Siddhartha's Intent - Gentle Voice, August 97

Interview with

His Holiness Sakya Trizin

During the Lam Dre Lob Shey teachings at Vajradhara Gonpa in May 1997, His Holiness Sakya Trizin was kind enough to grant the Gentle Voice an interview during his very busy schedule. Here is that interview.

Your Holiness, in your recent teachings at Vajradhara Gonpa you spoke of loving kindness and compassion. Could you please say something about using these qualities in everyday life, especially in these difficult times?

The whole of human life is based on loving kindness and compassion because we're brought up in our lives through loving kindness and compassion and we maintain our lives through these and we also end with loving kindness and compassion. I mean, our daily existence as a living person today is through loving kindness. Therefore since the whole of our life depends on loving kindness and compassion, if we feel this is important we must ourselves also practise for others. We must show loving kindness and compassion. And this is not only in Buddhism. Many religions emphasise how important loving kindness and compassion are.

Particularly in the Buddha's teachings, he talks about immeasurable loving kindness. I mean, everybody has a certain amount of loving kindness, even the most ferocious animals also have some kind of loving kindness, for example, towards their own babies. But genuine loving kindness, especially in the Mahayana teachings, is said to have no boundaries. The loving kindness and compassion that you practise is not only for the people with whom you have a connection, like your friends and relatives, but even for those people who are unknown to you or who are objects of anger such as your enemies. It is through the practice of loving kindness and compassion that one can overcome these difficulties and obstacles. It was by using loving kindness as a worldly weapon that Lord Buddha was able to defeat all the millions of maras.

And to make the most of our daily lives you stress that we need to have a correct understanding of the law of cause and effect. Could you explain this, Your Holiness?

You know the Lord Buddha talks about the law of cause and effect. The whole of our life, the experience that we have now, is not just coincidence, nor is it without cause. Each and every thing must have its own special, correct and complete cause and conditions. And the Buddha says that all our sufferings, physical pains, mental pains, all the miserable things that are in our life, are the product of what we have committed in the past, negative deeds that we have committed. So from this we learn how harmful it is to commit negative deeds.

Nobody wishes to have suffering. Everyone wishes to be free from suffering. And if one really wishes to be free from suffering in the future, then it is important to avoid the causes of the suffering and try to create the causes of the happiness. And this is in nobody else's hands. No outside force, not even the most powerful deity, can make you happy unless you want to be. For example, even the best doctor cannot heal you of your illness unless you take the medicine and follow the instructions.

So similarly, what kind of life we are going to face in the future is entirely in our own hands. Therefore we must avoid the wrong causes and we must try to create the right causes because our life, prosperity, long life and happiness are a product of all the good deeds we've done in the past. And if one really wishes to have happiness and be free from suffering, then it is important to avoid the causes of suffering and try to create the causes of happiness.

Many of us understand that what we experience externally is a projection of our own mind. But how can we better internalise these experiences so that we can understand and use them on the path?

You see, the whole of our life is illusory vision, it's all illusion. First it's hard to realise that it's all illusion. Very good examples are given such as that of a dream. While you are dreaming, it is as real as this life. In your dream you can be happy, sad, you can have suffering and attachment, you can have anger, all kinds of things, and it is as real as this. But when you're awake, then all the things that you saw, the countries, the animals, the people, the places you were at, there's not even a sign of what you saw in your dream. So by using that as an example, we can understand that our present life here is also like a dream. It is not real. It is just illusory vision. It is created out of our mind. It is our natural projection. So by realising this, I think this makes you to come closer to the contact of the ultimate reality.

In your teachings you spoke of using both good fortune and difficulties as opportunities. But some of us find it difficult to maintain that outlook when we're in the midst of hardship. Could you say something about this, Your Holiness?

When we face difficulties, of course it is hard for everybody to realise that, because we've been associated from beginningless time with negative deeds and their results and so forth. I mean, when you're happy, everybody can cope with it, even ordinary people who have no idea about any kind of spiritual influence can cope with happiness.

But when you face difficulties and when you face disasters, at that time it is like a trial. At that time you can really face the situation. At that time it is important to use the knowledge and the experience that you've gained through the study of Dharma. At that time it is important to use it. Otherwise, it is no use. Just learning about and talking about the Dharma is not enough. We really should use this when we face such a situation. Then one must have an understanding of the Dharma because at that time Dharma can give you the greatest help and the greatest strength.

In 1988 you bestowed the Lam Dre Tsog Shey at Vajradhara Gonpa. Now you've returned to give the uncommon or Lam Dre Lob Shey here. At both events you've emphasised the importance of the authentic lineage. Could you explain how this can be an inspiration to practitioners?

Yes, especially in the Varjrayana teachings it is very important to have the unbroken transmission of any lineage. From Buddha himself until now the teachings have been passed down from one master to the next. And so therefore the earlier great masters are our examples, how we should be and what we should do. Also many of them were just ordinary people like us in the beginning, but through the practice they succeeded in having such great realisation. So we must follow in their footsteps. And so I think it is very important to know the biographies of the lineage masters.

