I will first explain what the fundamental consciousness is. It is important to understand it because it will lead you to understand and know about karma – what it is, what are its causes, why karma has to be purified, and how.

The fundamental consciousness is like the ground, or the field of the mind. From this ground, you have a mind for what you hear. Hearing something, you have a mind of hearing. Similarly, you have a mind for what you smell, taste, touch, see, and think. These six minds are generally referred to as the six consciousnesses. If you separate and sort away these six minds, then what is left? It is the ground, or the main mind, and it is called the fundamental consciousness.

The main mind, or fundamental consciousness, is by nature very pure. However, in every sentient being, the pure mind is lying underneath a sleeping mind, or ignorance. As a result, you do not realize the pure aspect of mind. Your mind is said to be in ignorance, or clouded. The purity of mind in-itself is beyond size, beyond time, beyond anything that you can think of. Likewise, the ignorance of mind also has no size, and there is nothing there. The nature of the pure mind and the nature of ignorance are therefore the same.

The process of how an illusion is created

Ignorance is a state of mind in which you do not realize your own nature. It gives rise to a dualistic mind. Characteristic of the dualistic mind is that any strong thought that appears in it can be kept as a habit or karma. Much like a seed in a field, a strong thought— or karma— can be planted in the mind. The planted seeds of habit can then be activated by the many thoughts, and the consciousnesses.

The main cause of any strong thought, or emotion is self-clinging, be it positive or negative. And all these strong thoughts, or states of mind, are stored in that space of ignorance. Then together, they will grow by supporting and connecting with other similar states of mind. In this way, the karmas gather and become bigger and bigger.

Eventually, the strongest of these karmic states of mind will ripen and become a main cause. This main cause will give rise to a mind full of many tendencies and attached to a form. This mind, in the form, will then have to experience an illusion of a lifetime.

For example, when a main cause for a human life ripens in the mind, that mind experiences a life in a human form. In addition to the main cause are all the many different but interrelated causes, which have also come to fruition. Therefore, in our example, the person will also find himself in a network of connections with other beings, in a world on earth, with all its living conditions and happenings.

The ripening of karmic thoughts

"There is an ant walking on the table" is not a very emotional state of mind. "I want to kill it!" is a stronger state of mind. If you actually follow it through by killing the ant, then the thought backed by the action, has become very solid. It has become a strong seed prone to ripen quickly in the future. Right now, because your current karma as a human is still going strong, the other karmic seeds are somewhat blocked and dormant. Later, when your human life has expired, the strongest seed, karma, or impression stored in the mind will come to ripen first.

The process of ripening karmic thoughts in the mind is the same as the process of dreaming during sleep. All the sense faculties such as hearing, and seeing, and their corresponding consciousnesses, are withdrawn into the fundamental mind. With not much going on, mind is much less active. During this period, from the ignorant part of the fundamental mind, many habits can come up and this is why we dream. However, the causes for dreams are not very strong. They are, in fact, rather weak. This accounts for why dreams can just appear, change, and disappear. Dreams are not solid at all.

An illusion is created from very strong habits. Your current life is a relatively solid dream in that it has already been established. Let’s suppose you live for a hundred years here. Until the cause of those hundred years is finished, your life will not disappear. When it does expire, you will die. Death means that a solid illusion, created by a particularly strong karma, is finished. The cause has been exhausted, and therefore the illusion disappears. To other people, you are dead. However, as far as you are concerned, it just means the end of one illusion and the beginning of a new one.

The bardo is the intermediate state between lives. It is a very confusing time, because all the very many habits and tendencies, or illusions are still there. However, the passing of every day brings you closer to the time, when the next very strong karmic seed is about to ripen. Once that seed is ripened into an illusion, your mind will again become one with it. You are no longer separate, and your mind is in the illusion. It is not the case at all where there is an illusion of a human life somewhere out there, and then you enter into it. It is rather a case of a seed ripening in your mind causing you to then experience a human life in a human body in the midst of a human world, if you were to be reborn again as a human.

One karma can also be disturbed by another. One karma can block another karma depending on their respective strengths. As long as the karmic thoughts are not yet ripened, then they can be disrupted. Any karma or karmic thought that has been acted out is strong, because it has been satisfied through action— regardless of whether the thought was negative or positive. In the ignorant mind, you have both positive and negative karmas. Some karmic thoughts can very well be strengthened without actions. Mental karmas can be very delicate.

