ACI 1 «Основные учения буддизма», занятие 1

ACI I, Class One
7/5/93
Transcribed by:Louise Rosenthal

[unclear] no other school presents karma as well as the lower school, so you can
say I'm, I'm {madhyamika}, I'm an emptiness person, but you still have to study
the lower schools...well. You don't know the mind-only school's presentation of,
of mind, you don't know how karma really works. If you don't know the
{madhyamika} presentation of emptiness, you don't know why the mind-only
school works. So you really have to study each of these schools, and then your
own practice and your own life you can get very good results. It's like, then if
you go into meditation it's very powerful. So I'm not saying study instead of
meditation, I'm saying study well and then you can really meditate well, then
you can...great things will happen during your meditation, you'll understand the
theory of why every thing works perfectly, and then you'll be able to do it very
easily, all the way up to tantra. So that's the purpose of the course. You're still
gonna have to do some tibetan. A little bit, not much, okay? I'd still like you to
know, say as many tibetan words as a, as a good christian teacher would know
greek or latin words, see what I mean? You should have some knowledge of the
tibetan words and I'll simplify them for you and you don't have to worry about
that. And it's gonna be strict, and you will advance along a certain course, and
you have to catch the earlier courses and then you'll get the later courses.
There'll be twenty-five notebooks like this at the end of five years. If you stick it
out, you'll have twenty-five of these notebooks. And then when you have your
own students or you're going to do a retreat, you can just pull down the
notebook that applies to what you want to do. We go to gemology school,
some of the people here, and they give you this kind of thing...it's very nice, you
know, when you have a certain question you pull down that notebook and it's
there, it's what you studied in, in gemology school. And it's right there, it's right
ready for you to use. So that's the idea of the, of the notebooks. So if you open
your notebook the first thing you'll see is the syllabus...the first white page, and
that's what we're gonna cover each week. Week means two classes, for you it
means Monday and Thursday night, seven o'clock. Okay? In the first week
you're responsible to read the first forty pages of the little book that's in
your...that's in the flap, okay? Anybody not have it? [unclear]? You didn't get a
book or a notebook?
[student: [unclear] ]

Notebook is okay?

[students: [unclear] We can share...Give her a picture, [unclear] Is that an extra?
We can share.]

They're going to share. No, I'm printing some more over the weekend.

[students: How 'bout these books? Are you sure? [unclear] ]

Alright. We, we had a few more people than I expected so...

[student: Oh no, that's mine.]

You all right?

[student: Yeah.]

Do you have a, a yellow book? That little book? Yeah. Okay. All right. So you
have to read the first forty pages of that book before Monday. It's not such a big
deal. It's fun. The first part is about the childhood adventures of some monk,
[unclear] right? This book was written by...anything I put up here you're
responsible for, alright?      [laughter]     And what if I tell you [unclear].
{Tsongkhapa} lived...{Je Tsongkhapa}...his name means this, {Tsong khar},
{Tsong khar} is a particular town in eastern Tibet, alright? And {pa} means a
person from that town, so if you're from {Hlasa} for example, you might be
{Hlasa wa}, if you're from {Tsong khar}, you're {Tsong khar pa}, alright? His
name was {Tsongkhapa}.

[student: Do you want me to do that?]

[student: Okay.]

[student: How, do I get a key to get back in?]

Yes.

[student: Yes. And the keys are in the door.]
[student: In the door? ]

[student: Yeah.]

{Je} means "lord", all right? Lord. It's considered impolite in buddhism to call
your teacher by his, just his name, his first name like {Jong la}, you know? Poor
Khen Rinpoche, all his students call him hey, {kyum la}...you know, considered
very impolite, improper. So {Je} means like Lord Tsongkhapa, Tsongkhapa the
Great. Alright? And we'll try to do that, sometimes I slip, you can correct me,
alright? We put it on the book as Tsongkhapa because most westerners will get
lost if we added too many words on that, so it's {Je Tsongkhapa}.

[student: So it's Lord from Zongka.]

Yeah it's really the lord from {Tsongkha}. And {Tsongkha} literally means
something to do with onion fields but that, don't worry about. There's been
some very bad translations of his name lately. It's just {Tsongkhapa}, okay? His
monk's name, the monk...the name he got when he became a monk is {Lobsang
Drakpa}. Hi.

[student: Hi, I was in Queens.]

I was in Manhattan. You can sit, [unclear] Sorry. Actually we'll have more
chairs. {Lobsang Drakpa}. {Lobsang} means "pure mind". {Lo} means "mind",
{sang} means "pure". And {drakpa} means "famous". His, his biography
of...comes in the yellow book, you can read about him, basically, he was born in
eastern Tibet. He studied with the greatest lamas of his time, he was like in the
west, the wild west, he was like a, what do you call that? Gunslinger. He...and
he went all around Tibet and debated the best debaters in Tibet. So he, he would
take on anybody, and he would...he went from monastery to monastery,
{Sakya} monasteries, {Kagyu} monasteries...he was a {Kagyu}, his first teacher
gave him the name {Garma}, and he studied very, very deeply. He ended up in
{Hlasa}, at that time there...none of the three great monasteries was there,
{Ganden, Je go lor, Sera}, and he was such a great scholar that he attracted other
great, great scholars, other great monks, and the ones that you would know, the
first Dalai Lama was one of his most famous students. There was another great
lama named {Gyaltsab Je}, who was one of his students. And another one named
{Kedrub Je}. {Gyaltsab Je} and {Kedrub Je} were the greatest scholars of the day,
of the time, and they...there's a famous story that...how they came to challenge
{Je Tsongkhapa} to a debate, {ju da}, and...there are a lot of stories, supernatural
stories about what happened, they never made it even into the hall without
being humiliated, and it's some kind of amazing story. When they, they went to
hear him speak and they went to interrupt him, and challenge him, and they
ended up...they...one of them to disrespect {Je Tsongkhapa}, got up on the
throne with him as he was teaching and, and said, "Well I can teach as well as
you" you know, and then he listened for a few minutes and then he got down on
the, a little bit lower, and then after a few minutes more he, he made
prostrations, and after a few minutes more he took off his hat and became his
student. So he's, he's incredible. {Gyaltsab Je}'s books on buddhism are so deep
that in the monastery we study them every year for thirty days straight, sixteen
hours a day, public debating with five hundred monks, and no one has ever
reached the end of the book in twenty-two years, some people are going for
twenty-two years to the winter debates. No one has even reached the third or
fourth chapters. His works are so, so amazing that no one has ever reached
these final chapters. And {Tsongkhapa} was his teacher. {Tsongkhapa} wrote ten
thousand pages of commentaries in buddhism, I would say, in my opinion, he's
the greatest commentator on buddhism ever, after the Buddha. No one has ever
matched what, what he wrote, what he wrote is incredible, if, if you could learn
to those things, it would be wonderful, and not many have been translated, I'd
say only, maybe five or ten percent have been translated. So you can read his,
his works. He wrote what we...is usually considered the greatest tibetan book of
all time, which is [b: Lam Rim Chenmo].

[student: [unclear] Tsongkhapa wrote [unclear] ]

[student: Yeah.]

