We’re going through this letter of Tsongkhapa in which he responds to a request from a friend and meditator about how to actually put into practice sutra and tantra.
Review of Previous Sessions
Just a very quick review (we’ve been reviewing it every time): Tsongkhapa says we have an excellent working basis, we’ve met with the precious teachings and have spiritual teachers and the power of mind to discern what’s proper and what’s improper. We need to get into the teachings of the Buddha, engage in them. And for that, we have to rely on a proper teacher who knows which are the proper states of mind we need to develop, and which are not; not to add anything, not to leave anything out; and knows the proper order for applying them. That teacher has to have been led by his own teachers, going all the way back, relying on the actual texts of the Buddha.
To actually get into the practice, we need to tame our minds. For that, we need to develop the proper motivating mental framework. For that, there’s the basic lam-rim teachings — the initial, intermediate, and advanced scopes — of working, respectively, for improving future lives so that we continue to have a precious human rebirth, and working for liberation, and then working for enlightenment. In order to develop these, we need to meditate on them, build them up as a beneficial habit. Then Tsongkhapa describes how to do that, which means to know what each state of mind is, what it’s focused on, how that state of mind regards its object, and what will support it, what is detrimental to it, and so on. We need to maintain these motivating states of mind throughout our practice.
Then to actually get into tantra practice we need to keep ethical discipline, and that is on three levels, and each level is building or supported on the one beneath it. First, we need to keep some set of vows of individual liberation (the pratimoksha vows). We discussed the lay vows, and then we’re up to the discussion of the bodhisattva vows. These bodhisattva vows: there are the eighteen root vows and the forty-six secondary vows. We’re in the discussion of the secondary ones. In that discussion... that discussion is divided into a presentation of various faulty actions that we are going to try to avoid that would hinder our practice of the six far-reaching attitudes and helping others in general.
Nine Faulty Actions Detrimental to Training in Far-Reaching Ethical Self-Discipline (continued)
We are up to the faulty actions that would hinder our practice of far-reaching ethical self-discipline. We’ve covered four of them already, and now we’re up to the fifth.
Three Faulty Actions Concerning Our Own Situation
[5] Earning our living through a wrong livelihood
The fifth one to avoid is earning our living through a wrong livelihood. The main point of a wrong livelihood is a dishonest means. I mean, obviously there are certain things like selling weapons and hunting and fishing, and so on, which would not at all be a proper livelihood, but the main emphasis here is on not engaging in a dishonest or devious type of manner for gaining our livelihood, and five of these are outlined:
[5a] Pretense or hypocrisy
One is to pretend that we have qualities or qualifications that we don’t have. Or two, be hypocritical and hide deficiencies or faults that we do have. Actually it’s very interesting to think of this when we’re making an application for a grant or for a job. Do we exaggerate our qualifications? Do we hide things that we are missing? How honest are we in that application? It’s an interesting question actually and something that we would need to observe.
[5b] Flattery or using smooth to fool others
Then the second one is flattery — using nice words, smooth words, to fool others. That also might apply in trying to get a job. We say “How wonderful your company is,” and all of this sort of thing just to flatter them in order to get a job, or “How wonderful your foundation is, and I admire all the work that you’re doing, and I can contribute to that,” and so on.
[5c] Blackmail, extortion, or playing on people’s guilt
Then the next one is blackmail, extortion, playing on people’s guilt. Claiming “I am from a minority,” or from this or that, “and you need to hire me,” and play on their guilt in this way. There are many subtle ways in which we can play on the guilt of others in order to either get a job or also this would be talking about when we have a job and trying to get customers and so on: you can use all sorts of nasty means. Advertising — that’s another thing that needs to be examined in terms of claiming that your product has better qualities than it does have or hiding the negative side effects of it.
[5d] Demanding bribes or exacting fines for imaginary offenses, and
[5e] Giving bribes to gain something larger in return
Then the next one is demanding bribes. Making your livelihood… it’s hard to think of a non-mafioso manner in which this would take place, in which you bribe somebody to give you something. But often that can be the case in which you give somebody, a potential patron, a small little gift in the hope that they’re going to give you something much larger. That’s the next one, I’m sorry (that’s giving bribes to gain something larger in return). This is demanding a bribe, demanding something from someone else, so it’s being very pushy — that they have to give us.
All of these, these various means of gaining a livelihood, are things that we would resort to because we have no sense of self-respect or self-morals, and we don’t exercise any self-control. This is the whole point of ethical self-discipline, is to exercise self-control not to act in these destructive ways.
Participant: [unclear]
Dr. Berzin: Wrong livelihood. I don’t know. She’s saying that — in other sources she’s seen — that just as we have in the root vows not to steal from the Triple Gem and not to accept anything that others have stolen from the Triple Gem, likewise this is not to earn our livelihood through any of these dishonest ways and not to accept something from others that have received it through a wrong livelihood. I’ve never actually seen that, so I don’t know whether or not that is part of this vow. But whether it is or not, that’s probably good advice to follow.
