LPA23: Secondary Bodhisattva Vows for Discriminating Awareness

Tsongkhapa — just to summarize very briefly — he said we’ve found the excellent working basis of a precious human body, and we’ve met with the teachings, and we have excellent teachers, and we’re able to discriminate between what’s to be adopted and to be rejected. We need to engage ourselves in the Buddha’s teachings now that we have all of these favorable circumstances. 

For that, we have to rely on a teacher. The teacher needs to be qualified: needs to know what are the actual states of mind that we need to develop, what are not; and not add anything, not leave anything out; and know the graded order of how to develop them and how to apply them to each student’s mind. The teacher needs to have gained certainty about all of this by having been led through the training by his own teacher in a manner that puts together the texts and the practice — that the texts are meant only for practice (they’re not two separate things). 

To begin our practice, we need to tame our minds. For this, what’s very important is the motivating mental framework, and the graded order for that, which is the standard order that is followed in accordance with Atisha’s teachings, are the three levels of motivation, the three graded levels or lam-rim. First to think of working to ensure that our future lives are with precious human rebirths so that we can continue on the path. Then to work for liberation from the disturbing emotions and attitudes and the karma that our actions bring on based on the disturbing emotions and attitudes and our unawareness of reality, etc. To gain liberation from that. And finally, on the advanced level, to gain enlightenment so that we can be of best help to everyone. 

We need to develop these motivating mental frameworks by meditating on them. To do that, we need to know, for each of them and each of the aspects of them, all the stages of how we develop them, and what are the causes that we need to build up for them, the things that support them, the things that are detrimental for developing them. We need to know what to focus on for developing each of them, how our mind takes or relates to what we’re focusing on, etc., etc. We need to, in this way, build up these motivating frameworks as beneficial aspects. We need to do this, maintain these motivations, throughout our sessions and not just at the beginning. 

Then if we want to practice the two stages of the highest class of tantra (anuttarayoga). then we are going to need to keep ethical discipline. This is the most fundamental basis for any type of serious practice. For this, we have three sets of vows. There are the pratimoksha vows of individual liberation, which on the minimum level would be the lay vows (either all five of them or any number of them), and we went through our discussion of them. We also need to keep the bodhisattva vows. And if we are following or practicing the two highest classes of tantra, the tantra vows. 

We are going through the bodhisattva vows. For this, there are the 18 root vows and 46 secondary ones. We’ve gone through the root vows, which are all phrased in terms of downfalls (in other words, actions that we want to avoid that, if we committed them, would cause a downfall from bodhisattva behavior), and then the 46 secondary ones, which are called the faulty actions. These are faulty actions that we need to avoid. These are divided into various sets. We have the six sets that are faulty actions that would hinder our development of the far-reaching attitudes, or perfections, the six perfections, and then the faulty actions contradicting our work to benefit others. We’ve gone through the first five of the far-reaching attitudes, and we’re in the middle of the sixth, the faulty actions that would hinder our development of far-reaching discriminating awareness, or the perfection of wisdom. 

That’s what we’re up to in brief. 

Eight Faulty Actions Detrimental to Training in Far-Reaching Discriminating Awareness (continued)

[6] Praising ourselves and/or belittling others

We’re up to number six of a list of eight here, and this is praising ourselves and belittling others. We had that as the first root bodhisattva downfall, but there we were praising ourselves and putting down others because we had desire for gain (we wanted to get something, like win an election or whatever) or we were jealous. But here the motivation is pride, conceit, haughtiness, or anger. These motivations come about when we falsely discriminate ourselves as better than others. When we think “Oh, I’m so good,” so we have pride, and we then praise ourselves: “I’m so wonderful. I did so well on the exam,” or “I’m so strong,” or whatever it might be, and put down others, then this is the faulty action here. Or also we could do this out of anger. We’re very angry at somebody so we say, “I’m so much better than you are. You are always acting so naughty,” this sort of self-righteous type of thing, with anger. It’s interesting that that’s a secondary bodhisattva vow, to avoid that. Whereas when it’s based on desire for gain or jealousy, it’s a root downfall. 

Now what comes to my mind is also, what’s parallel to this — and then maybe it’s totally unrelated — but just what comes to my mind is: when we talk about mental wandering (rnam-g.yeng), the main form of mental wandering that we need to avoid is called flightiness of mind (rgod-pa), which is when the mind flies off due to desire and attachment for something or someone. Whereas if the mind wanders off with thoughts of anger or jealousy or pride or whatever, that is secondary. It seems from this that desire and attachment seems to have a stronger amount of energy. Now I wonder what is behind that, because normally we would think that anger is stronger, wouldn’t we? 

Participant: I can only think that anger goes away but attachment sticks more.

Dr. Berzin: That’s exactly what I was thinking as well, that anger goes away much more quickly than attachment or desire. If we’re angry with something, after a little while that could pass. But if we’re really, really attached to someone or something, then it continues, doesn’t it, goes on and on.

Participant: But isn’t it that sometimes anger is the worst of all mind poisons?

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s the other side, that anger is worse, is heavier, than the other disturbing emotions, because it can completely devastate your positive force (or positive potential, or merit), especially if it’s directed at a bodhisattva. Why is that? 

Participant: We have attachment to the anger and so it’s compounded.

