but have emerged due to the needs of the community, due to the embedded experience of the wisdom of people having developed sensitivity to each other and their needs, and therefore embed centuries of experience of the most developed kind of most enlightened type of people in very varied types of social situations, and therefore are something really to be reckoned with. And therefore, but because these developed from the needs of the people at every stage, and because, in fact, one of the elements embedded in these rules was a self-transformation of the rules, for some principle, that principle of the self-transformation of the rules, in fact, was that the rules should continue to modify and adapt to the needs of the people. And that is why the Dalai Lama, for example, constantly praises to all of his people, against

[01:06]

any kind of conservativistic, traditionalistic tendency that begins in them, to say that democratic development of ways of living, the democratic concept that the people have the power of determining how to live, is truly something fantastic, is truly something that one should bow to, and here I'm adding a footnote, and this is why he actually said when he went to Monticello, to the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., he chuckled and turned to the press who were with him and said, I think I must be the reincarnation of this fellow. Now I know who was my previous reincarnation, it was this fellow, referring to Thomas Jefferson. Everyone was shocked and amazed. And within that, for example, the kind of principles and procedures and sort of voting systems and democratic ways of coming to decision and taking votes, of disciplining another

[02:07]

monk or nun who began to misbehave, who began to abuse the niche that they were in, of honor and respect within a community, the way in which these people were brought back into the rule, or sometimes dismissed from the monastic community and made to revert to lay status in some sense, due to some infractions they had committed, some abuses they had committed, this procedure of how this is done, how these decisions are made, how the person is treated, how there still remains a certain respect, how it's not too violent, but yet it is clear and critical and so forth, this is beautiful. The whole system devised for that, the sort of principle of justice, in other words, as administered within the sangha community, is itself beautifully designed out of great sensitivity and experience to the needs of both those against whom the abuses have been committed and those who have committed them, with a view to rehabilitating them, not just to punishing them, and to keep the community moving smoothly, serving again the needs of the many in the optimal way, so maybe we should leave it there, look, since we can never finish.

[03:14]

Observing and following the precepts, which is a reflection of perfect enlightenment, if one devotes their life to it, it causes a different quality of question of nationality, and the nature of sangha and the nation in a broader sense.

[04:36]

And I have a... this is a question of... So precepts, we study... I do not talk about the struggle between historical religions and world history. How to live together on this earth without racial discrimination beyond the

[06:05]

conduct of nationalism. Particularly, this country has already full potential of all races coming together. All religious traditions embedded in each people, out of this chaotic situation, in this particular historic moment,

[07:16]

it is really wonderful to hear your expression of how Buddha existed and liberated the people of Rwanda. Chaotic situation of the people in their history. Thank you very much. Shall I say something else he says? Different races and different religions and the tremendous disharmony that has come throughout that historically, it's because people's way of thinking being distorted, their views being distorted, it came from that root.

[08:21]

And therefore, as much as we can understand the way of distorted thinking and the way of distorted outlook and attitude, and as much as we can correct individually our own outlook and attitude, as much as we can do that, no matter what all other things will be, the better any of these arrangements will work and the better they will be. If we're not careful and we don't do it that way and instead we think that, oh it's a situation where we should eliminate some race or some nation and everything should be like one nation and the others should all be squashed and eliminated. Or whether it's a case where we should eliminate some religion and say that's all been no good and we're going to squash and eliminate it and impose upon it some other religion and promote only the other religion. If we proceed in that sort of a way of trying to dominate all the others by one race or religion or trying to dominate all others by one nation or people and so forth,

[09:41]

if we proceed in that way, then it never will come to peace, it will never come to harmony and it will never work. Also, it's not a question of saying, well, in order to become harmonious and to become friendly, what we should do is we should eradicate all nationalities and try to pretend that no historical, racial, national, cultural differences have ever existed. Or we should try to pretend that there are no differences in religions and there are no different kinds of traditions and we should sort of make one big super religion or something like that and mix them all in that super religion. These things won't work either. For example, in this kind of an institution here, which is an institution that has developed from the tradition of Zen, which has the institutions of Zen and the practice and the tradition of Zen at its heart,