The main problem is the big space of ignorant mind, which is like a huge TV screen where you can have lots of illusions there. The space of mind is unobstructed. As long as you do not realize your own mind, then you are overwhelmed by the duality. Your mind has become the space where illusions happen.

One example of karma and rebirth

Through Shi’nay, you can attain a mental power of seeing. For instance, you can see where someone is reborn.

There were once many Shi’nay practitioners even before the Buddha had started to teach. A Hindu-sect had practiced one form of Shi’nay. A yogi of this sect, in a cave near the River Ganges, saw in his deep contemplative state of Shi’nay, a mother and child swept away in the River Ganges and drowned. He also saw that both the mother and the child were reborn in a celestial realm. However, he did not know the cause for their high rebirths.

According to the Buddha’s teaching, the causes could only have been strong states of mind. Indeed, the mother had thought only of saving her son’s life, and so she sacrificed her own life while trying to do so. The child also had wanted to sacrifice his life so that his mother could live. At the time of their deaths, both were thinking only of the other. In that moment, there were no thoughts of self, nor any other selfish thinking. That strong selflessness was the cause that created, in that moment, the heavenly rebirths. In other words, their human lives had expired while they were both in very strong positive states of mind. At the same time, no other disturbances took place because no other karmic imprints were involved.

The knowing power of the yogi was, however, limited because he was just practising Shi’nay. He had only seen the good rebirths so he surmised that the River Ganges could wash away the sins, and negative karma of people. He then told people what he thought, and that was how the religious tradition of washing in the River Ganges had started. According to Hindu mythology, Shiva lives on Mount Kailash, and the River Ganges is his daughter. People are still bathing in the River Ganges to this day.

Positive karma is useful

Strong mental states are the most active causes in the mind. Any karmic imprint, even when blocked from ripening by other karmas, will eventually manifest. As long as our mind is lodged in illusion, the accumulated karmas cannot be wiped off. Sooner or later, they will ripen.

An Arhat, or a Theravada practitioner, is someone who has renounced samsara and no longer wants to take rebirth again. He can eliminate the illusion by meditation. It is a meditation where he targets the self-clinging to eliminate it. You may wonder where the karma would go once your mind were free of the influence of illusion? Karma is part of ignorance; like darkness, it will naturally disappear. The Arhats are able to attain a certain realization of pure mind, where karmas and emotions no longer appear.

The Arhats, however, have not accumulated the positive karmas, which would produce the good effects. For example, if you have amassed a great quantity of positive karmas, then you would have a wealth of resources available to you. You would be able to use it to help others. If there were no sentient beings, you wouldn’t need any of it. But since sentient beings are innumerable, and you want to help them, then you need the positive karmas to create the good illusions for their benefit.

For example, by his merit power, Buddha Amitabha manifested the Pure Land of Dewachen for sentient beings. Dewachen can then appear in the minds of sentient beings. Dewachen is not for Buddha Amitabha. The cause of the appearance of his Pure Land comes from his positive potential. Of course, at the same time, there must also be some positive potential in the minds of sentient beings for there to be a connection to the Buddha and his wishes. And it is this connection that gives the beings the opportunity to know and to see the Pure Land.

Positive merits cause beneficial manifestations

A Bodhisattva is one who does not wish to sever the illusion immediately. He uses the illusion to create rich karmas useful to sentient beings. The Nirmanakaya and Sambhogakaya both come from the positive karma of an enlightened Bodhisattva, who does not want to attain liberation immediately for himself. Instead, he uses the human life to accumulate merits so he could better help sentient beings. He takes rebirth again and again in the different realms to help. His usefulness translates into ever more merits, enabling him to continue to manifest in many different forms to benefit others.

By helping others and accumulating the merits, you can also do as the Bodhisattvas. You will be able to do it, too. Let’s suppose I have attained certain bhumis, then I can emanate so very many Shamar Rinpoches in all the different realms to help beings. There is no point in having many Shamar Rinpoches in this world here.

Another example is Nagarjuna who had attained the first bhumi by meditation in one life. That achievement enabled him to then manifest many Nagarjunas in the many different realms all at the same time.

The meaning of manifestation

Manifestation does not mean that a similar body like mine comes out of my body. Manifestation means a wish as in, "I wish…, comes true." Manifestation is my wish happening: "I wish that there’d be a very, very good fish in the ocean, which would help all the fishes there." When my wish comes true, then the fishes will see a fish helping them. This is what is meant by a wish is happening. Monkey is a character-hero in a Chinese fable. The Monkey had special power to send out many forms of itself to attack the demons. Enlightened emanation, or manifestation, does not mean that at all. It simply means that a wish is happening, or a wish is fulfilled. When the Bodhisattvas attain the bhumis, then whatever wishes for sentient beings they have made will happen. All their wishes will come true.