Dr. Berzin: Right. You could have attachment to the anger. I don’t know if it’s attachment. I think it’s more identifying with it. If we differentiate the various mental factors, the disturbing mental factors, I think it’s this one of a false view or an incorrect view of the aggregates, the transitory aggregates (’jig-tshogs-la lta-ba, deluded outlook toward a transitory network), that here I have anger and then we identify “I am a person with a bad temper, and so you’d better watch out.” Of course, attachment is part of that, but I think the root of it is identifying with the anger, with being an angry person. But yes, it does get compounded, absolutely. 

Why would anger devastate our merit, or positive force? Attachment doesn’t, and yet attachment is emphasized here in these vows and in the teachings on concentration.

Participant: Anger will undermine the compassion of a bodhisattva.

Dr. Berzin: Exactly. Anger undermines the compassion of a bodhisattva, and not only of a bodhisattva but in general. In order to obtain liberation as well, you need to have love and compassion. If we look at the Theravada practice, there’s a great deal of emphasis on what’s called in Pali metta bhavana (meditation on love). You may not need to build up as much positive force to attain liberation as you do in order to attain enlightenment, but you certainly need to build up a tremendous amount. Anger, which is the opposite of love — so it’s basically, on the basis of wishing others harm, a strong rejection — that could really devastate your positive force. 

Attachment… His Holiness always says that there are various types of attachment. I shouldn’t say various types of attachment, but we need to differentiate. When we talk about disturbing emotion, it’s defined two ways depending on which text. In Abhidharmakosha it’s defined as wanting to get something that we don’t have, and in Abhidharmasamuccaya it’s defined as attachment, not wanting to let go of something that we do have. We need to put these two aspects together, and both of them are based on a gross exaggeration of the positive qualities of something. 

We’re not talking here just about wanting to get something and not wanting to let go of it, because also we would want to achieve liberation and enlightenment and we would not want to let go of our bodhichitta or our goals, correct? The difference here is whether or not we exaggerate and distort these things, that “I want to gain liberation or enlightenment because…” and then we think it’s going to be like some sort of heaven or paradise. We distort what actually is liberation and enlightenment, and then we want that, and we’re attached to it. But if we actually knew what liberation and enlightenment were, it would be a contradiction to have attachment for that. To have attachment for being free of attachment? That doesn’t work, does it, unless you distort what it means to be free of attachment. 

Whereas anger… is there a positive form of anger? Anger sometimes is transformed into this strong rejection of disturbing emotions and attitudes and ignorance and unawareness. When we look at these forceful deities (khro-bo), sometimes called wrathful deities — which I don’t care for, that translation term, but in any case — forceful: they are trampling on various figures that represent the different types of disturbing emotions and using a great deal of force. This is, in a sense, anger. But anger is very difficult to control, and anger is similarly based on a very strong exaggeration of the negative qualities of something. That means if we really are aiming to get rid of our anger or desire or attachment, or whatever it might be, we have to watch out for being angry with them (and angry with ourselves for being so stupid or so messed up or whatever it might be). 

Sometimes you hear the expression “You have to make friends with your anger,” or your attachment and so on. That doesn’t mean that we tolerate them. It means that you don’t make them into some sort of devil that’s haunting you. Sometimes there are some practices in which you give a form to the various disturbing emotions or whatever problem you might have. That’s called feeding the demon, in which the demon — Dämon in German — which is that you imagine that whatever is disturbing you comes out and sits in front of you and takes the form of some sort of demon, whatever form that might be. But the thing is that you’re not exaggerating the negative qualities of that. You basically face it and say, “What do you want?” And it tells you what it wants: “I want to be loved,” “I want to be…” — whatever it might be. Then you give it what it wants. That’s based on love, isn’t it? In fact, what you’re doing is giving it to yourself, on a psychological level, and it can be very effective (unless you’re schizophrenic or something like that, in which case it would be far too weird). But here, although you can say “feed the demon,” it’s not that you’re demonizing it in a Western sense of this being some evil creature that’s out to harm you. But in fact that disturbing emotion has been harming you, hasn’t it? Here we are combining a rejection of something with love, basically. 

Christian, you had something to add?

Participant: I was wondering whether, regarding the comparison or the difference between anger and attachment that you mentioned… I think that maybe when we are victims of our anger, we may act much more impulsively than if it’s out of desire. Then in anger, if you act impulsively, you can be extremely destructive, even if we do not want it or don’t even think about it. So the results can be much more violent, I think, than out of desire. Normally you don’t have that element of impulsiveness. 

Dr. Berzin: OK. What Christian says — since it might not have been recorded — is that anger brings about a stronger type of impulsive behavior than desire or attachment, and because of that it can lead to more violent acts than attachment or desire might lead to. I think in general that is true, although desire and attachment could lead to violent acts, as in the case of rape, for example. 

Participant: Stalking.

Dr. Berzin: Stalking someone. Rape is probably more severe.

Participant: Or actually intensely being in love with somebody, not to a violent degree as in rape but just overwhelmed with being in love — that you take risks and chances that you wouldn’t normally take, because you’re crazy with love. That’s not love in the greater sense of love. That’s human desire type of love.

