Recap
We have been studying and practicing this text called Wheel of Sharp Weapons or Throwing Star Weapon, which is a text in the genre of lojong, or attitude training, or mind training. This is probably the earliest text of that genre. It’s ascribed to Dharmarakshita and in it we talk about how to overcome the self-cherishing attitude and what lies behind that, which is believing that we exist in some impossible way. This is as if there were some sort of “true self,” some “true me,” that existed independently of everything else. Because we conceive of ourselves as this the “true me,” which is actually an inflation, which doesn’t exist at all, then we are selfish. Now, of course, there is a conventional “me;” but when we talk about, “I’m sitting here,” “I’m speaking,” “I’m listening,” “I’m walking,” and so on, there isn’t a type of “me” which exists separately from the body and the mind and the emotions and everything that goes on that we’re experiencing.
You can identify this “false me” – I mean, actually the “true me” is a “false me,” although the terms are, of course, a bit confusing – but we can identify this solid, independent “me” quite easily when we have the thought, “I don’t want you to love me just because of my body, or my money, or my intelligence, or my sense of humor, or my learning, or whatever; I want somebody to love the real me. Love me for me not for what I do or what I have” – as if there where the “real me,” the “true me,” that was separate from all of this. But actually, there isn’t a “me” that’s separate from all of this.
Who are we? We are what can be labeled on the basis of all these things: of our body, of our intelligence, of our sense of humor, of our personality, of our possessions, of whatever; all of that together labeled on that is “me.” There’s no “real me” that’s separate from all of that. But when we think of a “real me” that’s separate from all of that, then, of course, we have self-cherishing. We think that that is the most important one, has to be the center of the universe, has to have all the attention and the love and always get its own way and so on. What we’re trying to do with this text or practice is to see all the disadvantages of that. We’re trying to recognize in one way or another how this false concept about ourselves, about how we exist, causes all our troubles, causes all our hypocrisy and then we want to smash or deflate that inflation of “me.” In order to deflate it – and here we use quite strong language in the text – we invoke the image of Yamantaka. Yamantaka is the forceful aspect of Manjushri. Manjushri represents the discriminating awareness, the clarity of mind of all the Buddhas. Discriminating awareness means to be able to discriminate between how we exist and how we don’t exist and to completely reject the false concept that we have concerning how we exist. Sometimes we hold on to this false concept so strongly that we need an even stronger energy to just cut it, to stop it, to stop thinking in this way and acting in this way.
The basis for the correct concept of “me” – the basis of labeling it’s called – is everything that makes up each moment of our experience. It’s a continuity of moments of experience made up of what is usually described as the five aggregates – that’s just a way of dividing what makes up each moment of experience.
In each moment there is, for example, a sight, or a sound, or a smell, or a taste, or a physical sensation, or a thought that we’re experiencing; and there is a type of consciousness that’s experiencing it – eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose, tongue, body-mind consciousness. Then in addition, there is a distinguishing one item from another; you can’t really experience anything unless you distinguish it from the background. So, there is a distinguishing and there is a feeling of happiness or unhappiness – that differentiates us from a computer or a machine – so there is a experience of some level of “happy” or “unhappy,” although it could be very low-level. Then there is everything else – so all the emotions, all the factors of concentration and interest and so on.
Actually, it is a network; each moment of our experience is a network of all of these and, of course, there is a physical basis for it all in terms of the body and the brain and all the chemistry and electric things that are going on in the brain. So, that’s all that there is if you analyze what is making up each moment of our experience. On the basis of that you can say “me,” because the moments of experience follow in a logical order according to cause and effect – so karma. On the basis of that, the stream of continuity is individual and on the basis of that individuality, we can label “me.” Now, the problem is [that] when you focus on that “me,” if it’s accompanied with unawareness – you just don’t know how we exist or we know it incorrectly – then we tend to inflate; we add what’s not there. But you have to be careful also not to take away what is there. What is there is the conventional me, but that conventional “me” is not separate from all of this. It’s not an entity separate [so that we can say], “I want you to love the real me” or “I have to express myself” – this type of thing. Or “I’m not myself today.” Who are we if we’re not myself today? This type of things. “I want to get to know myself better” – who are we getting to know? What’s the self? As if it were something separate.
Often, we tend to identify that self with some aspect of these aggregates. You can identify yourself with your body, with your intelligence, with your possessions, your money, with your family, with your country – with whatever. And then we make a big, big solid entity out of that and think that’s the real “me” and, of course, it’s never going to change and so on. All of this – that belief in that inflation of the “me” – is behind all the troubles. I mean, once you have that, then all the disturbing emotions, all the karma that we build up and the actions that we do based on those disturbing emotions cause more and more suffering, more and more problems for ourselves and for others. The root of it is this false concept, the concept of the “true me,” the “real me.”
