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Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life After All

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Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life After All SHANTIDEVA’S Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life An oral explanation of Chapter 8: Concentration Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche Teachings 2004 Ann Arbor, Michigan Jewel Heart Transcript Gelek Rimpoche, Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Chapter Eight © 2008 Ngawang Gelek Jewel Heart Transcripts are lightly to moderately edited transcriptions of the teachings of Kyabje Gelek Rinpoche and others teachers who have taught at Jewel Heart. Their purpose is to provide Rimpoche’s students, as well as all others who are interested, with these extremely valuable teach- ings in a way that gives one the feeling of being present at the teachings. JEWEL HEART 1129 Oak Valley Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA Phone (1) 734.994.3387 www.jewelheart.org Acknowledgements This book is a moderately edited transcript of oral explana- tions given by Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche on Chapter Eight of Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara, A Guide to the Bodhi- sattva’s Way of Life. Rimpoche gave these teachings on Tuesday nights in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from February to October 2004. Rimpoche’s teachings on Shantideva’s text have continued to the present. Transcripts of Chapters Nine and Ten will be issued in separate volumes as they are completed. The transcripts on Chapters One through Seven are already available through Jewel Heart. Throughout this transcript, Rimpoche uses the English translation by Stephen Batchelor, published by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. Since Rimpoche frequent- ly makes reference to Tibetan words and phrasing, the Ti- betan translation of the Sanskrit original is included in Wylie transliteration in the Appendix. Rimpoche did not introduce a traditional extensive outline in giving this teaching. For those interested, an outline of this sort may be found in Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s Meaning- ful to Behold. The headings, subheadings and footnotes in this present volume have been added by the editor for ease of reference, and to help delineate changes of topic. A brief bibliograpy is included. For a glossary, see the transcript on Chapters One through Three in this series. The transcription of these teachings from recordings was done by Hartmut Sagolla. It has been my great good for- tune to be able to work on this volume. Errors in this tran- script are solely due to my carelessness or lack of knowledge. Please let me know about any you may find in order that we may improve future editions. May this work be of great benefit to all who read it or even hear about it! Jang chub sem chog rin po che May the precious bodhimind Ma kye pa nam kye gyur chig Not yet born arise and grow. Kye pa nyam pa may pa yang May that born have no decline, Gong nay gong du pel war shog But increase forever more. Anne Warren Cleveland, Ohio June 2008 Contents MEDITATION INTRODUCTION 5 VERSE 1-8 15 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 30 VERSE 9-16 32 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 49 VERSE 17-24 52 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 61 VERSE 25-40 66 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 90 VERSE 41-70 95 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 117 VERSE 71-108 135 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 197 VERSE 109-187 199 APPENDIX I: TIBETAN TRANSLITERATION, CHAPTER EIGHT 277 APPENDIX II: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 301 NOTES 303 I Introduction This chapter contains Shantideva’s teaching on meditation. Jewel Heart has two parallel programs on this topic. First is this transcript of oral teachings on Chapter 8 of the Bodhi- sattvacharyavatara, the longest chapter in the text, which talks about which topics to meditate on. Then, in addition, I taught the meditation chapter of Tsongkhapa’s Lam rim chen mo, which covers the structure of meditation.1 Both are on the same subject, but based on different texts. When you combine these two together, you get both the structure and what to think, a very comprehensive meditation course. Putting them together makes it work better. What kind of meditation are we talking about? Before I begin the chapter itself, I would like to briefly talk about what medita- tion is. This afternoon I, flying in from Miami, I was think- ing about the many different uses of the term meditation in Tibetan and English. In Tibetan, the type of meditation we are going to talk about here is zhi ne2. It is almost the ultimate meditation. The word zhi is peace or harmony, and ne is remaining, so together it means ‘remaining in peace and harmony.’3 I don’t know whether the English word ‘meditation’ conveys this. I am not a native speaker of the language so can’t say for sure, but I don’t think it does. 5 Gelek Rimpoche What is peace and what is harmony? The word in Ti- betan is nyam par zhak pa4 or nyam zhak for short. Nyam means equal and zhak means remain. Here equalized means balanced; you remain balanced, not off-balance or unbal- anced. You bring your mind into harmony. As we pray in the Four Immeasurables, may all beings be free from attachment and hatred; don’t let obsession and hatred take place so much. Try to remain balanced. Don’t have too much of an extreme of anything: that is unbalanced. Meditation here, zhi ne, means the same, remaining in peace and harmony. We are definitely working with our mind to bring peace, joy and harmony within our mind. We have so many struggles within ourselves, extreme struggles that are somehow sparked up by certain condi- tions in our lives, financial problems, health problem, fami- ly problems, political or social issues or whatever. These spark up and our mind is dragged through this struggle. We drag our mind and never let it be at peace. Sparking or conditions are external causes. They are always there, but we run with them and make our mind as miserable as possible. On the other hand, sometimes we are too extremely happy. We either go high up here or way down there. Med- itation’s job is to make sure you remain neither too high, too much haha-yana, nor too much zoom-doom-yana at the other extreme. Bringing your mind closer to a peaceful state, closer to what the term zhi ne means is one effect of meditation. Even so, this is merely a short-term goal of meditation, not the long-term goal. The Sanskrit word for it is shamatha, but I don’t know whether that gives you the same message as the Tibetan. It is sometimes important to keep this vocabu- lary in mind. That doesn’t mean that you have to learn Ti- betan, but these terms give you a tremendous message. Do you know when I learned the word zhi ne? When I was a kid, probably about 4 or 5 years old. It didn’t mean anything to me for a long time. When I think about the English word ‘meditation’ and wonder how to explain this, 6 GUIDE TO THE BODHISATTVA’S WAY OF LIFE it is difficult. In Tibetan, when you think about it, the meaning of zhi and ne gives you a message. Therefore it is important, even before we begin this chapter, to know that the word zhi ne really means: bringing our mind into peace and tranquility. Meditation from two angles. How did Buddha bring peace and tranquility to his disciples? He brought it from two angles. One angle is focusing, concentrating and being mindful. The other angle is analyzing, understanding and getting deeply into the subject you are looking at, cutting through the misinformation and misunderstanding, cutting through the mystery of our whole life, our total existence. From these two angles, Buddha brought peace and harmony. Now the question remains: are both these ways neces- sary? Are they relevant to me, an individual looking for a better spiritual life in downtown Ann Arbor, minding my own business, drinking a cup of coffee at Zingerman’s or at the Co-op? Is this something relevant for me or not? Why is it relevant? These are the questions. To me, the answer remains that if you are looking for a spiritual path, for de- velopment, even just for the betterment of your situation in this life, both these angles are necessary. Our biggest problems are actually not external - alt- hough our president irritates us every day! The more he does anything, the more we get irritated. Just today he made a public statement that he wants to introduce a con- stitutional amendment banning same sex marriages. In the 200 years of our constitution, there have been just 17 amendments. Why do we need one for this? Take this as an example. This is irritating, to be sure, but the irritation happens in our mind. George Bush is trying to ban gay people from getting together through a constitu- tional amendment. It irritates us, because we have a picture of what we want in our mind already. We don’t necessarily want to be gay, or to get married to someone of the same sex, but we want things to be fair and open for everybody. 7 Gelek Rimpoche When that is completely ignored and bulldozed by right- wing extremist ideas, then we get irritated. We provide the condition within our own mind. George Bush provides the external condition and we provide the internal condition, so we get into trouble with irritation. The source of problems. Where do these internal conditions of ours come from? It is very funny. You can say they come from hatred and from all kinds of emotions, but if you look deeply inside, most of them are caused by obsession.
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