2 Days with Venerable Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche

It was an great honor for me be able to become an interpreter for Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche. SIDDHI MEDAN asked me to become an interpreter for Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche for 2 days in their Dharma Teaching event. I am so happy because I was able contribute to this auspicious occasion. Really, no joke! I knew that I don’t have a high English proficiency, but I tried my best to do this work. I was very careful to translate all the words presented by Rinpoche. At least, I’m not be able to enlighten others, but also I don’t want to mislead others. That’s the most important part.

I want to share what I have heard yesterday and today from Rinpoche to all of you. I admired what he was talking, he threw pretty much jokes during his teaching. He also has a casual way of speaking, humorous and full of meaning. Actually, maybe I would be able to share more if I were an audience yesterday because I would take a lot of notes and it allows me to share more about what I heard. However, when I translated the teachings yesterday, I was not able to write a single word in my book because when I write, I would not be able to hear the next words he spoke. So I chose to listen and translate his speech directly without noting anything.

Please enjoy this note J

14/March/2017

At Bodhi Dharma Buddhist College, Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche talked about Wisdom and Freedom as a topic.He explained about his country (Bhutan), and why Bhutan awarded as “Happiest Country on Earth” on 2009. Bhutan has aimed for high gross national happiness. Rinpoche said, there were four main pillars at Bhutan. The intuitive guiding principle of Gross National Happiness (GNH) led to a practical conceptualization of the concept. The foundation is made of four pillars: Good Governance is a considered a pillar for happiness because it determines the conditions in which Bhutanese thrive. A thriving GNH economy must value social and economic contributions of households and families, free time and leisure given the roles of these factors in Happiness. Happiness is believed to be contributed to by the preserving the Bhutanese culture. Developing cultural resilience, which can be understood as the culture’s capacity to maintain and develop cultural identity, knowledge and practices, and able to overcome challenges and difficulties from other norms and ideals. Environmental Conservation is considered a key contribution to GNH because in addition to providing critical services such as water and energy, the environment is believed to contribute to aesthetic and other stimulus that can be directly healing to people who enjoy vivid colours and light, untainted breeze and silence in nature’s sound.

Rinpoche said, those all just lead and give us to temporary happiness. There’s two kind of different happiness in our life : Absolute happiness and Relative Happiness. Rinpoche said that money can make people feel happy, but it's only temporary happiness. As a Buddhist, Buddha taught us to not really rely on temporary happiness and should achieve absolute happiness. Rinpoche said that there are four important pillars to achieve absolute happiness.

Boundless love, boundless compassion, boundless joy and boundless equanimity are tools to achieve absolute happiness in our life. Boundless love, in contrast to clinging and attachment, is the wish for everyone everywhere to have happiness and its causes. It banishes hatred. Love sees everything without distortion, and eventually transforms into the third Buddha wisdom, mirror-like wisdom, which sees everything clearly, just the way it is.

Boundless compassion, which is distinct from being overwhelmed by emotion, is the wish that everyone everywhere be free of pain and its causes. It banishes desire. Compassion becomes wisdom when it recognizes the empty nature of those who are suffering.

Boundless joy, not to be mistaken for frenzied exultation, is delight in others’ happiness (rejoice). Joy is antidote to jealousy and stabilizes our capacity for engagement. As such, it is a portal to the only remaining Buddha wisdom, the all-accomplishing wisdom that transforms intention into action. Each boundless quality supports the balance of equanimity.

We need to develop these 4 important pillars without selecting and excluding, knowing well that to do so means to create love's own contrasts: dislike, aversion and hatred. You can radiate them to yourself, a benefactor, a friend, an enemy, one toward whom you feel neutral, and groups. Extend your love more broadly, first to a dear friend, thinking in the same way as above. When the mind is malleable, generate love for a neutral person, seeing her as a very dear friend. When you can do this, cultivate love for an enemy, seeing her as neutral. “Enemy” means someone you are hostile or critical toward. The person does not have to be one who reciprocates those disturbing emotions. This step can be difficult because anger or the wish for revenge may arise toward those who have harmed you. If you cannot get past these disturbing emotions, return to meditating on love toward one of the previous persons, and when the mind is drenched in that feeling, again generate love for the enemy. I begin by sitting quietly and remembering how much suffering there is in the world and how much I would like peace and happiness for all beings.  I remember that someday, sooner or later, I will die and all beings will die.  I want to use this precious human life as best I can.  I then vow to free myself from suffering and help others be free from suffering.