{Lam} means "path", "path". Okay? {Rim} means "step", step on the path, stage
of the path, okay? Stage or step. And {chenmo} means "great", "the great".
Sometimes on a very, very holy work you put a, a feminine ending, which is
what {mo} is. Okay? Because wisdom is considered to be female. Like at the
beginning of the [b: Heart Sutra], we bow down to the female form of...in honor
of the feminine side, wisdom side, knowledge side. So that's the, the [b: Great
Steps of the Path], it's about a thousand pages long. In fact, it's right here. This is
a, a new printing of it from Tibet, but normally it would be about, about this big,
you know, it would be a big book. And in that book he put the essence of all the
four schools, all the great schools of buddhism are summarized in the [b: Lam
Rim Chenmo]. And what he did was he took all these heavy duty philosophy
and he put it into a series of steps that you can do, that any one person can do,
he took the teachings on karma from the [b: Abhidharma], he took the
teachings on the way karma works from the mind-only school, he took what he
needed from the logic schools of the {pramana} teachings, and, and he took like
that from every school the important steps, and then he arranged it all in a, in a
certain order. And there is no other work which, which takes all the five books
that you're going to study, the five great books of buddhism, and puts them all
in one order that you can, that you can reach Buddhahood if you study that.
Okay? Studying {madhyamika} or mind, mind- only or studying middle way by
itself, studying emptiness by itself can't liberate you. Can't make you a buddha.
Studying the [b: Lam Rim Chenmo] can. So he took, he took the great five
books that a monk studies, and he, he put them in the order that you have to
understand to, to reach Buddhahood. And that was a thousand pages long. He
wrote a, a medium one that's about, I think it's about two hundred pages long.
Then he wrote a brief one which is about ten pages long. Then he took a
challenge, he undertook a challenge to put it in a poem, everything he knew.
And that book is called, that book is called [b: Lam Tso Nam Sum], okay? {Lam
Tso Nam Sum}. {Lam} means what?

[students: Path.]

Path, okay? {Tso} means "principle" or "main".      Kylie, who's the {tso} of the
Shakyas? Shakya {tso}? Not Sakya, Shakya.

[student, Kylie: Shakya. Oh, Shakyamuni.]

Yeah, okay? That's the most common place where this word occurs. The head
of the Shakya clan was Buddha himself. Buddha was a prince. Guatama Buddha
was a prince of a certain race of people named Shakyas, which is not to be
confused with Sakya, which is a tibetan tradition. So {lam tso} means what?
Principle path. Okay? {Nam} means "type". And {sum} means "three", "three".
So {Je Tsongkhapa}, he, he wrote thirty-six volumes, ten thousand pages of
books. He knew people couldn't digest it all, and we can't. You can't. I mean
very few people can read it. So he wrote the [b: Lam Rim Chenmo], only a
thousand pages...which is still pretty difficult. Then he wrote the [b: Lam Rim
Ding], two hundred pages for people who couldn't digest that. Then he wrote
[b: Lam Rim Du Dun], which is about ten pages for people who couldn't digest
that. Then he wrote [b: Lam Tso Nam Sum] as an absolute minimum. If you
study [b: Lam Tso Nam Sum] and can 'get it' in your mind, you'll become a
buddha. You can reach Buddhahood. On the basis of those fourteen verses, you
can become a buddha. Absolute minimum that anyone could give you, all right?
So it's very wonderful book, it's a very wonderful text. According to
{Tsongkhapa}, who wrote ten thousand pages of what I believe, and what most
people who read his material well, maybe the greatest buddhist commentator of
all time, he said if you read these fourteen verses and if you can understand
them well, and practice them well, it's enough. You will become a buddha. You
don't have to go through the whole five year course. Okay? We will...why?
Because for the, for the fourteen verses to really become part of you, you have
to study deeply, and you have to study over and over again, you have to hear it
over and over and over again, and then it sinks in. Buddhist teachings cannot be
understood on the first hearing or even on the twentieth hearing, and, and Tom
could tell you, I don't know, twenty years? Fifteen years?

[student: [unclear] ]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been students of the same lama for fifteen or twenty
years, and every time you go he goes over some book that you've heard before,
and then you suddenly you understand things that you never understood
before. They dawn on you. Especially if you're really trying hard to practice it,
you keep having deeper and deeper understandings of it. Never gets old, you
never reach the real deep deepest part of it. So [b: Lam Tso Nam Sum] is the
text that you're studying. We translated the title as [b: Principle Teachings of
Buddhism] because in english that's what people need to understand what's in
the book, but really the name of the book should be "The Three Principle Paths",
okay? "Three Principle Paths". It has been mistranslated many times as 'three
principle parts of the path' which is wrong. Okay? Why is it wrong? Path, in
buddhist philosophy, means {topa}, {topa}...{topa}. What does {topa} mean, I ask
you? I'll take a, I, I, I'll take a...I'll go ahead to the fourth course, okay? Basic
buddhist logic. If I have to divide all of the world into two parts, what do you
think it would be? All things in the world divided into two parts. What's a good
division?

[student: Existent and non-existent.]

I'm talking things, which means they exist.

[student: Oh.]

It's a good answer though. It's a good start, that's actually one way of doing it.

[student: Permanent and temporary?]
That's good. Yeah, that happens to be it. More like changing and unchanging,
okay? Changing and unchanging. And we'll get...he wants to ask a question but
I'll anticipate it. Changing things are very easy to find, unchanging things are
difficult to find. The Buddha said all things are impermanent. Doesn't mean that
buddhism doesn't accept that there are unchanging things, he meant certain
kinds of things and we'll, you'll learn that, it'll take time, okay? Give me an
example of a changing thing, Nydia, changing thing.

[student, Nydia: My life.]

Okay, life. Is life physical, mental or neither?

[student, Nydia: Everything.]

Huh?

[student, Nydia: Everything.]

We say it has to break down into one of those three.

[student, Nydia: What did you say? Physical...]

Physical, like this, mental, like my ideas, or neither, like mind. Which is neither
physical or mental, is an idea. Okay? It's a concept. Is he doing anything? Did
he?

[student: Not yet.]

[laughter]

[student, Kylie: The cleanliness of the floor is an impermanent thing.]

[laughs] No, life is what?

[student, Nydia: Physical.]

Yeah, we could say physical, the [b: Abhidharma] in the second chapter I think,
it says {tsok me tru den tru tshay oh} which means "life is warmth and
consciousness", okay? So how about cold-blooded animals? Anyway, we can
call it physical. Are there any changing things that are not physical? Okay?

[student: Changing things that are not physical.]

We divided now the world into changing and unchanging, and we're seeing if
there's any categories of changing, are all changing things physical?

[student: No.]

All right, give me one to start.

[student: Feelings change over time.]

Yeah, feelings are mental, okay? Feelings are mental. So so far we have
changing things divided into mental and physical. And there's one more
category of changing things that's not mental or physical, and that's principles,
concepts, laws, like the very idea of "k". "K", is not "k's" body. "K" is not "k's"
mind. "K" is a concept that we apply to your body and mind. Then that's, that's
what we call the third category of changing things. This is not on your quiz.
[laughs] Now name me an unchanging thing. Not "q".

[student: Space?]

She said space. What does space mean? Is it what satellites fly around in?

[student: No, any undivided, or undividable...]

Any place between two places? Like the space between the two walls?

[student: No, [unclear] ]

How will you define space?

[student: As something that can't be divided.]

Oh but it can, into the four directions. It's an old debate.

[student: Weell...]

[laughs] No they say that, that's an old debate, that's an old monastery debate.
It can be divided, it has parts. Eastern space, western space, northern space, up
and about.

[student: It's not very [unclear] ]

Yeah, but it has [unclear]. Space does have [unclear]. Anyway space means this,
space means the absence of any [knocking sounds], it's defined as the absence of
any hard, of any physical, concrete thing. Okay? It's...if you really think
carefully about space, and this is again, about two years from now you're gonna
study this, there's space where this pen is in. And when I take this pen out of the
space, does the space change?

