دار بيبليون
Tenzin Palmo
Interview N°7
by Lwiis Saliba
April 13th, 2022
Introduction
Today is the first anniversary of JetsunmaTenzin Palmo’s presence among us, it’s just one year since we started this series of interviews with her. And exactly since April 14, 2021, the date of the first interview, we have done 6 interviews, one every 2 months. All these are available on Youtube, on Lwiis Saliba’s channel, and their full texts in English, French, are available to everyone on Dr Jacques Vigne’s websites and on mine too, and they will be published in a book in French, English, Arabic, and eventually Italian.
So just a year ago Jetunma Tenzin Palmo opened this series of interviews by talking about human stupidity. She said verbatim and I quote:
“We fight each other. We say, ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’. We fight over things that are not important instead of working together on what is important. (…) We never learn from our mistakes. We blow each other up, then we take a breather and start again. If that’s not stupid, tell me what is?”
Today and once again we are faced with a new human stupidity and a new war!
It reminds me of a famous saying by Einstein: “In this world there are two infinities: the Universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure that the Universe is infinite!”
In Lebanon, today’s date, April 13, is an inauspicious date: it is the anniversary of the beginning of the Lebanese war which lasted more than 16 years (1975-1990) and killed hundreds of thousands of people in a small country with a population of only 3 million. And now, with what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, we are in the middle of a war. And it is exactly in such difficult times that we need to hear the voice of wisdom and love, like the voice of our great sage Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Lwiis: Jetsunma, once again, human stupidity has resurfaced and we are faced with a new war, between Russia and Ukraine. Is war an inevitability, a karma that we cannot escape? Or is it a choice that can be renounced?
TP: Of course, in our history around the world, everywhere there have been wars, not just from country to country, but from tribe to tribe, from family to family…History itself is a chronicle about endless invasions. As long as we have conflicts in our hearts, then that is going to be an emanation of these conflicts outside, either with small or large ones…. It’s always due to happen. Where there is anger, where there is violence, greed, lust for power and conquest, then of course there is going to be a war: no peace inside, then no peace outside! We can see it, we haven’t got more peaceful throughout our history, we haven’t learned anything. We just become armed with more weapons, more ability to harm and to kill. Before we used bows and arrow…Now we use what we use, in addition we don’t even mention the karma we will reap in the future, the poisonous seeds generating poisonous results!
Unless human beings really undergo a joint transformation of consciousness, which they have never done until now, we are going to continue with the same problems, it is like in a family there is domestic violence in the past, and there is still domestic violence in the present. And as far as we can see, it will continue into the future.
Human beings are difficult. This is not to say that there are not many beautiful human beings: many beautiful things happening, the media focuses mainly on war, but there is also so much going on to try to help, to reach out in these difficult zones. Still, the fact is that we continually carry out the same negative patterns. So many innocent people are affected, not only those who are killed but those who are left! And still, we don’t learn… what to do…. There is no way to zap on all the things, to escape them in a snap of fingers.
You look at the history and you can see the cycles repeating themselves and repeating: every time, we say we have learn and we never do this again, and the next generation is doing exactly the same thing!
Lwiis: If there is no peace inside, there will be no peace outside: mostly people have no peace inside and mostly they are in anger….
TP: Until we understand that genuine strength comes from compassion and wisdom, as long as we believe that just brute force shows how big and strong and special we are, it is going to be difficult….. What can I say? The bullies win. Moreover, to develop genuine wisdom and compassion, it takes practice, like any muscle, you have to exercise it. If we are not exercising it, if instead we are exercising the ability to get angry, resentful, and so forth… the results will be negative. Look at the media, look at entertainment, what kind of entertainment people and especially young ones are watching?
It’s all very aggressive and brutal, and the solution to difficulties is to blow it all up… That is the message we are getting: to be able to destroy others make us special, what can you hope?
Just films and video games and all this kind of things, giving the message that the solution to our problem is to destroy the other, the opposition, then we would be happy forever. What to do? Our all view of what is important and where genuine happiness lies, is damaged, And we completely distorted and perverted all our understanding of what is genuine happiness. This false idea of happiness is given to people and they believe it because that’s what is told by people they look up to, and they think, must know the answers….
So this is where we end up in conflicts, conflicts and again conflicts. Nobody is listening to anyone else, everyone thinking they are right and the other is wrong. There is no compassion, no understanding, just sadness, great sadness in the world. It is created, not by the lions and the tigers or the wild animals, but by the human beings who consider themselves so superior: you know, we are Homo sapiens, we are wise, but where is the wisdom? However, I mean that innately we have wisdom, please understand me: we are not evil by nature!
Our innate understanding wisdom gets cuffed over, and polluted, and we don’t know how to clean because we think pollution is a good thing, because we don’t know anything else about the pure gold. What to do … Lwiis you have study so many books, look at behind you, all these volumes! All this understanding comes from so many different areas, so what do you think? How can we go up with, towards more light, instead of descending further and further into the darkness again?
Lwiis: The problem is that our knowledge is only theoretical knowledge, not a practical knowledge, We say we should live in peace, but if we are not in peace with ourselves as you told: how we can live in peace?