Dr. Berzin: Right. When we are in love, often what happens is that we lose all sense of balance, and we also act impulsively. Although it might not be rape or stalking somebody, nevertheless it can lead to totally impulsive behavior, which can be very damaging not only to ourselves but to the other person. Like, for instance, ignoring our work, ignoring our family, ignoring our studies if we’re in school, and just smothering the other person, which the other person might find very unpleasant actually or too much. There are problems that arise from that. Yes, I think it’s a matter of degree that… it isn’t that desire doesn’t lead — and attachment — doesn’t lead to a negative behavior. It certainly does. But the anger will be more violent, that’s for sure. 

Anyway, we have to work on all of them, don’t we? But I think the way to start to work on... I mean, there are of course many ways to work on overcoming attachment and anger. Working on love: “If the person is angry then he must be troubled by something very much, and I wish they could be free of whatever is troubling them.” So, meditation on love. And with attachment, thinking of negative sides. In other words, when we are exaggerating the negative qualities of something with anger, to think of positive qualities of that thing. When we are exaggerating the positive qualities of something, think of the negative qualities (such as what’s inside the person’s stomach or intestines). We try to balance our view. But I think this is the key, which is to recognize the projection of exaggeration in either case and to see that’s not referring to anything real. That at least is starting to go in the direction of the understanding of voidness. 

Participant: Your conclusion in the question (of why this one isn’t as great as breaking the root vow) is because it’s lasting longer.

Dr. Berzin: Very good. You’ve brought us back to our original topic, which is: why is praising ourselves and belittling others out of desire for gain — or jealousy (jealousy is based on desire) — a root downfall, whereas doing it out of pride or out of anger is a secondary faulty action? What we’ve concluded, unless somebody can come up with something deeper, is that the desire is longer lasting, even though anger might be stronger in terms of leading to a more violent... In this case, praising ourselves and belittling others, how would that lead to some violent action? “I’m stronger than everybody else. I can go and shoot all these people in a war. Nobody else can do it,” and it could lead to foolhardy action, I suppose. 

Anyway, praising ourselves and belittling others, regardless of what the motivation might be, is something that we would want to avoid.

Participant: Out of anger could just be the situation of: If you’re angry then you might say something that you wouldn’t normally say, like “You are always a bit stupid,” or something like this. You talk about faults of the other person that you wouldn’t normally talk about. (Because you were looking for an example of belittling others and praising yourself out of anger.)

Dr. Berzin: You point out the failures of others with a very self-righteous act — that “I am so much better than you” — because you are angry with the other person. That often comes up in an argument, doesn’t it, in which we start to call somebody else terrible names, for example. 

I’m just thinking… I haven’t had the time to analyze it properly, but what also comes to mind is that if the four binding factors are complete with committing a root downfall, then you lose your bodhisattva vows; and if the four are complete with the faulty actions, you weaken the vows but you don’t lose them. Let’s analyze. What were the four binding factors? Does anybody remember? Embarrassed laughter…

Participant: If you complete the action. 

Dr. Berzin: You complete the action? No. You don’t feel regret about the action. You have no regret, and you feel happy about it… 

• First of all, you don’t think anything was wrong with it. That’s the heaviest one. If you don’t think there was anything wrong with it.
• You don’t regret it. In fact, you feel happy about it. 
• You have no intention of stopping. 
• And you don’t care how it reflects on yourself or anybody else that is associated with you. You don’t care about how it reflects on yourself or how it reflects on others, like your family, your teachers, etc. 

These are the four binding factors. 

So, I praise myself. Let’s think of our classic example, running for an election: “I’m the best. My opponents are horrible…” — and we pull out as much dirt as possible concerning the other — “and I’m so great.” 

• I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, that’s how you have to win an election. 
• I don’t regret it. In fact, I am happy about it, that I could think up of something like this. 
• I don’t intend to stop. 
• And I don’t care how it reflects on anybody, on myself or my family, or anything like that, not at all. 

Here we are really going against some type of bodhisattva behavior, aren’t we? Or are we? Why is that heavier — and I don’t know the answer, so we have to come up with one — why is that heavier than “I’m really angry with you”?

Participant: I think it could reinforce the idea of independent existence, that you are a separate being. It could make your ego much stronger, to tell yourself how great you are and to have no regret about doing it. 

Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that it would reinforce ego, the illusion that I’m an independent self-existing self, by saying “I’m so great and others are no good.” But we’re trying to differentiate between doing that out of desire or doing that out of pride or anger. I think maybe you have a clue here — although this is not directly involved with bodhichitta necessarily — but with desire you’re exaggerating yourself, aren’t you? But with pride you’re exaggerating yourself too. That doesn’t work.

Participant: To my mind, the desire seems more a long-term thing that you have to plan much more, like when I think about the election. And the other thing is it’s much easier to break one’s vows very quickly. The other thing is: when one is planning, one is more able to direct it and have more control; and the other thing is quite uncontrolled.

Dr. Berzin: Right. What he’s saying is that when we do this out of desire then it usually requires long-term planning; whereas if we do it out of pride or anger, it’s something which seems to come spontaneously. 

But we’re looking at the four binding factors here: I do it out of anger or I do it out of pride. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t regret it. I’m happy about it. If I get angry again, I’m going to scream and yell and say nasty things again anyway. I don’t plan to stop. I don’t care that it makes me look like an idiot. How is it that if you do that, you don’t lose the bodhisattva vow? Karsten, you have some idea?