[student, Fran Dayan: No.]

Does it change when I put something in it? No, it's always there. It will always
be there. The earth can come and go, the universe can come and go, but the
place where it was is, is unchanging. Whether things move in and out of it is a
different matter, but it never changes. It's almost the idea of place. Place doesn't
change, it's unchanging. It is an example of an unchanging thing...it exists, it's
there, if it weren't there I couldn't put the pen in it. But it never changes. The
pen can be in it or out of it but it never changes, it will always be there. Okay?
Doesn't change. So anyway, why did I bring that up? I forgot. Aaaaah. {Lum}?

[student, Nydia: Just bring the [unclear] ]

So where does {lum} fit in there? Is {lum} physical, mental, a concept or is it
unchanging? Path. The path that takes you to Buddhahood. The path that
removes all the suffering that you've ever had, all the physical pain you've ever
had and all the hurt you've ever had in your life.

[student: Isn't it a concept?]

Could be. Is it a concept?

[student, Kylie: Isn't it the process of changing your concepts? From unhealthy
ones to healthy ones?]

Yeah. There are by the way physical paths, right? There's

[student, Kylie: Path through the woods.]
Like that here, unfortunately. [laughs] [laughter]

[student, Kylie: No but it is concepts. The path of changing your concepts from
harmful ones to [unclear]]

No, and in, in fact the word, the word {lam} does mean...you know, we call this
{lam ga}, {lam ga bu ba}, Ninth Avenue, okay? But obviously we're not talking
about a physical path, we're talking about...and normally you would think a
concept, okay? The ideas that are presented in buddhism, right? But that's
not...it's not that, I mean that's what you would think, but {lam} in tibetan
philosophy means {topa}. {Topa} means "realization". High idea, great idea.
And that's what?

[student: Mind?]

Mental.

[student: Oh, mental.]

Realization.

[student: [unclear] ]

No, it's mental. It's a mental substance. It's, it's an idea. It's a state of mind.

[student: But it change.]

Of course, unfortunately, unfortunately. [laughs] You can lose {lam}s, and you
can get {lam}s. We're trying to get {lam}s, okay? {Lam}...{topa} means, {topa}
means realization in the sense of something that you realize spiritually. That's
what {lam} really means in buddhism, and there's a whole...you'll study it.
There's three or four synonyms, and it's a very beautiful subject: what is a {lam}?
Alright? So it...to translate it as 'the three principle parts of the path' is wrong.
It's not a path, a conceptual thing. It's not the way to Buddhahood or something
like that, it's the very ideas which will make you a buddha. It's the attitudes or
states of mind that will make you a buddha. It's mental. Three principle paths.
Okay? What are they? Glad you asked.

[student, John Stilwell: Michael, [unclear] does {pa} mean from this concept?]
No, it just makes nouns out of things. Don't worry about it...no, you'll learn.
And it gives you what we call {bak chak}. {Bak chak} means you've seen
something so many times that you assume the next time you see something
leading up to that, that it's going to be the same. So, we have a dog who pees on
everything. So when she saw the dog walk over here, she had a {bak chak}.
[laughter] And you're gonna get a {bak chak} for tibetan language, I mean,
towards the...towards a few months from now, you've got so many {topa}s, {lam
to}s, {chen mo}s, I'll start putting the tibetan letters and you'll, you'll, it'll feel
natural to you. I'll sneak you into tibetan later. But right today it's english
letters. I'd like you to memorize these, these tibetan...in, in these wor...in this
english letters, okay? It's good for you. Alright? So I might not talk about what
{nyenja} means, I might just talk about {nyenjen} all the time...and you'll go
home and say, "I wonder if I got {nyenjen} the other night?" Then when you
have time to study tibetan...{nyenjen} is the first {lam}. {Nyen jen} is the first
{lam}. {Lam} is a path, which means "{topa}", which means "realization". {Nyen
jen} is the first attitude or state of mind of the three...that all buddhism boils
down to only three ideas. If you have those three ideas, you understand all of
buddhism. In the book you'll see there's a word in tibetan that in sanskrit, which
means "master of buddhist teachings", like {kon gyur wa}, someone who
understand, who's read the whole canon, forty-five hundred works, and knows
what they all say, can...and in the book, he'll say...when I say master of buddhist
teachings I don't mean that you've read all those forty-five hundred books and
understood them thoroughly and then you memorized them, you're not. If you
have only three ideas you're a master of buddhist teaching. You only need those
three ideas. Yeah?

[student, Kylie: Do you mean more specifically mahayana buddhist teachings?]

No. All of them. If you have the {lam sum num sum} in your mind, you're a
master of all the buddhist teachings, period. That's what it is to be a master of
the buddhist teachings. Okay. Okay? {Nyen jen}. {Nyen jen} means
"renunciation". You can also call it disgust with this life. Okay? Disgust with life.
And we'll study it, we'll study it, okay? Is it true that every single thing in your
world is pain? Is it true that every single thing about your life is, is bad? Is there
any, any good thing in your life? Or is it really true that everything is, in your
life, is, is suffering? Okay. And we will, we'll work with that, we'll, we'll talk
about it. It's a big question. I mean, Buddha said it is. Everything about your life
right now is suffering, even the things that seem to be going well are suffering.
And we have to debate it, and it's kind of hard to...it's hard to understand. You
know, you could say, "Oh yeah I agree, it sounds good", but then you're gonna
get up tomorrow and try to get that promotion anyway [laughs] which means
you don't understand it. So we have to talk about it, and, and we have to learn
about it...it's very, very delicate, it's very important to study. {Nyen jun}, okay?
Disgust with life, or, or renunciation. If you have {nyen jun} can you still have
money? If you have {nyen jun} can you still have luxury? These are questions
we'll, we'll talk about. What is really {nyen jun}? And is this life suffering or is
just part of it suffering? That's the things we want to talk about. So that's the
first attitude, renunciation, whatever it means...which we'll talk about. {Chang
sem} means...{chang} means "Buddhahood". It stands for {changchub}. {Sem}
means "mind" or "state of mind", and the sanskrit word is...boddhi...chitta...right,
I should...sometimes you see this spelled only with a 'c' and not a 'ch'. That's
because there's two 'ch's in sanskrit, so western scholars use the first one for the
one 'c' by itself, for one 'ch' like the italian 'ch', right? [unclear] milanese, you
[unclear], right? [laughs] And they use 'c-h' for the other 'ch'. So I, I heard a lot
of people say 'boddhikitta', you know?                Boddhichitta.    Boddhi means
"Buddhahood", chitta means "mind". So question for Bill County...does it mean
buddha-mind? Mind of a buddha? What do you think?

[student: Sure. I'll go with, I'll open that door. ]

If you have boddhichitta, if you have boddhichitta, do you have the mind of a
buddha? What do you think?

[student, Fran Dayan: I think you do.]

Okay...no [unclear]

[student: Isn't boddhichitta the same as boddhisattva?]

A boddhisattva has boddhi...when you get boddhichitta, you're a boddhisattva.

[student: Is it the same?]

Boddhisattva's the person who has boddhichitta in his mind.

[student: Oh, okay.]

Okay. Yeah.
[student: If it's a path, then you don't have to go to mind, you can have the
aspiration to become a buddha. Isn't that...?]

