To the casual observer, Buddhism seems to be a very diverse tradition. Is there a reason for this? Is there more to these traditions than what someone would see in the media?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Well, people are very different. After Buddha manifested enlightenment about 2500 years ago, he enjoyed a full 45 years of teaching. He also had exceedingly intelligent students. So with these two factors—lots of time and bright and inquisitive students—he was able to give 84,000 liberating and enlightening teachings. They were later collected in 108-inch-thick books called the Kangjur and translated into several Eastern languages. His students in ancient India, who themselves became teachers, and their students added 254 more volumes, in order to elucidate what Buddha had said. These commentaries are called the Tengjur.
Thus, there is a lot of material, and all the teachings are meant to develop beings’ inherent potential. For people who don’t need a strong father figure to direct them and who have accumulated good energies, there are many reasons to choose Buddhism; and its richness keeps things fresh and inspiring. This benefits us at our core and not just superficially; it goes to the center of our life. No teaching—not even the highest—can add anything to being’s inherent buddha nature, which is itself like space. What the teachings do, however, is to remove the veils that block one’s experience of it. These are (a) the illusion of a separate and actually existing ego, which brings about all disturbing feelings, and (b) the wrong idea of a real, lasting universe, which gets us caught in the dualities of materialism and nihilism. Both of these block mind’s full development, and Buddhism helps to remove these blocks.
So would you say that that is the essence of the teachings?
Yes. That’s the essence of Buddhism. To remove the veils that keep us from experiencing mind’s fullness. As truth is all-pervading, all teachings can only have one goal: removing all obstacles to realizing our buddha nature.
Is Buddhism for everybody, or is it for a particular kind of person?
Buddhism is for people who want to be independent and take responsibility for their own lives. That is why Buddha only gives advice, never commandments. If people want somebody to abdicate this freedom or complain to, then, of course, a theistic religion will be useful. For those who want to know their minds and develop their full potential, however, the ideal religion is Buddhism. Its founder does not have a foot in two camps, passing on the wishes of an outer force to us. His only goal is the full expression of our timeless potential of bliss and space inseparable.
If someone isn’t a Buddhist, can they become enlightened?
Buddhist is a term used to refer to those who adhere to certain teachings and views. And three kinds of confidence are essential here: in the goal (buddha, full enlightenment), the way (dharma, his teachings), and one’s friends on the way (sangha, the bodhisattvas). These are the so-called “jewels.” The three roots of growth used for a refuge in the Diamond Way give massive additional power. They are the blessing of the lama giving confidence, his transmissions of meditation experience (yidam) and his protective power (if he is honest and not politically correct).
The main reason to use the term Buddhism is to keep our views straight, to not mix up religious views. It is like having an American motorcycle and a German BMW. When fixing them, you must keep the screws apart because some are in inches and some metric, right? Buddhism is a term we use to avoid getting the view mixed up. As New Age so clearly shows, mixing up religions leads to every kind of confusion.
There are different ways of practicing Buddhism. A lot of people in the West think that Buddhism is about becoming a monk or a nun. But there are lay practitioners, and then you hear about yogis. What about these different ways?
All the ways are good. It’s really a question of mindset. Some people are very aware of their own suffering and experience more problems and less freedom in their lives. Such people want to know about cause and effect. When they fully understand that they create their own lives, they want to minimize their chances of making mistakes. The lifestyle of monks and nuns is exactly made for that. There you learn about 254 things that the monks should avoid and 350 things that nuns shouldn’t do. If one fulfills these conditions, one is home safe.
On the other hand and luckily for society, more people want to experience life’s richness, to have families and be productive. These are the lay people, living and taking responsibilities in the world for the benefit of many. Their work supports the monasteries. And living in the give and take of the world, people’s motivation must be more important than the total purity of their practical actions.
