Teaching Transcripts and Synopses 

Q: Rinpoche, what does sudden shock mean?
A: This is a method, actually through a shock. They shock the students, let them feel surprised and then at the moment of shock, when they are surprised it's much easier if somebody immediately points to your mind and give teachings. At that time it' s much easier; it's quite empty at that time.

Q: How can one accomplish the forth Dharma - changing mistaken thoughts into wisdom?
A: That's more like the result of the third actually. Maybe I should tell about two truths. The word truth is not an invention or creation used first time by Buddha. The concept of truth and untruth is always there even before Buddha's time. Even Buddha himself said that no matter whether Buddha comes to the world or not truth is always there regardless of your knowledge of truth. It's always there. It won't decrease, it won't increase. Buddha explained the ultimate truth is emptiness and conventional truth - for example, the picture here: You will say this is not real flower, and if I have a real flower here then it's real flower; if you compare this real flower and this plastic flower then there is difference, you will say this is true and this is not and that is conventional truth. But if you go further this is not true again. We used to think this is one flower, two flowers, three flowers but if you can not find one then how can you find two - two means one plus one. If you can not find one, then you have a problem. So non-existence is one layer deeper to the truth closer the ultimate truth, but it's still not the truth. If that becomes the ultimate truth, then it becomes nihilism. It's a big problem. So whatever we can explain with the words is actually not the ultimate truth, it's only talking about it, just like we, for example, can imagine New York right now and somebody can bring a map here and say this is New York you have to go this way and that way which will help you when you get there, but this is not New York. Similarly what we explain about what ultimate truth is, explained by Buddha in the books is just like the map, still not the ultimate. But if you understand on this level which is above the conventional truth but not the real ultimate level, then that's good enough. When you continue your meditation on this level, then the forth Dharma will appear as a result.

Q: What are the conditions for being shocked to enlightenment?
A: That again goes back to karma - how serious the karma you have - we call thickness, how heavy the karma you have. The lesser the karma you have, the easier to understand the teaching. So that's why Marpa treat Milarepa in a very severe way, as if cruel for some purpose. It's to clean his karma first because Milarepa, using his magic power, killed so many people, which means committed a lot of karma. Without cleaning the karma, even if he would try to give teachings, it means nothing.

Q: Will Bodhichitta help?
A: Yeah, Bodhichitta helps a lot to purify karma. Practice without Bodhicitta or without compassion, loving kindness, it can not go that far - it's slow, one is one. If you do one that is one, if you do two then two. But if you do good karma with the help of Bodhicitta it increases a lot. The effect bring with Bodhicitta is much greater.

Q: Is there a contradiction between gradual or instant enlightenment?
A: Yeah, I also don't see there is really any contradiction. But some schools who profess that one can get enlightened instantly seem to have different explanations - like you don't have to practice. If that is really mentioned, that is different. Instant could mean many things: could mean you have to do a lot of things and the real enlightenment is instant. That is completely different from that you don't have to do anything and all of a sudden just wait and will instantly get enlightened. That is another thing that is very different. So "instant" itself has to be defined. There is no problem if somaeone says one can get enlightened instantly when the conditions are established.

Q: What is the meditation technique?
A: To get out of the samsara, there is only one way - no other method will help - that is the understanding of selflessness, non-existing of "I". So it's with the wisdom you can go out of samsara. Meditation without wisdom, compassion without wisdom, Bodhicitta without wisdom, none of them can help you go out of samsara. You should completely depend on the wisdom of understanding of selflessness and that is agreed by all schools. It's not like meditation in which you focus on some objects, but you analyze where "I" is for meditation, which part of the body, which cell of the body, which time of the continuum of the body, what senses we have is the " I". Meditation has many kinds, but if you reduce, only two kinds "shamatha" which means calming down and having one pointed concentration and "vipashyana" which is awareness. So you need here awareness. The real awareness is the result again just like I said the forth Dharma is a result - you can not practice it directly. But there is analytical meditation. Analytical meditation is not actually real "vipashyana" but when you do it you will get "vipashyana" as a result.

Oh I want to say that all these things about emptiness depend on what I said earlier - Madhyamaka, middle way which is systematized by Nagarjuna based on a teaching called "Prajnaparamita". "Prajna" means wisdom "paramita" means going beyond, so paramita has connection with emptiness itself also with impermanence. when Buddha gave teachings for the first time, how we are suffering in the world how things are impermanent, sowed the seed of teaching that he wanted to talk about emptiness. Impermanence means time into small blocks, means changes, and change mean difference. Say, there is one line, then you can divide into parts. You can not find anything that is undividable. Any physical thing with a space with ten directions can be divided. If it is abstract, it deals with time, you can always divide into something that is past, something that is yet to come and now, and focus into the now the present part and then it's again dividable - the present that is closer to the past and the present that is closer to the future; and then it's dividable, and then if you still want to keep present in the middle, O.K., divide those two things again, so it is endless. In one way you can say endless, in another you can say there is no single one true existence. You don't really find a solid one. So what I am saying here - impermanent is not just impermanent. If you think more carefully it's actually teaching of emptiness, and also interdependent in early Buddhism, Buddha has clearly taught interdependence. He said nothing exists by itself; everything depends on each other. If you want to say long or short, big or small, rich or poor, everything we are saying or judging relatively. There is no standard of long or short we are comparing with something and then we decide this is long or short, so he said everything depends on something else - the result depends on the cause; everything has a cause and this again links directly with emptiness. From the beginning, Nagarjuna said: if things exist, do they come from their cause or without cause? He always gave questions if the result comes from cause, whether the result already exists in it's cause or the result does not exist in the cause? If the result already exists during the time of cause, why should it give a result since it already exists. It doesn't make a difference existing here or existing there, it's the same thing. If it doesn't exist, why can only this cause give this result? Why can only the apple seed give apple, not that orange seeds can give apples? So this logic is based on interdependence if there are causes and conditions. What is the relation? So my point here: in the teachings of Mahayana and Vajrayana, emptiness is not something new. It's linked directly to the most basic and first teaching Buddha gave - interdependence and impermanence.

Q; Does selflessness also include awareness?
A: Like using the wood and stone to make fire, you make the fire to burn something else but it burns itself too. The mind understands selflessness, but the mind itself is also selflessness.

Q: Then who is controlling to be aware to reincarnate since everything is selflessness?
A: O. K. They're completely different layers. In it's ultimate and conventional layers we want to understand and reach the ultimate level but all the explanations, almost all Buddha's teachings are within the conventional level. Incarnations, karma, even explaining emptiness itself is in the conventional level. I think the ultimate level is beyond permanent or impermanent existence or non-existence, that's why it says "beyond the words", beyond the language, beyond the thoughts, can not be imagined. It can be seen by the wisdom but not the present mind which is confined by a lot of limitations. So wisdom replaces all the consciousnesses. Yeah once you get to the topic of the quality of Buddha, the enlightened one, it's very difficult because, like we are arguing here to say there is a spirit here or not in the middle (Rinpoche points to the space in front of him). How can we say, we can not prove there is and we can not prove there isn't. So the reason is that we don't have that perceiver. As long as we don't have the perceiver, we can not perceive the things. As long as we don't have the ultimate wisdom, it's difficult for us to really judge or understand the Dharmakaya - the ultimate truth, because we don't have the perceiver. So we only have to talk about it but we are not talking it. The ultimate truth can not be expressed by language.