That’s the whole point: when we think in terms of this false concept, of this inflated “me” – the so-called real, “true me” – of course, it produces suffering, because then we feel insecure about it; and so, because we feel insecure, what are the ways in which we try to get security? Either we have longing desire and greed to get things, to accumulate things and to possess things, [thinking that] that will somehow make us secure; or attachment – we don’t want to let go of what we have; or we have anger and hostility – we want to get rid of something that we feel threatens us; or we put up the walls – naivety. All of that then motivates our actions, our behavior, so we yell at other people, or we cling to them, or we ignore them, we shut them out – and, of course, we experience all of this with unhappiness.
This is what we want to get rid of and the only way really to get rid of it is to pull out the plug from underneath it, which is this belief in this inflated “me” – that that’s how I actually exist. If you get rid of that belief and that projection, then all the other steps of the garbage will not develop. But it’s very difficult; you have to be really convinced that, “I don’t exist in this way,” and that nothing exists in this way – that this is complete garbage – and then cut it off completely. This cutting it off requires strength and so this is the image of Yamantaka: “Trample him, trample him.”
Also, what is important to remember is that just as we don’t exist in this impossible way, neither does anybody else. We often tend to think of others in this impossible way: “You are always in a bad mood!” “You don’t love me!” or, “I love you.” What is it that we love? As if there were some sort of entity, and we tend to identify “you” with what you just did or what you just didn’t do – this sort of things, or some small aspect of them. But “they” as well – that just is what can be labeled on to a continuing, ever-changing stream of moments of experience. And, of course, our experience of them is different from their own experience of themselves.
Wasting Our Human Rebirth
Let’s turn to our text. We are up to, in the poetical version, verse 73:
Discarding our practice to reach liberation, we drift about searching for pleasure or trade. We’ve obtained human bodies with precious endowments, yet use them to gain only hellish rebirths. Trample him, trample him, dance on the head of this treacherous concept of selfish concern. Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher who slaughters our chance to gain final release.
In the literal new translation that would be verse 72:
We’ve discarded the ford (to cross) to liberation and then wandered about to the ends of the earth. We’ve found precious human bodies and then (used them to) accomplish (rebirth in) the joyless hell realms. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.
This is referring to how we are ignoring “the ford (to cross) to liberation.” It’s referring to the Dharma teachings and practicing the Dharma teachings and so instead of doing that, we ignore that and instead we wander about “to the ends of the earth,” as it says here, “for pleasure or trade” or just as a tourist. A lot of people may go to India, for instance and even stay in Dharamsala where His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the great teachers are and all sorts of teachings are available and yet they spend all their time smoking dope and going to parties, thereby missing the opportunity that they have. Or we spend our whole time – as Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, one of my teachers, used to say – being a “tourist of samsara.” We want to experience going everywhere and doing everything and not missing a party – going to all your parties every weekend – all of that instead of actually trying to gain liberation and enlightenment. Why do we do that? Why do we ignore Dharma practice, whether it’s meditation or study? It doesn’t mean that we have to sit seriously and meditate and study 24 hours a day – that would be a bit extreme, although in the end we probably need to do something like that. But in any case, why is it that we don’t want to do that, and we would prefer to go to a birthday party, or to a movie, or watch a video, or do anything else, wander about? If we’re tired but there is a good movie on, or we’re with friends and so on, or have a party, we can stay up all night and our tiredness goes away. But if we’re a little bit tired and we go to a Dharma teaching, we instantly fall asleep.
Participant: I guess it’s kind of addiction to being entertained.
Dr Berzin: Who wants to be entertained? “Me, me, me.” “I want to be entertained” – that’s what we’re saying. There is a feeling of a solid “me,” and we feel insecure and so to make it secure I want to accumulate pleasure and entertainment; somehow that will reaffirm “me.”
Participant: But you can turn this around and can say, “Who is it that wants to study Dharma?”
Dr Berzin: It could be the same thing if you become a fanatic about that. But if one does it seriously, then it actually is quite threatening to that solid “me,” because one is going to get rid of it and deflate it. Who is doing it? The conventional “me.” As I say, if you inflate that “me” into “I am the great Dharma practitioner,” always dressed in clean white robes and maybe a turban and all of that and always have incense burning in your room, then that’s a bit absurd – all with candlelight so nobody can really see. That’s going on a trip. One can make a big trip out of the Dharma and a lot of people do that, especially when they become infatuated with playing with the bell and the drum and chanting things in Tibetan which they don’t understand a word of – then they’re really holy, really high, they’re doing advanced secret stuff. This is a trip, a Dharma trip. There are teachers that do that also, what I always point out as the great white guru trip. It’s the same thing.