Participant: Do I understand correctly that your question now is why the one isn’t a primary bodhisattva vow?

Dr. Berzin: Yes, why is the one in the primary and the other in the secondary?

Participant: Maybe it has to do with some cultural background, this kind of differentiation between secondary and primary vows. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. I don’t know.

Dr. Berzin: Maybe it’s a cultural thing. 

Participant: I think it has to do with the amount of damage. If you use your political campaign metaphor: think of the amount of damage you do to many, many people by involving them in the destruction of someone else’s reputation, gathering information to broadcast about why they’re terrible and you’re wonderful. A moment of impulsive anger doesn’t create the same amount of damage to others perhaps or to yourself. Maybe it’s a criminological thing, the amount of premeditation that goes into it.

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is getting back to what — who was it? — Karsten or somebody said, that the amount of premeditation is stronger when it’s out of desire and it damages more people, like in a dirty political campaign.

Participant: It makes everyone involved.

Dr. Berzin: Makes everyone involved.

Participant: But you can damage a lot of people in a moment of anger. I mean, you can explode a bomb in a city, for example.

Participant: But it still doesn’t last as long.

Participant: I agree there’s a difference when you don’t plan it and you don’t spend that much energy working on that in your mind. But the consequences…

Dr. Berzin: What about — excuse me using this example here in Germany — of praising the Aryan race and belittling other races, the Jews or Africans, etc., out of anger? Wasn’t that out of anger? I mean, sure, there’s a component of wish for...

Participant: There was also wounded pride about the Versailles Treaty and being thought to be…

Dr. Berzin: OK. There’s wounded pride at the Versailles Treaty and so on, and feeling hurt about that, but that also is in the secondary vow. Is that less damaging than a dirty political campaign? I don’t know. I can’t really settle this question, but these are the things that are helpful to analyze. 

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is continually, at all his teachings, emphasizing that what we need to really emphasize is not just doing “Blah blah blah” rituals but doing analytical meditation — an analytical meditation, or just analysis, is like just what we were doing — because, in the end, it gives us more insight into the nature of desire and attachment and anger, doesn’t it, whether we come up with the final answer or not. 

Participant: Again, with that example, it seems the amount of fore-planning that went into the National Socialist Party and setting up concentration camps and troops… You had to spend years to set that up. One moment of anger, or saying something nasty to you, can come and go. But it still seems like the amount of premeditation involved is the main problem.

Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that setting up the whole Nazi extermination program took a lot of planning, but that’s based on anger and pride; you just said that. We could have a moment of praising ourselves and belittling others out of desire or we could have it out of anger, and we can have a long-term, planned one in either case.

Participant: It’s also hard to differentiate the motives: the desire to rule the world or hatred of the Untermenschen.

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s another point. Is it desire to rule the world, in the case of the Nazi Party, or was it anger against the people that are considered lower beings? It’s usually a combination. 

Participant: Over this long period, I can’t imagine it was anger all the time — when I think about my grandmother — that people were angry all the time at people who were Jewish.

Participant: There was a lot of happiness and joy and pride.

Dr. Berzin: Right. He’s saying that it wasn’t always anger — that if he looks at his grandmother, there was also pride and just not really considering them as human beings (a lack of compassion). But now we’re going away from our analysis.

Participant: But that would feature when you have a scapegoat and put blame on others. 

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is exactly the point, in terms of the Nazi example, is having a scapegoat. We put the blame on something else, whether an animal or a group of people or whatever, out of not so much anger at that object — “I’m really angry with this goat, so I’m going to sacrifice it” — it’s not really that, is it, but…

Participant: It’s from naivety.

Dr. Berzin: It’s naivety? Whether it’s attachment or anger, there’s always naivety underlying it. That’s always there. 

Participant: I’m not sure what it is.

Participant: It’s refusal to see that your problem, whatever it is, is an inner problem, a distortion of perception.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Refusal… I mean, it’s naivety about reality, about how we exist, how other things exist. Anyway, we obviously are not coming up with an answer here, so we should go on.

Participant: Can I ask again — which text is the source actually of these vows?

Dr. Berzin: What text is the source of the vows? Part of it comes... They’re obviously taken out of various sutras, but you have one formulation in, I believe, the Bodhisattvabhumi (The Stages of the Bodhisattva Path) by Asanga, and there’s another formulation that comes from various quotes that Shantideva has in his Shikshasamuccaya (The Compendium of Training). That’s as far as I know, but I can’t swear with 100% certainty that that’s the case, but that’s what I remember. 

Participant: But it’s always referring to the Buddha’s statements. 

Dr. Berzin: Always referring... taking them out… They weren’t organized in lists. I think the Tibetans organized them in lists. Because the Chinese take other vows as their bodhisattva vows; it’s not the same list. 

Participant: Then maybe it’s quite clear that there are cultural things involved.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Cultural things. I mean, the analysis in terms of what disturbing emotion is there and so on — that we find in the Tibetan commentaries. I don’t know if they are actually spelled out in the Indian commentaries. That I don’t know. I haven’t studied it that deeply. This particular detailed analysis I’m getting out of one commentary on the vows by Tsongkhapa and one commentary by Kedrub Norzang-gyatso, who was the tutor of the Second Dalai Lama. I took it out of those two texts. 

