Speaker 1: Our great virtue as a human is that we're very deep,
Speaker 1: programmable and reprogrammable. Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Robert Thurman, Professor of Indio Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the
Speaker 1: Department of Religion at Columbia University and the president of
Speaker 1: tibet House US, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation
Speaker 1: and promotion of the Tibetan civilization. The New York Times
Speaker 1: recently hailed him as the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism.
Speaker 1: Robert is the first American to have been ordained a
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhist monk and is a personal friend of the
Speaker 1: Dalai Lama for forty years. He is a passionate advocate
Speaker 1: and spokesperson for the truth regarding the current Tibet China situation.
Speaker 1: Robert is the author of many books on tibet Buddhism, art, politics,
Speaker 1: and culture, including The Essential Tibetan Buddhism, The Tibetan Book
Speaker 1: of the Dead in a Revolution, The Jewel Tree of Tibet,
Speaker 1: and Why the Dalai Lama Matters. His latest book is
Speaker 1: a graphic biography of the doal A Lama called Man
Speaker 1: of Peace, The Illustrated Life Story of the doal A
Speaker 1: Lama of Tibet. If you're getting value out of the show,
Speaker 1: please go to one you feed dot net slash support
Speaker 1: and make a donation. This will ensure that all ad
Speaker 1: eight five episodes that are in the archive will remain free,
Speaker 1: and that the show is here for other people who
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Speaker 1: is if you're interested in the book that we're discussing
Speaker 1: on today's episode. Go to one you feed dot net
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Speaker 1: in eating your Good Wolf. Thanks again for listening. And
Speaker 1: here's the interview with Robert Thurman. Hi, Bob, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you, Eric, nice to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on and talk about You
Speaker 1: are one of the leading Buddhist scholars in the West,
Speaker 1: and so I've been familiar with your work for a
Speaker 1: long time, and you have a new book out called
Speaker 1: Man of Peace, The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai
Speaker 1: Lama of Tibet. So we'll come back and cover all
Speaker 1: that in just a minute. But we're gonna start like
Speaker 1: we normally do, with the parable. There's a grandfather who's
Speaker 1: talking with his grandson, and he says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. The
Speaker 1: grandson stops for a second and he thinks about it,
Speaker 1: and he looks up. He says, well, grandfather, which wolf wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather said, is the one you feed. So
Speaker 1: I'd like to start off by asking you what that
Speaker 1: parable means to you in your life and in the
Speaker 1: work that you do. Well. That means that one should
Speaker 1: definitely not feed the bad one and feed the good one.
Speaker 1: And the ideal, though you know is in the Buddhist
Speaker 1: world at least, I think in lots of spiritual tradition,
Speaker 1: is not just the Buddhist one. I think the best
Speaker 1: thing to feed the good wolf with is the bad wolf,
Speaker 1: and then you don't have to worry about that so
Speaker 1: much anymore. And also the good wolf gets the energy
Speaker 1: that before the bad wolf had. It's really difficult to
Speaker 1: be the good will or to let the good wolf
Speaker 1: function if the bad wolf is always nagging and nipping
Speaker 1: at it and and crippling it. And I think Western
Speaker 1: culture too much has the attitude that it always has
Speaker 1: to be a balance, and even it has the culture
Speaker 1: that the good wolf is really nice, but the bad
Speaker 1: wolf is stronger, and even like modern psychology, Freudian and
Speaker 1: otherwise tend to reinforce that by the idea that the
Speaker 1: conscious mind is weak and it's small, it's the tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg, and the unconscious mind is much more
Speaker 1: powerful and pushes your impulse is to do things that
Speaker 1: you can't control and just have to live with that.
Speaker 1: Whereas the Buddhist plan is and other spiritual traditions I
Speaker 1: would argue, is to be the good one and starve
Speaker 1: the bad one or consume the bad one, where is
Speaker 1: even better than just starving the bad one and turn
Speaker 1: the bad one's energies into the energy is a good one.