Rinpoche also talked about Samsara but not really detail. Rinpoche just explained the main things about Samsara. He showed all the audience about the Tibetan Thangka Painting and explained about 3 main layers. First layer talked about  twelve links of dependent origination, the second layer talked about 6 realms (Lower and Upper Realms) and the thirtd layer about three poisons (Hartred, Anger and Ignorance). Rinpoche also talked about precious human existence, but he mentioned about ‘Precious’, Rinpoche said, What’s the ‘precious human existence’ means? Its not because we are human then we are precious, but because humans can do something important and precious for ourselves and others. That’s  why born as a human being is precious. We can do what animals can’t do, right? So, Rinpoche remind us to not worry sick about money. We also associate money with happiness. The never ending quest to be financially secure will crush your chances of making something useful of your life. Imagine the horror of growing old and looking back and realizing you spent the better part of your life worrying about something that really was pointless. I think it would be quite difficult to bear. Of course, you have to go to work, you have to pay the bills, you have to feed yourself. It is not the work I am talking about here. What I am referring to is the WORRY. The constant consuming mental habit of worrying about the future. It is pointless. Rinpoche invited all the audience to contemplate  how rare and precious this life is and I do feel some sense of loss when I waste it. I am very happy to be able to hold precepts, they help me to feel courage and faith in the practice. I also realize how fortunate I am to have such kind teachers and I wish to practice well and become a kinder, wiser human being.

In the end, Rinpoche explained a bit about Karma. It’s called 100% Karma. 100% is divided into four parts, namely the subject, motivations, actions and results. For example, Our friend invited us to have dinner at good restaurant because in that restaurant, they have delicious fish. Then, we go there with intention/motivation to eat fish, and because we want to eat fish, people killed the fish for us and fish died then finally served on our table. So, here.. the fish is the subject (25%), the intention/motivation to eat fish is there as well (25%). And then the fish being killed (action – 25%), the last one.. the fish served on our table and we eat them (25%). So, our Karma is 100%.

How many people were involved in the act? Fishermen who catch fish,  fish seller, fish buyer, the chef, the waiter who served the fish to our table, all those people know that the fish will be killed, but none of them make a precaution or do something to help the fish. It’s awful.

So, in the end of the teaching, Rinpoche told us his humble wishes, may all of us be free from the fear of not getting what we want, free from the fear of losing what we have, may the precious compassion and wisdom grow in us, and may the love and kindness be our religion.

15/March/2017

At Nursing Home Taba Bodhi Asri. Rinpoche talked about his own experience and encouraged all of eldest there. So, Rinpoche told them that he felt like visiting his own parents and he was so happy to see them. Rinpoche said several years ago he had to undergo a kidney transplant and surgery. He also said at the time he was only 32 years old but he felt like 90 years old. His physique was young but weaker than older people. He asked Buddha, why? Rinpoche realized that keep the mind is more important than the physical body. He accepted all the condition and live with a calm and peaceful mind. Even after surgery, he didn’t need to take any pain killers. Even the healing process better and faster than the usual.

Rinpoche said, this story is to remind all of elders there. They don’t need be afraid of death. Because actually, we are born to die. Also don’t need to feel that we are old, powerless and useless. Because these things only damage our mind and inner quality. Instead of feeling sad, we should feel lucky because live this long and still have a healthy body. Maintaining the mind to remain happy and peace is important. Our bodies can become blind, deaf, disabled, and so on. but not with the mind. Rinpoche also said that we should forgive others who may have hurt us and we also ought to apologize to people who have been hurt by us. This is one of the things that make the mind become peaceful.

Furthermore, we also have to maintain a good relationship with the Buddha. if during his lifetime we never keep a good relationship with The Buddha, probably after death, although Buddha is in front of us, we probably would not recognize Him because during our lifetime we never build a good relationship with The Buddha. Always remember The Buddha’s kindness and always pray to Buddha. That’s important if we want to have a peaceful mind. The most important thing is do not always remember the mistakes of others, the weaknesses of others, but remember the good things we have done. Be kind and caring to others can help us to have a peaceful mind.

Rinpoche also reminded the younger people that don’t think that only older people die sooner than those who are younger. Because the fact is, a lot of young people who die in an horrible way, because of incurable illnesses and death doesn’t always happen to the elderly only. So, Don’t think if you are young, you can’t be dead first. We must prepare to die well. Don’t be afraid of death, we should do a lot useful  and good deeds in our lives to welcome death. Because only the good deeds that we did  that can we take when we die. We can’t take our houses, car, wealth, power and so on. We also not be able to help our family, nothing we can do.

So, Forgiveness and Acceptance is important. Forgive people, apologize to people, accept that die is a normal thing, and our mind will be more peaceful and calm.

I hope you enjoy this article and I hope I could do better than this in the future.