Student questions: the six perfections

Ken: We’re on the six perfections this evening. As we’ve usually done, let’s start with the understanding what the six perfections are. Anybody? Chuck?

Chuck: It seems like reading the six perfections over, the guiding one is wisdom. If you have too much of anything, it has to be balanced with wisdom, whether it’s generosity or effort. In morality, you mentioned hardening, and so I think that the guiding one is number 30 on wisdom.

Ken: Okay. Anybody else? Molly.

Molly: I was trying to work on your question about what makes it perfection versus just …

Ken: What makes generosity into the perfection of generosity or morality into the perfection of morality. That question?

Molly: Right. So, I was thinking that it comes to a point where if you can bring all of these perfections into your active daily life—and make it happen, or make it work, not just in sitting or thinking or studying—that might be what makes it perfection. That’s what I came up with.

Ken: Okay. Anybody else? [Pause] Everybody knows everything about the six perfections? I can go home. Great!

Student: It seems like rather than a group of do’s and don’ts, that it’s more what you’ve committed to what’s going to make it work for you.

Ken: Okay.

Peri: What seems to me to make them perfections is when you recognize them as your nature.

Ken: What does that mean?

Peri: Well, to make the effort of being generous is one thing, and another thing is to recognize that what you are is naturally effulgent and …

Ken: Naturally what?

Peri: Effulgent, and generosity is your natural expression.

Ken: What do people think of that?

Student: I think it’s true of Peri. [Laughter]

Ken: You think it’s true of Peri. Okay. Dave?

Dave: My take on them was that maybe because I’m such an active person, I always see action in these things. And, I see a progression through these perfections. So, beginning with generosity, I can act more generous than I really am, if that makes any sense. Not too far away, but at least somewhat more than I really am. And in my experience when I do that, it changes me. I don’t know how, it’s a mystery to me.

But it could be along the lines that Peri is saying. It could in some way wake up to that true nature, in some way, by just acting on it. And then my level of, for instance, generosity rises, and then I can act a little further beyond that level and it rises again. It may be that it’s activating, or waking up, that dormant nature.

Ken: That makes sense. But is that what makes generosity into a perfection?

Dave: I’m sorry.

Ken: That process is generally speaking true. When we act a certain way, it creates a propensity to act in that way and extends it. But is that the quality that makes generosity into a perfection, or morality into a perfection, the fact that it builds on itself?

Dave: I was thinking it might lead to the perfection of it.

Ken: Yeah. What’s the quality that makes it? We have this term perfection of wisdom or perfection of generosity. So, you have generosity and perfection of generosity. What’s the distinction there? I’ve got a couple of people, but go ahead if you want.

Dave: I can tell you what I see coming way down the road is that it becomes effortless. It doesn’t require an action anymore. There’s no separation between me and anybody else, and so generosity is like breathing.

Ken: Okay. Anybody else?

Student: I just think it means not looking for any return or result. That all these behaviors or actions are not for ourselves ultimately, but for others, in a real way.

A digression: how to communicate

Ken: Okay. Diane?

Diane: I think you get to the perfection part through emptiness. So, …

Ken: What does that mean?

Diane: Well, it’s similar to what you just said, I think. When you’re empty, then you will naturally act in a manner that’s consistent with generosity, if that’s what the situation demands, or discipline or …

Ken: You knkow, I’m not very bright.

Diane: Okay.

Ken: So, what does being empty mean?

Diane: It means no self.

Ken: I’m really getting confused. Keep going. You got to help me out here.

Diane: I think it goes back to what you said about the no separation.

Ken: Well, since you’re on the spot, I don’t get it. What are you talking about?

Diane: There’s no separation between you and what you experience.

Ken: These are all very good words. I have no idea what they mean.

Diane: Well, gee, it’s just tough enough for me to get to this point. [Laughter]

Ken: Yes, and now you get to take a step further.

Diane: Okay. I am trying to think of another way to say it.

Ken: Rather than trying to think of another way to say it, what about trying to get your point across to me? You can forget about everybody else here right now. This is just between you and me. So, how are you going to do that? You want me to help you?

Diane: Yeah.

Ken: Here’s your hint. Susan did this with you two or three weeks ago. It’s your turn. You remember?

Diane: Yeah.

Ken: Okay. Your turn, and you got a much easier subject than you. You got me. That’s a joke.

Diane: I’m getting confused now.

Ken: So, you know something, you sense something, you feel something. Communicate it to me.

Diane: [Pause] I don’t know how to say it in a different way than from what I’ve already said.

Ken: Okay. You’re trying to explain it to me, right? Is there another possibility besides trying to explain it? Is that the only form of communication that exists?

Diane: No, that’s not the only form of communication, but I can’t seem to apply it to this situation.

Ken: What’s not the form of communication that you know?

Diane: Well showing.

Ken: Okay. Why don’t you try that?

Diane: My goodness.

Ken: Do you know other forms of communication?

Diane: Yeah, they don’t seem to apply.

Ken: Oh, just list some of the other forms of communication I think we can—

Diane: Touching.

Ken: Touching. Okay,

Student: So, come, give Ken a hug. [Laughter]

Ken: Okay, what else? I think we can leave email out.

Diane: Oh, I don’t want any more of that today.

Ken: Okay. [Pause] I’ll give you another hint.

Diane: All right.

Ken: When you can’t explain something to somebody, can you lead them through the experience?

Diane: Through the experience of not being able to explain?

Ken: No. Lead them through the experience of what you know or sense?