OK. Let’s go on. But it’s an interesting point when we look at these vows, that for the root downfalls, you lose your bodhisattva vow if those four factors are complete; if it’s a faulty action, you don’t lose the vow. Then what is the vow that we’re talking about? The vow is “I am aiming for enlightenment in order to benefit everybody.” It’s based on bodhichitta. That’s why giving up bodhichitta… all you have to do is give it up and the vow is finished. 

Participant: It might still come back to what you said about the wrathful deities. Anger can be put on the path in a positive way. 

Participant: Transformed. Transformed into energy.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Anger...

Participant: The Dalai Lama could hit a monk on the head and say, “You idiot. You got it wrong again,” and that could help the monk possibly. Saying “I want your robes” or “I want something from you” won’t help anybody; it will only perpetuate self-absorption.

Dr. Berzin: Not necessarily. Not necessarily. He’s saying that anger could be transformed in the sense that a teacher calls you an idiot or slaps you and it could be very helpful to the student. Yes, my teacher used to yell at me all the time. Very helpful. But the opposite, that attachment wouldn’t necessarily help them? No. You could be very attached to somebody, and because you’re very attached to them, you are very generous to them, you help them, and so on. 

Participant: I give up.

Dr. Berzin: Yeah, I haven’t come to a conclusion either. But it’s an interesting thing. That’s how you would analyze it. What are we losing? We’re losing the bodhisattva vow. The bodhisattva vow is based on bodhichitta. You lose the vow completely when you give up the wishing state of bodhichitta (smon-sems): “I want to achieve enlightenment in order to help everybody.” The engaged state (’jug-sems) is keeping the vows. If you praise yourself and put down others — is that really aiming for enlightenment? Not really. Because, obviously, working for enlightenment needs to be based on respecting everybody as being equal in the ability to become a Buddha, at least to become liberated. That has to be taken into consideration. 

No answer? Think about it. I don’t have the answer either. But I’m trying to illustrate that actually these vows can be very serious topics for meditation and analysis.

[7] Not going for the sake of Dharma

Then the next one is not going for the sake of Dharma. Again, we had in a root vow… it was not giving the Dharma because of attachment and miserliness. Right? That was not giving. We’re attached to it and we’re miserly and “I don’t want to share,” this type of thing. Here, the fault is not going to teach, not going to perform a Buddhist ritual, not going to attend a Buddhist ceremony or listen to teachings because of pride, anger, spite, laziness, or indifference. With such a motivation, we don’t discriminate correctly what’s worthwhile. 

Not giving was referring to the specific thing of not teaching. If we don’t teach because of attachment and miserliness — “I want to keep it to myself” — then obviously we don’t want to help others. I mean, a bodhisattva wants to help others. But if we keep it to ourselves because we are lazy, or “I’m angry with you, so I don’t want to teach you,” or “I’m too proud to teach these poor people who can’t pay,” or indifference (“I just don’t care”), that’s a secondary vow.  Again, we have to think why. 

In the commentary it says there’s no fault — they give exceptions in the commentary — so there’s no fault if:

• We don’t go because of feeling we are not really a teacher 
• Or we’re sick 
• Or we — I mean, this is not only teaching but going to teachings — or we suspect the teachings we would hear or that we would give would be incorrect 
• Or we know the audience has heard them repeatedly and knows them already 
• Or we’ve received them in full and comprehended and mastered them completely so that we don’t need to listen any further
• Or we’re already focused and absorbed on the teachings so there’s no need to have a reminder about them 
• Or they’re over our head and we would only become confused by listening 
• Or if our teacher would be displeased if we went (the teacher told us to do something else, do a retreat, and we leave the retreat in order to go to something that our teacher said not to go to) 

In that case you don’t go.

I mean, what’s not included in — I forget if this was in Tsongkhapa’s list or Kedrub Norzang-gyatso’s list of exceptions — but I think in the West we’d have to include when you can’t afford to go to the teachings. If the teachings are being closed to those who can’t pay (which is unfortunate, when that happens). 

This is discriminating. We have to discriminate. It’s a difficult one. There are lots of pujas and prayers and ceremonies and so on, particularly if you live in a monastery, a Tibetan monastery. There, there’s pretty much very little excuse (unless you’re really sick) not to go. But what about here, in the West? 

Participant: I think it’s quite difficult to decide, because you always tend to think “Oh, I’ve heard this before so many times. I really know that.” But you haven’t really mastered it. There’s always some imperfection, you know?

Dr. Berzin: Right. Exactly. We could fool ourselves into saying that “I’ve heard this teaching so many times. It’s…” — out of pride — “It’s for beginners, and I’m beyond that at this stage.” There could be many various excuses that we make. But to say, “Have I really mastered the teachings and that’s why I’m not going?” — hardly any of us can actually say that that’s true. 

But at a Dharma center... Here there’s a Dharma center. We are working people, or studying in school, or busy with something, and there are… Let’s say we’re at a center where there are a lot of activities. Once a week there’s a puja, and there are a few classes and so on. Does this vow mean that we need to go to everything? 