[10:59]

this kind of institution must absolutely go back to the very heart of Zen, find the very core of its tradition, and dwelling within that core of the tradition and adapting that core of the tradition to this particular situation. It must preserve its lineage and its life in that way. It must not abandon that core of its own tradition, absolutely not. However, it is not at all a question that however one should take any one particular presentation of the core of that tradition, like somebody's version at a particular time or the version that has happened to come to us from somebody, and consider that, well, that must be the core because somebody told me. And never, therefore, to be allowed to criticize or to examine or to look into it further or to see where this came from or see if that's the core or not the core and to discriminate between what is the core and what is the accidental accretion. It is not at all the case that one should just accept a particular dogmatic version that that's the core and then leave that without any further evaluation or examination or adaptation. That is not the case.

[12:04]

On the other hand, this is because even though at the core of all traditions there is something valid, there is something imperishable, there is something eternal, there is something ever valuable, it still is the case that by the nature of being interrelated and connected to human history and faults of humans and different kinds of confusions, it is inevitable that any tradition will have useless things that will creep into it and some sort of less impurity and imperfection will come and kind of attach itself to that core, that perfect core, and will kind of make it less useful and obscure one's entrance into the core of it and so forth. And it is a continuous process of washing that and cleansing that and removing that that should always also be maintained that is in fact paradoxically always part of the core itself. I'm not saying this because I know anything about Zen and sort of have a deep understanding of this and this and that is the nature of Zen. I don't.

[13:14]

I'm just talking in terms of our experience in Tibet and what I know of the different traditions that have existed in Tibet. And therefore this kind of examination and investigation is something that you should all very much dedicate yourself to consulting with and seeking the deep advice of those who themselves are scholars and historians and who have deep knowledge of the Zen tradition and its history and its interaction with its different societies, comparing also all of the different things that they say and by examining them yourself, this very elaborate process you should deeply be devoted to. Why is that?

[14:29]

That is because in the interests of harmony in the world, among traditions, within traditions, among people, within people, in this interest of this, this is now the time in the world, in this sort of chaotic situation that you refer to, that in what we call the soup in Tibet, in this kind of situation, the process of evaluating and analysis and gaining insight through comparing and looking at principle and context and relativities and so forth, this is the time when that is of crucial value and of crucial importance. And also that means that if we don't do that, that there's a great day, if we don't do that and we just become attached to our own traditions and we say this is Buddhism, this is great, there's no need to examine, there's nothing to say, there's nothing to do, we'll just go ahead stubbornly this way and that way, then there's a tremendous danger that there will be tremendous dissatisfaction and we will cause by pretending that whatever our version is, is Buddhism, that we will draw down upon Buddhism itself and upon Zen itself or upon Tibetan itself or upon Christianity itself or whatever it is, great criticism, we will present something unsatisfactory to people, we will cause people to think that the great source of help and happiness is in fact some damaging and corrupt and useless thing and this will be a great disservice on our part.

[15:56]

And so today of our assembly here and our discussion here, if we remember to make that some kind of essential import and essential impact and something that we carry to move us in our further life and investigation and insight and study, it will be wonderful. I think for example that in fact in the nature of Buddhist history, the fact that there developed clear demarcation between the monastic male and female and the lay male and female, that this did develop systematically in the different cultures throughout history, I basically feel that at the heart of this way of development and how it served and can serve people, it's something very positive and something very beneficial, I do feel that.

[17:04]

And similarly, it is something that if the lay people truly understand really what it takes to be a monk or a nun and what is involved in being a monk or a nun, and if people become monks or nuns clearly understanding that, and especially if the lay people clearly understand that, I feel that it will emerge naturally as something that no lay people will in fact, who have such understanding, will resent at all. They will think, well, I'm being lay, that's my role and I'm doing that, but I love it that those people are being monks and nuns. It's so helpful to me the fact that they themselves maintain a certain kind of monastic rigor and a nun rigor and a male and female monastic rigor. It's something, I love it, it's nothing they will feel as a strain or a burden, but it's something they will be absolutely delighted that there are beings who wish to do that. And they will feel totally served and benefited on invisible and visible levels by that fact, I feel it will come. True understanding, in fact. If they don't know exactly what is the meaning of it and how it emerges and how it serves, then it will be such that it will seem, what's the use of being a monk, maybe it's better that everybody shouldn't be a monk, natural people will think that.

