Tai Situ Rinpoche

In this lecture given at Chisholme in August 1981, the Tai Situ Rinpoche talks of the essential similarity between all religions and faiths from his own perspective as a Buddhist. His faith is not an exclusive one and he sees there the truth that links all faiths. He explains that although some choose to avoid the truth or do not realise its possibility in the world, everyone has the eyes with which to perceive it, they only need to learn how.

He outlines some of the paths to realisation delineated by Buddhism and explains that the importance lies not in the route by which you come, but in the destination that you reach. Every route to the truth, no matter from what origin it comes, is valid because it can only reach one ultimate destination; Truth is unique in it's very nature.

The Tai Situpa explains that in the understanding of such a Truth it is impossible to consider the self as an independent entity and goes on to discuss karma and the importance of considering cause and effect in the physical world. He also touches on 'dharma'; the importance of learning from those that have lived before you and to accept their guidance and wisdom. His speech is one of tolerance and peace and does not place any belief in higher regard than another. He conveys the message that although every man will chose a different path it is imperative to understand that all these paths move in the same direction.

Tai Situ Rinpoche addressed the students at Chisholme through a Tibetan translator; here follow extracts from his talk:

Even if we don't call what we do 'religion' or spirituality', as long as we are looking for the Truth and we are practising the path of the Truth, this is the essence of all the spiritual ways of the past and it will be the essence of all the spiritual ways of the future. For example, there are many religions in the world, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam – so many of them – but all of their essence is the path of truth which will lead to the ultimate truth or realization, whatever we choose to call it, and that is ultimate peace too. Because of that we are all here.

I am from Tibet which was very remote for many centuries from the rest of the world, but today we can meet here and share and talk about our understanding, our knowledge and our wisdom. This is very amazing and is the result of our past circumstances or karma consequences. It is very amazing and I'm very glad about it. When I talk to you about the truth I pay my respects to the Buddha, which is the ultimate truth, and His teaching, which is the path that will lead to the ultimate truth, and all the Sanga, my masters, and all the Sanga who travel through this path and take company with me. And I pay my homage to them. As I am a Tibetan, in our language we say "tashideli", which means "good luck" but has more of a depth of meaning than this. It goes between very open hearts, and I offer my "tashideli" to you.

What everyone is seeking

The teaching of the Buddha is not only a philosophical belief or a spiritual religious sect. It is not newly founded by Buddha himself either. This is the path which leads to the Truth. Because of this Lord Buddha says, 'that which is the truth is the ultimate Truth'. What everyone is seeking is peace. Just happiness is not peace, it will not last; wealth is not peace, health is not peace, fame is not peace and name is not peace. Peace is the Ultimate Truth. We cannot get it by looking at something else and trying to bring it out of something else. We have it within ourselves and we have to develop it, we have to fully accumulate and purify. Accumulate the whole quality and purify all the obstacles. For example, from the teaching of Buddha, if a very young person with sharp eyes is blindfolded, that person cannot see anything, but when the blindfold is taken away they can see everything: but when the person cannot see, his eyes are still there with the whole quality of sight. When the blindfold is removed the person will see everything, the eyes have not come from anywhere else, the person always had them. This is just like our mind, it contains the essence of Buddha, or whatever we choose to call It, It is there, but we have to realise this and develop it for ourselves.

Realising for ourselves

As Buddha says, all the masters, the Buddhas, realized beings, cannot take away the cause of obstacles within beings by their hand, and they cannot wash away the cause of the suffering or the cause of the obstacles by water – impossible. They cannot share their realization or give their realization to others – that is also impossible. If it were possible the masters would have cleared away all our obstacles a long time ago. Otherwise they would not be Buddha or realized beings, if they didn't do this and they could do it. What they can do is to show the right path, the way they went there. They can show this path to all of you, and you can travel this path if you like, it is up to you. If you go you will reach it; if you don't, you won't. It has nothing to do with what they can or can't do or what they want or don't want – this is one teaching of the Buddha.'

Another teaching of the Buddha is there is nobody who likes to suffer, no one; and there is no one who doesn't want to be happy. Since they want to avoid suffering and want to be happy, how can they do this? They avoid suffering by destroying the cause and circumstances of the suffering and they can be happy by accumulating the cause and circumstances of happiness. How do you achieve this? "I will show you the path. How fast and how far you can reach, and how deeply you realize it, is in your hands." This is what he says.