Diane: Well, I guess I can only compare this to the no head stuff.

Ken: What … no head stuff.

Diane: Well, I’ve been doing a lot of the no head stuff this week.

Ken: What are you talking about?

Diane: What we talked about last week, about thinking about how you’re going around—

Ken: Well, there isn’t any last week. There’s only here and now.

Diane: Well, all right then [laughs]—walking around pretending that you don’t have a head.

Ken: Why would I do that?

Diane: Because it’s actually pretty wonderful when you do that. You really are more in the experience, not thinking about the experience or judging it. You’re not doing anything like that; you are just there.

Ken: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s stop here. Where’s Diane stuck?

Student: In explaining.

Ken: Okay. Anybody else?

Student: Thinking or describing.

Ken: Thinking, describing, does this sound right to you?

Diane: Oh yeah.

Ken: Okay. Do you want some help?

Diane: Do I want some help? Oh yes.

Ken: Well, you’ve got a bunch of people here you can ask.

Diane: Well, help me explain this.

Ken: No, you’re not going to get any help explaining it. You just want some help, right?

Diane: Yeah.

Ken: Okay, so ask for help. It’s a four letter word, but it’s okay.

Diane: Okay. I need some help.

Ken: They’ve abandoned you!

Diane: And to think I almost didn’t get here tonight. [Laughter]

Ken: You’re here all alone, just the two of us, nobody else here. You’ve asked for help and there’s been nothing.

Diane: There’s no help.

Ken: Amazing. There’s nobody else here.

Student: I have a question. So, did Ken explain the no head thing to you last week?

Diane: Yes.

Student: He explained it to you.

Diane: He talked about the experience of walking around without a head.

Student: Did he talk about the experience of walking around without a head?

Diane: That was my interpretation of it.

Student: Did you have an experience in the class of having no head?

Diane: Yes.

Student: How did that come about?

Diane: How did that come about?

Ken: Pardon?

Diane: I’m thinking aloud now.

Ken: That’s permissive.

Diane: I’m trying to remember back to that. It was through listening to the interchange between Ken and Isabelle.

Student: And how did Ken direct Isabelle?

Diane: Ken gave Isabelle a different way of looking at her experience or looking at her mind.

Student: So, do you think you could use the same direction with Ken?

Diane: That’s actually what I think I was trying to describe. With the perfection, it is that type of experience that is the perfection.

Ken: Yeah. You have an experience which translates into an understanding. Right?

Diane: Right.

Ken: Okay. If you tell me about the understanding, do I have access to the experience?

Diane: No. You have access to my understanding of the experience.

Ken: Does that help me?

Diane: Probably.

Ken: Probably? How does access to your understanding of your experience help me? Because, did you get your experience from understanding somebody else’s experience?

Diane: Oh no, not from understanding their experience. I see what you’re getting at.

Ken: Okay, so helping me understand your experience, that doesn’t do anything for me, does it?

Diane: So, is that why I couldn’t explain it?

Ken: Yeah.

Diane: Okay.

Ken: Because that’s what’s happening. There isn’t actual real communication there. You’re telling me about your experience. I don’t have the experience. What do I do? You follow? You had enough?

Diane: Yeah. Okay. [Laughter]

Ken: Jessica, you had a point earlier.

Jessica: Some time ago I was driving downtown Monica Boulevard and I was approaching an intersection. There was an older gentleman crossing through the intersection and he fell. And my response to that was to pull over, to go into the intersection and get him, take him to the side of the street, ask him where he was going. He said he was trying to get to the bus. I asked him where he needed to go, if he needed a ride. He was going home. I took him home.

And, there was something about that experience afterwards that I realized had nothing to do with me, in terms of my own agenda or thinking it was the right thing to do, to pull over, to pick him up, and take him home. It was a natural response to what was arising in the moment. And it just came to mind when you were talking about what makes something perfect as opposed to otherwise. And I think maybe it has something to do with that natural arising that has nothing to do with the person who’s doing it.

Ken: Yeah. This has been said by a few people, and that’s a very concrete example. And that’s the quality of what Dave was saying about no separation. This is true about what Diane was saying. Everything you were saying was fine, but the reason I was pushing you is because it was all explanation. There wasn’t any communication of experience. And, in terms of interacting with each other, in terms of understanding it, that experiential quality is really important.

You were at the probing presence program, right? That is much more about communicating experience, and we’re going to do more programs along those lines. It’s a very important skill to learn. If you look at the descriptions of the six perfections on the website, which are taken from a song by Milarapa. I can’t remember the translations that’s up there. Does anybody have them here?

Jill: I have it.

Ken: Thank you.

Jill: Your translation?

Relating to experience

Ken: Yeah, thanks Jill. I’ve translated this so many times. This is this translation, okay.

For generosity, nothing to do,
Other than stop fixating on self.

The Six Perfections, Milarepa

That is our normal way of relating to experience: me here, experience there.

Student: Say that again.

Ken: Our ordinary way of relating to experience is: me here, experience there. Even if it’s our own thoughts and emotions, it’s: me here, thoughts there. In some way there’s that separation. That’s fixation on self, or because this is poetry, I said fixation on self. It’d be actually more accurate to say fixation on sense of self, because there isn’t actually a self to fixate on. When you’re not doing that, not fixating on the sense of self, then there’s no separation.

