This is a wonderful book. What made you decide to write it now?
Jigme Rinpoche: I wrote the book for the general public, in order to give a vision of how authentic bodhisattvas live. The main idea is that if normal human beings apply certain methods they can be bodhisattvas themselves.
You use the word “ordinary” in the title. What made you choose this word?
Ordinary—like normal human beings, like anyone, not special. Anyone can apply the practice and achieve something similar to the example of the bodhisattvas. If somebody does this, there will be a good result, a spiritual result that frees individuals from suffering and allows them to help other beings without difficulty. This is what we call bodhisattvas.
If people wish to become bodhisattvas, take the Bodhisattva Promise and practice bodhicitta, does that mean that we consider them to be bodhisattvas or something different?
If someone follows the path of the bodhisattvas, then gradually and slowly they achieve the result. Through the practice, this quality of the mind can develop, and through this they achieve the result of the bodhisattvas.
Throughout the book, you talk about the relative and absolute aspects of practice and realization, and how they come together. Are they different from each other or ultimately the same?
They are the same. When we start with bodhisattva practice, there needs to be a feeling. It is important to see the benefit of the practice because then we become willing to do it and utilize our individual capacities to fulfill this goal. So on the relative level, a normal human being just starts with action and practice. Gradually, they can clarify all of their experiences as they apply the practice to their life. The complete achievement of this clarity in experience is called absolute bodhicitta.
In the book, you refer to it as recognizing the emptiness of the self.
When you come to the true realization of mind–that all the phenomena and self and feeling are empty–then you have absolute bodhicitta.
In your book you talk about how emotions obscure clarity, but you also talk about being in the middle of the world, having a human experience, with freedom and clarity. So at what point does an emotion become no longer an obstacle?
At the beginning you get a feeling, and you try to understand why. And then you realize which conditions raised the emotions, and then you don’t follow them because you know their cause. When your understanding becomes more absolute, then this realization comes more quickly and the emotion no longer obscures mind.
Is that because it is not a personal experience anymore?
Yes, through experience, you become more accomplished, with the result that you perceive the emotion more quickly. It comes naturally. They say certain bodhisattvas started with rough emotions and then they got caught by them less and less. One could say that they had rough emotions and were caught by them, but eventually, they could see more quickly and clearly and became less caught. When mind has more clarity as a result of the practice, you begin to perceive emotions more quickly and then you start to notice smaller and smaller details faster as well. You have to reflect and try to see. Then you come closer to the absolute understanding, and you see things more efficiently without focusing so much on them.
Is this a moment in which someone doesn’t experience emotions anymore?
Not no emotion, but it’s that emotion doesn’t bother the mind. Emotions are always there, but they don’t bother your mind. They do arise, but you see their clarity, so they have lost their reason to be there.
It sounds so compelling when you say it that way: seeing with clarity. We have these terms: emptiness, clarity, compassion …
The reason that we use the term emptiness is to describe the understanding of the truth of reality. Many physicists have discovered something similar. Normally, we are blocked by the feeling that we exist; and this is something that we cannot go beyond. But actually, we do not exist, and if we notice this feeling, some help arises, and our mind doesn’t get obscured.
Is it fair to say that another way you could say “emptiness” is “completely free”? Is this a similar term?
Yes. Completely free.
In Buddhism, we say that compassion is innate because of mind’s emptiness or freedom. Could you say more about how emptiness is compassion?
If you see the wisdom, then there is no discrimination. Everything is much more equal.
Is it like not seeing the difference between yourself and others?
Yes.
So then there can’t be any pride to make my happiness more important than others?
Yes.
There is a point in the book where you say, “In Buddhism, liberation is not something mystic filled with fantastic experiences. In contrast with this notion, Buddhist liberation is the definitive understanding of the absurdity of the self. When we realize that it is not necessary for this clinging to define us, the way we perceive life completely changes.” It is a great quotation and sounds very down-to-earth but also fantastic at the same time. In our tradition of Buddhism, we have these very practical descriptions and down-to-earth elements, as in your book, and we also have these very big and mythical stories that are supposed to be examples of this truth. How do these fit together?
Generally, the teaching is very down-to-earth and very simple. How one understands it can depend on how this realization is expressed. Sometimes teachers can show it in an exaggerated way and express something fantastic. But this can only come from somebody who is totally clear, with no confusion, and very relaxed. Keep in mind, we are not relaxed because of ignorance. But when the teachings are clear, when something appears, you immediately understand which cause produced this result and so it doesn’t exist anymore. This is a simple definition of the quality of bodhisattvas. From that state of mind somebody can make either a concrete or a fantastic way to say it.
For example, Shantideva was a very simple man who lived near a university, but nobody knew he was special. People who had some realization could see him as a very qualified person. Eventually, everybody asked, “Could you help us and say something?” Then he made the famous text Bodhisattvachary vat ra (Bodhisattva’s Guide to Life).
You spent all those historic years with the sixteenth Karmapa. Almost all of the stories that you tell, that we have read, or that Lama Ole tells about the sixteenth Karmapa are hugely fantastic stories. They seemed to fit well with the people of the time who met him. Would you say that there is a difference between the needs of people when the sixteenth Karmapa was in the world and now? It seems that the teachings are coming in a different form, a bit more elegantly and a bit more down-to-earth.
Nowadays, people’s minds have a slightly different way of thinking. Earlier thinking was very much structured by the individual. Now, year by year, everything is shared all over the world. So, the vision is a little bit different, more individual. Therefore, the way in which the teaching is expressed has to be a little bit different in order to get the understanding or the benefit of what Buddhists talk about.
So you would say that earlier, because of culture, people were more separate and led more distinct lives in different places. Now everything comes together?
Yes. The teachings have to be understandable and adaptable.
It seems that there are different needs around the world.
Yes. I think the needs, too, are different. That is true. Because nowadays everything goes too fast. People are intellectually faster than in years past. Because of this, we need explanations that are adaptable. Understandable, adaptable, and helpful. These kinds of things.
What do you mean when you say “adaptable”?
Using simple words to make it easier to understand the meaning. Putting things more simply makes it so that people don’t have to think so much. In this way, the teachings become easier to understand, and this is according to the way the world has evolved. Buddhist teachings can be presented in a variety of ways based on what the needs of the people are. In some other religions, things can be very fixed in certain ways. In Buddhism, it is not really like this. There is a kind of religious form, but the essential teaching of Buddha corresponds to what human beings need and how they can avoid mistakes. So in this sense, the teachings can be adaptable.