All of us have many different kinds of spiritual beliefs, in the outer form they are different, but in its essence they can't be different... because truth is always one.

There must be only one truth which everyone is looking for and which everything is talking about. To get to that level, to show it and put it into action is the responsibility of all of us. Since everybody wants to be happy and doesn't want to suffer, it is everybody's responsibility. How do we take this responsibility? We are responsible for ourselves at the very least, for others too of course, but for ourselves there is no question. Since we have to do that, we need to do it properly.

I have respect for the older religions but I know a little bit more about Buddhism than the other religions, because I have studied and practiced it since I was a child. Now I am 27 years old and since I was one and a half years old I have been in the monastery away from my family. So I know a little bit about Buddhism and I go this way.

In the teachings of Buddha... there are 84,000 different ways for the individual person to achieve the realisation of the Ultimate Truth, but all of them have one essence, one key, and that is motivation. This motivation is, in the beginning, instead of thinking about oneself... to compare oneself to the other and the others to oneself, to understand this, and this is the beginning.

Relative and ultimate truth

Of course it sounds very simple but many people take it in a very complicated way and many people never even think about it. From this it develops in many ways and Buddhist teaching talks about two aspects, the relative and the ultimate. In terms of the relative, first we know that no one wants to be hurt and everyone wants to be happy, just as we do, and then we should apply this to others. Just as we are careful about ourselves - for example, if something is falling off the roof we instinctively cover our head with our hands, or if something comes towards us we cover our eyes. We have no choice to do it or not, we just do it. It's spontaneous. Even if someone holds your hand very tightly, if something is put into your eye, your hand will become very strong to pull it from the grasp and to cover your eye - this spontaneous action of relativity comes to the benefit of others, to protect them and help them. Just as we do for ourselves, so we should do for others. This is the way of the relative, the completion of the relative. But there is further to go to the realization of the ultimate truth.

The way to the realization of the ultimate is divided into certain aspects of practice. There are six perfections; generosity, morality, diligence, patience, contemplation (meditation) and wisdom. These six things are needed for completion. Of course there will be hundreds of thousands of different things but they can all be included in these six things – just as all kinds of colours are included in very few. This is the way to purify and accumulate. These are the practices of Buddhism, the ways to practice motivation. Purification and accumulation are in every religion. In Christianity there is confession. Every Sunday you have to confess what you have done during the week, and this is the purification. And you have to have compassion for people who are suffering, and so on, and this is the accumulation. The real meaning of this is not that they are two things but that purification and accumulation are the same thing. However much you purify, that much you accumulate; and however much you accumulate, that much you purify. Full accumulation is full purification and full purification is full accumulation. That is what we call the Buddha and realisation; the ultimate peace. This is the full development of our motivation. This motivation within the teachings of the Buddha is, everything you do or say or think is always proper or wrong, good or bad, positive or negative, right or wrong, depending on what you mean.

Buddha says, "the appearance of the image is not the main thing (of course it is also important) but what you mean is the main thing"... "you can be doing something very good, but if your motivation is dirty and selfish... it is very bad and better not to do it. But if you have good, pure, clean motivation, then, even if what you do doesn't look nice, you must do it, since it benefits others and you have good motivation and it is clear to you that it should be done."