[18:28]

No. Then there is a great danger that something that was embedded by the Lord, our teacher of this history, Shakyamuni, through his great struggle and his great peak of evolutionary achievement, embedded, having achieved perfect enlightenment and thoroughly finished his job completely, nevertheless maintaining as a social role, being a monk himself his life long, something about our attitude today will be that therefore we will think, ah, he kind of blew it, ah, he was sort of backward there, ah, useless kind of thing, what we call a repudiation of dharma will arise to us which will cause us great ill. In fact, if we look at the history, according to our history, when Shakyamuni Buddha spoke to the group of five, the five ascetics who were his first disciples in the Deer Park, in Sarnath, in Varanasi,

[19:45]

and he spoke to them of the four truths, and he went through the thing of the four truths, as insight dawned upon them, in fact without any formality, without any like this and that and looking up which precept and what, naturally their robes changed, their hair flew off, they were automatically became entered into the homeless state with all of its signs and marks, effortlessly, almost magically we could say. It wasn't at all that they said, oh Buddha, four noble truths, oh interesting, oh great, now wait a minute Buddha, shall we be monks, shall we be lay people, how shall we do, can you look it up please in the library, what shall we do, is it better here or is it there, what is the situation and so forth, there was no need at all, as their enlightenment and their arhatship dawned, as their mind burst into the sunlight of freedom, they automatically became monks. This is how it happened according to our view. And so we put it as something that in spite of all of our role of examination and all of our need to adapt and so forth, it's something that we should never block our ears to and block our vision of, those particular moments of history.

[20:56]

If we don't know about this, if we don't understand this, then it's definite that in any kind of society where there will always be hierarchies and this person better than this and that and this kind of things, then there will always be conflict over those hierarchies and structures and there will always be confusion about it and things will never work out no matter what arrangements one makes. So that's all. Well, I think in light of the response, that first question was a pretty good one. Did people tell me that I should say something after 12 o'clock or something after lunch? Was this about the hardship or something? Well, I thought what we might do is spend some time after lunch if Bishay is willing. Is that what people want here? Yes, yes it is. Let him, let him. If you want me to say something, I think it might be better that I talk rather than about the Heart Sutra about brahmacharya.

[22:09]

That's because you all are talking so much about this issue about lay and monastic and about how can I stay with women, how can I stay without women, how can women stay with us, how can women stay without us and all this, how should we sit together, shouldn't we sit together, there seems to be so much discussion about this. I think, therefore, the more I can tell you about some other views of that issue, the better it will be, the more helpful it will be, it seems to me. So we should always try to say what is useful to people and not what is useless. But if we talk about the business of emptiness, about the Heart Sutra, if we don't talk about it for a really long time, then it's something really hard to really get an understanding of. So I think it will maybe be less beneficial. I think that if we don't talk about it for a long time, then it will be really difficult to get an understanding of it.

[23:28]

I just wanted to tell, I wanted to plead with Rinpoche that forgetting about the Heart Sutra, which then we go into the ocean of Pratyaharvita, and that's what he's hesitating about, you know, like jumping into the cold water over here at the beach. I want, we did say we would go through either the foundation of all excellence, or the three principles of the path, one of these notions of the sort of complete lamrim, and even if he does a tiny thing on the one or two verses that are there on what is called right view, or view of reality, view of emptiness, it's sad to have left just that last part, the most important of the three principles of the path, but when I showed him to empty it, I left it completely, and I was like, can you please do a little thing, and he said, okay, a little, a little, a little, a little like this. I won that concession, if you don't mind, in the midst of the other, about Vrindavan. The weather is so good, so if we could gather under the tree or something, and we could take shots of these.

