Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful and some good friends enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy them and find them useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet house us to help preserve Tibetan culture. If that house is the control center in America, all best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 1 00:00:48 This is episode 260, the yoga of ordinary living
Speaker 2 00:01:13 To say that an ordinary person can equal a Buddha in their enlightenment is something very socking and startling within the Buddhist culture. Theme of security is in the other chapters of immune security where, um, uh, he rejects for example, Shariputra he rejects the Mogollon. He rejects many of the great disciples of the Buddha, both lay and monastic disciples. This again in the, in the west is hard to understand for us. It's hard to understand the impact of that. We have to realize this is like, these people are like St. Paul or St. Peter. They're like the angel Gabriel. They're like, they are really extraordinary persons within that culture to have somebody kind of rejecting them, criticizing them, like exposing their imperfections and moving them yet. Step further is an unbelievable thing. I mean, it's incredible. It's not just like another person, something that it was, these persons are, are enlightened.
Speaker 2 00:02:09 Actually it says that their alignment is to partial. He finds it in some respect as we will see. So in any case to have the character being such a being, it'd be, I mean, you know, let's say it let's, we can see it being who can pick up a universe in his hand and put it over some other place, take a whole galaxy and pick it in his hand type of thing. I mean, it's this kind of extravagant image is completely inconceivable. And yet this guy is totally ordinary. He lives in town. He goes around, he's a, he is an ordinary person. So this is why I've even looked here to you. In addition, is, is known for that is the first thing he's known for his ordinariness. He's known for being a symbol. Therefore that one can remain a part of ordinary society. And nevertheless, the perfectly enlightenment, which itself has already some of very challenging idea in regard to itself.
Speaker 2 00:03:02 The second thing that he's particularly known for is his silence. He there's a famous context. We will come to it in the text where he maintains a certain kind of silence. He doesn't speak in a, in a specific context. Interestingly, within the scripture, there are other silences that are not held up as anything. Marvelous. In fact, there's one monk who remained silent at one point when being questioned by a visiting goddess and she just gives him hell silent. She considers it a pump, a silence, a potential silence. There's not silence the silence, but yeah, visual acuity maintains a certain silence and that is called lion's roar of the <inaudible> silence. It's a very profound silence. So that's the second thing he's famous for, which is in a way it's all that relates to what is known as the teaching of non-duality teaching of the nature of ultimate reality.
Speaker 2 00:03:54 And that's the second thing which is known. And the third thing for which he's very famous for is his teaching of what is known as the reconciliation of dichotomies. Well, it's one way of putting it another way. Well, no, save that, save that, make that the fourth thing, the third thing we'll call it. The inconceivable liberation teaching of inconceivable liberation, the teaching of the inconceivable liberation is, uh, this kind of miraculous kind of teaching. Again, I'll come through and just giving you a kind of a head of time, a summary a little bit it's uh, he says that the inconceivable liberation is to understand like how each Adam contains a universe. At least if not many universities, it's this kind of macro micro inconceivability type of idea that, uh, that is talked about it's the inconceivable liberation. And for that <inaudible> is also famous for final thing is the one that comes back to the title of, uh, of our weekend, which is the yoga of ordinary living, even a certain sentence and yoga, you know, yoga of ordinary living the yoga of, uh, uh, recognizing the meditative component of just ordinary life.
Speaker 2 00:05:09 Uh, this one is what is known as the reconciliation of dichotomies yamaka Viet test. Yeah, a hard-on Sanskrit, nevermind the spelling yamaka test Yahara. It's a very interesting concept in sound script. Uh, there's some notes in my book on that, but my translation on that, but it's a very funny thing because it's a, it's a rhetorical, uh, device in Indian rhetoric. It is a poetical device. It is a, it is the pairing of contrasting couplets, the pairing of opposites or paradox. It could be called paradox, the reconciliation of paradox in a certain sense. But I didn't like to use the word paradox because these are dichotomies that are total contradictions and yet are reconciled. They're not just left hanging. We have a connotation with the notion of paradox, that it's sort of something that you, you, from, which you draw, the conclusion that logic is useless or something, and you just sort of forget about it.
Speaker 2 00:06:06 You just do, you go sideways, you leave it alone. But this kind of reconciliation of dichotomy as is the use of paradox and Buddhism is not like that. You, Hey, I know, uh, you, uh, uh, you can sit up or down, know you, uh, uh, you do not, uh, reconcile dichotomy is, uh, if you sit down, you need a cushion. Somebody, we have an extreme, right, I'm sure you will need one. So, uh, reconciliation is economist. You do not leave the paradox unresolved. The paradox has have to be resolved. In other words, one has to find how they can actually, uh, be settled in a certain way by conciliate reconciled in his sentence, resolve maybe is not the right word. It's too strong, but reconcile is the right word. And this says, this, this, this implies and understanding of enlightenment of what does mean in relation to reason that is unusual perhaps in surprising to some of us. And we will have some dialogues also and discuss some of your other ideas about it. Many people have the idea that that reason is useless and you have to throw away your reason and logic and this net, and this is not Vimalakirti's idea. This is not my idea. We'll have some good debates if you have to have that idea, which a lot of people do tend to have.