Then there are the yogis. In this case, the view is the king, giving the dimension of enlightenment to both motivation and actions. They use all aspects of life in order to know their minds. Stable in their experience of space and bliss, they are free; and although they may drink all night and have many or no partners, they should stress meditation and give a meaningful example.
So we have three classes of practitioners, who were easy to distinguish in Tibet. Monks and nuns had no hair and wore red robes. The laypeople had quite long hair and wore the clothes of their region. And the yogis would usually appear in white or grayish cloth. If their hair is sometimes set up like a stork’s nest, this is for “big” meditation.
Each type of practice was clearly visible from the outside. The monks or nuns gave an example of what to avoid in life, the lay people were examples of skillfulness, and the yogis demonstrated the ways and views beyond duality.
All three lifestyles enrich the West today. Whereas the monks and nuns are held by “outer” vows which were given by Buddha and cannot be changed, in the modern world the lay people and the yogis become ever harder to distinguish. I would say that my students are lay Buddhists when they go to work, keep their families; but when they spend their vacations meditating, sleeping on uneven ground in tents, follow the teachings and share everything— this is clearly the style of yogis. There is thus a very productive kind of melting and joining of the life experience of the accomplishers (yogi) with the practical skills and contacts of the lay practitioners.
In Diamond Way Buddhism, we sometimes talk about devotion as an important aspect. Where does devotion fit with Buddhism? What does that mean?
Devotion is our lifeblood and arises out of thankfulness. If you see somebody benefiting a lot of people, giving them the meaning in life that they didn’t have, by sharing an absolutely bliss-giving vision, you will be thankful, simply because something good is happening. You also recognize that this person is influencing your own life in a good way and is giving you the tools and confidence to do something meaningful for others. This thankfulness brings ever more openness and an increasing ability to act the way they act, and this is practical devotion. Exactly this keeps—kept and will keep—our noble Kagyu lineage together. And if the feeling isn’t there, it means that one received no transmission.
Keep in mind that it is not a “faith” thing. Faith is believing in something that you do not see and that by the very nature of dualistic thinking you will never become. For example, if you have a god, who is essentially “other” and different from you, you must develop faith in this concept because there is no way to fully and lastingly experience it. But devotion is different. There you know that the perfections all are inherent in yourself. Devotion is like looking in the mirror and seeing your real face, the potential and power that all people have. In itself, however, devotion is not enough. There must also be humanism. Muslims who read their Koran finding hate and suppression of others should look for better mirrors.
Like you can only see it outside because you have it inside?
Yes, because we have it inside. One is only attracted to what fits one’s inner disposition; and since the deepest essence of all beings is receptive space, which is feminine, then cultures and individuals who suppress women can never find peace.
In North America, especially coming out of the sixties, some Buddhist groups felt that they had to be activists or get into politics. Is this something important about being a Buddhist, political or environmental action?
People should do what they are good at, and Diamond Way Buddhists know about mind. However, all should definitively remain aware of the important world developments, such as the birthrates, ideologies and spread of different cultures. Let me tell a story to shake the green people: Tenga Rinpoche, a great meditation master from the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, was once asked about environmental issues. His memorable answer was: “I don’t think that the world is worse off than before. I think that now more people are born who have the karma to be disturbed by those things.” And actually the hairs of Romans from the time of Jesus contain fourteen times more lead than those of today’s modern industrial workers. Also, look at Mesa Verde here in New Mexico, which Hannah and I visited with much interest on one of our driveaway rides across the U.S. People lived there from about 1200 to 1400 C.E. and left well before the Spaniards came. You notice that these noble savages scalped one another and had diseases that we cannot even imagine today. The skeleton of a woman in the museum shows that she must have suffered beyond description. She was immovable from top to bottom; there was not a single vertebra in her spine that she could move. The constant pressure on her nerves must have been unimaginably painful.
How important is political action in fulfilling our Bodhisattva promise?
