can say it will then become distorted and it won't be a genuine mystical experience, which only comes after great search and great, great, great, question. And great humility; and when I say humility I don't mean a pseudo one, I just mean an emptying. And a dropping, to watch; dropping of the ego, 'What's in it for me'? The only thing that's in it for you is discovery! - Like a back path! You don't go on the spiritual path unless you want simply not to augment your ego, but to be pleased, to discover!

I'll put it in Christian terms, God is an awesome but pleasant experience, but also it's a terribly, pleasant experience. That's honesty! That is its reward - that you know that you've now passed into dimensions which have not been passed into before; that you have now discovered the actual, respectful, things of your being. You won't get it unless the feeling is present first of all. You must feel at peace with yourself and it's for your sake that we say you must give up, cease to do evil, drop it, to some degree or another and that alone starts, (by the way) respect! Because then you feel, (May I use that certain phrase of today?) like you are taking charge of your life. You're not being put through. And the number of people that I've heard, in reference to the Lama just being literalised and putting them through. It's not at all putting you through. It's pointing, pointing out the things that you ought to drop! Go beyond! "Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!"

That's it, may you be well and happy. (Do you or do you not feel good? You have to do good things in order to feel good. Simple! And then you can dare...)

Question: Sir will you be able to come back before...?

Rinpoche: Oh yes, oh yes! I've been urged by the attendant, the 'anascole kathia' {[?]} to take a weekend off in the beginning of May. One weekend off and then go back into the triple triad of Ottawa, Toronto and the Centre at Kinmount. So I might very well do that.

Question: Why not Montreal? [Laughter]

Rinpoche: I will go to Montreal but I have to be invited to Montreal. There are little rules to this game. [Laughter] No, truly, I'm being quite serious. The order does not go where it's not invited. You don't invite and that includes anything... Should you at any time want, then you invite. Should you become dissatisfied with what you receive and don't invite, [Rinpoche laughs] so, what? [Laughter] It's all your aspiration; I'm just being cheeky. I have attained the state of upekha, upeksha parami. So, you invite, or you don't invite. If you invite, I try to go. [Rinpoche, laughing] If you don't invite - [Lost in Laughter] But that is where it should be, don't impose yourself on people. People can invite and if their motivation is good, then I can accept an invitation.

Not all invitations are accepted because sometimes the motivation is not good. Yup, sometimes they want sensation, or a performance or they want yet another number. But if a being is genuinely searching, and by the way, it doesn't apply merely to groups, it could be an individual; if you want a teaching (may I put this for your guidance?) because, if you want a special teaching you should at least enunciate it! Please don't leave the Lama to 'psychic power guess you', play that little game.

The Teaching is quite specific that when you want a teaching, it should be enunciated. You ask for specific teachings, otherwise the poor creature ('I am but a poor creature'), has to ping pong ball with beings. Having to think, well, what would, what if, etc? Now, it's very specific that you should express, (it's a strange translation in English), you should meditate, or request according to your fancy. (I guess some of your fancies are very fancy). But your interest, (because this is what I'm seeing) is, no interest, no good feeling and no possibility.

I think alas, you're a little too lazy spiritually, (the churches have made you lazy, if you go to churches), because you just go in, you just plop in, you expect to receive it, then you plop out again. But not in the east! In the east you've got to come in and speak your mind, participate and ask questions. Yes, ask questions in the midst, you understand, even in the midst of sermons? It's all the same to the lama. Because the Lama, (really, truly, try to believe it), remains in a continuum, a good continuum; so it really doesn't matter, you can ask questions that are off here, or off there. It's only other people that are concerned about it. You may think... but I can only say yea or nay, that's my prerogative isn't it? So you say, 'well I want a teaching in celestial mechanics or, I want a teaching in astrology' and I say no! [Laughter] You know what I mean? It's a personal thing you know when I say no. I can be personal too.

When you are teaching you want to share things that you are interested in. Not that I'm uninterested in those things, but there are other things which are more interesting and more direct for the being! So, I've talked to you this morning, not badly, but about something which is very essential, I believe, in every being. And I would doubt that if I came here and had to teach you this morning about celestial mechanics or astrology... because I think that won't solve it! That will only distort the distortion that's already in place. Have you got it?

"Sabbe satta sukhita hontu"!

That means simply, "May all beings be well and happy" - Transcendentally, O.K.?

Question: Would you be able to give the White Manjusri Wong here in Ottawa?

Rinpoche: Yes.

I'll say something just because I have humour about it. It's very humorous for me. After many, many years, the Tibetan Nyingma/Kargyu etc. has finally declared this being to be an embodiment of White Manjusri. That is, pure intelligence, stainless intelligence. Ah [smiling], well I always knew it! [Laughter] But I just think...well, now you have external confirmation that I'm an intelligent being. [He laughs]…