TP: Yes exactly, how to give us peace? That is the problem. There is so much outer assault on the senses, which don’t bring peace, physically there is no peace because everybody is rushing, and inwardly there is no peace because we are not given the conduit to peace, all time on the television, the iPhone, and computer, everything is out out out out …. And we never have the opportunity to go inside, so this is our problem, and this is what happens, we just messed everything up, harm ourselves, harm others and destroy the planet in the meantime… What to do?
Lwiis: We have read a statement from you about this war, in which you say: “The suffering of the people is truly beyond imagination! However, with suffering comes strength!”
-Most of the times we feel that this strength comes to us only as a result of suffering, is it inevitable to go through this to get strength?
TP: No, some people have great inner strength and they have never suffered, they bring that with them. The point is that, if we are suffering, either we can go under and become more and more upset, angry and depressed, or we can use that suffering as a kind of strength to cultivate our compassion, recognizing: “I am suffering, so many beings are suffering, how sad!” That makes our heart more large and vast instead of being full of self-pity. In that case we become extremely strong, and invincible, and how much suffering we encounter with all the others, it’s like a flame, which goes stronger and stronger. One knows people like that, who spend their time to really dealing with other’s sufferings: they are not sad, they are full of love, of joy, because they have that compassion inside, and that inner wisdom which shines out from them.
Still, suffering in itself can go the other way, can lead to a sense of becoming totally absorbed in one’s misery, one can become bitter, angry, upset and blaming others, or else, it can lead to a great expansion of the heart, which fills us: we just become the embodiment of genuine compassion, and wisdom that goes with it. The insight increases understanding, and that understanding also increases our empathy and love for others. So, although suffering may go out the way, it is in itself neutral, the point is what we do with it.
Lwiis: Jetsunma you continue to say in the same statement: “I hope people rely on their innate goodness, I hope people can help each other and be in solidarity with each other in this very difficult situation. This is a time to show inner strength, not just as a member of a religion or an ethnic group, but to show your unity as a human being.”
-If people on both sides of the conflict want to stand together, but they are prevented by leaders and circumstances, what to do?
TP: My feeling is that, at least, they can pray for the well-being of all involved in the conflict. They should not to speak in the usual way, “we want our side to win, and other side to suffer…”
Not like that but recognizing with compassion the suffering on both sides, and wishing, really pray from the heart that the situation should be resolved, and both sides end up with peace and unity again.
So, when the conflict ends, they should do whatever they can to help both sides, not allowing themselves to be caught in a propaganda, because it is all economics and politics, it has nothing to do with people. People as people are just people, we are all human beings sharing this planet together. Who decided the division? “This is the boundary, this is my country and that is your country!” That is just a country, just a land, politics that creates this kind of behavior.
We are all equally human beings with hopes and fears, and the desire to live with our family and to do well and so forth… Everybody is the same. So, we should meditate on love and compassion for all beings and especially if you are caught up in the conflict for the other side “they should be well and happy”, clearly recognizing that all these politicians, military and armament people, as well as the business behind them, make a fortune every time there is a war. They pervert the truth for their own benefits, it’s all lies, it happens all the time. We shouldn’t believe propaganda, so keep an open heart!
Lwiis: How far do the political leaders on all sides have responsibility for this war and its damage?
TP: Of course, wars are created by politicians, who are intended on their own power and control, together with the military: these have to show why the people need military. If they don’t have war, they can’t prove why they are necessary. The same goes, as we just said, with many armaments manufacturers who grow enormously wealthy, through the death and devastation which their products created. They don’t care: the more people are killed, the more it shows how effective the weapons are, and how more you should buy them. So, it’s all driven by a greed for power and by economics, it has nothing to do with a genuine situation. It’s all created by these people who have never gone themselves near the war zones.
They are sitting in their very luxury offices, and use all the people like pawns in a chess game, which can just be thrown away when you do not need them anymore : “Put that battalion there” not thinking they are young men, and they don’t care however many go to the front, as long as in the end they can gain a little bit more land or a so called “victory”, by killing as many people as possible, including of course, nowadays, women and children. It is not even like in old days, when you had soldiers which at least met each other’s face to face with bows and arrows and swords. For them, that was a choice to be soldier. Nowadays, nothing like that, you get conscripted, you never see the people you are killing, and you are killing people who are totally innocent of any involvement in the war. They just happen to be there, like all these children who get killed. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are killed for what? Because of some mandate from the politicians, and the economic drive behind it. That’s all it’s about, it has nothing to do about who is right or who is wrong, it’s just about power. How sad! That is all it is about, it is nothing about who is right or who is wrong, it is just about power. This is dismaying! We never learn, this is why it is so awful. We believe this non-sense which is entangled in politics. Nobody questions it!
Lwiis: For this war or any war, people say it is a kind of karma that we cannot escape…
TP: Karma is individual, the thing is not to add to the hatred and the partisanship, which is been promoted through the media – that is the point. It is not “the good against the evil empire”. That is just people who have been forced into the situation, mostly who don’t want it at all, they do not ask, these soldiers are forced to do it. We are dealing with people who are driven by the politicians, into doing dark deeds, into killing others. It is not that they would ever choose to do that, they probably want to go to college, or get on with their life. They do not want to go around blowing and killing peoples, what for? They are forced to, because, if they do not, they will be destroyed by their own side, as happened in both world wars before. If you said “I do not want to kill” you got shot by your own side!
Let them be themselves they are just human being like anybody else, come on! They are not part of any evil empire. So, we should have compassion for both sides of the conflict, we should pray that it would end soon and they would be healing, because those ruins and bleeding…what for? Pray that all that be finished very soon, and that there will be end to enmity.