And as Jessica described, there’s just a natural response to what arises. And, as what Peri was saying earlier, in a very deep sense, we discover that generosity, and morality, and patience, and all of these things, are our nature or expressions of our nature. The Theravadans go up the wall when you talk about having a nature, but it’s a way of talking. It’s not giving it an ontological status. So, just with that proviso. Okay. Does this make sense to you, Molly?

Molly: Yeah.

Ken: And it’s different when you can live that way all the time, which is actually pretty far down the road, then it’s fully integrated in your life. But we take these as practices. Again, going back to Dave’s point, that when you act generously, it creates a propensity for generosity. But that isn’t just what we’re interested in here, because there are some people who have tremendous penchant or tendency towards generosity, and it could be out of balance.

The essential gesture of generosity

Ken: There’s another process that takes place which is important. What Is the essential gesture of generosity?

Student: To open.

Ken: Yeah. You can’t give without letting go. To let go, you have to open your hand. It’s very simple. If I keep that closed, it doesn’t happen. I have to open the hand. Physically opening, emotionally opening, that initiates a process in mind. And when I use the word mind, I’m using it a bit differently from the way that it is ordinarily used in English, which is associated with the intellect principally. In Buddhism, when we talk about mind, we talk about how we experience the world, how we experience. That’s what mind actually means. Now, what arises when you open? What happens?

Student: Joy.

Ken: Yeah. What else? Joy. You want to be back on the spot now?

Student: Not yet.

Ken: Okay.

Student: Loving-kindness.

Ken: Loving-kindness. Anybody else?

Student: Less separation. Connection.

Ken: Okay.

Student: My response would be less separation. A sense of being at one with everything that’s with whatever is happening at that moment.

Ken: Well, ultimately, yes. But, just how to get here? When you open, how much is there to respond to? A lot? A little? Yes, Joe.

Joe: A lot.

Ken: What do you need in order to be able to know what to do?

Joe: You have to be present to it.

Ken: Oh, you guys are all jumping way down the thing. Discipline! [Laughs] Right? We have to know what’s appropriate and what’s not. All this stuff, but you have to figure out what’s appropriate and what’s not. Morality.

Student: I had this experience and there were two different things that happened. One of which is—because you assigned us to study this past week—I came across one description of how these paramitas work. And that is that they’re all present in each one in order to come to fruition. And I feel that’s what you’re going to, that when you give, and there’s discipline there, and there’s morality, and there is wisdom, and there are all the rest. That’s what makes them perfect.

Ken: That’s true what you say. And there are many explanations along those lines. It’s not quite what I’m doing right now. I’m actually going through a sequence. So, generosity leads to discipline and morality, which in a certain sense, it’s a form of generosity. You’re giving yourself a way of approaching the world, which supports things. What does morality require?

Student: Patience.

Ken: Patience. You beginning to see how it works? What does patience require?

Student: Effort.

Ken: Yeah. What does effort require? Consistency of intention. In other words, stable attention. I am saying required, but it leads to the development of would be better to say. And stability of attention leads to the development of wisdom, or insight, or understanding. Follow?

So, in these six perfections, we have a couple of things. One, they’re a sequence through which we develop. Two, they take what can be ordinary activities, or ways of relating to the world, and distinguish or point out a special quality, which takes them out of the range of ordinary virtue and non-virtue and makes them into expressions of being awake. Okay? Everybody with me?

Now, that perspective is very important when we’re reading through these descriptions.

If those who want to be awake have to give even their bodies,
What need is there to talk about things that you simply own.
Be generous, not looking
For any return or result— (which is a point that somebody raised earlier) this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 25

Now within these lines, which if you read them just as they’re put there, it sounds like, “Oh, that’s right. My body’s much more precious to me. So, that should make it easy to give something that I simply own. Yeah, that makes sense. Being generous means there are no strings attached.” But if you read between the lines, or underneath the lines, in the first two: If those who want to be awake have to give even their bodies, what need is there to talk about things that you simply own. Well, in the ordinary way we relate to the world, when would you think of giving your body? Never!

Student: In war, when you go to war.

Ken: Well, you give your life. However, what way of looking or experiencing the world must you have in order to consider giving your body? What’s the only way you can be looking at the world to make that?

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Yeah, I mean that’s the common phrase. But this ordinary experience that we have of me having a body in this world isn’t all there is. There’s another way of experiencing the world. That’s what you’re referring to, right?

In the next two lines: Be generous, not looking for any return or result. This points very directly to what Milarepa was saying in the song. No fixation of self, on self or a sense of self, because it’s the sense of self that makes you think in terms of having a return from what you’re doing.

If you can’t tend to your needs because you have no moral discipline,
Then intending to take care of the needs of others is simply a joke.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 26

Isn’t that wonderful? [Laughs] Well, it’s straightforward, yes. But since we’re at this time in the evening, how was contemplating this?

Student: Brutal.

Ken: Brutal. [Laughs] Okay. Anybody else? What was your experience here? I mean, it is somewhat humbling, isn’t it?

Never knowing shame

Ken:

Observe ethical behavior without concern
For conventional existence—

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 26

Do you feel that same quality coming in here? So, even though he’s not making any explicit reference to regard everything like a dream or whatever, it’s actually implicit in here. Milarepa, on the other hand, says:

For morality, nothing to do,
Other than stop being dishonest.

The Six Perfections, Milarepa

Student: I like Milarepa’s song better.

Ken: Well, this is one of Milarepa’s gifts.

Student: It’s easier to work with.

Ken: For you, okay. Where is it most difficult to stop being dishonest, Molly? For you. We’ll see if your answer coincides with mine.