Examples of manifestations or the happening of Bodhisattva wishes

Shantideva once told this story: In Southern India and in Indonesia, there used to be many snake attacks on the local people. One yogi, Shanku, had made a statue of a garuda and placed it on a pillar.

A garuda is a big black bird that kills snakes. In Africa, larger species of the garudas are still living there today. So, garudas prey on snakes and snakes are therefore afraid of this predator. This is interdependent origination (Tibetan: tendrel). Snakes have the karma to fear the garudas, and the garudas have the karma to prey on snakes.

Shanku, accordingly, had carved a statue of a garuda out of wood. He then put some mantra inside the statue, and blessed it. He made a wish that where the pillar with the garuda was set, the snakes would stay away. And it did happen as he had wished.

The wooden garuda statue could not possibly have intended to chase the snakes away. Yet the snakes had sensed something there and stayed away. Maybe they saw a real garuda because of Shanku’s wish. Wherever the statue was placed, the wish kept away the snakes and so the people were protected.

If you were to analyze how a wooden garuda that could not move or fly, could accomplish such a feat, you’d find no explanation for it. It was the wish of Shanku coming true. This was how, in Indonesia, the tradition of placing garudas on top of pillars had started. Nowadays, it is only a tradition without any real effect anymore, but it worked back in those days. This story is an example of how the wish of a Bodhisattva could help sentient beings. All these wishes depend on the accumulation of merit of the Bodhisattvas, which explains why they keep on gathering the merits limitlessly by taking rebirth after rebirth.

When Guru Padmasambhava first went to Tibet, the ministers to the king were followers of shamanism. They did not want Guru Rinpoche there and so they slandered him in front of the king. In the end, the king sent him away. Guru Rinpoche then said, "I have not yet accomplished everything I wish to do to help the Tibetans. But my help also depends on the karma of the Tibetans. I could have made a wish that the land of Tibet be full of trees. Now that you are chasing me out, I’d just have to forget it!" So, Tibet doesn’t have trees.

Connection karma

Karma is in a mind under illusion. As a matter of fact, it is your own karma that is creating the illusion. Sometimes, it depends also on connection karma. This is the karma, for example, that connects you to the great Bodhisattvas, who are making wishes for you by creating many positive illusions, like Dewachen. Their wishes come to you through the connection karma between you, and then you will encounter the positive illusions useful for your enlightenment.

Connection karma can also be negative as in a connection to an evil-minded person. That negative person may be making bad wishes towards you and others. By his harmful wishes, he is creating many bad conditions for sentient beings. If you have any karmic connection to this evil-wisher, then the negative circumstances created by his wish could also happen to you.

Based on the constancy of negative emotions in your mind, based on the many times you have already been in samsara, you can easily deduce that you must have a lot of negative karma in your mind. When any of them ripens, it will block your path to enlightenment. The karmic illusions, and the ripening of karma won’t disappear until you are fully enlightened, or at least till you have achieved the level of an Arhat. Therefore to weaken your negative karmas, rooted and caused by your self-clinging, you need merit support now so that your development on the Dharma path will not be spoiled.

The practice of the 35 Buddhas is particularly effective for purifying karmas and for gathering merits. Tomorrow, I will teach the Practice of the 35 Buddhas.

Questions (Q) and Answers (A)

(Q): Does the system of karma apply to all sentient beings, or does it work only for Buddhists, and not for beings with other religions or beliefs?

(A): There is no system of karma because karma is happening in the minds of sentient beings. Because of karma in the mind, there is illusion. Every sentient being has a mind. In your mind, there are many karmas created by you. Each karma can ripen into a different illusion, so there is no system.

If you were to say system of illusion, that would be correct. An illusion is a system of ignorance, self-clinging, emotions, etc.

But karma is not a system like a democracy, a republic, communism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity. Karma is neither a man-made religion, nor a political system. It is also not a justice system where you could be judged and punished.

(Q): Can one say that great saints of the past, not Buddhists, but still very developed and holy, were Bodhisattvas without knowing it, that they were free from karma?