Do not plug into that dark energy which the media is trying to whip up, of fear, paranoia, anger, and all these very negatives forces in the mind. Don’t allow those forces into the mind, develop our compassion and empathy, and have sadness for everyone, not just the Ukrainians but for the Russians too.
Lwiis: you are just telling they pervert the truth, why true is always one of the first victims in war?
TP: Because truth is a great power. The truth is that we are all human beings, we should learn finally to get together in harmony. War is not going to resolve anything. The armaments manufacturers do not want to hear about truth because they want people to buy weapons. The military do not want to hear about that because they want an army, the politicians do not want to hear about that because then they will not be able to increase their territory by conquest. So, nobody wants to hear the truth which is that simply the earth belongs to us all. By rights there are no boundaries. Who made the boundaries? The politicians, the kings… and so forth, they said: “that side is your side and this side is my side…” Look at the earth itself, it is just the earth, look at it from above: where are the boundaries? Thus, the truth is that we are all human beings and we all sharing this planet together. And have we, after all these millennium, learned to live together? No!
Because manufacturers of armaments distill all this untruthfulness, claiming that the other side is composed of bad peoples, therefore, it’s alright to hurt them, what can you say? “They are not humans like we, we are genuine good human beings and they are sub-humans, therefore it’s ok to kill them or to bring them into our territory so that we can teach them how to be like us”. But that is a lie, isn’t it? A total non-sense!
Lwiis: Boundaries are always there, so, are we living from the beginning in a non-truth?
TP: Well, our whole life is basically a non-truth, and we do not know how to stop, in order to think about what is real… In this way, we create endless problems, we always add to them. If you read history, as you know very well, it’s all about conquest, domination and destroying other peoples’ civilizations and so forth, I mean, it’s endless. And today we are seeing it hasn’t stopped, we just carry on the same old things, like children destroying other children sandcastles… Because their sandcastles are nicer than mine, so I am ready to destroy their sandcastle. You know, this is just little children minds!
Lwiis: In this war as in any other, people of good will hesitate: should they take a stand with one side, or remain neutral? What do you advise them to do?
TP : Again, that is what we have just been saying, it is up to each individual to choose what he wants to do, but they should not be partisan, they should try to keep their mind open, and try to see how much both sides are suffering in any conflict. And it’s not that one is right other is wrong. Both sides are adding to this problem, this delusion, “we are right, therefore you are wrong”! This is one of the main problems. “All the right is in one side, the bad is on the other side!” But it is never like that, it is just human beings struggling and forced into doing things they wouldn’t want to do, as we said, by the government. So, keep an open heart to everybody, that is what we just kept saying, do not get caught up in “we are right, you are wrong”. But the main point is to see it’s all suffering, even when one win and other loses, even the people who are victorious are suffering because they lost so much. In this violence, we are losing our dignity as human beings at the same time. It is nothing good to be said about war, really! It just destroys so much on so many levels, not just physically, but psychologically. For instance, people never ever got over the first or second world war. They carried it inside them psychology. The damage was inside, not just the external. And that is why it is so sad that we didn’t learn any real lessons from that.
Lwiis: To justify war one often speaks of a just war as one speaks of a just anger. The war in the Bhagavad-Gita is considered by Hindus a just war, because the Gita is a holy book. The Abrahamic religions go even further and speak of Holy War. Do you think there is anything as a Just War or a Holy War?
TP: The Bhagavad-Gita was written from a Hindu point of view, considering that everyone should perform one’s own duty, their dharma, which is according to the stage of life where you are. Then, there is the caste system: we shouldn’t try to do another profession than the one which is of our family, because that would be another’s dharma. In the Gita, Arjuna is from the kshatriya-s, warrior caste, therefore his dharma is to wage wars. That is the logic behind it. The fact that both sides were completely wiped out was not their problem, because they were following their dharma. Buddhism doesn’t think like that. It says that killing is killing. That is a negative action which will create negative karmic results, and more killings in the future. Therefore, it’s not right, even if you are form a warrior caste, to go round killing people under the pretext that your forefathers were all soldiers.
Of course, Buddhist countries go to war as much as others, I don’t claim that they are great pacifists. Like others, they go to war for gain, for power, for money; however, they don’t claim that this is the dharma, that the Buddha advised this… Nowhere in his teaching do we find that it is a good thing to go to war and kill around people, inspired by anger and hate. He taught that hatred is not cured by hatred, but hatred is cured by non-hatred. During his lifetime, he acted to reconcile people, so that factions did not go to war. This may have been over the possession of a river, for example. He asked the two disputing groups, “Is this water more precious than your blood itself?”
With all this, I think that waging war in the name of religion is an absolute trap. It is the worst thing that could be: to take what represents peace and love and turn it into warlike maneuvers and destruction of others. All because I am right, my God is my God and yours is wrong. It is so childish! Human beings haven’t really grown up, that’s their tragedy.
Lwiis : What about the notion of Holy War in the Abrahamic, Christian, etc. tradition?