[24:53]

That would be great, yeah. That's what I like to think of. And that flower garden, is there room for everybody in there, without trampling the garden, and without disturbing the mating patterns of the Kali Peppas? There's no pictures, I'm not Kali Peppas. We would have to ask them. Is there shade down there? No. I mean, you may, Tibetans don't like to be too much in the sun. Maybe Jack's people would want to join us, I don't know. Well, we have another ten minutes here. Let me suggest we do at least consider the next question,

[26:07]

and then this afternoon, we can start with what Bishay wants to say. And we'll go from there. Now, the next question I think does really connect to what we were just talking about. It was the question, what do we do in the United States, where there is so much advertising in particular, that urges some entitlement to the sweet life, almost a duty, to Sibet? How do we deal with that? Because it may seem to be a real hindrance to practice. We've been talking about relationships with each other, the relationship between husband and wife, lover and lover. This is a question that strikes me, goes to our relationship to the material aspects and urgings of the culture in which we live, which we may perceive as a hindrance.

[27:10]

How can we use that to develop virtuous practice? The question is, how do we respond to the inducements, particularly which come to us from advertising, to live the sweet life? How do we respond in terms of the development of virtuous practice? Isn't all that inducement a hindrance? All right, the advertising will go on. Let me make a couple of announcements and then we will break.

[28:13]

For people who haven't signed to be on the mailing list for the... So in talking today about desire and attachment and greed, we are talking about that element which corresponds to the nature of our environment. In the Buddhist world, where we live is called the desire realm, or the realm of sense desire, as opposed to other realms. Our universe is called the universe of desire. So discussing desire, we are talking about that central quality of our environment. ... Therefore, amongst the five poisons, or three poisons,

[29:20]

which are the mental afflictions in the Buddhist teaching, that of desire is extremely powerful, is the very powerful motor of the worldly life. And amongst the different desires, the desire which is known as the desire for the union of the two organs, or sexual desire, this desire is considered very powerful among all desires. This kind of great desire, or sexual desire, equally exists both in male and female. ... This kind of ideas that do arise, and people do come up with, that say males have more desire than females, or that females have more desire than males, these are all completely incorrect. ... Therefore, the methods that the Buddha taught,

[30:35]

which he considered of central importance in helping us to become free of desire in general, namely those methods to help us transcend being driven by sexual desire, he taught them commonly for male and female. ... ... Therefore, whatever I say, it should apply equally to male as well as female. ... The Buddha taught many extensive methods of helping to free beings, helping to free themselves from desire, and particularly he taught very many to help beings free themselves from sexual desire. ... The major methods of freeing oneself principally from desire,

[31:46]

he taught in terms of... ... The major techniques of completely eliminating desire, which he taught, were taught in terms of what is known as the teachings of the tantras. ... ... In fact, contrary to what many people think about the tantras, the fact of the presence in the tantra of a central symbol being the Buddha represented as a male and a female in union, the famous Yab Yom images, these in fact are a sign or a symbol that the tantra's specialty is the method of terminating and transcending desire. ... The reason how this is, is this is said that

[32:48]

desire is so thoroughly eliminated in the path of this vehicle that even in the union of male and female there is no desire. ... Now, the methods of conquering desire taught in the tantrayana, this is not the occasion of teaching those methods at all. Similarly, there are special methods within tantra of conquering anger as well. ... ... Similarly, the sign that within the tantra, the fullest methods of really conquering desire is that in the context of tantra there are forms of Buddhahood

[33:49]

which are incredibly wrathful, incredibly powerful, looking so-called the terrific deities, that we see this kind of icon, that these are taught in the tantra is similarly a sign that the tantras represent the final triumph over anger. Similarly, there is the root problem of delusion, of the self-habit of ignorance. ... Similarly, the ultimate method of destroying delusion also is in the tantra. ... A sign of that is that the terrific deity forms of the Buddha in the tantra, their robe that they wear, is usually the freshly flayed hide of a slain elephant. That is the symbol that delusion has been destroyed