So, one practices the Dharma without making a great deal out of it; you don’t have to advertise it, you don’t have to go around like an Ubangi with 30 thirty red strings around your neck. You just do it and if you need to take a break, you take a break, but don’t make a big deal. But often we, as it says here, ignore the Dharma, which could get us out of this whole trip and instead we just wander around looking more and more for entertainment and being a tourist – wanting to go everywhere and see everything and so on – just for the sake of entertainment. I mean, there is a difference between that and going around the world, for instance, teaching or doing some sort of service, some social work, in which case you need to know various places and the mentalities there – that’s something different. But just to go around so you can check off on the list all the places that I’ve been to in the world and have photo albums filled with pictures and t-shirts – this is silly, this is pointless.
It says, “We’ve found precious human bodies and then (used them to) accomplish (rebirth in) the joyless hell realms” – in other words, we go around, and we have the precious human rebirth that we can use for making progress on the spiritual path, actually significantly helping others and what do we use it for? We use it for lying and scheming and cheating others and doing all sorts of unwholesome things – hurting others, creating big trouble in the world or at least big trouble for our families, for our friends, for ourselves and that accomplishes hellish rebirth. This is a big waste. When we have this precious human rebirth, in other words, we are not living in some horrible warzone, or a famine, or a drought, or we’re not afflicted with some really horrible disease, or physical or mental impediment; and teachings are available and it’s possible to study and practice and all of those things, then we need to take advantage of it. We need to use it not just to be a tourist of samsara, not just to gain entertainment and not just to hurt others and cause trouble. We need to smash this false concept of the solid “me” that causes us to wander around looking for entertainment and causes us to go around making trouble.
So, we have this verse. Let me read it once more and then we’ll take a moment to reflect on it.
We’ve discarded the ford (to cross) to liberation and then wandered about to the ends of the earth. We’ve found precious human bodies and then (used them to) accomplish (rebirth in) the joyless hell realms. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.
Focusing on Worldly Things Instead of Spiritual Practice
The next verse is 74 in the old translation:
Ignoring the effects that the teachings can bring us, we travel on business for profit and gain. Leaving behind all our guru’s wise lectures, we tour different places in search of some fun. Trample him, trample him, dance on the head of this treacherous concept of selfish concern! Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher who slaughters our chance to gain final release.
Then in the literal translation:
We’ve set aside the special (benefits) that come about through the Dharma and then tried to make profit through business transactions. We’ve set aside the Dharma schools of our gurus and then wandered about the area of towns. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.
Many great benefits come through the Dharma in terms of practicing generosity, for instance. That’s the cause, the karmic cause, for being financially successful; helping others is the cause for others likewise to help us. All the various positive things that we get, that we might experience, come from acting in a selfless type of way, kindly toward others, trying to help them and so on and restraining ourselves from acting negatively. That’s where all the profit or benefit comes from. But we put that aside and instead try to get profit and benefit from business, as if making a lot of money and having a lot of possessions is going to make us happy. But that’s not the cause of happiness. I mean, anybody who has lived long enough and kept their minds open can see that money doesn’t necessarily bring happiness; often it brings a lot more problems. We might be able to buy things and so on, but then we always think people love me because of my money. Then there’s the worry how to invest it so that I don’t lose it and then we’re constantly watching the stock market and the money exchange rates and all of this and being worried about it being stolen.
We have a lot of fancy jewelry and a lot of fancy machines and then we worry that they’re going to break or again that they’ll be stolen. We live in huge houses and then we’re very lonely in these houses. So, it’s a false view to think that that’s where we’re going to gain benefit from –from doing business – whereas the actual benefit in terms of happiness, welfare and wellbeing come from restraining from acting negatively and acting positively, being kind to others. This is what it’s talking about. What’s behind that drive to make more and more money and to have more and more possessions is thinking of this solid “me” – that somehow, if I can get all these things, that will make me secure and, of course, make me happy. Now, it’s true, you could approach the Dharma with that same business mentality: “I’m going to give to the temple so that my name is up on the wall and I will buy my way into happiness.” That, of course, is also a false view.