It’s very difficult though to know how others might have gotten their livelihoods in one of these dishonest ways. I suppose if you are a company and you are given the choice to accept advertisements or things like that from a company that makes a wrong livelihood, that would pertain.
An example comes to my mind of, for instance, when setting up the search engine for my website, then we had discussed whether or not to use the… What was it, the Yahoo or the Google?
Participant: Google.
Dr. Berzin: Google search engine because of its policy of censoring — you know, obeying the Chinese demand to censor its search engine in China. For that reason, not wanting to install the Google search engine on the website, because it advertises Google.
That, I think, would be a good example of what you’re talking about. Whether or not that fits within the range of this vow, I still think it’s a good idea to refrain from such things. Then do you... Actually, what you mention is a very important point. Do you keep your money in a bank that invests in various things that you don’t like? There was a big movement concerning that when I was at university, at the time when there was still apartheid in South Africa. There was a whole big thing: not to invest your money in banks that invested their things in South Africa and so on. Those are good examples.
But then do you boycott the products of countries that... There’s this whole thing: Do you boycott the products of China because they support Darfur, the problems in Darfur, or Burma, or the problems that go on in Tibet? His Holiness made an interesting point about this. He said no, that actually if you boycott these goods, the only ones that — you’re not damaging the government, because the government will sell them to somebody else, so the only people that you’re really damaging are the poor Chinese who work and make their money making these products. He wasn’t in favor of a boycott of such things.
I don’t know about this point. Anyway, we didn’t install Yahoo or Google search engines.
[6] Becoming excited and flying off to some frivolous activity
The next one is becoming excited and flying off to some frivolous activity. This is not an easy one. This is saying because of being discontent, restless, bored, or hyperactive, and desiring some excitement, running off to some frivolous distraction.
The examples of this would be wandering in the shopping mall, flipping through stations on the television, playing computer games, these sort of things, because we’re bored and we feel there’s nothing better to do. There always is something better to do, is the point here. If that’s our reason for turning to these frivolous activities, then that’s something which is a detriment to our practice of trying to develop far-reaching ethical self-discipline.
Sometimes we have to engage in these activities to help others, to benefit others. You might have to play some sort of game with your child or something like that. Sometimes also we might need a break from our activities in order to renew our enthusiasm and energy when we become tired and depressed. That’s part of what Shantideva described as a factor that will help to increase our energy, our enthusiasm, and so on. But even if we do something like that, we need to set reasonable limits in terms of how much we indulge in that. But the point here is to get out of this thing that “I have nothing better to do, so I’ll turn on the television,” this type of thing. Just become addicted to that. I suppose surfing the internet is a good example of that.
[7] Intending only to wander in samsara
Then the next one is intending only to wander in samsara. What this is referring to is that, as a bodhisattva, we feel that “I just need to be involved in helping others and working for others and so on, and I don’t really need to work on overcoming my disturbing emotions and trying to achieve liberation.” This is a very subtle self-deception that one might have. Just as one might want to continue having a precious human rebirth (this initial scope) and not really ever think of liberation because in fact we are attached to having a precious human rebirth and all the friends and teachers and opportunities that we have with that. That can be detrimental. Similarly, here, we can fool ourselves into “I just want to help others,” and like that, but we’re not really working on, at the same time, trying to get rid of our attachment or our anger or jealousies, or whatever it might be.
The point here is that this is different from the 18th root bodhisattva vow of giving up bodhichitta (that’s when we fully decide to stop working for liberation and enlightenment). Here we haven’t given up on that and said “I’m not going to do that,” but we consider it unimportant and secondary and so we don’t pay attention to it at all. If we do that, that seriously weakens our ethical self-discipline.
An example I can think of is: “I’m so busy helping others and working to do various things, that I’m not going to take any time to meditate to try to lessen my disturbing emotions.” This type of thing.
Two Faulty Actions Concerning Both Ourselves and Others
These were faulty actions that hinder our development of ethical self-discipline with regard to ourselves. Then the last two are with regard to both ourselves and others.
[8] Not ridding ourselves of behavior that causes us to fall to ill-repute
The first of these is not ridding ourselves of behavior that causes us to fall to ill-repute. Here is the secondary vow that I think you were referring to before, which is, for instance, if we are an aspiring bodhisattva and we like to eat meat, but we’re with a vegetarian group and if we were to eat meat in their presence everybody would have a very bad opinion of us, then obviously we don’t eat meat. Does that mean that we can do all sorts of naughty things by ourselves when we’re not with others? No. It’s not giving us free rein to that. But the point is that we need to be careful about our behavior when we’re with others.
For instance, if you are working to help others and you are serving others in some sort of manner in which you have actual contact with others — not to wash, or not to change your clothes, this type of thing. You can’t say that that is a type of destructive behavior, but it would give you a bad reputation and other people wouldn’t like you or want you to be near them. This type of thing. It lowers your reputation. We need some ethical self-discipline to take care about these sorts of things. That’s, I think, one aspect of applying this. Avoid things that would cause others to have a bad opinion or a low opinion of us, which is not based on pride and “I want everybody to like me” but “I want people to continue to be open to my help.” This sort of thing.