Speaker 1: So you really really have the one wolf, and that's
Speaker 1: a good one. And that's what enlightenment is somehow, where
Speaker 1: you're just the one good wolf, and maybe you just
Speaker 1: seas being a wolf actually, and you become like I
Speaker 1: don't know what, toothless friendly dog, you know, like you're
Speaker 1: nice pet dog. You know, happy dog, loyal and faithful
Speaker 1: and friendly, but to keep the strength of the bad
Speaker 1: wolf so that other people's bad wolves or general bad
Speaker 1: things you can defend against them, you can help them
Speaker 1: become free of those and so forth. And I think
Speaker 1: that the one nice news that Buddha had was that
Speaker 1: the human being is capable of becoming a good wolf.
Speaker 1: It's not a matter that the bad wolf will always
Speaker 1: win and always overcome. That goodness is more powerful ultimately,
Speaker 1: and I can give a reasoning for that, but just
Speaker 1: that in short, that's what That's what I would say.
Speaker 1: And so that goodness is often referred to as Buddha nature,
Speaker 1: Buddha nature, it's just one aspect of that. That's a
Speaker 1: way of referring to goodness. And of course buddhahood is
Speaker 1: Buddha nature in full, you could say, fully realized. And
Speaker 1: you know, you do hear some people give a version
Speaker 1: of Buddhism where but it's sort of Buddha nature or
Speaker 1: you know, enlightenment means sort of you know, busting your
Speaker 1: hump to try to get away into some nirvana. Imagine
Speaker 1: that somewhere else. And then enlignment is just being resigned.
Speaker 1: You're just being here and dealing with it. I know
Speaker 1: some people who pretend to be Buddhist experts and they say, well,
Speaker 1: you're always dealing with the devil no matter what, and
Speaker 1: so on and so on in yourself, you know, and
Speaker 1: actually that's not accurate. We do have the capacity to
Speaker 1: become wholly good. And the reason being good is the
Speaker 1: good is more powerful. Is that the good is that
Speaker 1: which you do for others. It is fundamentally altruism, love
Speaker 1: and compassion, you know, which sourced by from wisdom. And
Speaker 1: since there's so many others and they have so much need,
Speaker 1: that's a huge energy that it draws on. And whereas
Speaker 1: the bad is based on selfishness and the way you're
Speaker 1: just doing your own will and seeking your own pleasure
Speaker 1: and success, and you have a lesser drive because there's
Speaker 1: only one of you. And so therefore the good is
Speaker 1: more strong, you know, when you're motivated for the good
Speaker 1: for others, and you have more power than those who
Speaker 1: are selfish. Excellent. Let's talk about enlightenment for a moment.
Speaker 1: It is a concept that is very much at the
Speaker 1: heart of Buddhism. And there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: I would say these days tend to think of enlightenment
Speaker 1: is something that doesn't really happen for most people. What's
Speaker 1: what's your view on that? I mean, is enlightenment something
Speaker 1: that that that we can be looking for in this lifetime?
Speaker 1: I think so perfect enlightenment of Buddhood might take most
Speaker 1: of us a while. Although the good thing about it,
Speaker 1: which I can at least I console myself about, since
Speaker 1: I still have failed to get it, fully, I have
Speaker 1: had a few hints, and I think I understand sort
Speaker 1: of the logistics of it to some extent from having
Speaker 1: staid it. Because the enlightened people leave a map, you know,
Speaker 1: they leave it. They have a great, excellent science of
Speaker 1: the whole of enlightenment and unenlightenment. So my consolation is
Speaker 1: that when you get it, you kind of realize you
Speaker 1: always had it. So the sense of not having it
Speaker 1: and trying to go find it is is based on
Speaker 1: your ignorance. Unfortunate, however, that ignorance is so powerful and
Speaker 1: strong that you have to go as far as you
Speaker 1: have to go in order to find it. And but
Speaker 1: you can, and you will, and some will in this life,
Speaker 1: although that's exceptional. Uh. And even if it happens in
Speaker 1: this life to someone, it means they have developed tremendously
Speaker 1: in many previous lives, which Buddhists would say, even to
Speaker 1: have become human means you have become very close to enlightenment.