Oh that's a tricky question, you see? I won't get into it. Buddhas do have paths.
They have {lam}s. The buddhas

[student: Buddhas have {lam}s.]

The love in a buddha's heart is a {lam} also, even though he's reached the end of
the {lam}. It's not acting as a {lam} for him any more technically, because he's
already there. But we still call it {lam}.

[student: But this is a {lam} in this context?]

Yeah it is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of a person who hasn't reached, it's the {lam} in the
context of something that gets you to Buddhahood, so it can't be the result,
right?

[student, Kylie: So how 'bout if you have boddhichitta you are a boddhisattva,
all buddhas are boddhisattvas but not all boddhisattvas are yet buddhas.]

That's right. So what it means is...and it's badly mistranslated, I mean it's mostly
translated as buddha-mind, boddhi-mind, it's very misleading. The full word is
not said, {chang sem} it's...you don't have to know this so I'm not going to write
it up there, but it's {chang chub du sem kye pa}, sometimes called {sem kye},
{chang chub du sem kye pa}. {Chang chub du sem kye pa} means "to get the
wish to become a buddha". To get the wish to become a buddha, the mind here
means wish, okay? The wish to become a buddha for other people, to help other
people.

[student, Kylie: That's why I asked before about the distinction between the
mahayana and the hinyana because when you said that you've got these three,
then you've mastered buddhism, then by implication doesn't that mean you can't
really master buddhism in the theravada schools or the hinyana...]

Yeah right, yeah. But if you master buddhism you master the hinyana schools.
That's another story. Okay, boddhichitta. So it's the, it's the desire...technically
speaking, as you will learn maybe in the third course, this mind refers to your
awareness. Not technically a wish, it's not an emotion. It's not a mental function,
it is mind itself. And that's a little difficult to understand. That will come later.
Okay, you don't need to know that now. It is actually a state of consciousness,
it's what you lose when Mike Tyson punches you, okay? It's not...it's, it's your
awareness, you see? It's, it's very difficult question, when you reach the study of
boddhichitta we will spend weeks on it. And that will come. We'll study that
book. It's the first chapter of the [b: Abhisarmun karpa] by {Saum} and we will
get there, okay? And you'll go very deep into what is boddhichitta, you'll go
deeper than you can get anywhere else I would say, you know. And very
interesting, really interesting...and by the end you'll know what boddhichitta is, if
you don't get it that's your problem. Okay? [laughs] [laughter] No, if you
don't...if understanding it you become one of these dharma monsters, who, who
understands everything but didn't develop anything, ahh, that's your fault. The
teaching is, is there, the teaching is pure, the teaching is correct, you will know
every detail of it, and if you still don't choose to practice it, then you're just crazy.
Okay? Okay, boddhichitta. I'm sorry if there's a little shine off the board, okay?
It's some kind of physics here. The people last night were really complaining.
It's a haircut. I needed the haircut.

[silence]

Okay, please say {yang da pe}[repeat], {tawa}[repeat]. {Yang da pe}[repeat],
{tawa}[repeat], {yang da pe}[repeat], {tawa}[repeat], okay. {Yang da pa} means
"correct", "accurate". {Tawa} means "view", "viewpoint". This is the last of the
three attitudes, if you have that attitude, if you really develop it you will become
a buddha.        I'll describe a correct view as opposed to an incorrect view.
Spiritually, all right? I'm in the diamond business. I was brought up from my
innocence to try to trick these tricky diamond dealers, and get them stones for
the best price, and they're talking thousands of stones every day, and you're
supposed to out-think them and out-smart them and out- talk them
and...basically lie, so [laughs], so this would happen, you know? I would go into
the boss and he would tell me, "Tell the guy you can only pay five hundred
dollars", when we both know I can pay a thousand, okay? So I tell the guy, "I
can only pay five hundred." And he sells it to me for five hundred, and I think,
"Oh, my boss is a genius ", you know? This stone costs a thousand dollars, and
we got it for five hundred dollars, we just made a five hundred dollar profit. I
lied...and we just made five hundred dollars. 'Course it was...he bought it for
three hundred but that's another point, [laughter] which is always the case if he
sells it for five hundred, but that's another point. I lied. Whatever he did is his
business. So it looks like, if you, if you, if you look at the cause and effect of
what just happened...I lied, and it triggered the profit. Okay I lie...and we just
got five hundred more dollars. Okay? It looks like the lie caused the money,
caused the profit, okay? If you study cause and effect, for, for a long time...what,
what is a cause? What is a result? What is the nature of a cause? What is the
nature of a result? One of the most basic things that you will come to
understand, you will come to really believe it, is that the nature of the cause and
the nature of the result have to be the same. They have to be the same. Jesus
made a big deal about it in the New Testament, he was talking about plants. He
said, "If you plant wheat you cannot get corn." Impossible, impossible. And
there's nothing you can do, once you've planted the wheat you can't go to the
field and yell at the seed and say, "Oh I want you to be corn, I want you to be
corn!" There's nothing you can do to make it turn into corn at that point, it will
not. It's a wheat seed, it has all the little genes or whatever it needs to become
wheat inside, but it will not become corn, impossible. The nature of the seed is
wheat. The nature of the result is wheat. There, there's always this similarity
between the cause and the result. Lying is bad. Lying is immoral. Profit is
pleasant. Profit is nice. Basically, and it sounds like a child's statement, it sounds
very stupid, but you can't get a good thing from a bad thing, it's impossible. It
cannot occur. It's impossible, and I can say that and you...it doesn't sink in, you
know, it doesn't sound like any big revolutionary thing that you suddenly say,
"Oh yeah, he's right", you know? But I tell you...from one world view, which is
what {tawa} means, it is impossible for a bad deed to create a good result, it's
impossible, the money did not come from the lying. The profit cannot come
from lying, it's impossible. One is a good thing and one is a bad thing, it's
impossible. So what really happened, {yang da pay tawa}, correct world view.
Correct view of reality says this, you don't look at it like 'ding-ding', 'lying-
money', okay? You turn it this way...you gave money to someone else long ago,
at some previous time in your life, okay? In your lives you gave money,
therefore you get money. Okay? And now you're lying and what will happen?
What will happen?

[student: You'll have a diamond someday [laughs][laughter] that you can sell for
a thousand or five hundred, and somebody'll pay you five hundred and you'll
take it. And that's what'll happen someday.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh no. You'll be lied to or, I mean, if you read the calendar
for example, this year's calendar, the karmic results are basically four. But some,
some of the results are that no one will believe you. And you see cases like that,
where you're telling the truth, "God, goddamn I'm telling the truth", you know?
I'm finally telling the truth and people don't believe you. They just don't believe
you, you're telling something that is absolutely the truth and people don't
believe you. That's where that comes from.
[student, Vilma Staiano: So events are random then?]

No. Exactly the opposite.

[student, Vilma Staiano: No I mean...well but if...but when something follows
something else, like this..]

Oh. Yeah, it's timing. It's timing. It's timing. Why? Why? It's not my point now
to discuss karma, we'll do it...and we'll prove it and I can prove it, give me a few
weeks, okay? I can prove these things, but...if it caused, she said it last night,
Ani-la said it last night, if, if, is the lying were the cause of profit, then what? If
you wanted to get a profit in the future.

[student: Lie.]