[34:53]

in the Buddhahood method of the tantrayana. Now, coming down from the realm of tantra and the realm of mayana, in the Bodhisattva Pitaka, the Bodhisattva collection, as it is said, there are many methods of the destruction of the conquest of desire. ... Now, in the tantrayana, there is a way of conquering desire by using desire, by what is known as transmuting desire into the path, in the tantric aspect of the Mahayana. ... In the Vinaya, on the other hand, except for a complete abandonment of the attributes and elements of desire,

[35:54]

there is no strategy of transmuting desire into the path. ... And therefore, for us who are beginners in some sense, for who are more in fact controlled by our desires than are in control of our desires, it is not good to try to tread the high methods of transmuting desire into the path right away, but it's much better to begin at the beginning and learn first the methods of conquering and transcending desire as taught in the Vinaya. Therefore, I mainly will teach in terms of this today. And the first thing to understand here is you must understand what is desire. ... In Buddhism, there are two words which are used in terms of desire,

[37:02]

döpa and chakpa in Tibetan, which stands for kama and raga in Sanskrit originally, therefore there are two words for desire included there, kama raga is the original Sanskrit term. ... Kama means desire or greed or lust for what we like and what we want. ... And the second word raga means that we are not just satisfied with the nature of what it is that we want, but we want to somehow get a hold of it and attach it to ourselves and incorporate it somehow to some greater degree than it actually contains in its existence. And this is called raga, which means kind of attachment. ...

[38:03]

Therefore, this shows that in the very energy of desire, attachment, to take it in its full meaning, kama raga, there is a kind of erroneous perception of the objects of desire and attachment operating. For example, if we become filled with desire and attachment for our own body, for example, ... ... This means that we have a kind of desire and attachment for our body that is not only attracted to our body and is clutching onto it in some way of considering it as something very important, but also that we are taking a hold of that body and trying to keep a hold of that body with a mental mode that is not satisfied with the actual reality of our body, but is investing or attributing to our body some status and preciousness that it does not in fact possess,

[39:14]

that exceeds what it actually does possess. For example, if we come to know better the actual reality or the condition of the body, then this is the first remedy of desire and attachment. Desire and attachment will definitely become smaller. ... For example, sexual desire first arises based on the desire of the attraction or the misperception of a form that is attractive. The visual stimulus usually creates it. ... ... Now, this desire attaches itself to four out of the five sensory qualities of material bodies,

[40:28]

namely the form, color and shape that is, the smell, the taste and the touch. The sound is not important in basic attachment at first. By not knowing the true nature of the objects of sight, smell, taste and touch, we become excessively attached to such an object. For example, if we see a color with our eye, there is both shape and color in any object. And if we see something with shape and color which we are attracted to, we immediately feel that it's some really fantastic thing.

[41:30]

We become really fascinated by it. Similarly, as far as touch goes, the kind of softness, let's say, of the human body, we are not just attracted to the actual degree and exact sort of texture of the body, but we attribute to it something much even more extraordinary than it actually has. So our attachment arises from imagining some much greater degree of sensual satisfaction in the object than actually it possesses. Now one who really knows how to, the nature of things, in order to do so,

[42:40]

for this person to reduce their attachment and desire, there is nothing more powerful than the meditation of non-dualism, the meditation of emptiness. If one has the perception of a body as non-dual with this perceiver, then the desire for that body becomes definitely less. If one meditates a great deal on non-dualism and emptiness, and yet that meditation does not decrease one's attachment and desire, sexual attachment and desire, then one has not properly meditated on non-dualism and emptiness, not accurately done so. In the Vinaya, it is taught that the best antidote for sexual desire and attachment

[43:54]

is the meditation of non-duality, of emptiness, of selflessness. Now, if we find that we have meditated a great deal on emptiness, as best we knew, or a great deal on non-duality and selflessness, and yet we find that our desire and attachment has not decreased significantly, then we better retreat from the highest way of meditating against desire, to overcome desire and attachment, to the more beginning and more preliminary methods of developing the antidote to desire and attachment. Before he goes on to that, can you give us some idea of what this desire and this meditation on non-duality is? He says he doesn't want to do that because if I say that,

[44:56]

then we won't really get enough out of it. He wants to say something that he feels we will get really something out of, for the moment. Don't you think that if we make a big trouble and go a long distance and spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time talking together that it's better if we talk together about something that is useful to us? What I am teaching you now is not just something that I read in a book and that you can just read much cheaper and much easier quietly by yourself in a book. It's something that I have myself thought about and that I am then telling you as a personally, directly, what I feel with my own intuition is what you really need. So I think therefore it will help you, it will give you something to think about. I don't even understand non-duality myself. I can't think too much about it.