Speaker 2 00:07:23 And, uh, so his reconciliation of dichotomies is again like it is like being an ordinary life, being fully engaged, fully busy, fully responsible, fully involved, and yet totally on the path of enlightenment, totally inquest of enlightenment. And this again, river, not just enlightenment envisioned as some sort of a understanding, but enlightenment envisioned as a total evolutionary fulfillment. Yeah. Of mind of understanding and of body and feeling, you know, the achievement of a certain different kind of body, even as, as they say in Zen, you know, the Dogan says, for example, in Zim, they say achieve enlightenment with your body and mind, but what does he mean by achievement with your body? This is an interesting question in Latin with the body, at least in the Maya mainstream tradition. And I will argue, I would argue in regard to Zan also, cause female security is a kind of source of Zim.
Speaker 2 00:08:21 That's a enlightenment with the body means where every one of your cells is enlightened, but not just by some saying, oh, my cells are enlightened, but you yourself are aware of yourself as being enlightened. That means that means your cells have become compassion vessels. That is your own DNA. In some sense, you are responsible for your own DNA. That means that means your DNA is manifesting enlightenment forms and embodiment consciously. That means you, you have what they call the tantra. You have achieved the subtle, that intent that can identify with one's own cells, one's own DNA. That's what it lightened with the body means. If you think about it, the ability to use the body as a vehicle of compassion, the Vimala care team is a source therefore of the general Mahayana and is considered a member of the <inaudible> Paramita or transcendent wisdom collection. The project.
Speaker 2 00:09:24 Yeah. Paramita PRA J N a president Pata, meta, as it sounds P R M I T a, it means transcendent wisdom or what the Westerners, what comes to call perfection of wisdom, which I don't like perfection, but transcendence with them I think is better. And it is the, uh, profound teaching of emptiness. And it is the sort of the fundamental scripture of the university, the vehicle, the Mahayana Buddhism. And there's a large number of scriptures. There's 17 main president, primary descriptions, but people look at is considered a source in a sense of that female character. He is considered a source of the pure land scriptures and that Vblock look here decentrally deals with the issue of faith in Buddhism, with the notion of these pure lands or Buddhist heavens you know, the realms of any turbine and other people. So if people look at you also is considered to be a source in the pure land school of Buddhism Vimalakirti is considered to be a source in the Lotus Sutra schools of Buddhism low-dose empire, Nirvana schools of Buddhism, which were very important ones in Japan and China and in India before that.
Speaker 2 00:10:24 But we know more about the formulation as schools in Japan and China in that they were, uh, in those schools, uh, the load of suture was at the center and therefore a certain vision of Buddha as the, as paradoxically sort of beyond the oil problems and sort of perfected universe kind of vision, which we will talk about when we come to that sort of, that this world is actually a perfect world. And it's sort of like, <inaudible>, you know, the best of all possible worlds, a certain notion about this as the best of all possible worlds is what those schools are involved with. Although it's not as simplistic, of course, as Convene's notion was, although it's very in the same area, uh, Vimalakirti is also considered a source of what is known as the inconceivable liberation type of sutras. That is to say the Garland suitors, the, uh, what is known as the flower ornament nowadays in English to trap.
Speaker 2 00:11:15 And each of these, and I say suture, I mean a vast body of literature like Avast, new Testament or old Testament, a whole Bible in itself, or a number of Bibles in each of these collections of scriptures are some of them have 52 scriptures included within the one scripture like the Garland scripture does the rattler Kuta, Juul heap scripture, which is also the class of the <inaudible> is a kind of source for, so the people acuity belongs to all of the major fields of the Buddhist scriptures. And now if we go beyond the Buddhist scriptures and the major schools that were founded on Buddhist scriptures, we take Zen. You will immediately see when we come to Vimalakirti in his room, receiving thousands of people in his small room, which is small empty room, which has no furniture in it, in which thousands and hundreds of thousands of people enter.