TP: (In an irritated tone): There is no war that is holy! What about these people who were killed by the Jews? They were living peacefully over there, and the Jewish god told them: “It’s OK, I gave you this country, you can go and kill the people there!” What kind of god is that? Did not this God created also those people who were living in that country? Why Jewish people of this time were so biased, full of prejudice, partisan? Because their god was a tribal god. He used to say: “This is my little group, that is not my little group”. Afterwards, it was understood that God had to be a universal God, loving everyone in the same way. It created so much hatred and division. It has not brought harmony, peace and love. It has not brought what they all talk about…Look at what they do! Thus, my dear, I know you’re Professor of Religions: see what you can do to it!
And consider what the Jewish god did with the poor Jewish people afterwards! Is this a way of showing your favor to your own people? I think you would be much better off without him! What religions get tangled up in is regularly the following belief: “I have the real God, their god(s) is(are) false!” It is all so childish, and also so painful! It creates so much grief, so much suffering, and it doesn’t really help anyone. Indeed, no one listens to the other side, each one remaining so entangled in their own extremely narrow point of view. “We are right, we are the Chosen People, we can do what we want with the other people because they are not the Chosen People!” What kind of attitude of mind is that? Who still wants this kind of religion? Many people don’t want it anymore, and I don’t want it either!
Lwiis : Does not Buddhist dharma authorize war, as they do in the Bhagavad-Gita and Mahabharata ?
TP: Not at all! And look at what happened by the end of the day in the Bhagavad-Gita: both sides were killed off, what was the use of that! All these poor women left without a husband, a father, a son…For what purpose? It was just a stupid war, with two families fighting each other! Is that an example of how we should act? Personally, I think it was a very sad case.
Lwiis : However, at the time of the Buddha, there was so many wars waged by these kings which were connected with the Buddha!
TP: This was because they were kings and politicians! Like politicians who say they are Christians, but what they do has actually nothing to do with what Christ said very clearly “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Forgive your enemies” …But who listens? And yet, they think that they are very devoted Christians. So, in Buddhist countries also, people have faith in the Buddha, but at the same time, they have more faith in wealth, power, exploiting the neighboring country and cutting off their goods and bringing them into their own country.
That’s because they are human, it’s their human side, not their Buddhist one…Greed, jealousy, envy, competition, that’s all these pollutions of the mind which overwhelm them. Human nature is human nature. This is to say, even if there is a very good, ethical conduct put in very simple language that everyone can understand, it doesn’t mean that anybody has got to follow it. It’s always advised to be good, but how many people manage that much?
Lwiis: In your book ‘Daily life as a meditative practice’ you say (p80): “We cannot change the world, but we can transform our mind”. How can we put this advice or rather this formula into practice especially in this period of war?
TP: Actually, we cannot change others, but we can change ourselves; that is possible, definitely! For example, whatever happens during the day, whatever situation arises, we can observe our response, our reaction. And if the response is negative, if we are angry, upset, paranoid, and we recognize this is a very negative state of mind…right there! We can recognize how we feel: sometimes, my computer does very funny things and I get very annoyed by it! But, at least, I recognize what is coming up, anger frustration, and I accept it. Then, we make the determination to replace this negative state of mind by a positive one. We are in charge, we are not just the slave of our thoughts and feelings. We become slowly, gradually the master. We can transform anger through forbearance and tolerance, fear by recognizing it mainly represents the anticipation of an unknown future event. It’s not an actuality. Most of our fears and paranoia is not what is happening right now. It’s anxiety about what could happen in the future, but it hasn’t happened. Right now, we are here. So, we “plug in” into this anger and paranoia and negativity, because of the media. The media is always emphasizing negativity, telling us: “Oh, maybe tomorrow, this will be going to be happening! Maybe tomorrow, there will be a new Covid outbreak, maybe tomorrow there will be a complete economic breakdown, but it hasn’t happened yet, and they don’t know, they just want to sell their newspapers and their television programs…
On the other side, there is so much goodness in the world, right now, there is so much beauty in the world. There are so many people doing so many beautiful things, with a totally selfless heart, full of understanding, which nobody reports on, nobody cares: “This is no news”, they say… “Only bad news is news”! So, we should recognize this, and we shouldn’t be drawn in that darkness and negativity. It does not help anyone. It does not help us, and it increases the negative energy in the world, which is already so vast. We should do the opposite. We should do real meditation on love and compassion, send light to the world. We should really imagine the world surrounded by light, love and peace, and really wish it, for all beings, not only our side. Of course, we do it for people we love and care for, but also for everyone, because everyone has family and others he loves and cares for. We should wish them all genuinely well. This time is the opportunity to practice all these qualities of the heart, especially patience, compassion, empathy and so forth. Not to go into despair, despair does not help anybody. [With fire in the eyes] So, we can change also, we have the choice!
What is important is not our outer situation, but our inner response. Moreover, we can practice tonglen, breathing in darkness and sending out the light. There are also these kinds of things we can do.
Lwiis : Do you mean that, by doing meditation, we can help the world having more peace during this period of war?
TP: Of course, because we send out positive vibrations, while the world is trapped into negative ones. These do not help anybody. What we need is positive thinking. That’s why, in all religions, hopefully, they do pray, and why, hopefully, they don’t pray that only their side would be successful. They pray that there should be more light and peace in the world. If we can do that, then, psychically, we send goodness throughout the world, instead of all the paranoia and hatred which is churned up by the military. They and the government want the people to be paranoid, because when you are paranoid, then you are very malleable. They will come along and say: “Well, we’ll make this or that rule, so that we have more control and that we will help you and protect you”. And people give over their freedom to those politicians, because they are afraid. So, it’s all a conspiracy, in this sense that the governments all over the world are seeing to it and encouraging it. Moreover, they make people do things which normally, nobody would want to do. It’s not something new, but now, because the media come right into your living room, it is more intense. These negative messages are sent out continuously to make people anxious, paranoid and angry. It’s right there in your face and people are listening to it, being very afraid. It soaks into people mentality, and this is what we must resist, by sending positive thinking instead of all this negativity.