[46:01]

Maybe it's something intoxicating. Maybe some people can really think about it, but to me it makes me feel intoxicated. But if I can talk about what I can talk about, then I can talk about it really well. No. I'm really not intoxicated in what I'm talking about. Would you rather have me talk soberly or talk intoxicated? Well, if he's going to, you know, like he's talking about desire, you know, it's almost like if he was talking about illness, and he was a doctor, and he was saying, well, there's this great medicine that will cure your illness, and then he went on to another subject, and the sick person would say, wait, what exactly is that medicine,

[47:07]

how do I mix it, and how do I take it? You really said something good there. Because what is the case in the case of doctors? Doctors give medicine looking exactly at the nature and the need of the patient. But if instead the doctor is someone who instead of seeing the condition actual of the patient simply is in love with his great medicines, and therefore takes the one great medicine that he really likes

[48:09]

and stuffs it down the throat of every patient, there's a danger he will kill his patient. So therefore, doctors have different medicines precisely which they feel are most useful in studying the condition of the patient to give it exactly oriented to cure the patient. If the doctor was to come in with this big medicine like it was some kind of a big club or swatter and swab all the patients with the same medicine, it wouldn't make any difference. You wouldn't really necessarily be helping them. The Buddha himself used this precise example. He said,

[49:14]

The Buddha himself in his sutras used the example of the doctor to indicate why it is that the Buddha's teaching is not in fact internally contradictory and inconsistent. Because the Buddha sometimes says there is such a thing, sometimes the Buddha says there is a self, sometimes the Buddha says there is no self, sometimes the Buddha says there is this, sometimes there is not that, and this is then taken as internally contradictory unless one understands that the Buddha is not a dogmatic philosopher, but the Buddha is a healer, the Buddha is a doctor. And therefore, just like when someone has a fever, one gives some cooling kind of medicine, but when one has a cold type of illness, one gives a warming type of medicine, and one does not give a warming medicine to someone with a fever and vice versa. And therefore, although these seem to be opposite, the warming medicine, the cooling medicine, when they are applied accurately to the need of the patient, they in fact are not opposite, but all executing the Buddha's own very aim of healing the patient. So thank you for using that example, it's so useful and helpful. Tell him I'll talk to him later.

[50:21]

It's important to keep in mind here that we're talking to a person that has 20 to 30 years of formal debating experience with Rinpoche, we're not likely to win. Very good. No, no, this is not debate. This is not what we did for 20, 30 years as debate, not at all. If I started debating with you the way we used to debate, then it would be very confusing. There's a certain kind of rule about our debate, a certain formal rule. The challenger and the respondent have a certain kind of special system or discipline within which they debate. But all it is, I am just on the basis of my experience,

[51:34]

I am teaching you what I have thought about, because I think really it will be helpful to you. So now coming back to the question of sexual desire, it is by first what we see with the eye that sexual desire arises usually. If we know the nature of form well then, the nature of the body well then, we'll definitely lessen our addiction to desire. What we have to do is, for example, in sexual desire,

[52:38]

attraction to the male or the female body, we have to realize that that body that seems to us to be so tremendously shapely, so wonderfully soft, so tremendously delicious and so wonderfully wonderful, is not actually quite like that. Hello. The saviour, protector, Nagarjuna, he wrote a famous work called the Sahur Lekha or the letter to his friend, the king Udayi of the Shatavahana clan. King Udayi of the Shatavahana dynasty in southern India. This was a king of many wives and many children and the population of his nation was many millions.