Speaker 2 00:11:58 And then they bring in things that are 30,000 miles big and stuff. Well, come into this little room, you know, we have the model of what is known as the 10 foot square room of the day and master in the Zen tradition. I don't know if you let, some of you may know something about docus on what they call our sons and masters room. It's this small empty space. And in some sense, the disciple misses and master con has a confrontation with ultimate reality, in a sense with the Buddha, with all the Buddhas rolled into the ones, then master and a certain way, if you understand this and that way you can see understands it. And that way it's therefore a major source for Zen school, which was a school that existed in India as the pseudo school or tantric school. And then in China as the Zen school, a child school, and then Zen school in Japan.
Speaker 2 00:12:42 And that school of course was called the scripture, this school, the wordless schools, the school without, whereas the female character and his silence and so forth is a major source for that school in Asia station, all as Ms was referred to it, the whole Zen literature or the literature of know literature, you know, since you're not supposed to have them, but actually they have a vast, enormous literature. This literature of no literature is full of them. Like your tea is completely involved with that as well. And finally, which is very little known and some people I've mentioned this in my introduction, which I wrote many years ago on this translation brief, tiny, brief introduction <inaudible> is actually an edit what's it called a sedan. I sit down agree to add that. And in the especially Nima lineages of, uh, but also a certain yeah, well, lineage is common to all the orders, but particularly NEMA of particularly the bullets of the day are too high agree.
Speaker 2 00:13:32 VA, if just, you know, it may not mean anything to you, but it may, I agree VA, which is the horse headed. Avalokiteshvara the terrific or fierce form of Avalokiteshvara therefore of course connected with the Nemus because pardon, my son, Bubba is a name of high agree on Pema Saba. It was a kind of fierce form of Avalokiteshvara the incarnation of high aggrieved he was considered to be. And this high agreement, who is the boat itself high Avalokiteshvara the bodhisattva of great compassion, higher grievance is, uh, is, uh, what is that for? Great compassion in his form where he doesn't look very compassionate. He's all red in the face. In fact, his whole body is red and he's going, I like that. Sometimes he has many arms and wings. Sometimes you're in his two arms and, uh, he has this horse's head on top of his head.
Speaker 2 00:14:16 And, uh, he is kind of compassionate and it's terrific adamantine form where it is confronting evil and over overwhelming evil with the force of compassion in a way. And yet, without becoming evil, it's still being compassionate. Now this a high, a griever practice or the lineage of the transmission of the teaching of high agree law in its prayers. What do you know? But <inaudible> is there, he is one of the original adepts like who had this lineage from check-in when he bought us time. In other words, according to the, uh, that tradition in the sense that these tantric lineages were existing, even then in fifth century BC, this goes of course, contrary to Western history of Buddhism notions, where they think the Tundra, when it came up 500 Ady earliest, but according to Buddhist notions, it did exist always. And in the Buddha's time, these laypersons likely my security were the ones who kept these esoteric teachings.
Speaker 2 00:15:08 We can see that when we look at the scripture, there are certain reference to this and there are philosophical. And his notion of reconciliation of dichotomies in fact, is a kind of tantric teaching actually. And we'll come to that. Why that is so therefore in the scripture, this tiny little scripture, which therefore one is suspects. And so scholars, many scholars have thought of it as an anthology. And if one wants to be a modern deemed mythologized, secularized, westerner, modern materialist, modern person, and not a superstitious old fashioned primitive minded person that sees itself as an angels flying in and out of the closets, if one wants to be a modern person, then one can see this scripture as, as an anthology. It brilliantly designed anthology around the beginning of the Maya at a time around the time of Christ that contains all the threads of the Buddha Dharma.
Speaker 2 00:15:56 So that if one can understand the scripture, then one has sort of a good sense of actually every aspect of Buddhism is contained within it. And of course the nice part for a modern secular persons who live in the world is that it brings it into focus in the context of ordinary life. Again, that is why, then I can say I called this weekend, the yoga of ordinary living my own history with this, just as a personal note, is that, uh, Tibetans now Tibetans never in spite of the fact that they think of Vimalakirti as this great adept patriarch. And they prayed to him all the time, in spite of the fact that they consider certain major statements of the people of Cuba that are quoted in certain treatises, that they read a lot, that they pay a lot of attention to, especially by Shanti Deva the shisha so much I and others.
Speaker 2 00:16:46 Um, yeah, famous quotes from people like you that they therefore know as quotes like four lines, small verses that are sort of famous. That most of it is know by heart. It's about right. Perfect. No Tibetan to my knowledge has ever read the theme. Like you're the last one I know of who read the PMO kids description 18th century, his name was rollway door Jame. And he only read it because he was considered the reincarnation of him like T excellent. Probably, or maybe because he read it, his disciple considers him an incarnation, or maybe he read it because he lived in China and he was involved in trying to dialogue with Chinese Buddhism. So he knew some of their sources. He spoke Chinese and he translated to veteran things back and forth into Chinese, uh, and to between Chinese and Tibet. And he was a Mongolian himself from inner Mongolia, although he was a Tibetan incarnation and he was the only, he's the last one I know who refers to female security and describes him, talks about him in Tibet, you know, like, so in such a person, you know, otherwise, no Tibet never knows who you're looking at.