The lineage of right motivation

In our practices we are very strict in many ways because we receive our understanding through the lineage of right motivation. Since we have received this, we must keep it properly. It is human nature that to do something good is very hard, but to do something bad is very easy. Just as in a family, to make your child into a good person you have to keep your eyes open all the time; you have to really do everything that needs doing, and it takes many years. In Tibetan tradition when the person is over thirty the parents don't have so much to do, but until then the person can be spoiled very easily. You have to keep your eyes open for that long. Then maybe the person will become very good or maybe the wish of the parents will be lost, no one can be sure, but to destroy the child is very easy; it's so easy, isn't it? Another example is that to build a house with a hundred floors will take much money, skill and effort, but to destroy it you only need one match – very easy. In this way to do something good is hard but to destroy is easy. Because of this we follow, under the guidance of our masters, a path along which many great masters have traveled and achieved realization. We follow and have teachings from and listen to our master. And we have faith and trust and try to be purely motivated in what we do, that is, everyone does their best. In the outer action, what you do, and the inner action, what you mean, we try to do our best. There are many things we have to do; offering, prayer, meditation, exercise and so on. And all of them have to be done with the right motivation otherwise they don't mean much. They would just be outward actions which may bring temporary happiness and some quietness, and pass the time. In Tibetan Buddhism these practices of 84,000 different methods of the Lord Buddha's teachings come under nine "yanna", and "yanna" means aspects. Many people's idea of practice is that you sit down and do nothing and meditate on something, but that is not the only thing. Of course that is one aspect of practice. If we give up everything and we do only one thing, it will be more powerful when everything – our body, our spirit, our mind is doing one thing. But this doesn't mean only sitting down and meditating. It means that whatever we know, whatever we learn, we must apply it to our way of life. In one way we don't have much freedom because we don't get everything we want, and we get so many things we don't want. In that way we are not free. But in another way – there can be law and government and so on but our body, speech and mind, these three belong to ourselves. This is the freedom we have; to apply what we have understood, with the right motivation, in our daily life. We can be doing anything. Working in the fields, in a restaurant, office or factory, it doesn't matter what kind of work it is , as long as we aren't hurting other beings. As long as we have the right motivation, applying whatever we have learned and whatever we know to our way of life, that is the real practice. This is the way the Buddhist practice applies.

The benefit of spiritual understanding in this world

The benefit of Buddhist teaching or any kind of spiritual understanding, is the motivation of Ultimate Truth. Most of the time it sounds as if this is something up there and very far away, as if it doesn't have a lot to do with down here – that is a great mistake. Everybody is under the law of cause and result and the cause one has cannot be got rid of unless one has clarified it. Because of this everyone is under the law of cause and effect, the law of nature, the universal law. Because many people think that the spiritual way is far removed, they misunderstand and may lose their opportunity to realize their value. The pure spiritual belief then is not only with a view to the ultimate, but is very beneficial in the relative world as well. For example, there are four people, two of whom are happy, very successful in the world, and the other two are suffering, perhaps they are sick. The two who are happy and have a spiritual understanding of the truth, if they suffer, they will realize that suffering is not only for them, but that many beings suffer. And they will realize that it is not just caused by a fault now, but is because they did something in the past which they are paying for now. In this way they understand their suffering, even if they don't see the cause directly, and the suffering is lessened because of that. A deeper understanding is the "mahayana' understanding. For example, when we are sick we take medicine. We try to avoid suffering, but not by hating the suffering. We know it is not anyone else's fault, we know that we must have done something, and because of that, by the law of nature, it comes back to us. Someone with great understanding, when they suffer they will appreciate it – for example, if you have the seed of a very bad poison, if you just throw it out of the window because you don't want it, it will grow in your garden. But if you cut it into pieces and destroy it, it is finished. Because the cause of suffering is there, it is finished now and because we know there will be an end to it, we appreciate that. Even more than that, when one is suffering and knows that others are suffering, we pray that the sufferings of all beings may come on us, that we may suffer instead of them. Because of our suffering, may their suffering disappear. If we are realized beings and the others have karma consequences and they are ready, it may work, or it may not, but it will certainly be effective for oneself. We can't avoid this effect. The person who doesn't have any spiritual understanding, when they suffer they will be depressed, they might even commit suicide. They think it is only for now and that if they destroy their body then suffering will finish. They can destroy their body but no one can destroy the mind. Because of that it will not work and it will only make it worse.

An example of happiness. There are two people who are successful in business. One of them has spiritual understanding and knows that his happiness and success in the world is not because of his present goodness. He knows that the cause is in the past. And because everyone creates the circumstances for him to become happy and rich and successful he has respect for everyone and benefits everyone, and treats his happiness and wealth and fame properly. The other person who doesn't have this understanding may think that he is very clever and despises everyone else. He will put others down and build up his pride, and we know that this will be a disaster. Very simply this is how it works in the worldly life of happiness and suffering. Because of this the spiritual way is very important. If we don't have a proper understanding of what we want and we don't follow the path of truth, of inner realization, instead of accumulating the cause of what we want, we accumulate the cause of what we don't want.