Speaker 1: You have evolved from all kinds of other life forms
Speaker 1: that we've all been from, beginning with time, where the
Speaker 1: human one is a particular balance. And our great virtue
Speaker 1: as a human is that we're very deep programmable and reprogrammable. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that means if we reprogram ourselves towards the negative, we
Speaker 1: can become worse than most any other animal. But if
Speaker 1: we try to reprogram ourselves deep programming that as negativity
Speaker 1: is those bad wolves inside ourselves into a really the
Speaker 1: awesome great Megabuddha wolf, then we are really capable of
Speaker 1: doing it. So that's why education is so important for
Speaker 1: the human because the human is completely not exactly blank slate,
Speaker 1: but it's tending in the very very good direction and
Speaker 1: very very malleable and mutable. Let's say, and so we
Speaker 1: can mutate, you know, we can mutate into the butterfly
Speaker 1: where the proverbial cocoon, you know, and we com mutate
Speaker 1: into the butterfly pretty pretty easily, but it might take
Speaker 1: us a few human lives, even in the most esoteric,
Speaker 1: most accelerated way. And here's the rest of the interview
Speaker 1: with Robert Thurman. In your case, you said you've had
Speaker 1: a couple of hints towards enlightenment. I think that was
Speaker 1: the word you used, or small taste. Tell me about
Speaker 1: what that's been like. Well, I'll tell you something that
Speaker 1: I'm particularly happy with an excited about nowadays, because I
Speaker 1: just finished editing a book of a student of mine,
Speaker 1: Chinese student who Chinese American student, but who spends a
Speaker 1: lot of time in China, and who is a great translator,
Speaker 1: has become has a PhD from our university, and had
Speaker 1: a lot of studies himself before that, and he translated
Speaker 1: for his thesis a book on the Buddha nature channeled
Speaker 1: in a way by the future Buddha of Maitrea, according
Speaker 1: to the tradition, through a master and Indian master named
Speaker 1: Asanga in the fourth fifth century, and then commented on
Speaker 1: by a great Tibetan lama during the World Renaissance of
Speaker 1: the fifteenth century in a brilliant manner. And you know,
Speaker 1: before that, I knew there were two ways of understanding
Speaker 1: the Buddha nature, and one was that it was just
Speaker 1: a kind of notion of the mind, you know, the
Speaker 1: intelligent and lightened mind, that somehow we have a seat
Speaker 1: of inside. And it was sort of taught by Buddha
Speaker 1: to reassure those who are habituated to feeling they have
Speaker 1: a sort of structured self and they're secure with the
Speaker 1: self and so on, to think that there was some
Speaker 1: kind of self like structure, Buddha structure inside themselves. And
Speaker 1: then the more sophisticated one is where the Buddha nature
Speaker 1: is just emptiness. It is a sort of ultimate reality
Speaker 1: and everything it has the ultimate rally. We're all empty
Speaker 1: in some way, and therefore that's the Buddha nature. And
Speaker 1: I had I had sort of those in my mind.
Speaker 1: And then when I read did this book, because my
Speaker 1: student has been living in China for a decade or so,
Speaker 1: we had to finish his English version. He translated the
Speaker 1: same book into Chinese and we had to finished English version.
Speaker 1: So I had to kind of very much redo the
Speaker 1: English and do a sort of thoroughly which I had
Speaker 1: not here, and did a part of it in a
Speaker 1: thesis that I had gone over. And then I realized
Speaker 1: this beautiful idea. What a Buddha is is someone who identifies,
Speaker 1: has come to identify in a vis old manner, with
Speaker 1: the entire universe, including all the sensitive beings in that universe.
Speaker 1: So technically, for Buddha to become a Buddha and meaning
Speaker 1: fulfilled his or her Buddhist about not to depart into
Speaker 1: enlightenment into nirvana until everyone is free of suffering. He
Speaker 1: couldn't have left any of us behind. So what that
Speaker 1: means is that he completely thinks he's me and you
Speaker 1: to anybody who retained Buddha, and actually there's infinite numbers
Speaker 1: of them, but the recent historical one and Shakimoni from
Speaker 1: years ago. So he thinks he's you, Eric, and me Bob,
Speaker 1: and plus everybody else and plus your dog there at
Speaker 1: beautiful Na. He thinks he's that, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: he's capable of that because he experiences us on two levels.
