Host: That’s beautiful, thank you, very understandable. Yes, several new things for me. It was nice, yes.
But you also talk about that, the secular mindfulness is very much emphasised that mindfulness meditation is an antidote to negative stress, negative emotions, etc, but if I ask you as a practitioner, what is the purpose, what is your purpose of meditation?
Kalu Rinpoche: Okay, so there’s two different kinds of understanding of meditation, or whether it’s religious practice or practice or spiritual practice. In Buddhism, or Buddhist teachings, we have this idea that where we think, we do certain things to have more meaning in this life. Nothing after this life, but more like “okay, how can I make this, how can I cultivate? How can I balance? How can I make it more harmonious? How can I make it more, more, good decision with more, greater impact throughout my future, and throughout my life?” That is not necessarily liberating from the sea of samsara.
So that is good already, better than nothing, better than the materialism world, it’s better. But it’s not to the extent where you say “oh this is a full renunciation of being a Buddhist practitioner”.
My understanding about the people who need to develop some sort of balance. You need, you still need to have some sort of renunciation. Renunciation doesn’t mean that “You need to become a Buddhist practitioner, or become religious and worship every deity out there”.
Renunciation has to be there constantly as a philosophy in our mind, as you continue to meditate throughout your life. Because if there’s no renunciation, then basically you are saying “I don’t want to see that part of the truth, I want to see my version of the truth”. And that is in the cycle of illusion. And if you are in the cycle of illusion, then it’s samsara. Duknal.
So therefore, whether people see the mindfulness, or the Lord Buddha’s teaching, if they see it as a solution, the first is “what do you want in your life?” if you want to be, just simply want to be a meaningful and happy, make a good decision in your life, with your partner, with your business, with your work, and family, whatever, then of course, even in that extent, may not be the level of Buddha. Even into that extent, you still need to have acceptance to the relative truth, a sense of renunciation, sense of principle.
Tsultrim in Tibetan, we call it tsultrim. Tsultrim means discipline. Discipline does not mean that you have to be forced to do something, or rather, it has to be with the deep realization, not an enlightened realization, but the realization of suffering. What is the cycle of suffering? So if you want to find some long term solution, with meditation, you need to apply with renunciation and acceptance to the relative truth, combined together, synchronising together. And that will make you a meaningful life.
To be continued…
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