The other part of this verse is that we leave the schools and the classes of our teachers and then wander about the area of town. That’s quite similar to what we were saying in the previous verse – that going to the teachings, the classes of the teachers, staying with the teachers, is going to be a way of gaining happiness. When you’re with somebody who is a good influence on you, then naturally you don’t act in a negative, destructive way. You have so much respect for the teacher and love for the teacher, actually, but it’s mostly respect: how can I act like an idiot in the presence of my teacher? How can I act destructively, how can I carry on and be stupid and so on? Out of respect for the teacher, then naturally one acts in a more constructive way. This is the way to gain happiness. This builds up beneficial habits so that you tend to act like that even when you’re not with your teacher.
One of the Dharma practices is, if you have that strong relationship with the teacher, to imagine your teacher always sitting on the top of your head – obviously in a small form, not the size of their body – or in your heart, that they’re always there, that they’re always present. That helps to prevent you from acting like an ass. But we might discard that and then just go wandering around town, to parties, hanging out, shopping – constantly wandering through shopping malls, this sort of things – going to all sorts of sport events etc. as though this is going to be what is going to really make us happy. But none of that brings long-lasting happiness. It might make us temporarily a little bit happy, but it’s not a lasting, deep happiness at all and certainly doesn’t build up any beneficial habits.
I certainly found it so, having spent an awful lot of time with my teachers. With Serkong Rinpoche, I travelled with him for months and months, being with him all day long and in Dharamsala as well, I was translating for him and helping out, being in his house for many, many hours. Certainly, when travelling with His Holiness the Dalai Lama as part of his entourage, for sure you don’t act like an idiot. Always being very thoughtful of them and of what you could do to be of help to them and so on – that builds up a very strong positive habit that one can then carry out toward to other people as well. Of course, you learn from their example of how to deal with people, how to deal with difficult situations. Mind you, we’re talking about well-qualified teachers. But even if we’re not with teachers, the company that we keep is very important, especially if we’re the type of person who is easily influenced by the people around us. If the people around us are all drinking and taking drugs and acting like a criminal gang, then, obviously, we can be strongly influenced by that. Whereas if people are kind and friendly and into helping others – you don’t have to be praying all the time, but they have good habits – that influences us as well.
One needs to try to choose the type of life that you live and the type of people that you are going to associate with. If you already made a choice, that’s one thing, but if you are a young person who is making that choice – I know in my case, I was first studying chemistry at university and I was going to become a scientist. Then I had some experience in science laboratories, in chemical laboratories and I found that that was not the kind of life that I wanted to live or the type of people that I wanted to spend all my time with. Then I started Asian Studies and I was going to become a university professor and then I saw the community of the university professors – in that time, mind you, we’re talking about 40 years ago – and most of them were alcoholic and were very jealous and arrogant and not at all nice people or balanced people – let’s put it that way. I decided these weren’t the people that I wanted to hang around with and spend my life with. Then I took a little bit of a look at diplomacy, when I was in India – foundations and embassies that support various projects – and I decided that those weren’t the people that I wanted to spend my life with either. I had the opportunity to be with the Dalai Lama’s teachers and these great masters in India and these were the people that I wanted to hang out with and be with and somehow work with and so I chose that.
Not many people really are able to make that type of choice, but I think that one has to look very carefully, when making a choice in life, at who are the people that I’m going to spend most of my time with. Kostas, you work basically alone in an atelier – he’s an artist and making furniture; for many of us, maybe that’s a better solution rather than spending time with people that are not very positive influences, in an office or whatever. But many of us don’t have that choice and so when we don’t have that choice and have to work wherever we can find work – even if it’s in a MacDonald’s – then you try to balance the influence of those people with other influences. You may have to work with them, but that doesn’t mean that you have to play with them and socialize with them. If they’re engaging in a lot of nonsense talk and activities, well, you don’t necessarily have to participate. It becomes difficult when you don’t participate and then they become hostile to you; so, you have to be friendly to a certain extent but not too much.
I have one young friend – I met him when he was 14 years old. He was coming to a Dharma center and was very, very strongly interested in Buddhism and Dharma, at 14, which is very amazing. He’s continued like that and then – now he’s I think about 18 – has joined the merchant marines. The merchant marines are the training to be the people who work on ships, like oil tankers and this sort of things. It’s a pretty rough crowd of students who are studying to work on ships and are certainly into a lot of alcohol and this type of behavior. He has to live in a dormitory with them and be with them and yet he’s a very strong Dharma practitioner as well. He writes to me and explains his situation and says that he needs to spend a little bit of time with them and act a little bit like them, otherwise they would beat him up – these people can be quite rough – and he also practices martial arts so he can take care of himself and not be beaten up by these other people. But he limits himself to maybe one beer and just socializes enough with them so that they don’t think that he’s completely weird and completely against them and then does his Dharma type of practice very privately and quietly, [with] nobody really knowing what he does. So, he keeps his inner strength even though he is with people that are not necessarily positive influences at all. If he actually works on ships, it’s going to be even worse because there you’re really confined to the people on the ship. So, if we’re going to be in company that’s not very supportive, then we need to be very strong. Again, you have to evaluate yourself: “Am I somebody who is strongly influenced by the company that I keep or am I somebody that has inner strength?” If we’re somebody that is strongly influenced by others, then you have to really watch out the company that you keep.