Watch our language. There are some people that may have a strong tendency to use a lot of swear words. People who grew up in my generation in America during the so-called hippie period — we used a lot of swear words in our language. It was just sort of the way that everybody spoke in that generation. But if you continue that and use that type of language when you’re teaching or in other situations in which it would be most inappropriate, then again it would cause us to fall to ill-repute.
I always think… a funny example comes up. Tibetans don’t think that there is anything strange about picking your nose or picking your ear, or anything like that, licking their bowl. This is part of the regular Tibetan way of doing things. But when they come to the West, then again you have to — especially if they’re a teacher — you have to sometimes advise them that this is the type of behavior that would cause them to fall to ill-repute. If in the middle of the class they stick their finger up their nose and start to... or stick their finger and then they look at it and examine it, what’s come out. I mean, this sort of thing would not be at all appropriate. Or an Indian nose blow, if you know what that is.
[9] Not redressing those who act with disturbing emotions and attitudes
The last one is not disciplining those who act with disturbing emotions and attitudes. If we are in a position of authority in an office, a school, a monastery or a household and because of attachment to certain members, or the wish to be liked, we fail to scold or punish those with disturbing emotions and attitudes who are acting disruptively, we damage the discipline and morale of the entire group.
That’s an interesting question, actually, of how you implement this. You might not be in charge of a monastery or a school: but in a household, how much do you discipline a child when the child is screaming and yelling and acting in a very unruly way? How do you discipline them? Or do you not discipline them? There are many people that raise their children in a very permissive type of way. The Tibetan way of raising children is quite different in many ways. In the West, very often when a child misbehaves — they scream and yell — then you give them what they want. In a sense, that is rewarding them. You give them something nice to make them shut up. The Tibetans tend to ignore a child. They reward a child when the child behaves well and ignore them when they are acting disruptively. I’ve seen this in crowds when Tibetans bring little children to teachings and the children are running around and so on. The parents don’t do anything, which is really very odd.
This is saying that sometimes we have to actually scold them or punish them. That’s not an easy thing. How do you draw limits? You’re not doing it out of anger or so on, but the point is to help to teach the others discipline. It’s like disciplining your dog not to pee on the carpet type of thing. It is both helping to discipline and develop the other person as well as exercising your own discipline not to just act out of attachment or laziness, that “I don’t feel like training the dog,” or “I don’t feel like,” in a sense, “training my child, teaching the child good manners.” How do you teach a child good manners? I don’t know. Do you teach the child only by example? Sometimes you have to tell them, I think, that that’s not the way to act, but how to do that in a way that is not cruel? Sometimes attachment might prevent us from actually punishing the child.
These are things that we need to pay attention to, especially if the person is acting in a disruptive way that disrupts a larger group. That is the point here. Any questions on these?
As I said, it is, I think, quite a good exercise, although many of us might not take the time to do it, to actually not just read “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah” the list of these things, because it’s quite easy to do that and not really think about any of them or examine our own behavior, but to work with a few of these each day and so on and actually examine ourselves and see how this affects my behavior. Is this something that I need to work more on? And to understand how committing any of these faulty actions really is detrimental to my progress on the bodhisattva path and my ability to help others. That’s the point of going through all of this in the detail that we’re doing it in.
Four Faulty Actions Detrimental to Training in Far-Reaching Patience
The next set is four faulty actions that hinder our development of far-reaching patience.
[1] Discarding the four positive trainings
The first is discarding what’s called the four positive trainings. The positive trainings are: not to retaliate… I mean, there are too many negatives in the formulation here. But what we want to do, the first one, is when (a) we are verbally abused or criticized, or (b) we’re the target of others’ anger, or (c) we’re hit or beaten, or (d) we’re humiliated, the proper training here is not to retaliate, not to hit back, not to start calling the other person bad names back, not to hit them, not to humiliate them in return. If we do that then we are committing this faulty action.
Obviously, this is necessary to practice in order to develop patience. Is that easy to put into practice though? What happens when we are at work and other people are calling us nasty names? Obviously in school, as little children — little children find that very difficult. But can we deal with that?
Participant: I must admit that I tend to deal with that better at work than with my family. Like with my brother I’m fighting much more than with anybody else.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Andreas points out that he finds it easier to deal with this at work than he does with his family. He’s always fighting with his brother, because his brother obviously picks on him, or makes fun of various things that he might be doing or criticizes. Do you criticize back, is the point here — to retaliate.
Participant: It’s much easier with them.
Dr. Berzin: Much easier with your family. The question is, why?
Participant: I guess it lacks an official setting when it’s with a family member, and you lack the office closeness, or you think you can just hit back much more easily then.
Dr. Berzin: With the family it’s not a formal setting, your job doesn’t depend on it, and you feel that pretty much you can do anything with your relative.
Participant: I don’t fight with them openly at work, because I can’t fight with my boss — that’s not so good — but I fight silently.