Lwiis: So, do you advice not to listen to news and mass media?
TP: I think that people should listen to them a minimum and not to be glued to their television watching a blow by blow account of what is happening in the war, which is again just propaganda. We don’t have to sit there looking and bringing in all this negativity. We know what happen in the war. Better to sit sending out love.
Lwiis: most of the selected new are bad news…
TP: Of course. Our mind is the most precious thing we have, our “heart-mind”. Why are we constantly filling it full of poison? Why do we have to go for this fear and paranoia and anxiety? Why are we doing this to ourselves? This is where we live, inside our heart-mind. What kind of environment are we creating, which we live on? No wonder that we are stressed.
Lwiis: You say in this book (p81): “We can consider the people who annoy us and cause us a lot of troubles are our best friends. It is these people who help us learn to transform ourselves. Is this the true meaning of Christ’s famous formula: “Love your enemies”?
TP: It’s easy to love the dear ones around us, everybody do that, but the challenge is to recognize the inner goodness in everyone and give them loving compassion. “All living beings” also means the animals, those living in the water and the birds, etc. All beings want to be happy and not to suffer. So, we give affection to all beings. Then, in addition, we can learn patience and forbearance, this is a very important spiritual quality. As Jesus said: “Lord, forgive them because they don’t know what they do”. That quality of forbearance, we can only cultivate and develop it if people annoy us! Unless people give us trouble, we cannot develop these very special qualities. This is a very good opportunity and in this way, they are our best spiritual friends, because they help us to practice the path, that’s what it means.
Lwiis: You say (p87): “One of the facets of Buddhism that distinguishes it from other religions is that it not only tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, it tells us how to do so.
In this case, can Buddhism be the practical aspect of other religions, which helps their believers to achieve their spiritual and religious ideals without converting them? And can we subsequently dissociate Buddhist practices from their dogmatic and theoretical aspects?
TP: Yes, indeed! Certainly, many Christians and Hindus also have learnt the loving-kindness meditation and equally this breathing compassion meditation, breathing in the suffering and breathing out the light to give people healing. To develop love and kindness for all beings does not require any particular tradition. It’s a universal need, whether we believe in a given religion or not. Buddhists have techniques for developing loving kindness, compassion, joy and serenity, for increasing these qualities. They give all kind of methods to develop goodness of the heart. Every human being needs to cultivate these qualities. This is very important. Nowadays, mindfulness, this meditation who explains about how to calm the mind, is taught everywhere. Certainly, in the West, it’s taught in the prisons, in the schools, [with an amused smile] even in the military… and in big organizations like Google. It’s not that they want people to reach liberation. They are trying to lower their stress level. Many people don’t even know that these are traditional Buddhist practices, because they are given in a secular environment. Nonetheless, they help to curb their stress level, to learn how to be more aware, more conscious, more present…It helps to become a better human being, to have a healthy mind, how to have a mind which is clear and a heart which is open. So, this development of loving awareness is useful for everybody. You could say, it’s Buddhism gift to the world. In no way you can say you have to be a Buddhist to practice it. You just say: “These are practices which are used by our lineage, it’s there, try it!” And it will make you a better person, a better Christian, a better Hindu, a better Muslim…
Lwiis: Are all these techniques of loving compassion and mindfulness from Buddhism?
TP: Yes, most of it! This does not mean to say that everyone has to plunge into the many details of the techniques described in the sutras. But just a basic idea of what is behind may be of great benefit for people, just to know of how to be more aware, and at the same time open the heart, feel empathy for everyone who suffers. I don’t want to suffer, you don’t want to suffer, and this includes animals, which also don’t want to suffer. This feeling gets expanded from us to all beings, because we have this in common. We wish that to others, and we arrange for others to actually feel better. The negativities in our mind hurt us as well as the others. They are just like a black cloud which obscures the sun. There are also many methods on how to deal with our anger, greed and jealousy. There are practices which we have to undergo to train the mind.
Lwiis: Do our own negativities hurt us too?
TP: We may feel superficially they are OK, but if we feel angry or greedy or jealous, this is definitely not a happy state of mind. It’s a very disturbed mind. In Sanskrit, it’s called klesha. This means something which hurts you, which afflicts you, like a very hot sun which burns you. So, these negative emotions lead us to a state of unrest.
Lwiis: Concerning the purpose of meditation you say (p104): “The essential purpose of meditation is to create an awareness and knowledge of self that enables us to break our habits and respond to situations with greater openness”
How do we break habits that are so deeply rooted in ourselves and perhaps since birth? And how long can it possibly take?