We’ve set aside the special (benefits) that come about through the Dharma and then tried to make profit through business transactions. We’ve set aside the Dharma schools of our gurus and then wandered about the area of towns. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.
Let’s think about that for a little while.
Stealing and Robbing
Then the next verse, 75 in the old translation:
We hoard what we have, never willing to use it and leech all our food and our clothing from friends. We leave aside wealth from our father’s inheritance, taking from others as much as we can. Trample him, trample him, dance on the head of this treacherous concept of selfish concern. Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher who slaughters our chance to gain final release.
In the new translation, verse 74:
We’ve set aside our own livelihood and then stolen for our income. We’ve set aside the sustenance (inherited) from our parents and then robbed it from others. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.
This is referring to when we have a livelihood – whether it means that we have gotten from our parents, that we’ve inherited, or from social security, or unemployment benefits from the government, or any these sorts of things – we hoard it. In other words, we don’t want to spend it, we don’t want to use it, but instead we take from others. Here it says specifically that we steal, but we can also cheat – it’s like we don’t want to use our money to buy things for ourselves, but we borrow it and take it from our friends. You have a meal but you’re always taking the food from the other person’s plate – “Let me have a little taste of this, let me have a little bit of that,” or always looking around to be invited. We have money to pay in a restaurant, but we always wait or excuse ourselves and go to the toilet when it’s time for the bill to be paid so that the other person pays for both of us – this type of thing. We don’t use what we have, but we try to get everything from others. We always go visit people right at mealtime so that we get invited: “Oh, I’ll have just a little bite,” and then, of course, you sit down and you eat a full meal. “Can I have a little taste of your food? That looks so good!” Or people that always have to try on their friend’s clothing, or jewelry, or whatever it might be. Do you know that type of mentality? You don’t want to use up your things, so you use somebody else’s. I’ll save mine and then we never actually use it, whatever it might be.
This again comes from this very strong grasping for a solid me: “My possessions, I want to keep them and I can use yours instead;” “My money, I have to save it, keep it, never spend it” – and then always expect others to pay for me.” It doesn’t even have to be expecting others to pay for us; there’re some people who have quite a lot of money, but they’re very cheap and they’re always looking for special sales to save a penny here and there that really doesn’t make any difference.
There are so many positive things that we can do with our time. When you have the money, to spend four hours going to every store to see if we can save a Euro – which a lot of people will do, when it really doesn’t make any difference [because] they have the money – this is a total waste of time that they could use in a much more constructive way. This is, of course, speaking about the situation in which you have money, you have the things; if you don’t have it, it’s something else. It’s like the example here that people are out late at night, and they need to go home and they need to get up in the morning, so there’s just a limited amount of time that they can sleep. They have the money to pay for a taxi to go home and they don’t. They will wait a half hour for the subway and they have to change trains and so wait another half hour. So, it takes them an hour and a half to get home, when they’ve could have taken a taxi that would get them home in ten minutes and cost them an amount of money that really would not make any difference to them; they have the money. This is silly and I think this is also what this verse is talking about: we hold on so strongly to what we have. “I don’t want to spend it,” “I don’t want to use it,” “I don’t want to wear out my shoes, I’ll wear your shoes.”
So, we look once more at this verse.
We’ve set aside our own livelihood and then stolen for our income. We’ve set aside the sustenance (inherited) from our parents and then robbed it from others. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.
The only difference between the first and the second line here is the first line is that we earn money and we don’t spend it; and the second line is that we inherit money from our parents and we don’t use it – so the two situations. Again, we don’t use it because we’re thinking of this strong solid “me” that’s insecure and has to keep it: “I don’t care about your stuff, so I’ll use yours.” It’s the insecurity of the solid “me,” of this inflated “me.” The root is the fear that this solid “me” won’t have enough: “I don’t want to get my clothes dirty when I have to do this job. Let me borrow your clothes and I’ll wear your coat because I don’t care if that gets dirty, but I don’t want my coat to get dirty.” We’re identifying with possessions and we don’t want to let go of them.
Dedication
Let’s end then with the dedication. We think whatever understanding we’ve gained, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and get stronger and stronger and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.