Speaker 2 00:17:44 They never read the scripture. And the only time they ever read the scripture into bed is when somebody is sick or somebody wants to generate some virtue and you hire some monks who come and read the whole Kennan at your house or on the bus portrait, something, you know, you patronize them for a week, a few weeks and they read through it, but then they read it. You know, you don't get to really follow the text cause they read it like <inaudible>, it goes like this. Yeah. Which is considered itself a wonderful thing. Of course, just in itself, the fact that the words, the logos, you know, sort of the, the background radiation of the universe is sort of churning with the language of the mind. Scriptures is itself considered a marvelous thing. And it doesn't matter that nobody listens to it because the micro knots are listening to it.
Speaker 2 00:18:27 You know, beings who are in the universe is in the atoms that are flying around in little ships. You don't read comic books, probably your children are Murali grown up. Okay. So that, with that kind of introduction, then let us look at the scripture itself. And usually often when we teach this, it's good to the people to read it themselves. I apologize. I didn't bring enough copies any copies. I thought I meant to. I apologize. I didn't Xerox the whole thing. We might be able to do that. And it was slowly we can read it. I will just look at some main points in a way about it. Now the Buddhist script, able to scripture itself, really, if a Tibetan saw me putting it on the floor like that, they wouldn't be annoyed. It's considered a very sacred thing. Even in any language or actually anywhere it is considered sacred.
Speaker 2 00:19:12 Do you know, did you ever, did you realize this, do you think Buddhism is into silence and mysticism and words are useless and inadequate? We hear a lot about that. And there are some kinds of teaching in Buddhism that mentioned that here and there in an effort to jolt people out of their usual unthinking use of words. But once that has been said and done word, these are very valued in Buddhist cultures, language, speech, words, they are bubbly, considered important vehicles of liberation. There are the unique and important human capacity. They are what enabled you to become Buddhas? What set us off from the animals, et cetera. They have an unbelievable trip onward as far as respecting them instead of their own Tibetan language, the letters to be the gifts of Manjushri special revelation from under, as you wear the letters, we don't have to go overboard, but I'm saying that's at least a scripture.
Speaker 2 00:20:09 Like the book, like a scripture, something, they keep the hides. It's like actually like an icon like that. And I kind of like that one wouldn't sort of want to sit on it or something. When would feel funny, even if one wasn't a Buddhist or, you know, if it was another religion that wouldn't matter, but an icon is something, although it's just a picture and no Buddhist thing that except some simple, popular level thing that the picture is today, but they know it's a symbol. And yet as, as a symbol, as in a sense of representation, a sort of medium through which the actual deity can become manifest to a person it's a sacred object in that sense, an icon. And that those are kind of sacred. Icon is an icon of the Buddha's body. By the same token, a scripture, I like a Mahayana scripture.
Speaker 2 00:20:55 It's considered an icon of the Buddhist speech just to, and then the icon of what his mind is as a stupa is kind of monuments that you have in Asia. So the body's speech and mind all have different kinds of icons. Okay. Anyway, let's do two begins. I put down here in my translation, reverends to Manju Gosha the ever young crown prince Munjoy gunshot means the gentle voiced one Manju means gentle Losha means sound or voice vowel. It also means gentle vowels or sound speech, speech, gentle speech. You could say, and Monza Gosha is the name of Manjushri, which means gentle glory, which is this, but it's not, who is the bodhisattva of the word? He is the angel in Buddhism, the Archangel that sends a bunch of stuff. It really is a kind of angel. Some of the supernatural ones are anyway. We can also be bonus up as we ordinary people without being archangels.
Speaker 2 00:21:48 So you can have ordinary, but it's sort of what they call beginner. But then you have these bloody who really are practically have sort of Buddhas who after became, Buddhahood make a vow that after Buddhahood, I'm going to continue to be able to stand for type of thing. And they're really like angels. They're sort of like just like archangels. I think you could say. And Manjushri is they Archangel involved with wisdom, with the word with speech? That's his sort of special thing. Yeah. And therefore all translators throughout Buddhist history and those who were seeking to gain truth, sticking the text and working with the texts and seeking their understanding and seeking them, investigating the process of communicating that understanding to others all was considered their Patriot to be Manjushri this bodhisattva Manjushri, uh, he is always symbolized as an ever young crown prince. Why is he called the every young crown prince?