Dr. Berzin: Right. What she’s saying is that at work she might not say nasty things back to her boss, but you certainly think them. This is again not the practice of patience, not the practice of patience.
I think that a glowing example is His Holiness the Dalai Lama. When recently the Chinese called him a wolf in monk’s clothing, then he said: “I am very happy to submit to a blood test to see whether or not I am a human being or actually a wolf.” He made the thing into a joke. That’s the practice of patience. Whether what the name that people call you is true or not true, it doesn’t matter. One of the destructive actions is using abusive language toward others, but here the practice of patience is to tolerate it when others call us that back.
Participant: Maybe it’s OK sometimes to do it back so the other person feels what it’s like to be called names.
Dr. Berzin: Now he’s saying: isn’t it beneficial for the other person if sometimes we call them a name back?
Participant: In a very specific situation.
Dr. Berzin: In a very specific situation, to teach them a lesson of what it’s like to be insulted or embarrassed or called a name back? I don’t know. First of all, motivation is always important here. Patience is the direct opponent for anger. To do it out of anger certainly would not be the practice of patience. But can one simply say to the other person… Rather than call them the name in anger — “You stupid idiot,” or something stronger than that — to say, “How would you like it if I called you a stupid idiot in front of other people?” and so on. There might be a way of doing it without being angry or without actually retaliating. I think this is really the point here.
Participant: But sometimes you get angry because you think the way you do things is correct and the way the other person does things is not correct. Something makes you angry when you think she’s doing something which is not correct.
Dr. Berzin: OK. This is another example that she’s pointing out in terms of when we get angry. When somebody does things in a way that’s different from us and then we get angry with them, and we criticize them or whatever. This vow is specifically not to retaliate when somebody does something harmful toward us.
But what you say is, of course, an important point. I don’t know that it’s mentioned in any of these vows. But certainly, in terms of the practice of patience, it’s important to recognize that people do things in a different way, and just because… a correct way of doing things... a reason for a way to do things to be correct… I’ll say that again (they’re not coming out nicely in English). It is not a valid reason for my way of doing things to be correct to say, “It’s valid simply because it is my way of doing it.” That is not a valid line of reasoning to prove that the way that I do it is correct. “It is correct because that’s the way I do it.” That doesn’t prove that it’s correct, does it, if we put it in terms of logic? Now that becomes maybe a little bit comical in terms of the way you cut fruit, or the way you set the table, or which shelf in the refrigerator you place this food or that food. (Over which a lot of people get very angry, if you put something in the refrigerator in the wrong place. I could think of examples of that, but I won’t mention.)
What is a more difficult issue actually is how you show appreciation, love, and affection. The way my psychiatrist friend explains it I think is very, very helpful. What he said was that different people express their love and affection differently. Some people do it by always saying “I love you” and hugging you and kissing you and bringing flowers, and all of that, and other people express it by doing things for you, helping you, but they never say, “I love you” and they don’t show affection in any sort of physical way. And the way that he described this was different currencies, that if somebody pays you… Let’s say your currency is Euros. Well, you have to learn to accept payment in Swiss Francs or in Dollars, because this is the way that the other person is paying you; they’re paying you with a different currency. Do you get the analogy? You have to acknowledge that what they are paying you is money; it’s just in a different currency. Likewise, the person is showing their love and appreciation and respect for you, and so on, in a way that’s different from the way that you would like it: it’s not the currency that you would particularly like. I think that’s a very helpful way of looking at it. Not always easy. OK? Then, of course, I always like to use extreme examples (Tibetans are good with that as well). Do we get angry with the dog because of the way that the dog eats? Do we insist that the dog eat with a knife and fork, and that our way of eating is correct? We don’t.
[2] Ignoring those who are angry with us
Anyway, the next one is ignoring those who are angry with us. If others are annoyed with us and hold a grudge, if we do nothing about it and don’t try to lessen their anger because of laziness, pride, spite, jealousy, indifference, not caring, then we hamper our perfection of patience because we allow the opposite of patience — anger — to continue in the other person. To avoid this fault, we apologize whether or not we’ve offended or done anything wrong.
Somebody is angry at us, and we feel that “I haven’t done anything wrong, so why are you angry with me?” That often is — I know I’ve experienced that in my life — we say something innocent. We didn’t think that there was anything wrong with that whatsoever, and the other person gets very angry. This is saying that whether what we did was offensive, whether it was wrong, it doesn’t matter. Try to help the other person to get over their anger and say, “If I’ve done anything that offended you, I’m sorry,” and apologize. In other words, we’re trying to help others, so we try to help them to overcome their anger.
Participant: I was thinking about this point. In single situations or certain situations, I think this is a good way. But I was thinking if it always makes sense to do this every time. If you have a person who has been angry with you over the years, and if you always do it like that, is it really helpful? If the anger is not getting better over time, and the situation is coming again and again, and you always do it like that, isn’t it better to say something or do something stronger but without anger?