(A): Your question comes from a concept that great saints of the past, who are holy, might be free from karma. First of all, so long as one’s mind is in the illusion, one is not free of the karmas regardless of whether or not one is holy. As well, being holy is a religious concept, and karma is not dependent on religious concepts.

It sounds like perhaps you think having karma is bad. You think perhaps someone holy would be free from karma, free from punishment. It is not right to think of karma as punishment. Karma is based in the individual. It can be positive or negative.

I have explained that in the ignorant mind, karmic thoughts could ripen and create illusions. Karmic thoughts do not depend on a judge, a boss, or a king, or whether you think of them as good or bad. Karma is not a verdict from a higher authority.

When a karma ripens, there will be an illusion. While beings are in samsara, they have karmas regardless of whether they believe in Buddhism or not. The karmas are actually you, yourself.

(Q): The question was different. What if somebody is realized, but without knowing the concepts of Buddhism, can he still be free from karma? Maybe he is a Bodhisattva, for example, some Christian holy person.

(A): Yes, that’s possible, you don’t have to be a Buddhist in order to become free from karma. When a wish of a Bodhisattva is happening, as in the example I gave about a good fish in the ocean helping other fishes, it is happening whether we call it Buddhism, or not.

Karma is illusion, but there are both good and bad illusions. It depends on your mind not your religion. Karma is your mind so you should know what is right and what is wrong. If you know, then you can fix the problems of your mind by yourself.

Suppose you have learned how to fix the problems of your mind, then what would you call it? What would you think it is? Would you think of it as a religion, or a form of education?

The point is to know how to correct and improve yourself, that’s all. You might call it religion, or just information. But the key is still to know to correct and improve yourself.

Since you have a mind, and you have ignorance, then you can be enlightened. If your mind had no ignorance then you couldn’t be enlightened – because you would already be enlightened! Buddhas could not be enlightened again.

If you are on the way to enlightenment, it means that your mind is very pure. You could call it holy, positive, good, supreme, or any other positive term.

Suppose I have a very bad and hateful attitude towards others. My karmic cause has made me into a very evil-minded animal, like a crocodile, which kills humans and animals. You could call me mara (evil). The point is, it is a label. It is just words. It does not change the fact that I am still just a crocodile. You can call me bad, or you can call me a monster, but I am still a crocodile.

Now let’s suppose the opposite, that I have a good attitude towards others. I have Bodhicitta, and I have accumulated a lot of merit such that I am now a Buddha. It means I can help many others. If there could be a crocodile that harms beings then there could also be a being that helps them. That’s nature. If beings can receive harm from other beings, then they can also receive help. That’s nature, too.

If there were someone who could help you to receive help, what would you call that helper? If you’d like, you could call him god or doctor. But still, he is the same person who is helping you. Calling him god will not change him. Calling him a friend will also not change him. He still is helping you to receive help. This is what a Bodhisattva or a Buddha means. Neither of them is dependent or caught in a system, religious or political. Whether you get help, or harm, that is nature.

(Q): Can you change present karma?

(A): You can change the small karmas, but the big karmas are fixed for now. For instance, while you are human, you cannot change into a celestial being. When your current life has expired, then it will be possible for you to change into a different form.

Positive karmas can eliminate the negatives, so positive thoughts are important. They are the remedies for negative karmic thoughts. There are many positive and powerful karmic thoughts, and Bodhicitta is one of them. Another one is devotion towards the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who have made a lot of good wishes for sentient beings. The merit that comes from that kind of devotion can absorb their wishes for you. In other words, your devotion towards the enlightened qualities creates a connection for you to receive the wishes of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

By the same token, if somebody wants to kill you and there is a karmic connection between you, then it is possible for him to hurt you. If he actually sets out to kill you, then you will be killed by him. Your bad karma makes you vulnerable and open to his harm. For example, in our lifetime, we know that Pol Pot had killed three million people in Cambodia. He did not kill us because there is no cause for us to be his victims. But those he had killed had some karmic connection to receive his harm. On Pol Pot’s side, he had achieved his bad wish caused by his past karma. One could not even imagine killing as many people as he did.

Another powerful karmic thought that can weaken negative karma is strong regret. This is not an emotional regret, but you regret your bad actions. There are practices where you focus on the negative karma in order to eliminate it. This motivation to eliminate the negativities is also powerful.

These three: Bodhicitta, devotion, and strong regret are all relative methods for purifying karma. The most powerful method of purification is a direct experience of the empty nature of karma. This is the most effective method for eliminating karma, but it is difficult. You have to develop wisdom.