Speaker 2 00:22:41 He is the eternal youth, actually Camada Buddha. You could also simply call it the eternal youth. Manjushri the eternal youth, because this is an important point too. In the Buddhist civilization, wisdoms symbol is not the old gray beard elder patriarch, even though in Indian culture and in Chinese culture, that was of course the symbol of wisdom. As in other cultures, you know, it, wasn't one kind of symbol of wisdom. That's the also co-existed in Buddhism that symbol of wisdom elders are not, not federated, but part of the Buddha's own radical as my son calls it petty radical trip, but I was a real radical. We forget. We see. Cause now he became a founder of religion and he himself sort of therefore is sort of the patriarch of the institution when forgets that he was a total radical to what was to put our left his kingdom.
Speaker 2 00:23:28 He left his father, he broke all the religious precepts of his Vedic culture. He left his wife and child newborn child actually rather mean, his wife said he had a heart of stone, took his wife 35 years to forgive him. Even after he had been a book for 30 years, finally, she decided, well, maybe it was worth it. And after her, their son had become a Saint and perfectly enlightened instead of totally damaged for life type of thing, which she was sure he had been, you know, by the bad father who left him. She finally forgave him. But she, in a way she was right and not wrong to that. She was not that she was worldly. As some, as Buddhist might have said, oh, she couldn't see the Buddha on the contrary. She wasn't correct. She saw the Buddha as being harmful, actually in his radical MIS it was extremely radical.
Speaker 2 00:24:14 He's just shattered. Imagine that leaving your wife and child, like the day after the child is born, what kind of a bum? And in the lives of the Buddha that are a little more literary, uh, his show that his wife really goes wild on it. She says, what does stonehearted monster? And she's holding up the baby. Like this is some fantastic scenes in the various dramatic and literary versions of the Buddha's life, where she really flips out. And then she tried, even when he comes back 20 years later as the, the, you know, there's a big Buddha, you know, coming in with all the disciples and, uh, to his, to his ancestral home, to his own nation, which he doesn't do for, he stays away for about 20 years when it does come home. She, everybody else, you know, it takes his father a little something to come around, but finally, everybody else is very happy with the boat on this respect to him.
Speaker 2 00:25:03 And so, and she won't come see him. Then she sends the son who is 20 some years old by that 25 years old. And she says, go ask your father for your inheritance. He's a penniless, you know, monk. Okay. And she thinks he's going to waste them this way. You know, puncture this sort of guru balloon that he's making dad. And the son says, daddy, Manuel, he's bigger than he says, pop pop. Mom says that. I should ask you for my inheritance. The son may be a little bit getting off on this too. Like, this is the bad father who left the note and the father says, you want, your inheritance says, I says, yeah, that's what you said. I just, that's what I said. Okay. It's achy because it's come here because, you know, come here monk, since come to here, it comes into the shadow of the Buddha of his father.
Speaker 2 00:25:51 When the shadow falls across him, he attends, it might, you know, have a certain type I a certain degree. He attends our headship, seen to it. He's suddenly the world transformed itself for him, you know? And I said, okay. He says, yeah, that's okay. And uh, but his wife goes, darn it. You know, he's not turning, doesn't get to her yet. Finally she does, you know, she becomes a big one in the first picture needs one of the first men nuns and the patriarch of the what'd you call matriarch of the, of the order of nuns. And she becomes a great teacher and so forth ultimately, but it takes her many years to come around. I didn't mean to go into this digression, but it's just that I had a very radical element to, to him. So Manjushri therefore the symbol of wisdom in Buddhism is a 16 year old internal youth.
Speaker 2 00:26:39 Who's a orange colored who looks really sassy, radical, and kind of a little bit aggressive looking. And he holds a sword in one hand, which has a flames at the tip, which radiate all kind of. So sunlight, you know, there are solar flames, which are burning away the darkness of ignorance. And the sword is cutting through the network of delusion, symbol of wisdom. Therefore it's golden sword that he holds, which is the sort of intellect, uh, D it is a sword that emergence from the syllable D which means genius or in tonight. And on his other hand, he holds this Lotus stock, which comes over here. And then there's a load of stair. And then there's a S a book on that shoulder, which, which book is the price of the apartments of the mother of all Buddhas as she is called the book of transcendent wisdom.
Speaker 2 00:27:26 And so he is not an old, you know, like it's not old conventional wisdom. It's not that when inherited wisdom of the tribe, it's not ancestral wisdom. It's a different kind of genius that cuts through all kinds of inherited conventional wisdoms. In fact, is the symbol in Manjushri. Therefore they call him the eternal youth. Wisdom is internal eternal youth. And therefore wisdom is to be found in all sorts of different kinds of onions, expected places, uh, is found actually there's an in an intimation wisdom is found in, in, in all women are wisdom. There's a kind of teaching like that, which freaks out amongst it. We come to it in the Sutra, especially women are more wise. It's, there's a kind of teaching like that in the Mahayana president parliament is a goddess. She is the mother of the Buddhas. Some scholars have thought she connected to the Sophia, you know, the Gnostic goddess, okay.