Speaker 1: On one, he sees us as made of what it's
Speaker 1: called clear light of bliss, you know, the feeling of
Speaker 1: vast expansion into sort of ultimate space of reality, and
Speaker 1: feel thing that all reality is configurations of bliss. At
Speaker 1: the same time, he doesn't ignore that we experience ourselves
Speaker 1: as an isolated entity looking out from our senses into
Speaker 1: an environment that is often threatening and dissatisfactory and problematic
Speaker 1: and frightened and anxious, and occasionally triumphant and content, but
Speaker 1: but always on the edge kind of. So he experienced
Speaker 1: us both ways. And therefore, since he sees that our
Speaker 1: reality is this bliss, he automatically knows what it is
Speaker 1: he needs to manifest to us that will open the
Speaker 1: door to us to find out our actual nature and
Speaker 1: drop our ignorance. Because the part of us that thinks
Speaker 1: we are separate from everything and we can't deal with
Speaker 1: it and it's overwhelming to us is our ignorant. It's
Speaker 1: it's our misnowing. It's better than say, ignorant, our misknowing part.
Speaker 1: So if that's the case, then Buddha nature, that its
Speaker 1: so called emptiness or Buddha nature, is not just a vacuum.
Speaker 1: But what it is is the Buddha's mind in us,
Speaker 1: which is our deeper reality than our mind in us.
Speaker 1: And when we become a Buddha, we suddenly realize we're
Speaker 1: one with all the Buddhas. And however, unfortunately, because of
Speaker 1: the compassion all other beings, even the non buddhas the
Speaker 1: idea that my Buddha and nature and yours to Eric
Speaker 1: and the dogs is the Buddha's mind in us what's
Speaker 1: called his dharma kaiah, his reality body. And because of that,
Speaker 1: you know, since the Buddha experienced us as pure love
Speaker 1: is made of love, but then realizes we don't feel that,
Speaker 1: so then he automatically that love overflows in such a
Speaker 1: way that he wants to manifest to us whatever encourages.
Speaker 1: And actually it is believed by Tibetans particularly. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure the Indians had that believe before. Maybe they did,
Speaker 1: but you know, out of the Indian tradition, the Tibetans
Speaker 1: believed that the future Buddha, it's my tread manifest now
Speaker 1: in the form of dogs, fits with your wolf thing,
Speaker 1: because the dog is originally like from wolf's stock, and
Speaker 1: yet a dog just loves us. They trust us, We
Speaker 1: trust them and feel comfortable with them. We reach out
Speaker 1: and we pat them. So it's the idea that it's
Speaker 1: kind of a nature that we might be afraid of
Speaker 1: on a subconscious level, you know, because like in Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones sort of thing, they might devour us in
Speaker 1: jail if we were thrown in with some hungry ones,
Speaker 1: but actually they don't, and they will die for us, actually,
Speaker 1: and they will give themselves for us. And so it's
Speaker 1: like that, that's the future Buddha, that's the Buddha's mind
Speaker 1: in the dog. You know, there was the way. So therefore,
Speaker 1: Tibetans kind of horrified by any culture like the Chinese
Speaker 1: that eats dogs. They really freaks them out, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm horrified. Also, on the other hand, unfortunately, kind of hypocritically,
Speaker 1: they didn't exactly have an a s p c A
Speaker 1: in the Buddhist monasteries, and they collected these dogs and
Speaker 1: they fed them with what they could, but there were
Speaker 1: so many dogs they became kind of feral. And it's
Speaker 1: so you know, future to bed the monastery will have
Speaker 1: to have an a spc A bench outside the monastery definitely,
Speaker 1: you know. And I had a friend, Chilling, who was
Speaker 1: one of the Channlemen Square students, democratic students who escaped
Speaker 1: and who got awards and ran around and she always
Speaker 1: had this mutt. It's lovely nice mud. I'm sorry I
Speaker 1: forgot them nuts name, very nice female dog always used
Speaker 1: to bring with her even to ceremonies that you and
Speaker 1: everywhere she consisted. And the reason she said she had
Speaker 1: that is that now you know, made them eat all
Speaker 1: the dogs because they didn't want to waste food on dogs.
