The second bodhisattva vow of a negative action that we vow to avoid is not sharing the Dharma teachings or our wealth. Here the motivation is attachment and miserliness. For example, we could be possessive of our Dharma notes, our computer or our computer files, and not want to share that with others, making all sorts of excuses about that. “If I loan you my book, you’re going to spill coffee on it, so I don’t want to loan it to you.” We could certainly be possessive and not share money with others. Like telling people, “You can’t attend this Dharma course because you don’t have the money to pay for it.” We are, in a sense, keeping the Dharma teachings to ourselves; we’re not sharing the financial possibility to attend the course with others.
We could also be very attached to our time and not share it with others to help them. For instance, there are some people who are very attached to their weekends: “This is my day off. Don’t ask for my help.” This is something that we often find. I have this website project, and sometimes various things come up that need to be taken care of in terms of the volunteers and workers on the site. Sometimes people will say, “Well, don’t ask me to do anything on the weekend: this is my sacred time.” That’s not really bodhisattva behavior, is it? If somebody needs our help – and we’re not talking about somebody constantly abusing the other person’s time – but if somebody really needs our help, then whether it’s day, night, the weekend or whatever, we help the person. Like if our baby is crying or falls out of the bed, we don’t say, “Well, I’ll pick you up in the morning, sorry, because now it’s time for me to sleep.”
Furthermore, if we actually help the other person, we shouldn’t do so complaining all the time. From the point of view of bodhisattva behavior, we should be very happy when others want and ask for our help. This is what we are practicing being able to do, to help everybody all the time as a Buddha. If somebody actually would like our help, that’s wonderful. If somebody would like to learn something from us or share our Dharma notes, or whatever, then we’d be very happy to be able to share those with them, if they’re sincere, of course, and if these teachings would be appropriate for them. Sometimes people might be a bit strange in their motivation of what they are asking for.
Once when I was translating for Serkong Rinpoche, my teacher (this was in the hippy days), a very stoned hippy came in to see him and said, “Oh, I’d like to learn the six yogas of Naropa. Please teach me the six yogas.” Rinpoche took the guy very seriously and said, “Very good, that you want to study this. It’s a wonderful aspiration. However, in order to study it, first, you need to study and practice this and that, and go through a whole process and work yourself up to it.” He wasn’t being stingy with the Dharma, in terms of not teaching this guy the six yogas of Naropa. Of course, the guy was not ready for it. Nevertheless, he guided him in a way that would eventually lead him to this Dharma teaching, which was the appropriate way of dealing with him.
Remember the general principle that I referred to before: a bodhisattva of a lower level of attainment doesn’t try to do the practices of a more highly developed bodhisattva when they’re not capable of it. If somebody asks for our help and we are not capable of giving that, we do not pretend that we are able to do more than we are able to do. We have to say, “I wish I could do that but I’m really not qualified.” If we say that to a Tibetan, a Tibetan will feel that we are just being humble, and actually, we are qualified, and we’re just saying, “Oh, no, no, no, I’m not qualified. I can’t do that,” and so they will insist. Then, we really have to insist, “No I’m not just being humble; I really am not qualified to do this.”
Let me give an example. At one Dharma institute in Italy, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, they have what’s called the Master’s Program for studying the major topics of the monastic training. It’s for laypeople and monastics. This is a six-year program. They have a Geshe who taught the first topic of this course; however, when it came to the time to start the second topic, which was Madhyamaka, he said, “I’m not qualified to teach this.” Of course, everybody insisted that he do it anyway, that he was just being modest, but he said, “No, really I’m not qualified.” They checked with fellow classmates of his and his teachers and it was true, he wasn’t really qualified; this wasn’t his strong topic, even though he was a Geshe. He offered to stay and be of help to a qualified Geshe if a qualified Geshe could be found to come and teach. The institute found another Geshe who agreed to teach it. The first Geshe, who said “I’m not qualified,” stayed on to be of help. He was not transgressing his bodhisattva vow by not sharing the Dharma teachings; in fact, he was following this training from the pledged state of aspiring bodhichitta, not pretending to have qualities that he didn’t have.