Dr. Berzin: What she’s saying is: if we always apologize and apologize when the other person gets angry for no reason, no fault of our own, and it doesn’t seem to work, it doesn’t seem to make the situation any better, are there other methods that we can use? Yes, of course. There are other methods. It depends on the other person, the situation, and so on. The point is to help them to overcome their anger. It doesn’t mean necessarily that making an apology for some imaginary offense, or some unknown offense, is the best way. But you have to be very skillful with that, because basically you have to deal with it as a psychological problem, don’t you, for which you need to somehow get the other person to acknowledge and recognize that it’s a problem in them and not in you. That’s not so easy, that you just confront them and announce to them that the problem is in them, not in me. That might not help. They might just get angrier at you.
Participant: Yes, but when they just pick on you, and pick on you, and pick on you, you know? Just because they’re unhappy, they pick on you. I think you have to stop them.
Participant: The example I think she meant is that when somebody is picking on you again and again and again, then you just say it once, “Shut up!” or something like this, and it stops them. They see “Oh, she’s not happy with this. OK.”
Participant: But for me the problem is that I don’t want to act out of anger, and so I wait till I’m not angry. But when this point is reached, the other person… his mind has gone somewhere else already, and it is not the right situation to say something. It’s really difficult.
Dr. Berzin: The example that you use: somebody is always picking on you, and you’re always patient and tolerant, you don’t say anything back, and you’re always apologizing, and so on. I know there are cases in which people get even more angry, because what they really want is an angry response from you and you don’t give it to them. Isn’t it best in that situation not to get angry but to say something strong? It may. Or just to say, “Look, I’m not going to get angry with you, so this is a waste of time. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get me angry? And then what? Then we have a big fight? Shall we get out the boxing gloves? I mean, what do you want?” But that’s hard to do. That’s really hard to do.
Then you were giving the example of when you’ve calmed down enough on your side and you’re able to say something back or apologize to the other person, they’ve left already. I don’t know. I mean, the point here is that these are guidelines to work on, and we try to find some way to calm the other person down.
I don’t know what the limits here are. Maybe some of the limits are... I mean, I always think of the example of “put the baby to bed,” which is when the baby is really cranky and making a horrible scene and screaming and yelling and so on, the baby is overtired and so you put the baby to bed. Similarly, when someone is very angry with us, that is not really the time to have a meaningful discussion about the whole thing, and so you say, “Look, let’s discuss this tomorrow,” or something like that, when their anger might be a little bit less. There are many different ways. Even if we’re still a bit upset and the person has to go, you say: “Look, I’m too upset to really discuss this now. We’ll discuss it later.” Something like that. The point is not to just let it go.
It says here: “If others are annoyed with us and holding a grudge, if we do nothing to try to put down their anger.” Again, I always look at examples of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The Chinese are very angry with him, always calling him nasty names. What does he try to do? He tries to put down their anger by always saying, “But I’m not like that,” and so on, and speak in a way that is more calming to the Chinese. He doesn’t just ignore it. That’s the point here, not to ignore it. OK? Not to ignore it because we’re too proud — “Why should I lower myself to deal with this?” — or we’re lazy, or we don’t care. This type of thing.
Participant: But I’ve witnessed in other people — not very often, but sometimes — that when you react in a calm manner, it infuriates them more.
Dr. Berzin: Right. He said that he has observed that when you react in a calm manner, it infuriates them even more. I’ve experienced that as well. But sometimes we do have to react in a stronger manner but not with anger, not with anger.
[3] Refusing others’ apologies
The next one is refusing others’ apologies. The third root bodhisattva downfall is not listening to others’ apologies when they plead for forgiveness at the moment when we’re angry with them. But here this is referring to not accepting their apologies after the occasion, when we’re holding a grudge. The root downfall is: we’re hitting somebody and they say, “Stop! Stop! I’m sorry,” and we don’t stop. And here is afterwards: when they come and apologize, and we don’t accept.
[4] Dwelling on anger
Then the fourth one is dwelling on anger. This is referring to when we become angry, if we dwell on it, we hold a grudge, and we don’t apply opponent forces to counter it. Whether the other person apologizes or not, it doesn’t matter, but not to hold a grudge. This type of thing.
These, as I say, are not easy but are important to work on. This thing of dwelling on anger — how do you actually deal with that? Somebody hurt us in one way or another, and to constantly think about it and feel hurt over and over again. That comes up a lot, doesn’t it? We feel angry — doesn’t have to be super strong angry, but we feel angry — we feel hurt, we’re really upset. It’s saying that here what is a faulty action is not to work on that, to try to overcome that. We need to meditate on love for the objects of our annoyance. Even if we’re not successful in getting rid of the anger, at least we’re working on it. That’s the point here, is to work on it. Not just to let it go. In other words, we’re working to develop patience, tolerance. OK? Good.
Three Faulty Actions Detrimental to Training in Far-Reaching Joyful Perseverance
Then there are three faulty actions that damage our development of far-reaching positive enthusiasm (this is perseverance).