Generally, Buddhists tend to bring the both-and view to an either-or world, avoiding much confrontation with a win-win attitude. Thus, if we are naturally good at something, we should spontaneously help but only offer our help generally when we have brought our minds to a level where we have few or no disturbing feelings. The whole world is a case of the blind or politically correct leading the just-as-blind or the even blinder. Depending on what different cultures allow, that tendency is everywhere, and it is therefore important for Buddhists to have an established philosophy behind them, a certain level of realization and human warmth, and an inclusive view that goes beyond the latest fad. That historical, long-time evaluation of beings, cultures and what is ultimately meaningful is exceedingly important. Otherwise, Buddhists will look milder but be just as stupid and have as much egg on their/our faces as everybody else.
Some see religion as the answer in today’s world, while others think that religion is inherently corrupt. What are your thoughts about the role of religion in today’s world?
I would say that religion is exceedingly dangerous. Going as far back in history with as much accuracy as we can, meaning about 2500 years, we see that religions have killed more people than politics has. So it’s an exceedingly difficult but satisfying luxury to have a worldview that allows one to tie events into some kind of higher meaning. At the same time, it is evident, as with Islam today, that religions can make beings harm each other in unimaginable ways. The absolutist religions simply take away people’s responsibility and their human choice, saying you must kill the infidels, you must suppress the Jews and Christians, you must vote this way or that.
How can a person balance compassion without becoming attached to the outcome or attached to the compassionate activity?
It is probably very difficult at the beginning, but will subside if one just keeps active and in the flow. Experiencing the doer, the thing done, the act of doing it and the one it’s done to all as parts of one totality, you will become like the sun shining on all. Discrimination will disappear and inherent qualities be developed. What one does will be good and positive. That’s all it is.
So if one is trying to see the compassionate activity as empty, does one just do that with one’s head—one just thinks, oh, there is really no separation? Or is there something more that one needs to do?
Whichever way you can get the cow off the ice, it is good. Whatever angle of your mind you activate to make situations beyond-personal, that is liberating, even enlightening. See what works for you. Some people begin with the head, doing the intellectual Rang-Tong of analyzing everything outer or inner down to having no true nature or existence. More introspective people substitute the term Shen-Tong, empty “and more,” meaning that there is also an experiencer of the emptiness. And ultimately the yogis say De-Tong, meaning that the experience of space is intensely blissful. These views are all propagated by the different Tibetan Buddhist schools, the former mainly by the Yellow Hats and in the Buddhist universities. Do what’s good for you, try it out. The views are all right, but as always, the fullest experience is the highest and most transformative.
What would you say meditation is in Buddhism?
Meditation means spontaneously and naturally resting in what is: being in the moment, consciously, beyond hope or fear, tomorrow or yesterday, holding on or pushing away. That’s the state that should be reached.
And finally, what would you say enlightenment is?
Only in books is it the next step after liberation, which weakens the ego-illusion. Actually it’s more a running partisan war of attrition than the armies clashing in two decisive battles, one against ego and the other against materialism/nihilism. Enlightenment is the perfection of all qualities of space, of faultless intuition, timeless bliss, and immediate action. My wife, Hannah, and I bathed in those qualities during the twelve years that we could be students of the 16th Karmapa. Another aspect is to protect and make others trust their powers and to develop with fearlesness, spontaneous joy, and compassionate activity. It is here, now. Totally. It’s letting go of stiff ideas, it’s understanding and feeling the total richness of events everywhere. Like right now and here taking in this beautiful lake in front of us and the mountains behind, all without concepts.
Now, it’s easy here in this beauty and harmony; but in a backyard with graffiti and some kids making useless noises outside when you want to meditate, then maybe it is more difficult. The trick is being both the mirror and its pictures, the ocean and its waves, the space which knows and its thoughts and feelings coming and going. Whoever observes and acts from that space which knows, that awareness which enjoys, that unlimited essence which works for the good of all—will express the ultimate state.