Molly: Where is it most difficult to stop being dishonest? Well, when it comes to myself.

Ken: Say a bit more about that, please.

Molly: I don’t know. Just recognizing things that I’m doing, and I think that I’m not doing, but I am.

Ken: Very good. Very good. That’s the most difficult place to stop being dishonest. When I translated this earlier, I translated it: having no shame about anything, which actually comes out the same way. No, that’s another one, sorry. It was: not being deceitful, but I decided that dishonest got to the point more quickly. Another definition of morality at this level is never knowing shame, which you really have to be free of a sense of self for that, in the right way.

Cultivating patience

Ken: And then for patience:

For bodhisattvas who want to be rich in virtue
A person who hurts you is a precious treasure.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 27

What was this like?

Student: Yuck.

Ken: Could you say that in another way, please? Yuck. [Laughs]

Student: Could you state that more succinctly?

Ken: No. I’ll give you a little more …

Student: Well, it’s that twinge where I sort of recognized the truth of that, but I didn’t want to give into it. I still wanted to be resentful, that schadenfreude, you know. And yet, I recognize that when somebody really hurts you in some way, or does something harmful, that you see as being harmful, it teaches you about how much you’re protecting yourself.

Ken: Right. And how does this connect—I think it does—with such cherished notions as righteous anger.

Student: Oh yes.

Isabelle: This makes me think of my husband and the PC, which has been sitting on our table for the last two months. And his health isn’t really great right now. He’s got bad arthritis, so I can’t push him to go beyond just plugging one thing in. He says, “No, I can’t do anything else. I have to think up my questions first, and then we’ll make an appointment, and go down to Apple, and we’ll talk to them, and find out how to do this.”

Ken: Driving you nuts.

Isabelle: That’s it. I mean, I’ve been pretty patient.

Ken: For those of you who don’t know the story, Isabelle was saying, “I don’t get any of your email notifications. I don’t have a computer anymore. And that’s becoming an increasingly important mode of communication.” And so I said, “Well go and buy a computer.” So, she went down to the Apple store, picked up a nice Apple. And then her husband said, “We can’t do anything until we have read the manual.” [Laughs]

Isabelle: We read the manual; we read the manual for the printer. We’ve read every piece of literature that came with it, and he’s finally gotten up his courage to open the top. And then he plugged something in the back, but that’s as far as it’s gone. [Laughter]

Ken: Would he be open to someone coming over and showing him how to—

Isabelle: No. I asked him. I said, “I’ve had an offer from somebody in my meditation group to come over and work with us on this. What about it?” He says, “Oh no, no, no!”

Ken: Well, I applaud your patience. [Laughter]

Student: Well, I was just going to ask Isabelle question.

Ken: Go ahead.

Student: Just tell me if this isn’t an appropriate question, okay? How do I word this? Do you need his permission to have someone come over and show you how to use it?

Isabelle: Well, I think that it’s not so much that. I think, if somebody came to the door and said, “I’m the person that Isabelle asked to come over and help you with a computer,” he’d probably close the door in his face. He’d say, “No, get out of here. I didn’t ask you to come here!”

Ken: Yeah, but here’s what you do.

Isabelle: What?

Ken: Tell him you’re calling the Apple store and call one of us.

Isabelle: The Apple store doesn’t come to your house. He knows! This guy is pigheaded, but he’s not stupid. [Laughter]

Ken: I hope he doesn’t, well, he can’t listen to this. That’s fine.

Student: What if he does in the future? [Laughter]

Ken: Okay, moving on!

Cultivate patience for everyone,
Completely free of irritation or resentment—

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 27

And you noticed how we could all slip very easily slip into the irritation and resentment. The thing is, this is one of the things you actually learn from shamatha—just resting with the breath—you really learn patience. How many times do you have to let go of thinking? When people start with me, after two or three weeks, they come and say, “Well, I keep getting caught up in thoughts.”

I’ve said, “When you’ve been caught by your millionth thought, we’ll start to discuss this problem, if it’s still going on like that. The first million you get on the house.” Now within these lines, those of you’re familiar with mind training: For bodhisattvas who want to be rich in virtue a person who hurts you is a precious treasure. The corresponding line in mind training is: Be grateful to everyone.

So, again, Cultivate patience for everyone, completely free of irritation or resentment. I mean, the only way that we do that is by experiencing the world as if it were a dream. You don’t get irritated. You may get upset sometimes, but you don’t get irritated at what you dream. It was a dream. You don’t gnash your teeth afterwards and say, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t had that dream. That was a really bad thing. No, no. I didn’t want to have that dream.”

Catherine: Milarepa says,

For patience, nothing to do,
Other than not fear what is ultimately true.

The Six Perfections. Milarepa

Ken: What’s interesting about that to you?

Catherine: It turns everything upside down.

Ken: Go on.

Catherine: Fear and patience, I mean, it doesn’t seem to put it together, but …

Ken: What’s the connection?

Catherine: It really turns my head around when I try to think about it, and I shouldn’t think about it.

Ken: Well, you know how far thinking gets you.

Catherine: I know it’s gotten me in a lot of trouble.

Ken: Especially here, right? [Laughter] Okay, so take a situation, if there was one, in which you were less than patient in the last week. Can you think of one?

Catherine: Oh, yes!

Ken: Okay. Now, go into your experience.

Catherine: Okay.

Ken: Diane, are you paying attention? Okay. [Laughs] What do you experience in your body?