Since your last visit, Your Holiness, what changes have you noticed in the practice of the Dharma in the West and here in Australia?

I think there's a lot of improvement. I can see now that it is much more mature, much more familiar. People know much more about it, not only in their knowledge, but also in their practice. I can see that.

As the Dharma spreads throughout the West, Your Holiness, what advice would you give to practitioners on the path?

I think that it is really very important to emphasise the common foundations. Here in the West people tend to do so many things at one time. And so even when they are not ready, they like to go into the very high practices and so forth. And one cannot go to such a high practice without a strong foundation. So the foundation teachings and the meditations are very, very important. Without these solid foundations of knowledge and practice, one cannot build the very high practices. So my message is that, no matter how long it takes, it is very important to do the common and uncommon foundation practices correctly. And then if you do those correctly, I think in the future more advanced teachings could be very effective.

Is there something else that you'd like to say, Your Holiness?

I just find Australia a very beautiful country and also the people are very nice. And the nicest thing that I find here is that all the different races, different nationalities, different philosophies and religions all live together in complete harmony. This, I think, is very, very important. And it can be shown in other countries as an example of how different races and philosophies and religions can live together, because the need now is for everyone to be united and through union and united efforts to help other fellow human beings.

Our Basic Insecurity

by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

In many countries and on many occasions Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche has taught about shamatha or "calm abiding" meditation as a means to stabilise and focus our minds. Here is an excerpt from the shamatha teaching he gave in Sydney, Australia.

To begin with we must find the reason why we're doing shamatha meditation. Basically, we're doing it so that we can gain a certain control over ourselves. This means that we have no control over ourselves right now. And out of the many different problems that we face, I think one of the fundamental anxieties or sufferings that we experience is that there's a basic insecurity within us. And that insecurity is what we need to destroy or at least understand.

The basic insecurity that we have is about our identity. And more specifically than that, we have this insecurity about whether there's such a thing as "I" or "the self". Now we may not ask this question normally, but we do pose this question unconsciously or semi-consciously all the time. The Buddhist reason for having such insecurity within us is that if we go on checking our life, especially our day-to-day life, we'll realise that there's doubt about our existence. For instance, we introduce ourselves to someone by saying "I'm so and so". We may print our names on cards or we may try to achieve a certain promotion or a certain title. And more subtly than that we experience all sorts of extreme emotions like passion and aggression. All these are actually more than a person becoming passionate or angry at someone else. The cause of all this aggression and passion is the need to convince ourselves that the self exists, that I do exist.

But still it doesn't help. Still we're constantly insecure. So out of this insecurity we create lots of false hope and expectations. And millions of expectations aren't really fulfilled. Indeed, we often also experience what we don't expect. In fact, what we don't expect seems to happen all the time. And when this keeps on repeating itself, then people begin to lose respect for themselves, begin to lose respect for the environment, and there's no trust. So that's why, for many of us, having a sacred outlook towards someone or something is so difficult to achieve. There's no sacred outlook towards ourselves. There's no certainty. Let's not even talk about a sacred outlook as being something to do with religion, like God or pure soul or anything like that. We're not even sure of our own existence. We're always in doubt. Even though, of course, we do pretend a lot of the time that we exist.

But somehow we're quite intelligent. We know that we're pretending and we want to cover that up. We don't want to admit to ourselves that we're pretending. And to cover it up we do extreme things like maybe have an affair or yell at someone. And when you go through that kind of extreme emotion, it gives you a certain satisfaction that you do exist. And you live your life with this sort of shallow satisfaction all the time. But it doesn't actually give you stable confidence in yourself.

And then we begin to lose our appreciation of life... I think we should develop a certain appreciation of our life. When I talk about appreciation of life, it includes everything. For example, as I eat this biscuit and it goes down my throat, I should actually feel, "Wow! Incredible! It's so good that I can actually eat a little bit of biscuit. That's amazing!" You see, it may never happen. For example, while I'm chewing this biscuit, while it's melting in my mouth, suddenly this roof may collapse and I may die. This biscuit may never go down my throat! It's so important to develop this appreciation of our life. And shamatha meditation is one key, a very special key, to developing this appreciation.

So we have two goals now. Through the meditation we build a certain confidence, in other words, eliminate that basic insecurity that we have, and we learn how to appreciate our moment-by-moment life. This isn't really Buddhism, it's a very human thing to do. You can't say that this is a religion. In fact, many shamatha meditation masters often say that the aim of shamatha meditation isn't necessarily to gain enlightenment in the sense of getting rid of all sorts of emotions and reaching the stage where you completely abandon all sorts of dualistic phenomena. The aim of shamatha meditation has nothing to do with that. The aim of it, as I was saying earlier, is to gain control over ourselves. And by gaining that control, we gain a certain confidence and appreciate our life moment by moment, day by day.