TP: Of course, we are deeply habituated, since childhood, and from Buddhist perspective, since past lives also. Certain habits are deeply ingrained in us, no doubt. However, according to neurosciences, our neural pathways are still plastic, they can be changed and reworked. We can see these habits as going always down this super-highway – if we see something we like, we always want it, if there is something which annoys us, we are very angry – we understand it is instinctual. Still, all this greed and anger does not bring us contentment, we do not want that anymore. We want to be more patient and calm, we want to be more content, appreciative and not endlessly greedy. Then, we can decide: “OK, I am going to go on a different road, on a new track”. At first, when we go on the new road, because it has not been used before – we try to be patient in the face of annoying things instead of being angry and irritated –it seems completely new at first. Then, it becomes familiar and in a while, we create a path. Moreover, because we don’t go on the highway, the grass starts growing up on it and it becomes disused. We ourselves must have the determination, and it can be done.
In this sense, they did this experiment with a group of ordinary people they just got on the street. They showed them video clips of very disturbing things. Neuroscientists were tracking their reactions with brain imagery and they saw that, immediately, these parts of the brain which were concerned with anger, fear and these very negative energies were shining bright while they were very upset, aroused and angry. Then, they started teaching these people loving kindness meditation. They began practicing it every day, not for protracted duration because they were ordinary people and they could not meditate for that long. You start sending love to yourself, then to people you like, then to neutral people, and finally to the whole world. Then, after a few weeks only, they tested them again, showing them clips of things which would make you upset and angry. To their astonishment, these parts of the brain concerned with anger, etc. did not shone, and those concerned with love and compassion shone brightly. So, in just a short time, their neural pathways had completely changed. The whole habit of being upset by something which makes you angry had transformed. Still, they were just ordinary people.
Another example, about which we were talking here just yesterday. Some people said they had a big issue with anger, they got very angry very quickly. So, they went again for a retreat on loving kindness. At the end of the retreat, they went out saying: “Oh, it’s mere words, what a total waste of time it was!”. They went out of the retreat and reached a car park. Just when they were about to park, another car came in and took their place. Their immediate response was: “Oh! May you be well and happy!” And they couldn’t believe it! How could it be? They should have been blowing their horn, screaming and shouting! Their first response was to be happy that this other person had got a good parking spot, and they rejoiced in it. So, the point is: “Yes, we can change!” Of course, we can do it! The Buddha himself said: “You can change! If you couldn’t change, I wouldn’t ask you to change! Since we can, I ask you, please change!” Of course, it takes time. If you want to play an instrument, it takes time! If you want to play golf, you cannot send all the balls in the good holes right away. It requires practice. For anybody, anywhere, you have to do it again and again and again until finally, it becomes instinctive.
There was a monk in our monastery who was so ‘loving’! Everybody adored him, and he was schoolmaster for the children, the little monks. They all loved him, hugged him often, its eyes just beaming love. Then, somebody told me that in Tibet, when he was a young monk, he was so angry and vicious and difficult that they said to him: “Either you leave the monastery, or you go into retreat and learn to be a yogi!. He went into retreat and because he had to work so hard on transforming his anger into love, he became more loving than an average person who does not need to work that much this feeling. So, he became just radiating with love: he transformed! Of course, we can transform, but it takes work, like any skill. Even Mozart could not just sit there and play piano right away. He had to learn. He had teachers. So, if we are determined to change, if we see the negative results of having all these poisons in the mind, we can do it. We have really to want it and how many times we fall down, we just pick ourselves up again and we don’t give up, like a little child learning how to walk. They walk one step, two steps and fall down. Then, they pull themselves up, and again… They never think: “I cannot walk, I will never walk! I am a baby, I can only crawl, and crawling is my very nature! I was born crawling and it is how it is going to be so forever!” They do not think like that. They look at other people who can walk and they say: “They can do, so I can do!” Thus, when we look at people who have a really good nature, a good heart, we can take in their good heart. “My heart is naturally good! It is just that I cannot see it because it’s naturally covered over; but it’s there, waiting to be discovered. I can do. If others can do it, I can do it!”
Lwiis: In the same context you say (p135): “Shamata is nothing else than that: to accomplish everything we do with all our mind, not by thinking about something else, but by being completely here”
-But therein lies the great problem: keeping the attention here and now! So how do we achieve this? For example, do we have to give up our desires to achieve this, as we are always thinking about our desires?
TP: Learning to be attentive and mindful is just a matter of bringing the mind in the present moment. Take for instance a simple action like cleaning the teeth, or shaving, or drinking tea. We relax the mind and give attention to the action but without thinking about the action: “Now, I am drinking a cup of tea”, but just knowing that we are drinking a cup of tea, without judging this action. Just drink tea for drinking tea, without planning at the same time: “Oh! I am drinking tea, what next should I do?” Even when you have a delicious meal, the first mouthfuls make us say: “Waw, this is really nice!” but a few seconds later, we are talking or speaking about something else, and then, the plate is empty. We haven’t even enjoyed something pleasurable. What to speak of something which is not? When the mind is distracted – what it is mostly – then, the distractions, the desires and aversions arise. “I want this, I don’t want this!” Still, if you are completely present and aware, even if things come up, even desires and aversion, we do not follow it. We can let it go. Then, the mind is very open, free and present. So, that what it is about. Shamatha is to develop the ability to stay attentive to what is happening in the moment, instead of being caught up in the past, in the future, running around in the present, judging, always chattering to ourselves. So, we miss so much, because we do not pay attention.
Lwiis: We are all day chattering with ourselves! Thoughts are always there.