[1] Gathering a circle of followers because of desiring veneration and respect
The first is gathering a circle of followers because of desiring veneration and respect. This is when we gather a circle of friends or admirers or students, or someone to live with us, a partner or whatever, if our motive is the wish for others to show us respect, give us love and affection, shower us with gifts, serve us, massage our back, and do everyday tasks, then we lose our enthusiasm and perseverance for doing anything positive ourselves, such as helping others. What we’re attracted to is an inferior mode of behavior, namely telling others what to do for us.
Participant: I think it sounds really extreme, but in general one could say that all our life is... All our life, we have a certain attachment. Living together with someone, there is not only the wish from your own side that he or she should be happy, but also, unconsciously, for you to gain something from it.
Dr. Berzin: OK. What she’s saying is: isn’t there, in our ordinary relations, some sort of — now you’re looking at your partner — some wish, that although you might want the other person to be happy and so on, that you form the bond with the other person in order to get something from them, exploit your friends, etc.? That is certainly the way that many of us, or perhaps most of us, make our relationships: what can I get from this other person? Whether it’s love, sex, money, somebody to take care of us. It doesn’t have to be extreme, like just marrying somebody for their money, this type of thing. But it’s something to work on. There are people who go on power trips. There are many Dharma teachers (and other teachers) like that, that just want to build up more and more people coming to their center so that they can get more power or more money and control others’ lives, and this sort of thing.
That is detrimental to our practice here, it says, of perseverance and enthusiasm to do things ourselves. We just want other people to serve us. “I’m going to make friends with this person and be nice to this person so that I can get something from them to do this or that.” It even starts to get into the wrong livelihood thing of flattering and being nice to someone and pretending to be nice to them just so that you can get something back. The point is, here the emphasis is on that this is detrimental to our development of perseverance, the effort to do things ourselves, and not just try to get other people to serve us and do things for me.
That doesn’t mean that we become a control freak, and we have to do everything ourselves, because obviously you need team efforts to run a family, to run a business, to do anything. Now it becomes a little bit tricky. How do you build a team without committing this faulty action?
Participant: What was the faulty action again?
Dr. Berzin: The faulty action is gathering a circle of followers because of desiring veneration and respect. We want to put ourselves in the higher position, so we have other people to order around and do things for us.
Obviously, if we start an enterprise, somebody has to be the chief to organize it. But the point is not to then go on a power trip. This becomes very tricky, doesn’t it? Again, what is your motivation? Do you want to be the chief — do you want everybody to wait on you and to do things for you — so you can boss people around?
Participant: Or the other extreme, to go on a follower trip.
Dr. Berzin: Become a follower trip. I have friends who are like that who then go on the slave trip. They have such low self-esteem that they’re always putting themselves in a position of being abused, basically, and exploited, whether it’s in the family or at work… or in Dharma centers as well, I’ve seen that. That’s not specifically what it’s speaking about here, but one has to examine in that situation: are we really developing perseverance and so on, in a sense of working hard, because we think we’re no good and we need a punishment? This is sick, isn’t it? That’s not really the practice of perseverance.
All of these faulty actions have to be thought of in terms of how they hamper a specific type of far-reaching attitude. OK? That becomes difficult then. How do you ask people to do something for you?
Participant: I think you put the goal in the center.
Dr. Berzin: Right. You can put the goal in the center, and rather than… it’s not that you’re doing it for me, but you’re doing it for the goal. And don’t — “Now here is a bribe” — don’t bribe them into doing it by saying, “If you do this, you’ll build up such good merit. Twenty points of good merit.” That, in a sense, is a bribe, isn’t it?
Participant: Yes. But I think to motivate people, one can describe the goal and say…
Dr. Berzin: Right. To motivate people, you can describe the goal and so on. What if the goal is a worldly goal: to increase our sales in our company so that the stockholders and everybody makes more money?
Participant: That’s honest.
Dr. Berzin: That’s honest, right.
Participant: Nobody will work then.
Dr. Berzin: Nobody will work then. That’s a difficult one, isn’t it?
Participant: I think also there are situations where people need certain things, so you sell them something…
Dr. Berzin: OK. There are situations in which people need certain things, so you produce it, and you sell it and so on. But what about people who are engaged in businesses which make a product that nobody actually really needs? I remember with Serkong Rinpoche, we went into... we were in Zurich, and we went into this very, very fancy, expensive department store with all sorts of things in it. Rinpoche’s comment to me at the end was “There isn’t anything in this store that anybody really needs.” Little figurines and these sorts of things Very expensive.
Participant: It doesn’t hurt much.
Dr. Berzin: It doesn’t hurt.
Anyway, gathering a circle of followers because of desiring veneration and respect. That we have to watch out for — not going on a power trip, just wanting to be served rather than thinking to try to help others.
[2] Not doing anything, out of laziness, and so on
The next one is not doing anything at all, because of laziness. This is giving in to laziness, indifference, apathy, moods of feeling like not doing anything, or not being interested in anything at all, and then just not doing anything. Being addicted to sleeping long hours, lying in bed all day, taking naps, lounging around in the sun not doing anything, then we become addicted to this and lose all enthusiasm for helping others.
