PERFECTION OF WISDOM MANTRA Gehlek Rimpoche Perfection of Wisdom Mantra Jewel Heart Transcript 2006 Gehlek Rimpoche, Perfection of Wisdom Mantra © Ngawang Gehlek. All rights reserved First edition 1998 Revised edition in new format: 2006. Jewel Heart Transcripts are lightly to moderately edited transcriptions of the teach- ings of Kyabje Gehlek 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 teachings in a way that gives one the feeling of being present at the teachings. JEWEL HEART Tibetan Cultural and Buddhist Centers, 207 East Washington Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA Tel. (1) 313 994 3387 Fax: (1) 313 994 5577 www.jewelheart.org Acknowledgements This is the transcription of the Tuesday night teachings in Ann Arbor, fall 1995 through to spring 1996. The first teaching was four evenings on the Perfection of Wisdom mantra. After that Rinpoche went into the subject of the five Mahayana paths in more detail, for another ten evenings. The chart that was made as an aid to these teachings, is inserted. Then during these teachings one evening Bakula Rinpoche gave a talk on Dharma and Politics, which fits in very well. It has been inserted as a separate chapter. The whole transcription and initial editing was done by Hartmut Sagolla. Nijmegen, October 1998 Marianne Soeters Contents The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra 9 The Five Paths of the Mahayana 47 Dharma and politics Talk by Bakula Rinpoche 165 Notes 173 Glossary 177 The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra I We will talk about the mantra1 of the Heart Sutra TAYATHA OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, transformed into Enlightenment. We recited the Heart Sutra. There are a number of different trans- lations of this sutra available, from Tibetan to English, from San- skrit to English, from Japanese to English and from Chinese to English. We are using a Japanese translation into Tibetan. Suzuki Roshi considers it very important and blessed. Allen Ginsberg has used this and created a tune for it. That’s why we’re using it. The GATE mantra is very useful and very common in all Bud- dhist traditions. Whether you are following the Japanese, Chi- nese, Sanskrit or Tibetan tradition, everybody knows the mantra. People use it all the time, and so I thought it would be good to spend a couple of weeks talking about it. This mantra is very important and has a lot of meaning. The mantra may only consist of a few words, but in these almost the whole teaching of Buddha is available, particularly the five paths. These particular words – I will not even call it a mantra – carry a lot of qualities regarding the teacher and the Dharma. TAYATA Quality of the teacher The teacher in this case is Buddha. The Tibetan tradition will say that Buddha first generated great compassion, then accumulated merit and finally attained total enlightenment. Whatever hap- 10 The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra pened, Buddha had a tremendous amount of compassion. This is one of his most important qualities. Unlike any other teacher, Buddha had compassion and wisdom. His compassion was so strong that he continuously thought about the best way to help all beings, how to free them, how to bring them to a state of joy. That was his main concern. Since he had this main focus on all sentient beings, and had the desire for freedom, he looked for the best methods. When somebody wants to help somebody, the first question is always, ‘What can I do?’ Buddha had the same question. The an- swer was that he had to liberate everyone, as that would be the most helpful. His compassion forced him to try to liberate all be- ings. The next point was from what to liberate them, in other words, where did their sufferings come from? Why did he have to liber- ate them? We need help, if we have a problem or if we need as- sistance to do something. Buddha recognized that all these be- ings needed to be liberated from suffering. A lot of Americans will tell you, ‘I have no suffering!’ It is very common. In the last summer retreat somebody said, ‘I have no suffering and I have a problem with the idea of suffering.’ It is true, some people have a problem admitting that they have a problem. In reality we all do have suffering. Let’s not kid ourselves. We all have the sufferings of birth, illness, aging and dying. We try to make these look beautiful. There is not much we can do to dress up sickness – we know it is suffering. But death we can make look beautiful. We don’t see the actual dying process, and when people are dead, we put some make-up on them, put them in a nice coffin and you would not even know that person is dead. It is funny thing in this country – in a way it is nice to do that, but on the other hand you don’t get a tangible feeling of death. Even in the hospital, you find no smell of rotting bodies. But there is suffering involved. There is not much we can do to prevent aging, but we try to cover it up: we put make-up on, change our hairstyle and the women probably worry that their husbands may see them The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra 11 before they have put the make-up on. So the suffering of aging is there, no matter how much you want to deny it. Everybody has suffering. If somebody claims to have no suffer- ing, it is not true. On top of the physical sufferings we have the emotional sufferings, suffering of fear. We are afraid of losing something, and sometimes we don’t even know what we are afraid of. Buddha tries to really help us there. It is not a matter of provid- ing some medicine to temporarily alleviate the pain. A Buddha is an extraordinary being and can do better than that. His aim is to liberate everybody. From what? From the cause of suffering, rather than from the suffering itself. It is a matter of cause and result. If you try to work with the symptoms, you will not reach very far. If you work with the cause, you can totally cure the problem. So what is the cause of the suffering? The real causes are the delusions and among them, as the most important one Buddha found the ignorance. So the idea is to liberate everybody from ignorance. What can liberate one from ignorance? The an- swer is wisdom. Wisdom is the only key that can overcome igno- rance. Buddha found that in order to show this wisdom to oth- ers, he had to gain it himself first. One of the most important recognitions in Buddhism is that, unless you are able to help yourself, you will not be able to help others. So for Buddha to help himself first was by far the most important thing. He had to have the experience himself, and not only that, this experience had to be perfect. And the Buddha’s experience was that the only thing that could cut through ignorance was wisdom. What then is this wisdom? The wisdom here is the famous Bud- dhist wisdom of emptiness. Emptiness is the balance point be- tween the extremes. People are falling either to the extreme of eternalism or the extreme of nihilism. You can also say, the ex- treme of existence and the extreme of non-existence. These ex- tremes have to be balanced out. You have to get into the middle of them. That is the famous Middle Way or Middle Path. The Dalai Lama always says that he has proposed to the Chinese a Middle Path. He has got the idea from here. The Middle Path is 12 The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra the middle between the extreme of existence and non-existence. This is the reality of ourselves, the absolute truth of our being. In other words – and this is not the actual translation – we need to look deeply into the mystery of life. What makes us human be- ings? How can we function? And why? What is our true, genuine reality? In Buddhism it is not important who we are, but where we are and what we are. Who we are is just a name. Everyone has been given a name, that does not matter, that is not reality.2 That does not mean that I become you and you become me – we still have separate identities. So we have to look deep down that Middle Path which the Buddhists call emptiness. This is confus- ing, because the word emptiness will give you the idea that there is absolutely nothing. When I say, ‘My cup is empty’, that means there is no water in it. So emptiness suggests that there is noth- ing. But if you get that idea, you become nihilist. If you go the extreme of existence and believe that you are solidly there, and that you are there forever, etc, you have gone to the extreme of existence. To achieve the balance between these two extremes, that is the Middle Path. How do you achieve the balance within yourself? We have just read the Heart Sutra and in there it says, ‘There is no eye, there is no ear, there is no tongue’ etc. But in reality I do have eyes and ears, nose and tongue.