TP: We must learn how to make the mind more quiet, more clear, more focused. It is not that we do not think, but we think in a much more orderly manner, not just erring in the past and the future endlessly, with blablabla…like having a television in the head, on which we have no control over what kind of program they are going to show on it. So, we have this internal television. Why are we the slaves to our mind and not the masters of it? And some part of meditation, not all of it, is to develop control of the mind, seeing the thoughts which are negative and then being able to change them into something positive.
Lwiis: Always concerning meditation you say (p165): “Meditation is hard work, but it is also the most gratifying act we can accomplish”.
-We have all experienced this hard work, so when do we start to experience meditation as the most rewarding act?
TP: [Laughing]: It’s like playing the piano, at the beginning, it’s all hard work, with the scales, etc. and totally unrewarding. But if you keep playing, practicing again and again, suddenly, it becomes spontaneous, and you actually make a jewel of your play. When you become the master of your instrument, this is a great joy to play. So, it is the same if you are learning to play a sport, yoga or any kind of exercise. Any skill we are trying to learn is in the beginning a lot of tedium, is a struggle. But, as we say, “practice makes perfect”. Gradually, from time to time, the practice begins becoming more effortless, and natural, even for a short time. Then, the ego takes over again. But as the Dalai-lama always says, “never give up!” That’s the point. We had entire lifetimes into distraction, so of course there is going to be resistance at the beginning, of courses this is going to be difficult, but do not give up! If you are learning meditation, do not keep it too long. Keep the sessions shorter at the beginning, so that the mind does not get tired, then suddenly, for a short time, you feel: “Oh! Yes! It is all coming together!” and then, it falls apart again, but yes, we keep on working on it, like any skill.
I do not know why we think that playing a musical instrument – which is mostly moving the fingers – is so difficult, while learning to be the “player of the mind” should not be difficult: indeed, mind is million times subtler than just the fingers. Still, it is the most worthwhile thing we could do because we will put order in our mind, and the mind is where we live. A tamed and happy mind is the most precious thing we could give to ourselves and to others, because we are much easier to live with. The world is in a mess because it is controlled by people without a controlled mind: look at all the politicians, their mind is totally out of control, they are dominated by their greed, their desires for egoic promotion, their anger, all the jealousy and others’ competition, desire for control of power, all these negative emotions are in control of their mind, and they are controlling the planet! That’s why we are in a mess. We do not have these wise statesmen, we are run by a band of idiots, and we allow them to power.
Lwiis: So, this war is due to these minds of politicians?
TP: Of course! They want power, they want control, they want that other believe they are the great dictators, they gather with them people who have this kind of mind frame and they control everything. You can see it all the time. Are they wise, are they compassionate, are they good people, are they helping anybody? No, they are promoting themselves, their ego is vast. So, that is an example of what not to do. If we learn how to deal with our mind and have a well tamed mind, it will be nice. The Buddha says: “Let’s tame one’s mind. A well tamed mind brings happiness!” Happiness to oneself, happiness to others. Those politicians do not bring happiness to anybody. Where is the happiness in all this?
Lwiis: Concerning anger you say (p163): “Drop the object of your anger and look at the anger itself. Where is it? How does it feel? Just be with what you feel. Don’t judge anything.
-Do you mean how we feel anger in our body? And what exactly is being non-judgmental?
TP: You can look into the body if you are getting very angry, the muscles become very tense, you can feel a tightness in some places, and how looking into our mind, our heart, how does it feel, with this anger, where is it and how we feel it? To be not judgmental means not wishing at this moment that it should go away. Not criticizing oneself, thinking: “Oh! I am a bad person because I am feeling anger!” or “I am right, I should feel anger about what somebody else says!” So, we are constantly scratching the sore, the wound, endlessly taking again in our mind our resentment, our justifications: it bleeds more! Instead of that, we just observe the feeling as it arises, anger or whatever other feeling we have, and we look at it with the eyes of compassion. We bring to the darkness of our anger the light of our compassion, of our awareness. We do not suppress it, but we allow it to calm, we observe it, we listen to it. Why the anger is there? What is it saying to us? With kind eyes. There is no point in being angry with the anger.
On the contrary, we bring it into the light of our consciousness. If we do so, being really aware of these feelings, of themselves they finish by dissolve. It is not a matter of suppressing the feeling, or denying it, or feeding it, pouring more oil onto the fire, but seeing it nakedly, just bringing it up, looking straight at it. That in itself can transform it, without the need to do anything else. Not being carried away, and at the same times not pushing it away pretending it is not there because “spiritual people do not feel like that”. We should be open and accept it, but at the same time looking straight at it and listen to what it is telling us. We love it, because all these depths of the mind need our love. Love does not mean that we condone it, but it means that we understand where it comes from, and we allow it to come up, so that it can dissolve into a deeper level of awareness and wisdom.
Lwiis: Concerning thoughts and emotions you say (p164): “When an emotion or a thought arise we immediately jump on it. We worry about it. We don’t let it go. This mechanism has become so natural that it feels almost impossible to get out of it.
-So, is it possible to end this continual identification with thoughts and emotions? And how?