Lie. If, if (sound of phone ringing), just let it go, it's alright. If lying is the cause
for profit, then any time you want a profit you should just lie, and you will
always get the profit. If it's not cause and effect, it won't work all the time.
Cause and effect means it works all the time, the definition of cause and effect in
science, science is correct. You, you, you bring together the causes that you
know make that result, and I always tell people, if you got to the airport, and
you're getting on the plane and a stewardess says, "We don't quite understand
this result of flying. We don't understand the causes very well. We understand
half the causes. This plane will stay up half the time." Will you get on? [laughs]
Okay? Is that the real cause? So do you understand the causes? If the plane falls
down half the time, after take-off, do they understand the causes of making it
fly? No. They understand...they don't understand all the causes. Cause means,
if you can repeat the exact same causes the result will always come. That's the
nature of causes and results. The fact is, the simple, observable, undeniable fact
is that if you lie, you don't always get money, it's not the cause of the money. It
is not the cause of the money. Cannot be the cause of the money. So now lying
becomes some kind of idiotic thing to do. 'Cause all it can do is, is cause you
some trouble later...you don't have to believe it now, but I'm trying to give you
an example of {yang da pay tawa}, okay? It's a world view which most people
do not have, it's a world view that you must develop [cut] and some guy it took
him fifty-five seconds [laughs] or something like...yeah, I c...in one minute I can
find a scriptural, I can find what the Buddha said, something that I'm saying,
okay? Challenge, a challenge, all right? And it sounds like bragging but no it's
not, you shouldn't believe me, unless I can do that. Okay? You shouldn't believe
it, you shouldn't listen to a person teaching buddhism if they can't do that, okay?
I'm, I'm not giving you my ideas, I'm giving you the ideas of a person who's
omniscient. He saw two and a half thousand years ago that we're gonna have
this class tonight. He, he sees you thinking what you're thinking now. There's
this lousy translation, [b: The Close Recollection of the Buddha]...it's a bad
translation of...what it means is the Buddha's always here. He knows exactly
what we're doing. He knows what you're thinking all the time. We're, we're
using his ideas, it's not my ideas, I mean it's not even tibetan lamas, it's not indian
buddhists, it's the ideas of the Buddha. And he knows all things. So if I can pull
out that he said it, that's sufficient. I mean, when we debate at the monastery,
there's two ways you can debate, one is, if you can find that the Buddha said it,
you win the debate. But you...also if you can prove it with logic, without finding
that the Buddha said it, you win the debate.             Either way, we have two
methods...and you can use, we will use both methods. Now I would like to take
a break...what time is it?

[student: Five after eight.]

Okay. We'll come back at eight-twenty, go upstairs there's no chairs you can sit
on the floor, please don't be shy. Take these things? Everybody take a cushion
up. And have some tea, cold tea. You can't bring refreshments down here again,
okay? That's against lamas custom, 'cause you might spill it on a holy book,
alright? I'd like you to understand the lineage, the recent lineage of this book,
you know where you're getting it from. In the tibetan, you know in buddhism
in general, it's considered very, very important to know where the book is
coming from, so I don't want you to be...I tell people a story that I was in a train
station in India, I had been studying about two months, at the tibetan library, we
were studying a book called [b: Chun Juk], which is the [b: Boddhicharyatara],
and we saw these people running into this room and offering cakes to this lama,
and we asked, "Who's the lama?", you know, and they said, "This is Ling
Rinpoche", which is the senior tutor of the Dalai Lama. So we went, we ran, me
and this english guy, we ran and bought a cake. Stupid little moon cake. And we
ran in and we said, "Can we offer Ling Rinpoche a cake?" And they said, "Yeah,
yeah, come in, come in, come in." So we came up to him and we bowed down
and my teacher was standing behind him. And he was sitting on his chair, and
he was pretty old at the time. And he said, "What are you doing?" And, "Who,
where are you from?" And we said, "America and England." And he said, "What,
what are you doing?" And we said, "We're studying buddhism in the library."
And he says, "Well what book are you studying?" [laughter] And we said, " ",
you know we didn't know the name of the book, and my teacher was behind me
going, (whispered) "Ch-jk, ch-jk" [laughter][laughs]

[student: What's the name of the book?]

[b: Chun Juk], [b: Chun Juk]. I don't want you to be like that, I want you to
know what...

[student, Kylie: What happened? Did you, did you hear your teacher said it or
did he, did [unclear] ? ]

No, we told him [b: Chun Juk], yeah. But then he laughed 'cause he knew that
[unclear].

[student, Kylie: You couldn't leave us hanging there.]

So, I want you to know who wrote the book. You know who wrote the [b:
Fourteen Verses] now, that was {Je Tsongkhapa}. So who wrote the explanation
of the [b: Fourteen Verses]? Why is this book a hundred pages long instead of
only five pages long? The commentary was written by {Kyabje}...I'll say
{Pabongkha Rinpoche}, okay? {Pabongkha Rinpoche} came from, you can read
it in the book, you don't have to write it down, he came from Sera monastery,
which is one of the three great monasteries in Hlasa.

[student: [unclear] ]

Excuse me?

[student, Kylie: Sera Me or Sera Je?]

I'm about to tell you. He was from the best part of Sera, which is Sera Me
[laughter] and he was from the best house in Sera Me which is {Gyerong} House,
which happens to be my lama's house, and my house too. So he was generally
considered the greatest teacher in Tibet in his times, he passed away in the
forties, early forties. He was born in the eighteen seventies, something like that.
He was not a great student in the monastery, there was different degrees
of...you get at the end of your studies. The highest is called {hlarampa ah gyi
dam mo}. The second is {hlarampa}, the third {hlorampa}, and then it goes
down...now, he got a {ling se}, {ling se} means you only get a, a degree from
your college, you don't go on debate at the other colleges and that's [unclear].
And he only got that, he was not the greatest geshe in the monastery, he was a
lot like Lama Yeshe, a lot like Lama Yeshe...and what happened was, at...after he
graduated, he started teaching small groups of lay people, not monks, which is
very unusual. And suddenly it went wild, I mean after a few years it would be
ten thousand people coming to his teaching. They would have to rent the largest
temple in Hlasa, if he went to give a teaching, and he gave it with no
microphone, no nothing. He would sit up there and he would teach ten
thousand people, I mean it got to be crazy. The monks started walking from the
monastery Sera and {Je bun} to Hlasa every time he gave a teaching...the
thirteenth Dalai Lama begged him to stop, because all the geshe candidates were
[laughter] were leaving the debate grounds to come to hear him talk, and he just
had an incredible ability to teach buddhism, and he taught it for the common
man. He took those five books that you're going to study, he had that
knowledge of those five books, and you can see it throughout his writings, he
mastered those five books and then he converted 'em into something that
normal people could study. And that...he's an incredible teacher, he's really
incredible. And his name was Pabongkha Rinpoche. He produced a lot of great
teachers, {Trijang Rinpoche}, who's the Dalai Lama's other teacher [cut]

[end side one of tape]

This was his, Pabongkha's main disciple. {Trijang} Rinpoche was born I believe in
the nineteen hundred, and passed away in nineteen eighty-one. And he was
really an incredible scholar. He actually wrote down most of what Pabongkha
Rinpoche taught, Pabongkha Rinpoche didn't sit and write down his lectures, but
his main students and other student named {Losang Dorje}, wrote down what he
taught, and then they made books out of it. And the book that he wrote down
of Pabongkha Rinpoche's which is called [b: Liberation In Our Hands] became an
instant hit, it was carved before Pabongkha Rinpoche died. Carving a book in
Tibet is a big deal, if they, if they take the time to carve your book out of wood,
it was already an incredible hit, immediately, I mean people went wild over this
book, it was in nineteen twenty-one he taught some lectures. And {Trijang}
Rinpoche wrote them down.