Participant: You have to analyze your motivation.

Dr. Berzin: You have to analyze the motivation. Right. What are the motivations that are specified here? Pride: “I’m too good to go to this.” OK, that’s no good. Anger: “I don’t like the people who are there. I don’t like the teacher.” Spite: “You didn’t smile at me last time I was there, so out of spite I’m not going to come to your teaching,” this sort of childish thing. Then laziness. That, I think, is often the case, isn’t it? Or indifference: “Oh, a puja. Who cares?” But if we sincerely… either we can’t afford to go, or we have other responsibilities (family, work), or we’re too tired (but genuinely too tired, not just lazy), then that’s something else, isn’t it? 

What is being damaged here is discriminating awareness in terms of what’s worthwhile. That was the same thing with the last one. What’s being damaged is discriminating awareness. We’re discriminating ourselves as better than others. That’s something that we really need to analyze, especially when there’s a great teacher teaching. I’m thinking of the example of His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaching in Europe. How much longer is he going to be teaching? Now, if I don’t have the money and I can’t get off work, that’s something else. But if I do have the money, or I could be a volunteer, why am I not going? I do have the time — why am I not going? False discrimination: “I’d rather go to the beach on my holiday.” Or indifference. I doubt that it would be pride, or spite, or anger. These are the things that one has to analyze here in terms of ourselves. 

It says if it’s the teacher… that we don’t feel a connection with them, or we feel the teacher is incompetent, then of course there’s no need to go. Again, what this is suggesting is analysis of our motivation. 

Someone had their hand up.

Participant: This is a little off the subject. You mentioned “if I had the time and I could volunteer.” How often is it the case that in such things as huge as the Dalai Lama’s presentation in October that one could actually be able to go if they volunteer even if they can’t afford to go? Is that a reality? Is that a possibility? 

Dr. Berzin: The question is a little bit off the subject. But with the Dalai Lama’s teachings, His Holiness’s teachings, is there always the possibility to be a volunteer? (In which case you don’t have to… I’m not sure if you don’t have to pay at all or you pay a reduced fee or whatever.) I don’t know. I suppose that depends on the organizers of the event. I can’t imagine that any large event at which anywhere from five to ten thousand people come, if not more, that the organizers would say, “We have enough volunteers. We don’t need any more.” 

Participant: Then how would one go about finding that out?

Dr. Berzin: How does one go about finding that out? Usually, any application… All these events have a website. And at the website where you go to participate, there’s always the option to be a volunteer. At least there usually is. Otherwise, you send an email to info@... whatever the website is. You might have to pay a reduced... and also you have to get there, you have to stay somewhere, so it’s not going to be absolutely free. 

That gets into a whole long discussion of should the Dharma be free or… Like the Tibetans having to gather all sorts of gold and so on to go request the teachings in India. And walk there. The teacher didn’t require the gold, didn’t charge the gold, but some sort of effort had to be there. There are debates on that of course, that one could say… Because teachings in the West tend to be very expensive. But then again, expenses are very high to rent a huge hall and all the organization that goes into it. I don’t know. These again are difficult questions.

Participant: If you’re really interested, I think you can get CDs. You can get the whole thing for 29 euros.

Dr. Berzin: Right. You’re very correct. In our modern times, things are a bit easier. That we can always… if we can’t afford to go, you can get a CD. Or a lot of these things now are broadcast on the internet. There is some way to get these teachings, although of course it’s not the same as being there in person in terms of inspiration, etc., and the connection with the teacher. I don’t know. Is that a degeneration of the Dharma?

Participant: It could just be laziness.

Dr. Berzin: It could be laziness. It could be cheapness. “Why should I go to class? I can listen to it at my convenience while eating, while I’m comfortable,” and so on. Like these classes, for example. In a sense, it is a degeneration of the Dharma to make things too easily available, because it doesn’t develop your character, and Dharma is very much involved with building your character — patience, perseverance. If things are too easy, you don’t appreciate them, and then you become indifferent. That’s very true. 

It’s difficult though. To give the student a hard time and make the student really work for the teachings requires a big commitment on the side of the student. I think of the extreme example of Milarepa and Marpa. That’s part of the so-called contract — they don’t use the word, but it’s like an unwritten contract in the teacher-disciple relationship — the disciple’s not going to get angry no matter how difficult the teacher makes things for him or her. Depending on how many mental blocks and obstacles the disciple has, the teacher makes more difficulties to help them to overcome it. If the student gives up, then the student wasn’t really serious enough with the motivation. 

That comes back to another topic of Dharma-lite versus the Real Thing Dharma, of what really are we... is it going to be a Dharma-lite relationship between the teacher and disciple or a Real Thing relationship? Real Thing relationships most people are not ready for, and you really have to find the right teacher for that who’s not going to abuse that. Unfortunately, there have been too many examples in the West of unqualified teachers abusing that. Nowadays it’s very tricky, I would say, very, very tricky.

Participant: If I examine why don’t I go to certain teachings of teachers that I could go to, it’s because of that. I don’t know if that’s pride or not.

Dr. Berzin: Because of what?

Participant: I think “Oh, this is going to be Dharma-lite. They’re going to water it down and make it easy to understand. They’re going to be so comfortable that it will probably be less inspiring to go to it than just to sit here and meditate at my house.”

