His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa during
Guru Rinpoche Empowerment at KTD, May 21st, 2008.
Photographer: Sarite Sanders. Copyright 2008 by KTD
and Karmapa Foundation.
His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa during
Guru Rinpoche Empowerment at KTD, May 21st, 2008.
Photographer: Sarite Sanders. Copyright 2008 by KTD
and Karmapa Foundation.
1 comment:
I had the honor of taking refuge with His Holiness that morning as well as receiving the empowerment.
I'd like to share with you an unofficial transcript of His Holiness' words regarding our refuge vows.
**5-21-2008**
If the observances of the vow are summarized, there are the abstentions, the things for which you abstain, and the observances, the things for which you are to honor. Of these two, I think the abstentions are more important because the observances, which are efforts, they are actually things you do - in that they require effort. The abstentions are things to stop doing, which, for a beginner, may be more practical, as I suspected you are used to trying to stop all kinds of things. And so the idea of abstention may be more familiar to you.
The abstentions are the following: Having taken refuge in the buddha, abstain from seeking refuge in mundane or worldly gods. Having taken refuge in the dharma, abstain from harm to others. Having taken refuge in the sangha, abstain from coming under the influence of evil companions.
The first of these, having taken refuge in the buddha, do not take refuge in mundane gods. Now, the words of the abstention are "don't take refuge in mundane gods". But what you're actually meaning, primarily, is don't try to turn the buddha into a god, or another god. We create or imagine gods all the time because we are afraid and want protection. Therefore we always imagine, and always have imagined supremely powerful beings of all kinds, that can miraculously save us from whatever we are afraid of. The problem is that attitude here, is that if you try to turn the buddha into a supremely powerful being, an omnipotent being that can save you, you work against what we are actually trying to do. What we're actually trying to do is achieve liberation. And as the buddha taught, we have to actually achieve it for ourselves. Each person must liberate him or herself. No one, including the buddha, can do this for us. Now we rely of course on the buddha, we rely on many people through our lives. But we must accept the fact that liberation comes from our being willing to change. Our being willing to fend for our own salvation and we can't ignore it. Now this abstention, saying "don't take refuge in mundane gods", is not meant to be disrespectful. But simply saying if our goal is to achieve freedom we cannot begin our search for that goal by surrendering our freedom or autonomy to other beings. If we start that way how can we ever achieve freedom?
The second abstention here is the ahimsa, or harmlessness. And it means having taken refuge in the dharma, not to harm beings. In fact I think it gave you more difficulty than the first abstention. Because it is not merely enough just to avoid harm. Harmlessness is beyond the simple avoidance or even absence from acts of harm to others. Because, true harmlessness is only achieved through the eradication of the fundamental causes of harm or violence. Now, the true cause of violence is hatred and all the other places that. Through hatred, because of hatred, we have so much violence and so many problems in this world. We tend to identify violence with the means of violence. It is the guns, it is the bombs, it is the nuclear weapons that cause violence. However, I am afraid that even if we managed to get rid of all the guns, bombs, and weapons of mass destruction, but fail to get rid of our hatred, harm would still exist. But because it is fundamentally more traditionally our hatred that causes violence - that causes harm, and not the means of such harm. If your commitment is to eradicate the seed of violence within yourself, it is by getting rid of all hatred.
The abstention connected with the sangha is, having taken refuge in the sangha, abstain from the company or influence of evil companions or evil company. However to put that right, we have to qualify it. I think its incorrect to use the abstention or commitment as an excuse for judging and avoiding others. You might say to yourself, "Hmm... I don't like that person I suspect they would be an evil companion. I won't associate with them - I won't mark that as a human being". In a marriage, if your spouse is mean you might call that an "evil companion" ...you have to avoid that too. Although the terms in the abstention are "avoid evil company", what it means is "don't surrender you autonomy to those that will lead you astray. What this means is that, it's not that you can't deal with or even live with people who may be a bit counterproductive, it means that you need to understand what we mean by an "evil", and having identified this specific buddhist use of these terms, and then you need to preserve your independence in full. We use the word "good" to mean anything that brings well-being and happiness. And we use the word "evil" to mean anything that causes suffering and misery. So the point is we don't want to be influenced by those who are going to taunt you to make yourself miserable and of course you cannot know the motivation in other minds. So, in a sense, you have to observe the people's actions, what they do, say, and, on the basis of that, realistically and fairly assess what kind of influence are the people having.
That's it.
I don't know what more I can say about the vow of refuge for right now. At this point sometimes there's the cutting of hair but we're going to skip that and probably those of you who have come here with the intention of taking the vow of refuge have brought offering scarves. So, now you should put the offering scarves around your own neck.
Now I'll move on to the empowerment and I want to keep moving because it is a little bit cold up here. And I just want to say that that's not my fault.
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