In your current life, you can apply all these remedies to purify your negative karmas that have been naturally accumulating from your many past lives until now. In doing so, you can weaken them considerably in a very short time. You can even eliminate them all. But even if you don’t eliminate them completely, you can still weaken your bad karmas to the extent that they no longer have any chance of ripening. In the meantime, you meditate until you are enlightened, at which point, all bad karmas would disappear.

It is very effective to combine the two methods as I’ve just described. The first is to create new, positive karmas as remedies. You use them to block the chance of the ripening of bad karmas. If the bad karmas were to ripen, your opportunities would be ruined. The very many merits could weaken your negative karmas and create very fruitful results. The second method is meditation. While your negative karma is being stalled by your merits, you meditate so that wisdom can emerge from your mind. In the presence of wisdom, the illusion will disappear. This is how these two methods combined would enlighten you.

In any case, the strongest positive thought is Bodhicitta, and the strongest negative thought is selfishness. A very selfish attitude together with anger creates very strong karma. If one’s self-clinging is less, then the anger is also weaker.

Karma happens in the realm of ignorance. Once ignorance is gone, then all the karmas will be naturally gone. That is the nature of sentient beings. We, Buddhist teachers, cannot create a law for you about karma. If karma were not in the nature of sentient beings, then there would be no point in talking about it. The talk would just be nonsense. Karma is nature.

There is also no point in saying how beautiful something is, if it is not. If karmic nature is bad, there is no point in saying nice things about it, because bad is bad. During an election, some voters may think like this: "I don’t mind him, I’m voting for him because I want to believe that he is a good man." This way of thinking doesn’t help; it won’t make him a good man if he is bad. To want to believe that something or someone is good, is naive.

The real nature is as it is. Understanding the nature accurately, that is what you should strive for. This is what the Four Noble Truths are about. They are the truths about nature. The truth of suffering is about nature, therefore there are teachings about suffering. The cause of suffering is nature, therefore the truth of the cause is there. And then the remedy is according to the nature of the cause of suffering, therefore the instructions on the truth of the path are there. Enlightenment will naturally result from the truth of the path; that is the truth of cessation. The Four Noble Truths follow nature. They are not something that the Buddha or another teacher made up to present something interesting to the people. It is not like a movie.

(Q): What about Dorje Sempa?

(A): It is a very powerful practice – it is mainly for the purification of broken samayas (vows, commitments, promises), and also the subtler, negative karmas.

Here is an example of a broken commitment. When you start to practice, you have made a strong commitment of Bodhicitta in your mind. Later, you change your mind. "I don’t want to be a Bodhisattva anymore; instead, I want to be very harmful to others." You have then deliberately destroyed the Bodhicitta attitude. This creates a very strong negative karma. There are people who do these kinds of things. To purify these broken promises, the Dorje Sempa practice is especially effective.

(Q): I came here to take the Bodhisattva vow. I feel hesitant now because when I look at what I did in my current life alone, I already don’t know the consequences that are yet to come. Together with all the things I must have done in my previous lives, how can I even trust myself?

(A): Of course you can trust yourself! First, you have a good human life. Second, you have good faculties so you can understand everything perfectly if you pay attention. Third, you are now connected to the teachings of the Buddha. Not only have you understood about the Bodhisattva vow, but you have also understood what Bodhicitta is, what the benefit of the Bodhisattva vow is, and how to develop and preserve it. This is your chance, your opportunity to understand it. Therefore, there is no need to doubt yourself when you are fully equipped with good potentials. Once you’ve taken the Bodhisattva vow, you will gently improve through the various skilful methods. It doesn’t mean that immediately, you have to be exactly like a great Bodhisattva.

(Q): Can this illusion disappear completely, or will a rest remain in the end, which is just positive?

(A): When the Buddha-nature mind emerges, illusion will disappear completely. But that doesn’t mean that you will be in a coma either. There is no need to imagine now what will happen later.

(Q): I find it difficult to judge whether something is a good illusion or a bad illusion.

(A): You are in a good illusion now because you are in a human form. There are also different human forms, but you are in a good one, being mentally and physically fit. You are not a spider, which would be a bad illusion. However, if you don’t improve yourself while you have a good human form, if you don’t develop wisdom, then you are spoiling your good illusion.

(Q): How can you say about those people who were born in Cambodia that it was their own fault? That it was their own fault that they were killed by Pol Pot?