Speaker 1: So then and birds and everything. So Chinese lacked pets,
Speaker 1: and then they got into this thing of you know,
Speaker 1: class struggle and cultural revolutions, so kids would turn in
Speaker 1: parents and parents kids and uncles and cousins, and so
Speaker 1: they kind of really lost trust for many decades and
Speaker 1: they're just kind of recovering it now, you know. Althowise
Speaker 1: they made them kind of really paranoid, and the dog
Speaker 1: she felt, you know. So we had a kind of
Speaker 1: plan of a dog a vacation program for China in
Speaker 1: those days after Chenna Men in the nineties, of how
Speaker 1: to take thousands of dogs from all our pounds. First
Speaker 1: we would have to inject them so their meat tasted terrible,
Speaker 1: and second take them over there and they allow people
Speaker 1: to pet them and so on. Yeah, we necessarily a
Speaker 1: plan like that, which unfortunately we couldn't have, but I
Speaker 1: think it naturally got implemented in a way. I think
Speaker 1: they have pets now, luckily, and they're cheering up. You know,
Speaker 1: Chinese are very much cheering up. I think animals, at
Speaker 1: least for me, have been a way to learn to
Speaker 1: love in a way that is easier to a dog
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. And then that for me is translated
Speaker 1: then into being able to do it better with humans.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, Let's talk about your latest It's a graphic
Speaker 1: I won't say novel, I'll say a graphic biography of
Speaker 1: the Dalai Lama's life. We don't have time to go
Speaker 1: into a lot of it, but it really covers a
Speaker 1: couple of key things. One is the development of Tibet,
Speaker 1: what has happened in Tibet over the years with China,
Speaker 1: the Dalai Lama's role in that, the things he's tried
Speaker 1: to do, the peacemaking, and then it's also talks a
Speaker 1: lot about his internal spiritual development. It's that latter part
Speaker 1: that I'd like to spend a few minutes on, which
Speaker 1: is more kind of where our show focuses on. You know,
Speaker 1: what can people do in their own lives to live
Speaker 1: a better life. And I'd like to talk about a
Speaker 1: term that is used a lot in the book you
Speaker 1: talk about over and for it was sort of an
Speaker 1: esoteric teaching that the Dalai Lama brought out to the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. And I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say this right, but I'm gonna try Kala Chakra chakra. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all have time. Yeah, tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about that teaching, because it looks like it was this
Speaker 1: very remote, esoteric teaching. And yet now he has had
Speaker 1: these Kala Chakra teachings or ceremonies for hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of people across the pl that's right. He's done at
Speaker 1: the thirty or four times and the Grand Initiations it
Speaker 1: is called sometimes for five six hundred thousand people, a
Speaker 1: lot of people from around the world, as well as
Speaker 1: as there was hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, of those
Speaker 1: who were in exile, those who were ethnic already originally
Speaker 1: Indian citizens in the Himalayan area and uh in a
Speaker 1: couple of eras. Especially during the eighties when things were looser,
Speaker 1: quite a few could come out of Tibet just for that.
Speaker 1: But now they are prevented at the moment, the way
Speaker 1: things have been since two thousand eight. So um, the
Speaker 1: thing about that is, you know, the title Man of Peace.
Speaker 1: The reason we give it that title is because he
Speaker 1: has walked the talk in his he's really reached. But
Speaker 1: he did that. He wanted to do that from the beginning,
Speaker 1: but he really reached that gradually to really really be
Speaker 1: able to do it. As he has effectively of responding
Speaker 1: to kind of cultural genocide and certainly in colonial occupation, annexation, invasion,
Speaker 1: all of that, he's responded that non violently. He has
Speaker 1: refused to make them an enemy, to call in for
Speaker 1: invasion and this and that or counter invasion. His brothers
Speaker 1: did for a while against his advice and wishes, since
Speaker 1: he doesn't have like total power over what the Tibetans do,
Speaker 1: But he said that would be doomed, it wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: and he didn't want to do it, and so forth,
Speaker 1: and it was he never called the whole country kind
Speaker 1: of to rise, and he asked them to respond heroically peacefully.
Speaker 1: And so that makes him kind of a man of peace.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I've always tried to do
Speaker 1: in my previous book before that's something called white. That
Speaker 1: Allama matters is that at this time on the planet,
Speaker 1: we have two major things threatening us, and one of
Speaker 1: them is this kind of industrial militarism where the weapons
Speaker 1: are so powerful no one can win a war, and
Speaker 1: an escalated war among the powers would cause the destruction
Speaker 1: of everything or or right for sure. And then we
Speaker 1: have industrial consumerism, which is like pumping out all kinds
Speaker 1: of you know, carbon and climate change and wreaking the
Speaker 1: environment in an in another way for profit and money,
Speaker 1: but especially on the military side. You know, since we
Speaker 1: could all imagine if all the money is spent on
Speaker 1: weapons and militarism today were spent on quality of life
Speaker 1: for all the people today, they really wouldn't be much
Speaker 1: problem and people wouldn't really feel they had to go
Speaker 1: invade someone else because they'd all be wealthy enough. But
Speaker 1: people then always say about the Dalament, well, great, he's
Speaker 1: a man of peace. But isn't that completely unrealistic? You know.