Speaker 2 00:28:19 Wisdom, Sophia, the Western woman, and the Sophia and prize now are sort of, you know, if not cousins, they are different facets of the same goddess, some have thought. And I think that's probably so, so it is not in other words, the conventional sites, okay. Now we begin to suture. Now in the beginning of all sutras, the Sutra itself begins. The translator may begin with a reverence to Manjushri, but the sutras begin with a reverence to the Buddha, of course, reverends to old Buddhas because audio <inaudible>, Jacob does in the past present and the future. But as of course, you know, what put us are we, we see more and more what Buddhas are thought to be in this tradition, but <inaudible> are those beings who are warriors for enlightenment, who are heroes or heroines seeking enlightenment, satwa means a warrior or a hero or heroine. Bodhi means enlightenment.
Speaker 2 00:29:11 Then note, even though this is a Miami or universal vehicle, or what I call a messianic Buddhist scripture, I call it two kinds of Buddhism, monastic, Buddhism, and messianic Buddhism. Nowadays. I think those are really the best. I've heard some years of talking about it. I think they are the best descriptive terms for them. The Maya Buddhism, universal vehicle, as they call it in their own language. Buddhism is really a messianic vehicle. In other words, the bodhisattva is a Messiah or mesas, which actually is a weird, believe it or not female Messiah, it's miss CIS. Hmm.
Speaker 2 00:29:46 I say yes. And yes, being who resolves to save all the world, save all beings. That is really what a Messiah means. Messiah is actually the metaphor in Hebrew and Greek crystals, which is the same way, comes from political metaphor, of course, of a crown prince who is anointed in the context of the Carnation ceremony and who takes the voucher, be responsible for the whole society as a king. And that's where it comes from the metaphor within both Hebrew and Greek. But in spiritual terms, it means a person who resolves to take a kingly responsibility, not to sort of just big shot idea of kingship, but the responsibility idea of kingship for the whole universe, for all beings. Therefore it is a resolve to be something like a God, almost as far as the responsibility side of being as OD, not just the power side, but the side of having to take care of it.
Speaker 2 00:30:43 So the messianic, although this is a messianic Buddhist text, not at Monash, but it's texts in a sense that the monastic Buddhism, the Teravata or the previous sort of early Buddhism, what you call early Buddhism does not put that kind of pressure on its audience. That is to say the difference between monastic and messianic Buddhism is that in messianic Buddhism, Buddha himself is the Messiah in monastic, Buddhism. I mean, Boda himself is someone who's presented, even in monastic Buddhism as having saved the world as having a teen perfect enlightenment is having the perfect method of how everybody can save themselves from it suffering in a sense he left his kingdom, the Buddha did, but he came back to his kingdom when he left what's his kingdom. This is often misunderstood in the west where you think of what does it mean sort of world and engaging, you know, just, you know, the concentrate on suffering.
Speaker 2 00:31:36 And this is Asian of suffering. People don't even think of the third noble truth, which is the truth of cessation as being the cessation of suffering. They think of it as a decision of life itself. And they think therefore of the goal of Buddhism as being some definitely sort of thing, just to get out of the world, see, whereas actually it means the cessation of suffering. It doesn't mean that sensation of happiness. If there is such a thing as happiness, without suffering, which they say there is. But, uh, the Buddha, when he left his kingdom, in fairness to him, he did tell his father, he said, dad, okay, I will stay and run the kingdom as you wish. And you dad can retire and go to the woods, which is what you want, which is, that's why the father was wanting. You know, he was saying, you want to go out in a tent?
Speaker 2 00:32:18 What a hood. That's great. I appreciate that. He goes, I want to go. A teen father said, and I've been running the kingdom for 30 years now. And you're my son. And you were of age where you should run it. And I should be able to retire and go to the woods and attain enlightenment. No, they didn't. He didn't use the word Buddha at that time. So he was ruining his father's retirement. You see another radical thing. It's not wife and child. And the poor father, wasn't getting to retire because they had to wait for the grand son to grow up. And then only that he comes back and takes the grandson to the monastic order. So he can't be king. He really racks the whole country.