If somebody asks us to explain some Dharma teaching or to share our notes, we can say, “Very well, you can see my notes, but they’re not very good,” or “They’re not clear,” or “My understanding is not so good.” Be honest about that. If we don’t understand it, we say, “I don’t understand it. I can’t explain it to you.” This whole thing of not sharing our time, etc., we also have to use our discriminating awareness. Part of the bodhisattva training is to know when we need to take a rest so that we have enough strength to be able to continue helping others. In such cases, we say, “I would like to help you but I’m really exhausted. I need to take a rest. I really can’t.”
What also is difficult is when many people ask for our help at the same time; we can’t multiply ourselves into a thousand different forms to help everybody simultaneously. We’re not already Buddhas. We can’t help everybody all at the same time. In such cases, unfortunately, we have to choose. Well, how do we choose; how do we prioritize? His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave some guidelines for this. “See what it is,” he said, “that if you are the most qualified to help and there aren’t so many others who are doing the same thing, put your main emphasis on that. For things where there are other people who are able to do it just as well as you can do, recommend them. Put your focus on what you are uniquely able to do.” I’ll take my own example. If somebody comes to me and says, “I would like to learn Tibetan. Please teach me Tibetan.” Well, there are many other people who teach Tibetan and there are many other things that I can teach that not so many people can teach. In that type of situation, I say, “Well, there are these other people…” and I recommend some other teacher for them to go and study Tibetan, especially the very beginning levels of Tibetan.
Another principle, in terms of how we prioritize, would be if we have a very special connection with this other person and they’re extremely receptive to us. Let me give you a very nice example of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his tutors. We have the reincarnation of the senior tutor, Ling Rinpoche, and the reincarnation of the so-called assistant tutor, my own teacher, Serkong Rinpoche. This title of Serkong Rinpoche was not actually “assistant tutor,” it was the “master debate partner,” but no need to go into all of these details. He was a teacher of His Holiness. They were born about a year apart from each other, so very close in age. As little children, I think they were three and four years old. His Holiness gave them their first lesson in reading the Tibetan alphabet. Obviously, His Holiness didn’t go on to be their alphabet teacher and teach them how to read. However, in terms of this very special close relationship that he had with his teachers, that when their reincarnation was found, he was the one that gave them their very first lesson.
My own friend, Alan Turner, had a very close connection with Serkong Rinpoche. Alan never actually learned Tibetan, but Serkong Rinpoche gave him the first lesson to sow the seeds of the Tibetan language. Of course, he didn’t do that with other people. His Holiness hasn’t given Tibetan language lessons to other people except to his own teacher that he had such a close relationship with. This is how we prioritize. What is the special need? How much benefit – if I teach this person – will they be able to give to others? In terms of how we would spend our time, do we have a really close connection? Is that person really receptive to me? Or, in general, what am I most qualified to do and are there not so many other people doing it? In terms of other requests for our time, we could try to do a little bit and give suggestions. We don’t just get angry and say, you know, “Leave me alone. Go away.” That’s against bodhisattva behavior.
I asked this question to Ringu Tulku – he’s a very great Kagyu master. He said that also one factor that we could also consider in terms of how we prioritize our time, considering the fact that we are still samsaric beings and we are not Buddhas, is what do we enjoy doing. A little bit of this selfish motivation is really okay because it helps to give us more strength and enthusiasm. This is fine as long as that’s not our main consideration.
So there’s a group of factors that we can take into consideration in terms of how we spend our time helping and doing things for the benefit of others.
Then, we have to consider if we’re going to take the bodhisattva vows: Are we able to keep these vows? Are we able to do this? Consider, can we keep them or not. Okay, we want to avoid praising ourselves and belittling others because of attachment and greed for gain and jealousy of others. We have to avoid not sharing the Dharma teachings, our wealth, our possessions, our time, or whatever, because of attachment and miserliness.
If we don’t share Dharma teachings for other motivations, like laziness or anger, “I don’t like you so I’m not going to help you or share something with you,” that is one of the secondary bodhisattva vows, and we need to avoid that. It’s not a root vow. So the question is why? Why is one a root vow and the other a secondary vow? Well, because as a bodhisattva we need to be willing to give to everyone, not to just keep things for ourselves. When we have attachment and are miserly, which means we don’t want to share, that really is against the whole bodhisattva aim. That we’re merely too lazy, which is just a whole different mind frame, isn’t it? “I’d like to help you but I’m too lazy to do it.”