[student, Vilma Staiano: What was the name of that one? Liberation...]

[b: Liberation In Our Hands]. It's sort of a, a dangerous translation because in
english the word 'in' in 'it's in your hands' means it's, it's up to you now, I did
what I could, it's in your hands...but it's not what it means in tibetan, in tibetan it
means a lama who teaches that book well can put liberation in your hand,
y'know there it is, you got it, you know. It's...the word in tibetan is {lak janks
durpa}, you know, 'dzingk', there it is, you got it, you know?

[student, Fran Dayan: Is that the same as [b: Liberation In the Palm of Your
Hand]?]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the meaning is...is that. He, he says okay you got it. You
want it? You got it. That's the meaning of it. {Trijang} Rinpoche and many great
students...this is a student of {Trijang} Rinpoche from whom we receive this.
Alright? Khen Rinpoche means that he has been the abbot of a major monastery,
he's been the abbot of Sera Me monastery. Okay?

[student: {Khenpo} Rinpoche refers to {Trijang} Rinpoche?]

No. To [unclear].

[student: Was {Trijang} Rinpoche the senior or junior tutor?]

Junior tutor, but it's pretty much a moot point, it doesn't mean anything.

[student: I know but people refer to him that way and I don't know which one.]

Yeah [unclear] Yeah it, but in tibetan the word is {yong dzin} for both of them,
they say {yong dzin yom an aye}, they don't say junior or senior...I don't know
where exactly that comes from. They do call him the junior tutor, yeah.

[student, Kylie: So in other words at some point the junior tutor would be older
than the senior tutor.]

No it's not by age I believe.

[student, Kylie:     So if that's, yes, at some point one would be older than
[unclear] ]

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm not sure what that refers to. But in, but in the tibetan eyes
they're {yong dzin yom an ee}, they are the two tutors. It's like Sera Me, it
means, Me means "lower college" because it was lower on the hill a few thousand
years ago, [laughter] you know, so people say lower tantric college, {Gyu Me},
but it's very misleading, it just means it was physically, altitude was lower. Khen
Rinpoche, Khen Rinpoche means this lama has been the head of a major
monastery, the abbot...{khen} means "abbot", and geshe means he's reached that
degree of a geshe...now-a-days geshe is a little bit...delicate. In Tibet up to
nineteen fifty-nine a geshe meant twenty, twenty-five years of intense study and
very strict examinations. And now, and now-a-days you can pretty much...I
mean there are a lot of geshes who aren't geshes,

[student, John Stilwell: You call yourself a geshe?]

It's getting pretty bad, yeah, they're trying to tighten it up and they have some
new regulations on it, but a lot of people...there are ways to just get your geshe
name and come to the...come to Europe or U.S. and teach, and so you have to
find out if you meet someone called a geshe, you say, you know, well
wha...where, where did you get that, what did you study. It's, it's a little
dangerous right now. It's a little misleading sometimes now. But he's a real
geshe, {hlarampa} geshe, he was one of two geshes out of maybe seventeen or
eighteen thousand monks, in Hlasa at the time, who received the highest geshe
degree in that year from the Dalai Lama...and Lobsang Tharchin is his, is his
monk's name. Okay? So he's the stu...he's my teacher and he's the student of
{Trijang} Rinpoche, who, from whom this teaching comes down to.

[student: And Geshe Lobsang Tharchin is the same person as Khen Rinpoche. ]

Khen Rinpoche, yeah.

[student: Student of {Trijang} Rinpoche.]

Yeah, yeah. And he actually also studied with Pabongkha Rinpoche, in Tibet.
And he's, he's teaching in New Jersey, not as much as he used to do, he's, he's
about seventy-two now...and he's born in nineteen twenty-one...and if you can
get a chance, if any time you get a chance, it's very wonderful if you could...so
that's how it comes down to you. I'm gonna teach you one more word. This is
the tantric name, tantric means "secret buddhism", okay? We won't study tantra
in the five year course, okay? In, in, in Tibet, in the old days, you're not allowed
to study tantra until you're a geshe. Okay? You're not allowed to enter the
tantric colleges until you're a {hlarampa} geshe. You're not...that's to study the
real theory of behind tantra, in the tantric monasteries you had to have that, that
was the minimum, alright? You had to be one of the best sixteen monks out of
the whole graduating monks that year. Okay? Very difficult. {De chen nyim bo}
was the tantric name of...Pabongkha Rinpoche, okay? {De chen} means "great
bliss". You had another {chen} tonight, what was that?
[student: {Chenmo}.]

Yeah, [b: Lam Rim Chenmo], Tsongkhapa's great book. So {chen} means "big",
and {de} means "bliss". Okay? Great bliss...and {nyingbo} means "essence",
essence of great bliss. So if you take all the [unclear] happiness you ever had,
throw out all the little ones...take the biggest three happinesses you ever had in
your life, squish 'em into a few seconds, that's {de chen}, alright? That's {de chen
nyimbo}. Actually that's the meaning of it, I mean it's such an intense feeling of
bliss that you could took all the good feelings you ever had in your life and, and
have that whole emotion in a, in a minute or a half a minute, that would be {de
chen nyimbo}. That's the tantric name of Pabongkha Rinpoche. That just about
tells you everyone who wrote the book, alright? We're not gonna do much
buddhism tonight beyond that, alright? I just...you have to know who wrote the
book in case you meet the Dalai Lama or something he asks you, "What are you
studying?" [laughter]

[student: [unclear] ]

We'll get there. I'll show you, I'll show you. One more word. It's a lot of names
but it would be considered improper not to know them all. {Nor rim dappa} was
a student of Tsongkhapa's, his story...we don't know much about him, there's
not much left, records about him. He wasn't one of the big, big students like the
first Dalai Lama who studied with Tsongkhapa, Je Tsongkhapa, but he was one
of his students. He spent time with Je Tsongkhapa, he studied with him, and then
he went out to eastern Tibet, and he founded a hundred and eight monasteries.
Tsongkhapa said, "I want a hundred and eight monasteries", he went out...before
he died he did it. And basically he was going out to...back home, where he had
grown up, which is in {Gero}, which is on the chinese border, chinese and tibetan
border.

[student: What is it called?]

{Gyel rong}. And...it's in the book. He went back and he founded those
monasteries and, and Je Tsongkhapa would send him letters of advice. So
apparently {Nor rim darpa} requested something brief and easy that he could
teach to these barbarians out in east Tibet [laughs], not barbarians but people
who didn't know buddhism very well. And that's why Je Tsongkhapa wrote the
book you're going to study. It's actually a letter, those fourteen verses are a
letter that Je Tsongkhapa wrote to {Nor rim darpa}. It's the...what you're about
to study in my opinion is, is maybe the most important buddhist work ever
written, because on that fourteen verses, based on that fourteen verses you can
achieve enlightenment. You cannot do that with the [b: Heart Sutra], you cannot
do that with the [b: Diamond Sutra], you can't do it with the [b: Eight-Thousand
Verse Perfection of Wisdom], you can do it with these fourteen line verses,
according to Tsongkhapa, who should know. And it's funny 'cause it's stuck in
his minor works, you know? Because it's short. So it's stuck in between a few
letters that he wrote to somebody, so {Nor rim darpa}. Like all good tibetans
{Nor rim dappa} has at least three different names, which will drive you
crazy...and I, I'd like you to know one of them. [cut?] What do you mean?