Catherine: Okay, I’m experiencing irritation.

Ken: No, in your body first.

Catherine: Oh.

Ken: Tightness?

Catherine: Tightness. Not wanting to go there.

Ken: No, just body.

Catherine: Yeah. Tightness.

Ken: What else?

Catherine: Bubbling, nerves, nervousness. Things coming to the surface.

Ken: Yeah. Sort of tingly, excited, agitation in the body. Okay. What emotion do you feel?

Catherine: Not again, regret, resentment.

Ken: Regret, resentment. Okay. Now go into that experience of resentment. You’re angry at something.

Catherine: Yeah, I can feel angry.

Ken: Now, what are you angry about?

Catherine: I’m angry with myself for being angry.

Ken: Well, that’s secondary, but what are you angry about originally?

Catherine: About the thing that was done, it’s repetitive, and that keeps coming up, and I have no control over, but I have to—

Ken: So, what do you feel is going to happen to you if this keeps happening?

Catherine: I’m going to become a worse and worse person.

Ken: No, no, not about getting angry. This thing that keeps happening. What’s going to happen to you if it keeps happening?

Catherine: I’m going to keep feeling this way.

Ken: Yes, you are. But is it somebody who is not repairing your window or …?

Catherine: Something like that. Yeah.

Ken: So, what’s going to happen if that window is never repaired?

Catherine: Nothing.

Ken: No, no, no. That’s the rational mind. But emotionally, what does it feel like?

Catherine: I just want it to stop.

Ken: Why do you want it to stop?

Catherine: Because I want to stop feeling this way. I’m sorry.

Ken: No, no. Why do you want to stop feeling that way?

Catherine: Because it’s unpleasant. Yeah.

Ken: And if you go on feeling that way, what is going to happen? Not rationally, but the emotional feeling. If I go on feeling this way, what’s going to happen? You’re going to kill somebody?

Catherine: I wouldn’t, but I might be thinking about it.

Ken: Are you afraid of that?

Catherine: I’m more afraid of the anger.

Ken: Okay. Now are you getting the connection between fear and patience?

Catherine: Ah, yeah … Wow!

Ken: Diane, you have any comment here?

Diane: I was just relating it to my entire day. [Laughter] And I could relate, and actually through all of these I was very, I think he used the word humbled. I actually thought I was a patient person, but I’m not. And so I was reminded of that over and over and over again, and I had those same sensations.

Ken: Okay. But that wasn’t why I was coming back to you.

Diane: No?

Ken: Do you know why I was coming back to you?

Diane: No.

Ken: What did I just do with Catherine?

Diane: You made her describe her experience.

Ken: I was communicating something to her.

Catherine: He was explaining, but not by explaining.

Ken: I was communicating something to her. But did I explain it to her?

Diane: No.

Ken: Okay. That’s what I wanted. Okay? Good.

Diane: Got it.

Ken: Alright. There was a comment somewhere.

Student: Oh, I just wanted to say that what’s effective for me of quelling some anger is that one that says: Drive all blames into one.

Ken: Yes. That’s the mind training instructions, very helpful. You’re responsible for everything. All of the problems in the world, all of the problems in everybody’s life, all of the problems in your life, and all of the problems that anybody will ever experience are entirely due to you.

Student: Wow.

Ken: How do you feel?

Student: Like I’m not responsible. [Laughter] Not quite the desired effect, but we’ll move on.

Different levels of motivation

Ken: Listeners and solitary buddhas, these are shravakas and pratyekabuddhas. Those are the Sanskrit terms. These are creations of the Mahayanists, straw dogs that they could bat down. Listeners are people who hear the teachings and just from hearing the teachings, they go off and practice. But according to Mahayanists, they aren’t greatly imbued with compassion. They’re basically interested in their own awakening. Now the other, solitary buddhas, slightly higher level of attainment, but a similar attitude.

Listeners and solitary buddhas, working only for their own welfare,
Are seen to practice as if their heads were on fire.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 28

So, these people, they’re only interested in getting free of the turmoil of samsara for themselves, and yet they’re really putting all of their energy into it. But us who are concerned with helping all sentient beings, we’re just completely lazy. [lLaughter]

To help all beings, pour your energy into practice:
It’s the source of all abilities.

verse 28

I am going to unpack the code that’s in this. We go through different stages of motivation. You could say different levels of motivation. When we start practicing—most of us—we say, “I want to become free of suffering. That’s why I’m practicing.” What I want to suggest here is that we have a very limited, a very definite, but usually quite a limited sense of what that means. We think, “Oh, it’s just me.”

But as we continue to practice, we begin—through some of things we’ve been discussing this evening—to appreciate that when I say, “I want to be free of suffering,” well that’s coming from the sense of seeing myself separate from experience. But as I realize I’m not separate from experience, the “I” gets a little bit larger, and there is no possibility of “I” being free of suffering unless the totality of the world that I experience is free of suffering. Suddenly we’re now talking about all sentient beings, my experience of which comprises the totality of my experience.

So, when they’re talking, as one does in the Mahayana all the time, about working for the benefit of all sentient beings, and saving all sentient beings, and so forth, and you get this over and over again. One way of working with that, approaching that, is you’re talking about the totality of what each of us experience. We cannot separate from any aspect of our experience.