Speaker 2 00:32:53 But he does say in fairness to the two books, he says to the father says, okay, dad, I'll run the country. Now as a king, I'm supposed to be responsible for all the citizens. Yes, son. Well, okay. Now then if I'm going to be responsible for the citizens, I have to, of course protect them against what really bothers them donate. Yes, son, in that case, it seems to me, that's what really bothers the citizens of that of our country are the suffering of birth, suffering of sickness, suffering of old age suffering of death. Now there's something in the kingship manual, dad that you're passing on to me that can enable me to take care of these, the real problems of my citizens. Oh, it's come on. We what's the matter with you, you know, we, we able to talk about taxes, you know, RV, his national defense sickness, all the age of birth of death.
Speaker 2 00:33:41 I mean, we can't deal with this. Well then I'm sorry. I would not be a good protector to my people. I would not be a good king. How am I sit on the throne? And we would want to run, but it wouldn't be any good. Wouldn't be of any help to them. I've got go find out some way of being real king, being a real helper to them. And father was helpful. Speechless, of course. What can you say? So in other words, Buddha was doing this radical thing, like in the name of the ideals, in each case, you know, in other words, to be a real king, you'd have just to be able to really protect people from their real enemies, not the fake enemies, the Russians, or the neighboring kosher lands or the Maga nuns or the different enemies of the shortcuts and what a time. Those are not the real enemies. The real enemies are breath, death sickness, old age.
Speaker 2 00:34:31 So, uh, in any, oh yeah. So therefore the Buddhists coming back and founding the monastic Buddhism, the Buddha was this Messiah who came back as the king of Kings, the person who was a king who could really help his people. And he chose in that context, not to settle back in his old throne, he set up a new throne. His new throne was the throne of a Buddha as a sort of lion throne of this sort of universal, uh, situation with his army being his monastic order in a way his Royal army, his subjects, a new kingdom was the kingdom of the SunGard, the community, which had both monastic and lay people. But the monastic part was an essential core. The son, God, the holy community, the jewel of the community, this new community within a community and new social world within the society that he established. So now in messianic now, but the one thing he doesn't say to any of the people in that community, in the context of monastic, Buddhism or early Buddhism, is he never says to anybody, you have to become a Buddha.
Speaker 2 00:35:36 You have to also me go through this whole evolutionary thing. You have to, he tells all these jackasses also, then once he's there and he tells, how did I get to be a Buddha? Well, I was a king in this life and I was a animal on that life. And I gave my body to the demons in this life and they let the ghouls drink my blood and that life and so forth. And so on. He gives this long story of former lives of all the sacrifices that he did. He shows the whole sort of course of nature as this process of self-transcendence and self sacrifice and love and compassion and how he then developed into this evolutionary form of perfect shows that, but he never or tells anybody, you have to go through that kind of long, difficult, arduous, evolutionary path. He just says, you become, you renounced screed, hatred, and delusion.
Speaker 2 00:36:20 You changed something. You will achieve liberation, Nirvana. Each person is left to think that they, as an individual can somehow save themselves. If they put these methods into practice and indeed they can. And they do like the sun just walks into his shadow by his special karma and just walks into his father's shadow. And he chooses just like a vibration right field of his father, somehow their karma. He remembers what he already knew in his former lives in a certain way. And just bam. And he's so free, free at heart free in spirit seeing through everything. But yeah, he doesn't say, okay, not only wisdom do you have to get, not only freedom of mind, you have to get, you have to develop your compassion, your ability to help others. You have to go through a long billion lifetime cycle of attaining evolution, because if you told that to these people, it would be overwhelming.
Speaker 2 00:37:08 They would say, thanks, no big favor. You know, thanks a lot. I thought I was going to get away from the local suffering. Now I have to go on diet billion lifetimes and be crocodile and feed myself, become everybody's handbag for a billion years. You know, thanks a bunch. You know, they would freak out and become nihilist or they would, they would change to some theistic, simple religion where they might get saved quickly by somebody all at once. And so he doesn't teach them like that in the monastic. Then the difference to the messianic one is that in the Maya, after four centuries, in his own, in the Buddhist view, they taught the Mahayana, the messianic Buddhism right away as a semi esoteric kind of thing. As you'll notice in this scripture and others, the monks, the monastic, but types are a little freaked out by this Maya.
Speaker 2 00:37:52 They kind of really worried about it. Gino. They're very uptight about it. Feel it's kind of too much pressure on them in a certain way, too much responsibility. But, uh, but I said, I did for four centuries. It will not become well. You know, it should not be spread, just spread monastic, Buddhism, don't spread this Masonic, but it will be secret. It's taken by the gods. And by the Nagas the dragons who live at the bottom of ocean, they take the teaching away, according to the Buddhist's own myth, which fits with Western historical myths, who considered the Maya on rose around 50 BC ADBC and wasn't really even existing before that. That's why they talk about early Buddhism. And then Maya anibolism in Western history and where the two histories are the same, except they put us think that it was there already.