Dr. Berzin: Right. Often, he says, he won’t go to teachings or pujas because he’s afraid that it will be Dharma-lite. That could be pride. Even if it’s Dharma-lite — even if it’s presented as Dharma-lite — our motivation could be quite different. 

Participant: At that time, I think it’s more beneficial to meditate.

Dr. Berzin: Right. We might think it’s more beneficial to meditate. “I’ve heard enough teachings and now it’s going to be more beneficial to meditate.” How many people who say that actually spend the time meditating?

Participant: That’s another thing.

Dr. Berzin: That’s another thing. It’s an excuse.

Participant: I’ve found lately that sometimes going to these events, I think “Well, I could have meditated longer at my home.” It’s like a commercial or social event sometimes.

Participant: Which sometimes leaves you feeling more enervated after...

Participant: And less committed to the Dharma.

Dr. Berzin: Enervated seems to be positive. 

Participant: I mean depleted.

Dr. Berzin: Oh, depleted. OK. What she’s saying is sometimes going to these big teachings is more of a social event, and at the end we feel depleted of our energy. But it could just be the opposite. You make it into a social event, depending upon how much you want to socialize while you’re there (I mean, there are other people around, and there may be people that you know). But it can also be extremely inspiring and you learn something. It all depends on how you listen and how you schedule your time while you’re there. 

Participant: For me it would be the same as going to pujas, for example.

Participant: Smaller things. Not big events.

Participant: For example, I’m not really happy with going to pujas. If they’re in Tibetan, I don’t understand a word they’re singing, so I don’t get much out of it. But if I have the opportunity to do my evening meditation or go to a puja, then for sure I don’t go to the puja, because I sit there and in the best case, I get just a bit angry or something.

Dr. Berzin: OK. We’re talking about a regular puja at a regular Dharma center.

Participant: I just have one thing to add to that. What if the puja never actually occurs? What if there’s so much discussion and talking about work and childcare that actually you never get to doing the puja? You have some tea and you have some cookies, and you go home, and you say, “That was nice. I’ll do it again next week.” Then I’d rather stay home and just meditate.

Dr. Berzin: Sometimes — let me put this together — sometimes there’s the regular puja, the regular Dharma center, and it actually occurs. Sometimes they never get around to doing the puja, because it just becomes a big social event. If we know that it’s going to be a social event then obviously either we want to go to a social event, or we don’t. But if we know from experience that it’s not just going to be a social event, but it actually is going to be a puja... 

Now your example: You go. They are chanting in Tibetan. You don’t understand one word. At the end, or during it, you just get angry and fed up with the thing. And instead of using that time to watch a video or TV or surf on the internet, if we actually use that time to meditate instead or to study or something beneficial (if we’re preparing a transcript or something like that, we work on that), then... I’ve forgotten how I started the sentence. The point is we have to discriminate. This is what we’re talking about here, discriminating what is worthwhile. 

Is it worthwhile to go to this puja in which I understand nothing that’s going on? Now we have to ask… The people who are organizing the puja and who have decreed that it be done in Tibetan — is it their intention that the people who go to it don’t understand anything? Or are we supposed to somehow learn what it means and fill in the meaning ourselves as we do it?

Participant: If I understand correctly, even being exposed to certain mantras (and not having any idea what they mean) is helpful. 

Dr. Berzin: OK. What he understands is that being exposed to some mantras without even knowing what they mean — usually we don’t know what mantras mean, that’s not explained — but just the sound is beneficial. But the thing is with... We’re talking now not about reciting a mantra; we’re talking about a whole long text that you recite in Tibetan. There’s also a difference between doing a group thing like that and doing your own practice. Some people, for their own practice, also just recite in Tibetan. 

I remember — now I’ll give my own example — when I first started doing sadhana practice, which is basically going through a text of a visualization in a tantra (so it’s a recitation practice)… When I first started doing that, I did not know what I was reciting. I had studied Tibetan, but my Tibetan wasn’t good enough yet to be able to really understand what I was reciting. We also went to teachings in those days with no translation. Initiations with no translation. (We’re talking about the end of the ’60s, the beginning of the ’70s.) I must say I found it beneficial. Not as beneficial as knowing the meaning, but I found it beneficial for various reasons. One, when I analyzed… I mean, I came from a super intellectual Harvard background, and so it was very good for my pride, because I felt… I mean, there’s this whole thing you have to fight with, which is “I’m not going to do this unless I understand it.” There’s a sort of “Shut up and do it,” type of thing, and when you study hard enough and improve your language, you will understand what it means. But don’t have this attitude of “I’m so good, I’m not going to do it until I understand what it means.” I took it as a very helpful exercise in working on my pride. Plus, it had a certain rhythm and so on, and I found it beneficial. 

Then I got to the point where I understood the Tibetan and I was doing it with some understanding and getting into the practice. I did a lot of retreats and so on. It was very helpful. But then I must say I got into a stage in which I was super-fast reading the things and going so quickly that I no longer associated much meaning with it in Tibetan. So, at one point I decided “Why am I doing it with Tibetan?” and I switched to doing them in English, even though I knew Tibetan, because if I do things quickly in English… my English is undoubtedly better than my Tibetan, so even doing things very quickly, still there’s some meaning. Whereas doing the Tibetan at super speed, the meaning got lost. 