[student, John Stilwell: Well one's one [unclear] and then your lay name, or ]

Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, very common, I mean, and it's bad when you're trying to
learn tibetan and, he mentioned Atisha. Atisha has, Atisha, {Marmentzay}, {Jowo
Rinpoche}, {Jowo Je}, he's got like six, eight names and it drives you crazy, until
you learn how it goes.

[student: Which is the monk's name and which is the...]

{Lo ong dappa} is his ordination name, the name he got when he became a
monk. When you become a monk you get a new name, the first name is taken
from your preceptor's first name. You always get the name, the first name of
your, the Lama who gave you your vows. So my monk's name is Lobsang,
because my teacher's monk's name is Lobsang. The last abbot of Sera Me, or the
next to the last, three, three abbots ago his name was Jampa. He served for
twelve years. He made all the monks during twelve years. There's about four
hundred Jampas [laughter] in Sera Me, it's a big problem, [laughs] everyone has
the first name, the same first name. Okay? So, {tsako ombo}, say {tsako}[repeat],
{ombo}[repeat], {tsako}[repeat],{ombo}[repeat]. This is a name by which {Nor
rim darpa} is known. Some people is...sometimes you might say {Nor rim darpa}
and somebody says, "Well who?" And you say, "{Tsako Ombo}". Okay? That's
his, sort of a nickname. {Tsako} is a, a line of kings from eastern Tibet. And
{wombo} is his...it, it means "monk". In, in the colloquial of that little district, like
(spoken with an american regional accent) down in that little they call {Lubos},
okay? You, you will never hear that word in, in anywhere else. We translate it
as 'friar', because it's such a rare word for a monk, very few people will ever
stand, understand that word. I'm going to...hand out...your homework. Lemme
make sure I, I gave you everything on it. [silence]

[student: Did you say how many letters he, he sent? Which is the [unclear] ]
Oh, this is one of the letters he s...he s...there's a whole

[student: [unclear] This is one letter?]

Excuse me?

[student: This is how it looks?]

Yeah yeah [unclear]. Oh, by, by the way, we're talking about the root text,
which is only fourteen verses, if you open up that little orange book you'll see
sections that have dark black print? Those are the letter, and then the rest is
Pabongkha Rinpoche's explanation of the letter. So if you flip through you'll see
some dark dark print, in blocks that are verses. That's the letter. Those are the
lines from the letter, and then Pabongkha Rinpoche is explaining the letter.

[student, Kylie: Transcribed by Trijang Rinpoche.]

Not in this case.       This particular book was transcribed from Pabongkha
Rinpoche's lectures by a monk named Losang Dorje...who's not the Losang
Dorje you know, okay? [laughs] But he also transcribed some other important
books of his. I, I believe he transcribed the [b: Nyam jorma Commentary]. So
he did a really great thing for us. Okay, the only other thing in your homework
that we haven't covered...is...you have to memorize something. By the way,
when you make an answer in the homework, put the tibetan in english letters,
okay? And then put the english. So if I ask you what is the first of the three
principle paths? What will you write?

[student: [unclear] ]

Huh?

[student: [unclear] ]

Oh, oh, this is the first one. Yeah okay, {nyen jung}, say {nyen jung}[repeat],
{nyen jung}[repeat] so you have to write {nyen jung} and then you write
renunciation next to it, okay? So if I ask you for the second principle path?

[students: [unclear] ]
{Chang sem}. {Chang sem}. If I ask you for the third?

[students: {Yang da pa tawa} ]

Alright good, good. If I ask you for the author of the root text.

[students: Je Tsongkhapa...Je Tsongkhapa.]

Aaah-o, if I ask you for who wrote the explanation, of that text?

[students: Pabongkha Rinpoche.]

Who was it written for?

[students: {Sahkko} [unclear] ]

{Tsa kho ombo lo om darpa}, okay? [laughs] Alright, like that...so put, put
your...put the english letters of the tibet, then put the tibetan and your...you're
responsible for anything on this at the beginning of the next class. Alright?

[student: For a quiz?]

Yeah, for a quiz. Nothing on the quiz will not come from here. Okay?

[student: Nothing on the quiz will not...?]

[student: [unclear] ]

Everything on the quiz will come from here [laughs], alright?

[student: It's all here? ]

No, [unclear] and I'll correct it and give it back. If you fail more than two
quizzes, you're out. You can come to Friday night [unclear], alright? I just want
to, I just want you to know this stuff well, and I want it...my dream of this
particular school is that, if, if y...if in five years from now if you say, "I was at the
first course and I passed", then they know you're qualified, they know that you
understand that stuff, pretty much, okay? You passed all the quizzes, you
passed all the homework, you stuck it out and, and I can say, to people, "Well,
I...here's a list of people who passed the first course, they're qualified to explain it
to you." That's what I want, that's what I really want, I want a network of people
who can pass it on to other people. Otherwise it will die with us. And, and you
know, the people who've been around tibetans for a long time, the old teachers
are gone. It's, it's foolish to think they're going to last much longer, the teachers
who really know their stuff from Tibet...my teacher is the youngest you can be
and have finished tantric college, because the year after he finished he ran away.
He finished in fifty-eight, he left in fifty-nine, he's the youngest you can be and,
and have trained everything in Tibet, so he's seventy-two. He's seventy-
two...there are six people left like him, {Latim Rinpoche, Kela Rinpoche, Geshe
Parshim}...we counted them with {Lati} Rinpoche one day in a car. There's only
six left, alright?

[student, John Stilwell: Who are the other three? ]

I don't remember exactly. One of them is the {ganden chi par} I know, he's the
head of the {ganden}s, but I'm not...I don't remember.

[student: Are all of them out of Tibet?]

Yeah. We're talking out of Tibet. There's a...I'm not aware of any

[student: People are still coming out, I mean [unclear] ]

I'm not aware of any...there is...no, I'm not aware, there may be one more in
Tibet that I know of...but I'm not sure. And those people were in prison for
twenty years, fifteen years, they forgot a lot...they didn't get a chance to see
books. Okay. There's one more thing down at the bottom here. It says
memorize assignment, 'Memorize the verse for refuge and the wish.' That's the
second page in your notebook. So please turn to that. [silence, of the shuffling
paper sort] Okay, it's at the top, it says, "{Kyabdro semkay}", okay? {Kyabdro
semkay}. You have to be able to write out, on the quiz next week, the english
letters for the tibetan, and the english. Okay?

[student, John Stilwell: Should we spell it correctly in tibetan?]

Yes.

[student: You have to spell it like this, because like I have many, I mean
[unclear] ]
Like this...yeah, like this, I can't have like fifty versions, I can't check it, okay?
Alright?

[student: Could you say it again?]

You have to memorize, you have to be able to...if I ask what [unclear], you tell
me this four lines, you have to say, "{Sangye chudang tsokyi choknam la /
Jangchub bardu dakni kyabsu chi / Dakki jinsok gyipay sunam kyi / Drola
penchir sangye druppar shok.}". That's all. Okay, no big deal. In the monastery
this would be a fifteen minute assignment.

[student: Do it in english, right?]

You have to say those...yeah, in the english letters. That's tibetan, in the english
letters, okay? And you also have to memorize the english translation at the
bottom.

[student, Kylie: So these four {shulakas} turn into...three in english.]

Four lines. Four lines turn into three, three tiny little...yeah. They hang together
that way.

[student: And this is for Thur...uh, for Monday.]