(A): Those who were killed by Pol Pot had some karmic connection with him. That was just an example. Just like in Tibet or China, many people in the prisons were killed by Mao Zedong. Those people also had a karmic connection to Mao such that they were harmed by him.

An example is an example, and not a judgement. Some animals live in nice surroundings without the threat of being butchered, whereas others are slaughtered. It is because they have different karmic connections. To be in a war, or to be killed in a war is bad karma. It does not mean that we should judge those people involved as bad people or good people. We should be flexible and careful in our understanding of things.

It is the duty of a teacher to explain – this is bad, or this is good – to show the right path. During the Middle Ages, people were not allowed to voice what they believed. But now you are free to speak, and you also have the freedom to know about everything. You should use your freedom to know what is good and what is bad.

What I needed was an example of somebody making an evil wish. Someone who thinks: "I want to harm many sentient beings." Can you help me think of such an example, someone we all know in our lifetime, who has made such a wish? If I just made something up then it would be a fairytale. Can you think of an example of a Bodhisattva who has made good wishes to save people from suffering? Again, it has to be someone in our lifetime, or in our history, for the example to be convincing.

The world had experienced Pol Pot, so he is not a fairytale to all of you. Everybody now knows he was an evil man. And to have killed millions of people was not easy and not incidental. It wouldn’t have been possible without a karmic connection between him and the people he had killed. He couldn’t have been in that position and he couldn’t have had achieved that magnitude of negative harm without a cause. The cause was his evil wish created by him in his past. This example is realistic. A fairytale is unrealistic and cannot convey accurately the proper meaning here.

It is the same for positive karmic connection. This would be a poor example: There was a Bodhisattva who managed to save many others from the bad wishes of someone. It would not mean very much to you because it is a fairytale. An example, which we have all experienced, is a good lesson when it can show you the meaning of what you are listening to, about karmic results, and connections.

It is all about the attitude in your mind. You call the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, saviors of sentient beings. Why? Because the power of their Bodhicitta and their good wishes, coupled with the good fortune and connection of sentient beings to receive their wishes, make it possible for them to save the sentient beings. That is positive karma. On the other hand, a mara or evil being, who has made a bad wish can harm sentient beings who have karmic connections to him. That is negative karma. The example used earlier is common knowledge to all of you, and so it is a good lesson to help you understand the meaning of karmic connection.

Nowadays you have freedom of speech. You can say anything without breaking German law here in Germany. You can listen to everything. We use this good opportunity to talk about the Dharma.

To all of you here, try not to be so sensitive with words, or rules. For example, table etiquette stipulates a certain place for the cup, the spoon, and the knife, etc. It is fine to follow these table manners. If someone were to put a knife in another place, and if that should cause you pain, then something is wrong. You should not have to react in an alarming way. Please follow the rules comfortably, not sensitively.

These days, I visit America and the European countries quite frequently. "Ha," I said to myself, "the hippies are right, too." It was mainly their taking drugs that had caused their decline. But otherwise, there was reason in their thinking, too. And what was that? It was that people were too sensitive about everything. In the West, everything is one hundred percent. When you make a little mistake with the table manners, for instance, it’d be considered shocking! It is the same with words – please try not to attach so much importance to them.

There is a saying in Buddhism. "The wording is not so important, the meaning is very important." So, along the same line, I once said, "When the meaning is good, then it is like a beautiful woman. When the wording is good, it is like nice adornments." Then someone corrected me. "You should say, ‘Good meaning is like a beautiful woman, and also like a beautiful man.’ Otherwise, you are a sexist." His mind had gone in that direction one hundred percent.

When some people hear the words beautiful woman, they are already thinking that the words are sexist! That is very shocking to a Buddhist mind. Then I realized. Ah, their minds are very sensitive in their culture. People in the Asian cultures are also quite sensitive. But in the Western culture, everything is pushed to one hundred percent. That sensitivity creates a lot of problems in the mind. It is very important that you try to open up.

The Buddha once taught a sutra to a female disciple, a very beautiful woman. She had asked a lot of questions, and the Buddha gave her the answers. If that sutra were to be translated into English, some Americans might think the Buddha a sexist. It is because throughout their dialogue, the Buddha addressed the disciple as "beautiful woman." Words should not be taken so sensitively. The hippies had good reason to want to break this kind of neurosis. The early Indian culture was wonderful in this respect. People were very easy minded and tolerant. One could say everything.

We stop here and do a short meditation. In order to activate your meditation, we concentrate on the breath as before.