And that’s why in the bodhisattva vow for instance, one of the commitments is not to reject a single sentient being. Because if you reject a single sentient being, you’re rejecting some aspect of your experience. You say, “I’m not going to deal with it,” and you won’t wake up there because you won’t deal with it. That’s why it’s really important. And you wanted me to talk a bit about the bodhisattva vow, so I’m going to keep some time open for that this evening, but we’re doing fine here.

Pour your energy into practice. I want to say a little bit about that. All of us have chosen to live in the world and practice. None of us have chosen the monastic path, to withdraw from the world, live in the monastery. None of us have chosen the hermit path. Yet. [Laughter]

Things happen. [Pause] Because of that, because of that choice we’ve made, we have to be very clear about what the word practice refers to. Most people think of practice as referring to formal meditation. But given the choice we have made, that is only a portion of our practice, and in the scheme of things, it’s actually only about 5 to 10% of our practice. Now, a good 30% of our practice, we spend asleep. We’re not doing very much. So, it means we have to make even more use of the rest of the time, because we’ve got to compensate for all that downtime. What’s the rest of that downtime? That’s our waking life when we’re not actually formally meditating. [Break in recording]

Stability and Insight

Ken: I’m tending towards emotional reactions rather than reactive emotions these days.

Reactive emotions are dismantled
By insight, supported by stillness.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 29

There are two qualities that you need in your attention. One is stability, which is what the stillness is referring to. Stability is where the power comes from. Insight is where that cutting quality comes from. You see into things and in Buddhist context, to see into the working of things, reactive emotions, is to see that they are simply a mechanism, that there is nothing to them. That they are not facts, they’re simply movements. You with me? Okay.

Now that’s actually relatively easy to see. Even a bit of cognitive behavioral therapy will help you with that one. But without the stability to maintain that knowing, you just get lost. So, it’s a combination of those two that leads to the disengagement and the dismantling of reactive emotions. So, you:

Cultivate meditative stability that passes right by
The four formless states.

verse 29

The four formless states are very, very high levels of stability. Your mind becomes so stable that even the subtlest concepts of having form, or not having form, don’t arise. And those are the names of them. The first is infinite space. I am getting really rusty. I used to know all of this stuff by heart.

Student: Second is infinite consciousness.

Ken: That’s right. Third is—

Student: Third is nothing at all.

Ken: Nothing at all? I think it’s: nothing and not nothing, actually. Okay.

Student: And: neither existence nor non-existence.

Ken: Existence. Yeah, those are the four formless states. And they refer to very still states of mind, in which you think you are enlightened, but your mind is just really, really still. And why it says here that it passes right by, what these very still states of mind are lacking is that seeing quality, the clarity quality, which comes through insight. They’re just being really still like a really calm ocean. And as you hear from the descriptions, they’re very subtle.

Acting without a sense of self

Ken: Then finally 30:

Without wisdom, the five perfections
Are not enough to attain full awakening.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 30

They’re not enough to attain full awakening because they’re simply ordinary actions without that quality of being awake, empty, whatever, non-separation, all of these terms we were throwing around at the beginning of this evening. That’s why:

Cultivate wisdom, (this quality of knowing) endowed with skill
And free from the three domains.

verse 30

Now this is a wonderfully formal phrase, which you will come across time and time in the Tibetan tradition. You’ll see it in three spheres or things like that. What are they? They are: the action, the acted on, and the subject of the action.

Now, what does it mean to be free of the three domains? Jessica earlier this evening gave an example where she saw something and did, and there wasn’t a sense of, “I am doing this for this person.” That’s all it means. If you want it really simply, it’s acting without the sense of self.

Student: It isn’t something that you can try to do.

Ken: No. It is not something you can try to do, because as soon as you try to do it, you’re right in that sense of self. It’s wonderful.

Student: Can you say those three things again? Action …

Ken: Action, acted on, and actor. So, you’ll see that phrase over and over again. And a lot of people think it means this completely inaccessible state of high awakening. No. The thing about the awakened mind is it’s already present, and we probably experience it 10,000 times a day. How many times do we miss it? About 999. And those of you who’ve studied with me, or started studying with me, you know what my first meditation instruction to you was? Return to what is already there and rest. You remember that? Okay.

What is already there? Trick question. What is already there? What is already there? Anybody? Absolutely nothing. Return to that and rest. That’s the perfection of wisdom. And when you act in the perfection of wisdom, that is you’re generous or whatever, that’s what makes generosity the perfection of generosity and it takes it out of the ordinary karmic process of generating good results into experiencing being awake. Okay, now just a few minutes. Any questions? Is this helpful to you?

Student: Yes.

Ken: Good. For those of you who want Milarepa:

For meditative stability, nothing to do,
Other than rest in presence.
(He makes it sound so easy, doesn’t he?)

For wisdom, nothing to do,
Other than know directly how things are.

The Six Perfections, Milarepa

The bodhisattva vow

Ken: Now, the bodhisattva vow. In the Tibetan tradition, there are three levels of vows. One says ordinations, but that’s not really accurate; they’re vows. They’re things you undertake to do. The first is the monastic level, which is called the vows of individual freedom, which have to do with specific actions. This is what a monk or nun take—fully ordained monks 253; I’m thinking for the nuns there’s 356 or something like that. You can ask Thannasanti, remind me to speak to you about Thannasanti.

Student: 356 things you can’t do?