Participant: Sitting in the sun.
Dr. Berzin: Sitting out in the sun, right.
Participant: It depends.
Dr. Berzin: It depends. Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey always used to say, “You’re practicing to be reborn as a lizard that just sits on a rock in the sun.”
But it says: to take a rest when we’re sick or exhausted, then that’s OK. But it’s a great fault to spoil ourselves by being too soft and just sitting around and doing nothing.
Participant: It’s not definitely bad to spoil oneself. It’s all a question of frequency.
Dr. Berzin: It’s a question of frequency? What it’s saying is that to take a rest...
Participant: I mean one doesn’t have to be sick or mega tired in order to do this once in a while.
Dr. Berzin: One doesn’t need to be sick or mega tired in order to, once in a while, just lounge in the sun.
Participant: What is once in a while? It depends.
Dr. Berzin: Is there a middle path in these sorts of things? It’s OK to go fishing once in a while. It’s OK to... Now I’m using extremes, of course, which is a Prasangika method and one that my sister criticized me for using.
Participant: But where does the comparison apply? Because that’s something that directly harms others.
Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s something that directly harms others. This is something that directly harms our development of perseverance.
Participant: But I think sometimes you feel you have to rest, or you have to be lazy.
Dr. Berzin: Oh. She says: sometimes you feel that you really have to rest and be lazy. Let’s think of a good example. A good example is... what about if you’re at work and “I don’t feel like doing anything.” Still, you have to work; you can’t just sit there (unless the boss is away) and just surf. But this is talking about just sitting and doing nothing, spacing out.
Participant: But if you work the whole week, and then on the weekend… Sometimes I just feel I need one day — just one day — doing nothing, or just puttering a little bit in the house, doing a little bit with the flowers, or…
Dr. Berzin: Right. She says she works hard all week and then on the weekend she needs to just sometimes putter around the house and take care of the flowers and so on, and so-called “not do anything,” and then her enthusiasm and perseverance is renewed.
Participant: I feel refreshed.
Dr. Berzin: She feels refreshed.
Participant: There’s really a feeling that I need it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, it says, “if you’re feeling sick or you really need it.” But to not just do anything just because “I don’t feel like doing anything,” that’s a fault. There are times… I know I experience it. I just don’t feel like doing anything. Dull. It’s a form of dullness, a form of laziness. I don’t feel like going over to the computer and doing more stuff, but I do it. Just get yourself to do it. It’s not that I really need a rest; it’s just that I don’t feel like doing anything (if that communicates to you).
I mean, the response to it is “So what?” — “I don’t feel like doing anything, so what? This is what I need to do, what I want to do,” and you do it. And if you need to get up and walk around the block, or something, to refresh yourself, OK. But set a limit and then get back to your work. And think in terms of “I am sitting and relaxing or taking a short nap…” — very often I take a twenty-minute nap if I’m feeling tired but with the full intention that after that twenty minutes I’m going to get up and go back to my work.
Participant: I was just thinking there’s probably also a cultural aspect to this, that we should use methods against dullness and stuff like that. Because in the West, so many people are so occupied with their work and doing overtime and all this stuff. At a certain point, I think one could explain it in different terms to different cultures. Like here it’s a society where there’s much more chilling out going on maybe than most Western European countries.
Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that couldn’t this vow be explained in different ways to different cultures? There are some cultures in which to work is virtuous (the so-called Protestant work ethic), and if you’re not working all the time, you are a bad person. (I mean, I’m just elaborating, filling in some of the background perhaps behind your comment.) So, people overwork and so on, you know? Idle hands get into temptation… What is the thing? Idle hands are the temptation of the devil, or something like that. There is a saying something like that. Idle hands invite the devil, or something like that. That becomes a bit neurotic, always working like that. I don’t know if that really is the far-reaching attitude of perseverance, because maybe that’s combined with guilt and all sorts of other things, but that doesn’t mean... I mean, there’s a difference between taking a break and just not doing anything because of laziness. People need to take a break — that was part of what Shantideva emphasized — in order to continue with joyful perseverance. You should be joyful, not just doing your duty.
Participant: Also, the direction seems to be important, to direct your actions not just to working for money or whatever. You direct it more into… you want to support somebody, or you want to do something more positive.
Dr. Berzin: Right. You direct your actions toward helping others. It’s not that we’re talking about just working to get money. Again, let’s use the extreme example. Pardon the extreme example, but if you are a mother and your baby wakes up in the middle of the night crying and you need to feed the baby, do you say: “I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like getting up. I’m just going to lie here and go back to sleep.” You don’t, obviously.
Participant: The baby takes care of that.
Dr. Berzin: Right. A baby is a very good cure for that.
Participant: You have no choice.
Dr. Berzin: You have no choice. The point is that in helping others, one should have that type of concern, whether we are directly helping others one to one or we are indirectly helping them by producing something that they will then later use.