For example, I go into the bush and I am hungry but it is 5km to my home from where I am. I have food in my home but I am hungry in the forest. I have a small air gun and I shoot a bird and I eat the flesh of the bird to fill up my stomach, and then I go home. I shoot the bird because I cannot bear to suffer hunger. That bird is a sentient being, exactly the same as us, who doesn't want to suffer and wanted to be happy and we took the life of that bird in order to stop our hunger, even though it was not even enough for one meal. What we wanted to avoid and what we have accumulated then is totally opposite, because we took the life of another. Of course it depends on one's motivation but since we did it thus, in the end we will have to pay back with our life. We took their life and someone will take our life. If someone asked you if you would prefer to walk 5kms without eating food or be killed here, I would walk for 5kms, even 500kms if I could. Since we have the right understanding we follow the path of truth, what we want and what we accumulate becomes the same. This is what we call the "dharma."

This "dharma" is to follow the experience of others, and is called the lineage of the transmission. For example, the old roof of a house is a grass roof, built with the experience of many generations. It is very effective. In the summer it is very cool and warm in winter and no sound can penetrate it. Very satisfactory, even when the rain falls you cannot hear it. That is the experience of hundreds of generations. Now in the modern industrial world, we make metal roofs, it is very fast and we no longer follow the experience of generations we just make it and it is very easy. But in the summer it is very hot, in the winter very cold and the smallest sound can be heard. It wakes you from sleep if it rains in the night. It is because of this reason that we follow the old ways.

I have talked a bit about Buddhism and now I will say something generally about spirituality. I have confidence to say to anyone that the path of truth is the only way to develop both relative and ultimate peace. Even if we only want relative peace, if we don't have this spiritual background there is no way of achieving this and everything is wasted. We are all happy sitting together here in this room, but out there, what is the situation of people all over the world like? We can't do very much but what we can do is pray; prayer can be nothing and prayer can be everything. Since we mean it there must be an effect or result in it.

A Buddhist Prayer

We will say a short prayer (invoking) the power of all the Buddhas, realized beings, and the Bodhisattvas, people who have the deepest and purest compassion and loving kindness, and who have this realization of ten directions. We are not praying for one person, we are praying for all persons in ten directions, in any universe not only the earth, and (invoking) all of your compassion and all of your power and the unchangeable qualities and blessings of the truth. Nobody can take away real knowledge. It never becomes rotten, it will never finish and wisdom is (always) more than this and realization is (always) more than this. And all of your good thoughts and motivations in the past and the present, we accumulate them all together and we give them to all the beings of the earth, so that they may now and for ever have what they want and get rid of what they don't want. For now means in this world, happiness; and forever means they have to realize the ultimate truth. Because of that we pray by giving all of our past positive accumulation, and we ask all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions to fulfill our wish, to make what we are praying for come true.

Tai Situpa
From Wikipedia

In Tibetan Buddhism the Tai Situpa is one of the lineages of tulkus, reincarnated lamas, in the Kagyu school. According to tradition, the Tai Situpa is an emanation of the bodhisattva Maitreya, who will become the next Buddha, and who has been incarnated as numerous Indian and Tibetan yogins since the time of the historical Buddha. The title Tai Situpa, or more completely Khentin Tai Situpa means "far-reaching, unshakable, great master, holder of the command". The holder of this title is also called Situ Rinpoche and Tai Situ.

Traditionally, the Tai Situpa was considered to one of the highest ranking lamas of the Karma Kagyu sect. He is one of the main regents of the Karmapa.

The current and 12th Tai Situpa, Péma Tönyö Nyinjé, was born in a farming family in 1954 in the Palyul district of Dérgé, in the East of Tibet. At the age of five he left Tibet for Bhutan, where King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk had been a disciple of the 11th Tai Situpa. Later he was cared for at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, India where he received religious instruction from the 16th Karmapa. The 16th Karmapa had himself been raised under the guidance of the 11th Tai Situpa. Indeed this alternation between teacher and pupil for the Karmapas, Tai Situpas and other lineage holders from the 1st Karmapa and on has served as a mechanism for continuity within the Kagyu tradition. As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote in his book Born in Tibet: “Tai Situ Rinpoche, who was second in importance in the Karma Kagyu school, had died some years before and no reincarnation had been found. The Karmapa could now tell them where the incarnation had taken place. Everyone rejoiced and started immediately to make the preparations."

At the age of twenty-two, Situ Rinpoche founded his own new monastic seat, Sherab Ling in Himachal Pradesh, in Northern India. He traveled widely making his first visit to the West in 1981 to Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland.

The 12th Tai Situpa was instrumental in recognizing Ogyen Trinley Dorje, one of the two candidates claimed to be the 17th Karmapa.