Ken: Yeah, men only have 253. It’s monk chauvinism once again. They come down to the five basic precepts. The actual precepts are: not to take human life, not to steal more than a week’s worth of rice—or anything that is valued more than a week’s worth of rice—not to lie about your spiritual attainments, not to have sexual intercourse if you’re a monk or nun, and not to commit adultery if you’re a lay person, and not to take anything that’s been fermented, which is usually interpreted as not to take intoxicants. Those are the actual vows, and they’re extended to the general principles of not to take life, not to steal, not to lie, to have appropriate sexual relationships, and so forth.

Student: So, you don’t have to be a monk to take these vows?

Ken: No, there’s a tradition the lay precepts, which you can take, but you actually do have to take them from a representative of the monastic tradition. That’s why I don’t give them, because they’re embodying it very fully. That’s my understanding. These are concerned, as you see, with very specific actions. And the saying is that the individual freedom ordination is like a clay pot, very useful, it provides a container for your practice, but when you break it, it’s broken.

The bodhisattva vow, in contrast, is a vow of intention, doesn’t concern specific actions. You’re making the promise, or the vow, to wake up, which it means to become buddha in order to help other beings become buddha—wake up. How many beings? All other beings. So, in the way that I was talking earlier, it is the intention to wake up completely in the totality of your experience.

And it’s given this mythical quality, which is really, really powerful because when you take this vow, it isn’t good for this life. It’s good for all time. It isn’t confined to any locality. It governs all possibilities of experience, anywhere, and everywhere. So, it’s very big. It’s very huge.

And there are a couple of aspects to this awakening. One is, you’re awakening to what is ultimately true, which is emptiness, nothing. And you’re also waking up what is apparently true, which is compassion. Compassion as the expression of emptiness, as the expression of awareness, not compassion as an emotion. It’s a higher level of compassion. That part of the intention is further broken down into the vow to intend to wake up, and then the vow to work at waking up, which you can regard as the difference between intention and will if you wish.

One is saying, “I intend to wake up” and the other is saying, “I am doing this”. Not, “I’m going to do this,” but, “I’m doing this.” And so, you start engaging the actual acts and using whatever arises in your experience to wake up. That’s why I say that moves it from the level of intention to the level of will. You’re just going to do it. And that’s that. So, when you take the bodhisattva vow, you’re making a commitment. And primarily you’re making a commitment to wake up. And who is the one person that’s affected by that?

Student: You.

Ken: You. Now there are all kinds of do’s and don’ts associated with this, but all of those are things that support that intention. The bodhisattva vow is like a crystal vase, not a clay pot, but a crystal vase. You break it and it’s still beautiful. The intention continues.

Now, what constitutes breaking the bodhisattva vow? Well, the intention aspect is actually only broken by harboring or staying in two states of mind for more than two hours, or either of two states of mind for more than two hours. What are those two states of mind? One is despair: “I can’t do this.” When you say, “I can’t do this,” you’re denying your own buddha nature. And two hours or so—two to four hours is the time—that’s long enough, you start taking that seriously, and fixing it in you. So, “I can’t do this. I’ll never be able to do this.” That violates it in one way.

The other is what I mentioned earlier this evening, is to reject a sentient being. What does it mean to reject a sentient being? It isn’t, “I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” It is, “I will never help you, come what may, ever again.” That’s rejecting a sentient being, and holding that attitude and saying, “I don’t care what happens. I’m never going to help you in any way whatsoever.”

And you can see how that is just blocking out a part of your experience, something you don’t want to deal with in here. And that’s why it violates the intention. Because you just said to yourself, “I’m not going to wake up in this area. Whatever button this person’s pushing in me, I don’t care. I’m not going to wake up.”

Several years ago, I ran into this. I was having a discussion with a colleague of mine who’d run into some problems, and I won’t go into the details. And we were talking about it. And he was describing a situation, and there was a very specific point in the process that he had made a choice, and the choice had been disastrous. And so, I asked him the question which I would ask any of you, “What was going through your mind at that point?” And those of you who’ve worked with me and eventually know, that’s the kind of question I ask. “What were you actually experiencing right then?” Because there’s those little points in our lives where everything changes. I think they’re kind of important.

He said, “I don’t know.” And I was really surprised this person had no interest in that particular moment. And that’s just struck me as very, very strange. And from my point of view, it’s indicating a problem with respect to this bodhisattva vow. What I have found personally about the bodhisattva vow is the longer you have it, the more deeply it bites. So, one thing, it means you get curious. You’ve promised to be curious about every aspect of your experience where you’re not present. Okay? Nobody wants to take it now. [Laughter]

Another thing, there was a situation I was involved in back in the early 90s, which I was finding very difficult. And through it, I came to understand another aspect of the bodhisattva vow, at least for me. And that was, you don’t get to indulge your own confusion anywhere, in any circumstance. There’s no place you get to indulge. There’s no vacation. You don’t get to indulge your own confusion. I mean, are you going to fall down 100 times? Yes.

That’s why it has the analogy of the crystal vase, and you keep breaking it, and it keeps breaking, but every piece is still a beautiful crystal. And so, it doesn’t lose its clear, beautiful quality. And that’s the intention.

And now the third level of ordination is the Vajrayana vow, which is likened to a gold pot. It doesn’t matter how badly it gets beaten up, it’s still gold. Atisha said of these three vows. “How have you done with your ordinations or your vows?” Atisha was once asked this. And he said, “Well, the individual freedom, never broke it. Bodhisattva vow, every two or three hours. Vajrayana, like rain.” Very hard.

Student: That’s samaya?

