Oct 26

Kalu Rinpoche | 4th International Conference on Vajrayana Buddhism (Part 2)

Regarding the Vajrayana and as a Buddhist practitioner, as a one family, has been addressed in the previous session, which I don’t have to repeat that again. I want to go to basic, mainly because I’m poorly educated, I’m not a knowledgeable person, nor scholar, or a realised being, and I’m not trying to make you think that I’m humble either. That’s a very big manipulation when somebody says “I’m a very humble being”. I’m not trying to make you think I’m humble. I’m just telling you the way it is, from my side.

I think the first step of being Buddhist is being sincere to oneself. That’s very important. Not to your neighbours, to yourself.

Once you are more sincere to yourself, then the idea of loving kindness, as His Holiness Dalaï Lama stated many times around the world, becomes fact, and logic, and reasonable approach in the world wide community. Otherwise, “My Buddhism”, “My Vajrayana” ideas only, cannot be spread thoroughly to the public. Because we need to start with the common ground. And that common ground is to be sincere, and to be kind and to be loving. It’s a beautiful idea.

But in order to have that, you need to develop inner peace. You know? Inner peace can be developed based on analytical understanding, by studying, receiving teachings. Also it can be understood by practicing, meditating, doing retreat. Or you can combine both, and also achieve inner peace. So that’s something that we have to understand, that ideas are very beautiful, the Vajrayana Conference, people coming together.

But first basic principle is to be sincere to oneself.

One of the Shangpa master, because I’m a Shangpa practitioner, in the Shangpa lineage, one of the masters said འཁྲུལ་ན་སེམས་ཅན། མ་འཁྲུལ་ན་སངས་རྒྱས།trül na sem chen ma trül na sang gyé” it’s a very simple, beautiful, you know. “If you are under the influence of illusion, you are sentient being. If you are absent from the illusion, you are enlightened being.” It’s very simple. You know? Because we are here, you can call it samsaric world, or the suffering world, or the unhappiness world, whatever you like to call it. It is all under the illusion of our ego, and our pride, and our attachment.

In order to reduce that attachment, and that ego, and that fixation, you need to develop a new ground of reality, which is to keep a little bit of distance from the idea of the ego, and the self-centered attitude. If you can minimize, little bit of that self-centered attitude, naturally there will be a sincerity from the heart. If you try too hard to be compassionate, it will never work, it will disappoint you, because it is not an emotion that you can copy, and print, and imitate and pretend.

Compassion is a realisation state of mind that will start from being sincere. If you’re sincere, you’re honest. If you’re honest, at least you have less disturbing thoughts in your mind. Which means you have a more space in your mind, which creates a foundation to meditate. Once you develop that space to meditate, and then understanding, and the taste of happiness and bliss can be experienced.

 

His Eminence Kalu Rinpoche talked about Niguma Yoga (4′ 20”): Tsalung Trulkhor in the Shangpa Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism as a part of the 4th International Conference on Vajrayana Buddhism held from October 1 to October 4 in Bhutan.
Center for Bhutan & GNH Studies

To be continued …