Speaker 1: It's like with with this basic thing that is that
Speaker 1: I've mentioned at the beginning with the wolves, that we
Speaker 1: in the world's culture now in materialism, following pretty much
Speaker 1: on the Western colonial power and its culture, Abrahamic religions
Speaker 1: culture has this idea that the good is weaker than
Speaker 1: the than the bad, and therefore you have to arm
Speaker 1: or you're going to be done for. And everyone has
Speaker 1: to be armed to the teeth basically to protect yourself.
Speaker 1: And so they say, well, then he's not like that.
Speaker 1: Tibet got wasted because they demilitarized in the seventeenth century, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And well, yes, true, but after the seventeenth century to
Speaker 1: the twentieth they did really well, and then the British invaded,
Speaker 1: and then the Chinese reinvaded, the Manchus at first, and
Speaker 1: then the Nationalists and then the Communists finally, and then
Speaker 1: they did get wasted. Yes, but before that, thousand years earlier,
Speaker 1: before Buddhism, they were wasting other people like a typical conqueror.
Speaker 1: So in a way, they just made a choice to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable in order to have a blissful, beautiful society
Speaker 1: with spiritual value, love and compassion and joyfulness at the
Speaker 1: center of the culture. And so, yes, it's been sixty years,
Speaker 1: he's still the twists are still suffering. And so now
Speaker 1: we have to live up to the power of peace.
Speaker 1: We have to manifest that we have to dialogue with
Speaker 1: the enemy. We have to find a way to get
Speaker 1: along with everybody. And we can do that, and and
Speaker 1: we have to do that. I don't know, talk and snack.
Speaker 1: I think talk and share a snack, you know, break bread, together,
Speaker 1: as the great teachers of humanity have been trying to
Speaker 1: tell us for three thousand years. You know, that's what
Speaker 1: the human destiny has to be, by our own free will.
Speaker 1: We have to choose that, and we have to do it,
Speaker 1: and we have the power to do it. So he
Speaker 1: as a man of peace, you know, which actually is
Speaker 1: the word that you know, Prince of peace is the
Speaker 1: word used for Jesus, you know. But then in the
Speaker 1: problem with that for Christians is that they then they
Speaker 1: sort of have this image blazing into their head by Constantine,
Speaker 1: the Roman emperor, that Jesus God wasted and Caesar remained
Speaker 1: in power, you know. So he was nice with the
Speaker 1: sermon on the Mount, but it's not practical advice, whereas
Speaker 1: now in the twentieth century it is practical advice. Buddha
Speaker 1: gave the same advice five hundred years ago and also
Speaker 1: wasn't fully listened to, and a lot of other old
Speaker 1: basically all the holy teachers have done. So Mohammed, people
Speaker 1: only think Muslims are universally violent and jadis, and that
Speaker 1: is untrue. Mohammed defended himself against the Meccans for a
Speaker 1: long time. Then when he won that thing, because of
Speaker 1: the power of his charisma and of his of his
Speaker 1: idea of Islam. Have let yourself go and give yourself
Speaker 1: to the universe. You know, Islam means to surrender, you know,
Speaker 1: surrender your ego. Uh. He then walked into Mecca unarmed.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, you could say, well, the Mecans were
Speaker 1: afraid his arm If they killed him, his army would
Speaker 1: punish them. But basically he still made himself vulnerable. And
Speaker 1: he walked in to do pilgrimage with his former enemies unarmed,
Speaker 1: and then they they became his friends. And then you
Speaker 1: developed the power of Islam, which spread rapidly around the world.