[53:38]

And therefore this epistle that Nagarjuna wrote to him was about how to protect his country, what was the method of properly protecting his country. Actually the king asked him, how do I run this country? And in answer he wrote this letter known as the letter to a friend. Now in that he said to the king, in giving the king some of the methods of controlling his royal desires, considering that to be important in his ability to run his country, and the first thing he said, in order to control the sexual desire between male and female, one of the best methods is not to have them see each other. That's right.

[54:47]

And if they are to mingle and to see each other, then it's very important that they meditate each other and visualize each other as being relatives, like brother and sister, or mother and son, or father and daughter, or sister and sister and so forth. In some sort of a relationship which there would normally be constrained in feeling sexual desire towards. Then if it is not possible to use that, if that sort of thing will not control the arising of desire, then the most important meditation to meditate upon is upon the nature of the body, and this is called the meditation of unloveliness, or the meditation of impurity. Now in the friendly letter it is said that our body has seven holes.

[55:58]

One has to reflect upon what it is that goes in and out of the seven holes of the body. Now if when we reflect carefully about what goes in and out of the seven holes of the body, if it is not something pure and wonderful and beautiful, then we better suspect that there is something not quite so wonderful about the body. So Naradjuna thus wrote to his royal patron, Shantideva also said, If you feel some skin is very, very irresistibly attractive, then you have to surgically, mentally think about if you were to remove the skin, what would be inside. Would that be so very attractive? If you took the flesh out from under the skin and took a look at it, would it be very attractive?

[57:04]

Now think about what is presently even in our stomach right now. What is it like, the stuff in our stomach this moment? Look long. Look long. And he, Shantideva, gave a nice name to the body. He said, what is our body? Our body is an impurity machine. Therefore it seems to be, in fact, Shantideva gave it the name, because, excuse me, he said that one of the main, our body, one main means to look at it is our body is a shit machine. And if therefore we gain the ability, in amongst seeing the body in all kinds of other ways,

[58:11]

of seeing the body in all kinds of other ways, of seeing it as a shit machine, it is very likely that we will become somewhat less attached to it. Now, beyond this meditation of ugliness, one has to think, well, what is the benefit that will be developed by sexual activity? It is acknowledged that the sexual bliss is the greatest of the desire realm's blisses. That bliss, actually, is not itself the desire for that bliss. This happiness, or bliss, is a bliss of the mental consciousness,

[59:19]

which the mental consciousness is drawn into by its association with the physical consciousness. Therefore, that desire realm's bliss is the greatest of the desire realm's blisses. The sexual desire in males and females arises by the mind's memory of sexual bliss, and it's knowing that it can reach that bliss through the physical sense, and therefore it is attracted to the partner with a view to achieving that bliss. Its desire, ultimately, therefore, is for that bliss. And therefore, in order to achieve that bliss, it is as a method of achieving, or the technique of achieving that bliss, that the person wants to unite with the partner of the opposite sex, or the sexual partner. And the desires for color, and shape, and scent, and smell, and so forth,

[60:32]

are all simply preliminary to that larger and overriding desire. If one can block that desire right from the outset, through reason, through those sense inputs, then the sexual desire will not arise. If one cannot prevent those initial temptations or attractions through the sense things, then the desire for sexual union will arise, because of its being the desire for the sexual bliss. And therefore, many of the regimes of the discipline, of monastic discipline,

[61:35]

being the discipline those who wish to become free of addiction to the desire attachment for sexual bliss, or sexual desire, have to do with preventing the arisal of that desire by preventing the stimuli of visual, of verbal, and other kinds of stimuli. From the outset, and therefore, a regime of life that prevents such stimuli. Now, second, one has to come to the question of sexual bliss, and come to understand that is it a beneficial happiness long run, or in the long run does it cause more suffering than happiness? Sexual union is something that is tiring and drains the energy of both partners immediately, it is considered.