Ken: Yeah, samaya. Now I’ve missed one piece here. For the bodhisattva vow, there’s also the vow at the level of will, of engagement. And for some reason I can never remember these, and I’ve struggled to remember them over and over again, which is why I brought this book along. There are the four black dharmas, the four black actions. Yeah. I have four black diamonds, right? Dharmas. [Flipping pages] Okay, here we are. The four dark actions. Chapter 10, at the end. [The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, p. 145]

The four dark actions, the four black things, they’re quite straightforward, and you can see why they violate the will to awaken as opposed to the intention. The intention is violated by lapsing into despair, rejecting a sentient being. The will is destroyed by deceiving your spiritual teacher. Why is that? Well, if you’re going to deceive your spiritual teacher, what are you doing to yourself? You’re lying to yourself at a really profound level. You’re lying to yourself at the very core of your being. You’re lying to yourself about your own spiritual attainments. That’s what it takes to lie to your teacher.

The second is making someone feel ashamed about good they’ve done. They’ve tried to do good. Maybe it’s been completely stupid, but if they’ve tried to do good, that’s the intention. And you make them feel ashamed. You’re undoing any ability to rejoice in their good work and to celebrate goodness. So, you’re undermining that will in you.

The third one is to denigrate anyone who has formed the intention to awaken, and say, “They’re no good, they’re bad.” And now we denigrate people because we’re basically angry. So, we’re acting out of anger, against what we ostensibly value most, which is the intention to awaken. So, you can see how it works very much against one’s own will.

And the fourth one is to intentionally deceive other people. Whenever you are intentionally deceiving another person, you are making that person an object in your world of experience.You’re no longer relating to them as a person. Again, it’s violating the will to be awake.

So, the vow is significant, but what I want to stress here is that it’s a vow of intention. Will you violate it? All the time. It’s why one takes it, and renews it, all the time. So, it’s not like you can never have a bad thought. Again, you’re going to, but it’s how you’re going to relate to that bad thought. And there are people, I mean there’s a person I know here in Los Angeles, who’s never taken the bodhisattva vow because she just doesn’t want to take on that responsibility.

For myself, this is when I was back in Sonada, Rinpoche’s monastery, maybe it’s just my craziness, but when I heard about the bodhisattva vow, I just said, “I want to do that, that makes sense to me.” And I had about that much understanding at that point.

And I found—when I first came to Los Angeles, I came here for about a month—that the center that I was supposedly taking over, I arrived in time to pack it all up, because the house that was being rented, had been sold. And so we had to move out of there. All that tar on the ceiling. Oh God, because the lama before me had insisted on butter lamps, so the ceiling of this house was covered with soot, and we had to clean everything up.

And then I went up to Vancouver and taught this text at a 10-day retreat, or one week retreat. And then I was coming back to Los Angeles, and really going to start from scratch. And so I made a point of coming through Seattle and went to see Dezhung Rinpoche, who I mentioned before. And I’d asked him if he would give me the bodhisattva vow, because I wanted to renew it, because I was coming here and going to start the work of actually teaching Buddhism here.

And I knew that Dezhung Rinpoche was not particularly well at this point. So, I said, “Just give me the short ceremony, the 10, 15 minute one.” Because it can be a 10, 15-minute ceremony, or if you really do it, it can be a one-week ceremony. And you do big offerings one day, and do things like that, building up lots and lots of merit before you take the actual vow. So, there were just three of us, a friend of mine who’d driven me down to Seattle, and one other person, one of Dezhung Rinpoche’s students in Seattle. And we started into the ceremony, and went on, and on, and on.

It was a complete transmission. And there are two main streams of the bodhisattva vow, one from Shantideva and one from Asanga. So, we went through all of this, and it was very nice, very nice ceremony. At the end of it, Dezhung Rinpoche said, “Ken asked me to give him the bodhisattva vow, and that’s what we did today. He asked me to give just a short ceremony, which was very kind of him. It was very considerate. But I’ve decided to give him the long ceremony because now it’s his turn.” And then he handed me the text for the vow, and that’s the text that I use when I give the bodhisattva vow.

So, I hope that gives you some background on it and what’s actually involved with it. I’ve stressed what the commitments are and the nature of that. There’s the 46 things you’re meant to do, and the 18 things which are broken up into the five of this, the five of that, and the eight of that. The five like a king, five like a minister, and five I can’t remember, the eight like something else. And there’s all kinds of stuff connected with it. But what I’ve tried to give you this evening is the essence. Okay? So, we’re doing that, I gather from Deborah’s email, on the 27th.

Student: Do we need to do an offering or something?

Ken: Yeah, firstborn, everything you own, whatever. Generally speaking, you make offerings as an expression of generosity, and that the expression of generosity is a way of generating goodness in yourself, which creates the right conditions in you to form this intention and to make this commitment. That’s the purpose there.

Student: Ken, we’ll be starting at the same time or earlier?

Ken: Part of the reason it took so long with Dezhung Rinpoche is that I was translating it all at the same time. So, we’ll start at 7:30 and we’ll probably go to about 9:30. We’ll do our meditation beforehand. It’ll be about the same. That’s what I’m anticipating anyway. Okay, so we just have two more classes, right? Oh, where did all the time go?

Well actually the next four correspond pretty closely to the four black actions. So, let’s do the next four, and then on the 20th we’ll do the last three and the concluding verses. Okay? Four black dharmas. I am not sure they correspond precisely, but they’re pretty close. So, we’ll do the next four verses and then we’ll do the next three verses on the 20th. Okay. Very good. Thank you very much.