Speaker 2 00:38:38 And, uh, but then this is the key point. The, um, the messianic wood is a, makes no effort to eradicate Monessen. And this is a very important point. And one way about what seemed to be McCurdy. It's very much misunderstood because Vimalakirti does criticized Sherri food does narrow minded ideas and all the other great monks, the famous script elders. What I call the Shabak as the holy disciples, the apostles, you know, the great monks. So Buddhists, great apostles. He goes criticized. He says, that's the wrong, this is wrong, the other's wrong. But yet when he does, so he says venerable, Reverend, he bows to them first. He offers them a seat. He respects their office, and then he blasts they're narrow notions, or they are a partial, there are misconceptions. Okay. But within the context of totally respecting them respecting the monastic institution, but as we know is a monk, he shows the form of being among himself, the head monk, the Abbot, and he respects the button that way.
Speaker 2 00:39:39 And he never, in other words, although the messianic Buddhism reaches out from the monastic beachhead, you could say from the monastic sort of sanctuary these sort of institutions planted like open centers. Exactly. Actually open centers planted within the cities and the all around, not just the setbacks in the woods, but right. Written town culture had nothing like that. There was no monastery. The idea of a monastery was not known and unheard of it. So monastic Buddhism is always even within messianic, even within tantra Anik, but does it, the Andriana the great sedans, you know, who are back into a new level of sexual energy and this and that. And they're like, totally like doing this reconciliation of dichotomy to the nails. Nevertheless, they have a thing where they're not supposed to stay in monasteries more than one night in their early lab, because of course you would stay, the monasteries were like ins on.
Speaker 2 00:40:34 So they were like Howard Johnson's and so forth. And the Buddhist where you would go around, you're kind of asleep. You know, there, there were no much, you know, without being Robbins on, but they were not allowed to stay more than one night in one month in any monastery because they were not to set. They were Buddhist and they were not just in some way, tempt or confused or troubled amongst you see with their particular lifestyle and their particular type of vibration, these sedans, these Arabs. So they had a vow that they would not interfere with the monastic institution, even those, you know, cause we know with the famous story of Naropa where he's just robes and as an Abbot of a monastery and goes out into the forest and says mantras and meets the destiny and et cetera, et cetera, and teens, degreed, Sage, and some of you may know the great story of Naropa that we'd sit up.
Speaker 2 00:41:17 And so everyone thinks, oh yeah, they got rid of monasteries, but they never made any effort to get rid of monster. They may have personally left at their stage, but they didn't sell supportive monasteries, Padma. Some of the greats that I went to Tibet and enabled the dependents to build a monastery himself, being in not a minute monk, himself being a sedate, you know, who is beyond being a monkey in a way, but yet he preserved that Institute considered super valuable. Therefore his long digression relates to the third word of this text. Res why are they why they salute the <inaudible> and the particular Buddhas, the holy disciples and the hermit Buddhas, the predicable ones are hermit. Boudins a particular kind of enlightened person who doesn't live in a monastery nor is the bodhisattva. He or she brought it up, but just goes into the wilderness and lives like just completely by them.
Speaker 2 00:42:04 So there's a certain type of butter that lives like that's called a Herman, put it in the past, the present and the future. Then this famous phrase, if I'm <inaudible> let's have I heard at one time, if I'm <inaudible>, it's a famous, famous beginning of all Buddhists texts, scriptures, thus, have I heard? It means that it's like Milarepa is hearing, you know, before he sings this song, it means that this is a genuine scripture. This is a genuine event that happened in the life of the Buddha, within the Buddhist culture. Someone heard it at a particular occasion. That means it's not somebody made it up. It's not a general thing. It's a particular event and series of events and teachings in the life of teaching life of the Buddha. It has even said that it is where to Yvonne may ask her Domnick has been to my, and these syllables, all the Buddhist teaching is taught in the Tundra.
Speaker 2 00:42:57 There's a way the so-called 40 syllables. There's a way that each of them has a certain symbolic thing. And there are 40 verses related to the 40th syllables, which teach everything. And it is <inaudible>, it's very interesting thing, Avon, for example, of, um, if, um, is compassion and vom is wisdom and so on and a certain type of thing like that, if all it means is us thus, unfortunately in English, we haven't got a two syllable word for us, evil, evil, thus, have I heard Eve, um, is a, is a female and VM is male. And so on compassionate wisdom, it goes on like that.
Speaker 1 00:43:57 The Bob Thurman podcast is brought to you in part through the generous support of the Tibet house, us Menlo membership, community, and listeners like you. And it's distributed. You're a creative commons, new derivatives license, please feel free to share like, and post on your favorite social media platform. Tashi. Thanks for tuning in.