Speaker 1: So all the great spiritual teachers have taught this, and
Speaker 1: all of us and the and the kings and the
Speaker 1: leaders and the high priests have not listened. And they've
Speaker 1: turned those religions into battle standards and banners that they've
Speaker 1: carried into battle, you know, for Jesus, you know. And
Speaker 1: Jesus never said bomb dyne enemy. He never said take
Speaker 1: the sword of myne enemy. He said love dyne enemy,
Speaker 1: you know. And so did Buddha. And it's time we
Speaker 1: listen now. And so the color chakra is this amazing
Speaker 1: thing which is part of a prophecy that Shambalah it's
Speaker 1: magic country that's somewhere eventually becomes the sort of global culture.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean people all become Buddhist at all. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that people become Shambalans at all, But it
Speaker 1: just means that within the terms of each culture, people
Speaker 1: find the good side, and they find the good wolf
Speaker 1: in the teachings, and they and they enjoy life and
Speaker 1: they love each other and it's much more happy planet.
Speaker 1: In relation to that, it's the word chakra, like in English,
Speaker 1: who means a wheel, but like in English, wheel can
Speaker 1: stand for a machine. So Buddha's way of not abandoning
Speaker 1: beings to his own enlightenment and there was not attaining
Speaker 1: a nirvana freedom from suffering on his own separately from beings,
Speaker 1: is that he sees all future moments and destinies of beings,
Speaker 1: apparently in his enlightenment experience. It has stated in all
Speaker 1: versions of his enlightenment. He sees his entanglement with all
Speaker 1: beings from many infinite previous lives, and then he sees
Speaker 1: all their future possible destinies, how they can make choices
Speaker 1: that will help them and once will harm them, and
Speaker 1: he puts his energy out of compassion to try to
Speaker 1: shape the world in such a way that it will
Speaker 1: lead them, give them the optimal evolutionary path to their
Speaker 1: own fulfillment and enlightenment. And to him those future moments
Speaker 1: are just as real as the present moment years ago
Speaker 1: under the tree when he achieved full enlightenment. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, the illusion of time being these separate moments
Speaker 1: is no longer afflicted by and and his compassion enables
Speaker 1: him to be with us as we evolved life after life,
Speaker 1: all the beings do into the to a state of
Speaker 1: where we find that same understanding of reality as a
Speaker 1: bliss freedom, indivisible, as Buddhists would say, at the deepest level.
Speaker 1: So the College chakra is the most vivid, symbolic and
Speaker 1: yogic expression of that sort of vision of the Buddha
Speaker 1: operating in history to optimize the planet, not abandon it
Speaker 1: to some dark age and some horrible you know, corruption
Speaker 1: and self destruction and things, but to see to it
Speaker 1: that it evolves, although it doesn't look like it on
Speaker 1: the surface with its holocaust and world wars and craziness,
Speaker 1: but basically, the sensitivity of the humans and ultimately of
Speaker 1: the older beings is such that they're more and more sensitive,
Speaker 1: and more and more well educated, more and more aware
Speaker 1: of each other. Look at Facebook, we have a kind
Speaker 1: of global brain through the Internet nowadays, where we know
Speaker 1: everything that happens to everybody else. And and our compassion,
Speaker 1: natural sensitivity and compassion empathy gets us to like the
Speaker 1: other beings that used to be very alien to us.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's sort of the cow chakra legend.
Speaker 1: It kind of benign, you know, New Age revelation thing,
Speaker 1: you know, like Book of Revelation, but not there is
Speaker 1: a little violence, but that's the violence we are now having,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of self destructs the destructiveness and then
Speaker 1: everything goes well. Human beings a great opportunity to use
Speaker 1: that human intelligence to really enjoy life and bring such
Speaker 1: enjoyment to all the other creatures in the universe. That's
Speaker 1: why he has specially done that College chakra all around.
Speaker 1: It's been like a mass prayer to see the positive
Speaker 1: possibility of human evolution and the human history also on
Speaker 1: this planet. And uh, and that's why he does that. Excellent,
Speaker 1: thank you for that explanation. That's very helpful. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you Bob for your time. It's been great talking with you.
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed it. I really liked the book. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you guys got it done. I know it took you
Speaker 1: a long time. And uh, thanks for all your work
Speaker 1: with Buddhism and the Tibet House. Thank you, Eric and
Speaker 1: I have a great time. Okay you too, Okay to
Speaker 1: care alright. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you, please consider making a donation to the One
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Speaker 1: net slash support