[63:04]

It is said that if you semaines do not come to your forefathers, the forefathers will come to you, and so on. Because of this, the forefathers will come to you, so that you cannot get their benefit. That is a good thing. That is not a bad thing. There are many people who have not been to their forefathers, because they have not experienced that bliss. That is a blessing. Many have not experienced that bliss. That is why, if people are born with a spiritual desire, Although there is a sensation, part of the problem of the addiction of sexual union is that there is a sensation to the part that their energy is increasing, that their strength is heightening, this is because their energy of their enthusiasm for the bliss of sexuality is heightening and making them feel activated, but in fact the result of sexual activity is a loss of strength, a loss of health, and eventually sicknesses and so forth. Those who

[64:10]

engage in intensive sexual activity will gain various kinds of sicknesses and physical disturbances. There is a tradition that doves have to make it every day or they can't stand it. Pigeons or doves, I think doves. Therefore dove is considered a symbol of lust in India, Tibet, Tibet, and therefore doves should be very powerful among the birds. In Indian medicine and Buddhist oriental medicine in general, ordinary sexual activity is generally considered

[65:14]

in the long run to be extremely unhealthy and if you analyze the nature and understand the nature of the body well, mind well, I think it will be acceptable that it is so. It's definite, however, that we will have the perception, that people will gain a perception of thinking that sexual activity is something beneficial, something that improves the nature of the health of the body and so forth. It's quite common to have such an idea. But this is an erroneous perception and in fact monastic traditions the world over can demonstrate that beings who have become free of any drivenness at all by any form of sexual desire, they

[66:18]

have a much better health and much better energy and are generally much better off. If they spend time, of course, thinking about sexuality, then of course this will lead them into a desire for it. Similarly, if there's great conversation about it, this also disturbs their concentration. Similarly, if they see things that attract them, this can disturb them. Therefore, much about the design of the monasteries, monastic rules and so forth have to do with preventing this kind of temptations. And then, in fact, as might surprise those

[67:21]

who think that sexuality is such an important motor of life, in fact, being people who live in that sort of circumstance, they actually don't think much about sexuality at all. In the Tibetan monasteries, monks, when they become novices, they live under the tutelage of their teachers. Their discipline is to follow the regime of their teachers, whatever it may be. They don't just do whatever they feel like doing. And therefore, they have a

[68:22]

very all-encompassing discipline to prevent them from being drawn towards sexual interests. This is, in the Yudhya Monastery, for example, the novice monk has to spend three years in this kind of strict observance. In the case of very young monks or incarnations, when they are invited to go back to their homes for a vacation or for a visit with their family or to go to a layperson's house, they're never allowed to go alone but only with their teacher. Therefore, the initial way of preventing sexual temptation in monasteries

[69:38]

proceeds from this sort of simple regulation of the daily life of the monks and nuns to prevent them from becoming fascinated by the issue or letting their energy turn in that direction. This is the general way of such a... Rinpoche, one of the major thrusts of our Western psychology is to develop a non-driven but a healthy sexual rapport between two people that has a flavor of love and maybe strong respect in it. Now, I agree that myself included, much of us have been very confused by sexuality growing up, particularly in this culture. But there is, I think, well, let's start with that.

[70:42]

This is for couples, in the case of couples, that there is some sort of a better outlook in regard to sexuality is something that Rinpoche agrees with. And indeed, he would maintain that, in fact, what is known as desire attachment, that is precisely the kind of attitude that wants to use the other person as an object, that is driven by some distorted perception of the person as an object and wants to use that person to achieve some form of bliss for the subject. This is precisely the antithesis of respectful and loving and really relationships that are based on people concerned about each other's happiness. And therefore, in fact, not only is it useful to understand the ways of controlling excessive desire attachment or excessive addiction to lust, not only are they essential, of course, to developing the monastic life and to sublimating the energies into higher pursuit of enlightenment and so forth, but also in the case of developing a healthy life of couples, the ability of

[74:09]

the individual members of the couple to detach their appreciation of the other from their own drives that they are addicted to and their own exaggerated notions of the other being as an object for their use, also that would seem essential. For example, for a couple to remain stable, the couples have to, not only is there some notion of sort of satisfying each other or being helpful, helping each other feel good and so forth, but also there's the question of being contented with each other, of not simply esteeming the desire that the other has for the other, but also being contented with the desire that the other has for the other.

[74:44]

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