Participant: Lama Zopa is always pointing out that no matter what you do — if you’re taking a rest or eating or walking around — have love, compassion, and bodhichitta. If you try to keep this motivation in your mind then I think you wouldn’t break this vow, because you wouldn’t get lazy and have doubts.
Dr. Berzin: OK. She’s saying that Lama Zopa advises that no matter what we’re doing, always try to have love and compassion and maintain your bodhichitta aim and so on. That’s fine. But here we’re talking about “I don’t feel like doing anything, and so I’m just going to go and sit in the sun and do nothing.” “Blob out,” as we would say in colloquial. Then there’s no motivation. Then do you say, “I’m doing this for the benefit of all sentient beings: I’m going to sit in the sun”? That doesn’t make much sense.
Participant: But then you say, “Now I’m recharging the battery.”
Dr. Berzin: “Now I’m recharging the battery so that I can work to help others more strongly.” That’s fine so long as we don’t use this as a rationalization for our laziness. It’s very easy to kid ourselves. That’s why setting the intention before going to take this break, and then the dedication at the end — although it might seem a bit artificial to do something like that — might get us a little bit into the habit. There’s always this piece of advice which says: when we go to sleep, to set the intention that “May this rest recharge me so that I can’t wait until the morning when I can get up and continue doing what is beneficial to others, whatever it might be.” That’s a really nice state of mind: “I can’t wait to get up to be able to continue.” Something like that. OK?
These aren’t easy, but these are very good guidelines, very, very good guidelines, I find. Not just lie in bed on a Sunday morning. You’ve had enough sleep. There is no reason to lie there for an extra hour or two, which many people do, don’t they? OK?
[3] Resorting to passing time with stories, out of attachment
Then the third one here is resorting to passing time with stories, out of attachment. This is an obstacle hindering our growth of enthusiasm for helping others because we’re wasting time in a meaningless fashion. This refers to telling, listening to, reading, or watching on television or in the movies stories about sex, violence, celebrities, political intrigues, and so on. I hope this doesn’t include watching Star Trek.
Participant: It wasn’t mentioned.
Dr. Berzin: It wasn’t mentioned, so that’s OK. I see.
This is just… how do we pass our time? And to not pass our time in reading all the latest gossip about the movie stars, this type of thing. This is absurd. Or to watch, as it says, things about sex and violence and this type of thing. That’s really a pollution of the mind, in many ways. Out of attachment is what is emphasized here, that we become attached to things which are trivial, which are meaningless, and then we spend our time more and more with that.
Then how do you deal with entertainment? Is entertainment OK? Again, in order to recharge one’s batteries. But one has to watch out for attachment.
You know what I find is very devious — because I suffer from this as well — which is that I belong to this video store and so I am entitled to a video every night if I want to. I just pay a monthly fee. Then whether I really want to see something or not — in a sense, because I’ve paid for it already — then I take out a video, which half the time turns out to be something which is stupid. Now that, I will confess, is a fault here. But one of the things that I think is at least helping in that situation is that — whether it’s renting a video or watching a program on the television — if you find that it is stupid, turn it off. Have at least enough discipline and perseverance to turn it off and not just waste all your time watching something which is really a total waste of time, and you are convinced that it’s a waste of time.
I know that when I was in America many, many years ago, you would watch something on television and “This is so stupid” and you know it’s stupid and yet you watch the whole show, including all the commercials, and at the end you feel “What a stupid waste of time.” Yet you don’t turn it off, and you watch the whole thing. And what’s even worse is that then you watch the next one.
Participant: Ooh, I can’t wait until next week.
Dr. Berzin: “I can’t wait until next week,” right.
This, I think, is what it’s talking about. That is a real waste of time. Becoming addicted not just because of attachment but just because of inertia: you don’t have the strength to get up and turn the thing off.
Participant: You expect that maybe it gets better.
Dr. Berzin: You expect that maybe it gets better. How many people after paying to see a movie would walk out in the middle because they think it’s a terrible movie? I don’t think I’ve ever done that. Would you?
Participant: Once, I think.
Dr. Berzin: Once.
Participant: But now the question is if it’s not the case when you really feel “This is good entertainment.” In a way, it’s also wasting time.
Dr. Berzin: OK. If it’s really good entertainment — like Star Trek — then is it OK? I must confess that I certainly have attachment to it. I mean, the way that I use it is: I work hard all day, and then in the evening I will watch… I mean, I’ve seen all these episodes a million times. But it will never fail… I know that it will never fail to entertain me, and so I watch. Certainly, I watch too much of it. That I fully confess.
Participant: I don’t really see the difference between sitting and watching a program or just doing nothing, you know?
Dr. Berzin: Is there a difference between looking at a stupid program or looking at a good program or just doing nothing? If you’re doing it if you need a break. If you’re doing it because of attachment or feeling that there’s nothing better to do, then that hampers your development of perseverance and hard work.
These are the faulty actions that hamper our development of perseverance. Let’s end here, and after that we have the ones that hamper our cultivation of far-reaching mental stability or concentration. All right? Any last questions? Nay? All right.
We think whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.