TP: The point is that we need really to look at the mind. Right? Normally, when we are thinking or feeling, we are swept along, the traditional example is the river. We are completely immersed in the river of our thoughts and feelings, and we are swept along by that. What we need to do is to just stay on the bank and observe the river going by. We are not trying to dam the river, to stop the thoughts or feelings, but we are trying to know them. In that way, we lose our identifications with them. Otherwise, we feel: “These are my thoughts, and my thoughts and memories are true” … and that is why people go to war! “The beliefs I have must be true, because it is what I believe!”. Still, our belief is just a thought. We begin to recognize that they are just mental impulses, they are not real, they are just streaming by. That gives us a great relief because, yes, we have thoughts, but we are not the thoughts. If we were the thoughts, we would not be able to observe them, but actually, we can observe them by stepping back. Then, we begin to become free from our thoughts. We are not immersed in them anymore, we are not suffocating in them, because we are just seeing them as thoughts. “That is a useful thought, that is a stupid thought, but it is just a thought”. They are like bubbles. They are very bright and shining, but when you go “click”, piercing them, they are empty! They are not solid, they are not real. [Snapping the fingers] They are just mental impulses going by.
Lwiis : What is the cause of this identification to thoughts? Is it habit, or ego?
TP: In fact, the ego is just a habit! It is just a conglomeration of thought moments which stick together and like to think they are self-existing and real, and self-existing and solid, the center, which is there, controlling everything. Still, when we really look into it, we cannot really find that. It is not there. It is just an illusion that our mental capacity has created for us. As we said, we identify because we are unable to step back and observe the thoughts as thoughts. And this is all what meditation is about. The first part of meditation is just to make the mind workable. We learn how to make it more aware, mindful, how to make it quieter, how to be able to hold our attention, but that is a preparation to be able to work on what is the mind, which is where we live. What is our thought, where does it come from, where does it goes to, who is thinking? We never ask this, we are just thinking, thinking, thinking and we never question any of that. So, meditation is really looking into the mind itself, what is verily consciousness.
Lwiis: In speaking of fear you say (p171): “It is quite common to be afraid when we meditate. The ego is afraid that its games will be discovered and it panics”.
What are these games of the ego you are talking about? Is our ego therefore an entity that plays against ourselves!?
TP: As I said, the ego is just a collection of mind movements which cluster to form something which seems to be like an entity, until it is investigated by our own consciousness. Then, we investigate onto this ego, this “I”, which is like a spider in the center of its web. We look at it. It pretends to be a separate, unchanging entity, unique, constituting a unique self, that is “me”. Still, when we enter deeply into meditation, we find out that this self cannot be found, however much we search. So, in order not to discover that the ego is in fact a fabrication of our consciousness, fear arises. This very ego is afraid that the whole thing is going to dissolve. So, one of the barriers that our mind sets up very interestingly, is this sense of fear. When people start to meditate, this sense of fear comes up, and they do not even know what they are afraid of, but because of it, they do not want to go any further and so, [with a smile], they become afraid of the fear! Still, we do not need this fear, we should look at it, face it, and then it dissolves. You know, the whole problem is that we are caught in the grip of something which has never existed from the beginning, but we do not look, we do not observe, we do not search. We are just caught up at the surface of the ocean, with the waves going up and down, sometime feeling happy, sometimes miserable, but we do not go deeper and deeper into the ocean, to see what is really there. However, the surface waves could not exist without the ocean supporting them! Moreover, in the ocean, there are a lot of things going on. You can get nice dolphins, beautiful golden fishes and all kind of nice things, but you also get sharks and killer whales; that is which brings up fear in the psyche, all this stuff which is down there and which has never been brought up at the surface.
Still, even the sharks can be friends. Recently, we saw this video of that women living with the sharks. I think this is very important in order to understand how to deal with all these frightening things inside. She goes into the ocean and she meets all these sharks with long teeth. The video clip shows us that she puts the whole arm into the mouth of a shark to take out the hook which has been caught in its gut because of fishermen. The shark swims away but the hook is still within him, he cannot get rid of it. She goes inside and manipulates it, with her arm right in the mouth of the animal, while all around them, there are other sharks who are also waiting for her to help them. So, what most people think would be the most awful thing to happen – to be surrounded by sharks with one’s arm into the mouth of one of them – is actually an act of tremendous compassion, and the sharks will never harm her, because they know she has great benevolence for them and wants to help them. This is also like the darkness inside our consciousness. If we bring it out and show it compassion, it will transform into the greatest aid. There is nothing to fear. Compassion conquers everything. That’s a good way to finish. Compassion conquers everything! (Laughing).
Lwiis: For the first time, we have just finished our series of questions, and moreover on time, 1h50. Do you have a last word to say before leaving us, Jetsunma, especially during this period of war when, in Europe in particular, people have a lot of fear!
TP: As I said, there is already so much psychic pollution in the world! We talk about physical pollution, and that is there, but worst of this physical pollution is the psychic one, that of our thoughts, of our anger, of our paranoia, of our fears, of all these negativities which have been sent out into the universe. If we could just see those, we could realize how dark is the surrounding of the planet, and not plug into that negative energy. Please, don’t plug into that negative energy! Send out towards the world the counterforce, that of love and compassion! Light will always overcome darkness. However as long as the darkness will be there, you just turn on the light and the darkness will disappear. This we have to accentuate: the “lightness” of good thought which will counteract all this darkness, which is surrounding us on this planet at this time. We should send light energy. Prayer is really powerful, and we should believe in it. I don’t say it will stop the war, but it will help to lighten this cloud of darkness which is surrounding our world at that time. We must give it importance and believe into goodness.