What’s the point of this story? The point of the story is: even if at the puja, people are going “lah-di-la-la-la-la-la” in a language that we don’t understand, it could be beneficial, it could be useful, if you have the right attitude toward it. As I say, one has to prioritize one’s time. When we have many, many responsibilities, then what are we talking about here? Discriminating awareness. Discriminate what is more beneficial for me at this time. Sometimes this may be more beneficial; other times it may not. 

Then you have to discriminate in terms of health. I’ll give this example: Do you remember a few weeks ago, or a few months ago, when there were these uprisings in Tibet and they had the Tara pujas in front of the Brandenburg Gate? It was freezing cold, and a lot of people just sat on the ground. Normally, I don’t go to pujas very much in the West. I do a lot of other things, but I’m not terribly enamored by doing pujas. But I went because I thought it was important to go and to participate in the thing. But the second time that they did it… I mean, after the first one it was so cold and I had, I think, bronchitis at that time, or something like that, and it really was too difficult, and so the second time I decided not to go. But I did a great deal of reflection on what was my motivation and why I didn’t go and a great deal of reflection on my motivation before making the decision to go to the first one. I think what we are really working on here is discriminating awareness. What’s worthwhile, what isn’t worthwhile. That’s what we have to work on. 

Participant: That’s a good example, that period when all these protests were going on. Because I went to many of them and then I started to feel like this is more a political event than Dharma practice. This is more... there was a lot of anger.

Dr. Berzin: OK. He’s going to these protests that were going on, and there was a lot of anger. There could be a lot of anger around us; that doesn’t mean that we have to be angry. 

Participant: I tried not to be, but I’m saying it seemed like more of a political event sometimes.

Dr. Berzin: It seemed more like a political event? Now you’re using the word political to be a dirty word. If it is concerned about the people in Tibet and their welfare, is that political? Is that Dharma? I don’t see a clear dividing line there when their suffering is based on political decisions.

Participant: No, I kept going. But I’m just saying that’s a point where I had a tension.

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is what we need to discriminate — and that’s what these vows are all about — is if we are serious in terms of being on the bodhisattva path, then what is the main thing that we practice? The six far-reaching attitudes, the six perfections. These are the things we want to develop more and more and more. The vows, they’re pointing out what to avoid, what to watch out for, and what to analyze when the impulse comes up to do these various faulty actions, which of course they’re going to come up. That’s what it is. 

[8] Relying on language to deride a teacher

Let’s just do the last one of this group before we need to close for this evening, which is relying on language to deride a teacher. We weaken our ability to discriminate correctly when we judge spiritual teachers by their language. 

Participant: What is deride?

Dr. Berzin: Deride means to put them down. Let’s say you go to a teacher and what they teach might be correct, but they deliver it in broken English or broken German with a heavy accent, maybe speaking Hippie English, or whatever, their grammar is terrible… 

Participant: Or mumbling.

Dr. Berzin: Or mumbling… But what they’re saying is correct. We criticize the teacher and put the teacher down because of that. Whereas somebody could speak very elegantly and make everybody in the audience laugh and so on when they’re teaching Dharma, but what they’re saying is complete nonsense. “But what a great speaker. How entertaining! The other one put me to sleep, and I got angry because they spoke so slowly and paused so much,” and whatever. We criticize the way that they teach, the way they speak. 

Participant: That’s treating it like it’s show business. 

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s treating it like show business — and bring out the applause meter and see who gets the biggest applause at the end of having given a good performance. Yes. This is relevant. There are a lot of teachers who teach — Tibetan teachers — who teach in Western languages and their quality of language is very poor.

Participant: I found it interesting that in another source it was not specifically about speech really, this vow, but more in general to belittle the teacher and to put him down.

Dr. Berzin: She said that in some versions she saw, it was a more general thing of belittling the teacher. I mean, that’s in the tantric vows. That’s our first tantric vow. But with this one, I don’t know. This is what it says in the commentaries that I looked at. The name of the vow is “relying on language to put down the teacher” in the list that I saw.

Participant: But one could say it as a fact.

Dr. Berzin: One could say it as a fact. “The teacher speaks terrible German. The teacher speaks terrible English and it’s difficult to listen to.” That you could say. That is a fact. 

Participant: It’s just a fact.

Dr. Berzin: It’s just a fact. It’s the same thing in the refuge vows not to… in terms of criticizing a painting or statue of a Buddha. They say that even if it’s a child’s drawing of a Buddha, you should show it respect. You could say, “This is a terrible statue. This is a terrible painting. I mean, the artistic quality of it is lacking, is not so good,” but still you show respect. 

There’s a difference between stating a fact and putting someone down, putting something down, which is usually based on pride and anger, isn’t it? “I’m too good to listen to this,” and “This person is obviously stupid.” We exaggerate the negative quality (that they’re speaking poorly) and forget about the positive quality (that what they’re saying happens to be correct). 

These are the faulty actions that would prevent our development of discriminating awareness. That brings us to the end of the class. We didn’t get through too many today, but I think that it’s helpful to really think deeply about all of these. 

OK, let’s end with a dedication. We think whatever positive force or understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.