Monday. Monday night. And it's gonna go like that, this, this is the way it's
gonna be. If you feel that you can't memorize that much, or you can't do that
much work, I'm asking for two or three hours of homework a week, okay, if
you feel you can't do it, then don't come. Okay? Really. I want people who are
serious and, and who will come out as good teachers, okay? I...this is really a
minimum. The other people are memorizing it in tibetan alright? They're
writing it in tibetan, okay?

[student: [unclear] book ]

Huh?

[student: We're doing the book.]

Yeah, yeah, in a way. [laughter] Alright? No, if, if you don't have time, or the
desire, you won't make it, and you don't really want it that bad...then don't
come. You know? Come Friday night, and you get a little dose of tibetan and
some good tibetan buddhism and that's enough, you know. Yes?

[student, Kylie; Since we're on such an important task here, can we sort of do it
the right way and a, you know, say some prayers at the beginning and the end?]

We'll get there, we're, we're, that's what we're talking about right now. But we'll
say them from memory, alright? So next, we'll do one until we get...there's three
basic prayers that we say during class. Before class and after class, we'll talk
about it next week, but I want you to get this one under your belt. And we'll talk
about the meaning of it next week. It's typical in a tibetan monastery, you
memorize the stuff first, you come in and the teacher explains it to you and then
you'll never forget it, it's really a good system. I had to memorize the [b:
Abhidharmakosha], the first four...three chapters before I was allowed to study
it. And [b: Abhisamancara], eight chapters before we could study it, so you
have to...it's a minimum. Okay? If you can't do it, and that's...I, I already said
that, okay. Meditation assignment, it says at the bottom, fifteen minutes per
day, breathe to ten and then do meditation on renunciation. By the way, I'll
hand these out. I hope there's enough, if there's not, then the two couples we
have please share, okay? Three couples.

[student, John Stilwell:      Are these paragraph, paragraph breaks in four
[unclear]?]

In english, yeah.

[student: So don't write on this?]

This you can write on, please don't write on any text. But you're welcome to
write on, you have to write on the homework, you write directly onto your
homework. Onto the sheet, yeah. You'll get that sheet back corrected, and you'll
put it in your notebook, and when you teach your own students you have
already the quizzes together.

[student: If we've memorized different translations, does it [unclear] ]

'Cause we're gonna say it together. I, I prefer say it in tibetan but...

[student: Also the next to the last word {ge tash o}, are you [unclear] whatever
[unclear] ]
[student: There's an alternative word that's used in language [unclear] ]

Yeah, there is several alternatives. Sorry, you're stuck with this one. [laughs]
We can't, I can't...we have to standardize some things, and then you can, you
know, if you've learned it a different way you can say that way at home.

[student: In the privacy of your own home. ]

Yeah, yeah, no, it's okay, but we have to, we can't, have to...this comes
from...this comes from a standard [unclear]. Some of these verses come from
Nagarjuna...yeah I know, unfortunately his mother wants that. Okay. Now the
last thing on the homework says that you have to do some meditation, did
everybody get homework?

[students: No...no.]

Were there too few? Kylie, can you give up one? Do you have two?

[student, Kylie: We only have one.]

[student: Okay, here.]

Janet has an extra. Next time I'll be better prepared. I...just a few more people
then interview, broke the rules. Okay.

[student, Kylie: You gonna have more stuff or you're convinced there'll be less
students?]

Well, let's see. The last thing says meditate on renunciation, it says do analytical
meditation. (a dog begins barking) This is a kind of meditation where you just
think in your mind, we have an explosion here (one dog is barking and one is
growling), the reasons

[student: No. No.]

Yeah, snookie, next time put him out there. (a dog is coughing) Okay. Think in
your mind, you sit down in a quiet place for fifteen minutes a day, breathe ten
times, breathing...we'll explain it later. Basically, (the dog is still coughing). Not
like that. [laughter] One breath out your nose, and one breath in your nose, not
through your mouth, okay? Number one means (sound of an exhalation
followed by an inhalation), and not (sound of an inhalation followed by an
exhalation), okay? Not english way. Out and in is one. And then out and in is
two. And just count up to ten. You will lose count before you hit five, your
mind will go somewhere else, start back again, start over again, be, be persistent
until you hit ten. When you hit ten you'll see yourself going to eleven and
twelve,

[student: And then what? [unclear] ]

Start over again.

[student: Is it correct to use a mala?]

Aah you can, but it's not necessary. The main thing is the mental exercise, right?
The function of breathing meditation, which is taught in the [b:
Abhidharmakosha] very clearly, and which you will study from the [b:
Abhidharmakosha], is to put your mind into neutral. Okay? Your mind has
been busy during the day, 'da-da-da-da-da-da-gotta make this deal-gotta do this',
and the breathing is, the function of the breathing is probably, I guess it is, that
you cannot count to ten, until your mind is...pretty much down to neutral. Can
you open the front door? That's probably Michael Wick. So that puts your mind
into neutral and then you aim the mind on a, on a virtuous object. On a good
object. The object we're choosing here is...try to think over reasons why you
should be disgusted with life. Okay? Consider the question: Is life so bad that I
have to come to a five year buddhism course? [laughs] [laughter] Seriously,
okay? Seriously. This is why you are here. Okay? If you are not convinced of
this thing, you, you shouldn't be here. There's no reason to take this course.
Okay? The object of this course is to, is to learn the theory behind removing the
unpleasant things of your life. And, and you have to be convinced to do well in
this course, otherwise you'll drop out. Wanting to know tibetan, wanting to
master the five big books, you know, wanting whatever you want to come here
is not enough to get you through five years. Okay? You'll have to be somehow
think that this will help you get rid of the bad things in your life. And it will, all
of them. Okay? And I'm talking big time, {geh ga na chi}, okay? Last thing. I
keep saying last thing. [silence]

[student: Is that an 'i' again, or a...?]

It's an 'i'. [silence, with some faint background chatter and noise, including a dog
barking] This is why I'll never have meditation in this class...unless it's dog
meditation.

[student: You give 'em dog biscuits and then]

We feed 'em after eleven o'clock and then they, it knocks them out. These are
the four great sufferings. {Kye} means "having to be born into this kind of a
body". Okay? {Kye} means "having to take birth".

[student: Any birth or just human birth?]

Any birth. Any birth which occurs involuntarily...basically. That's {kye}.

[student: What is {kye}?]

{Kye} means "to take birth", "to be born".

[student, Kylie: When you say involuntarily do you mean to take birth at all or,
not where you want to be, or how you want to be?]

Well let's say to take birth in this kind of a body, flesh and blood.

[student, Kylie: Samsaric? I mean that's easy enough [unclear] samsaric body or
what?]

Later, later. {Kye}.

[student: Did you say voluntarily or involuntarily?]

Involuntarily, please. {Ga} means "getting old". It starts with?

[student, Fran Dayan: As soon as you're born.]

The second you're born, it starts at conception. You start to get your wrinkles
the second second after your parents conceive you, okay? Getting old. {Na}
means "getting sick". I once translated for the tib...tibet...his holiness' doctor.
There were about fifty people in the audience. He, when just before he stopped
speaking he said, "Anyone who has a medical problem come see me tomorrow
the next day." And it looked like you guys, looked like a normal group of people,
you know? And I had to translate for the next two three days, and every single
person came, and many of them had very horrible things, but it looked like
normal old people, you know, it looked like a normal group of people. But
everyone had some horrible thing, you know, it's like ugh! And, that's the way it
is, everyone has something. Okay? We will study that, actually tomorrow night
we'll study that. The nature of your body...he defined it, he said, "Health is an
accident." He said, "Health is not the normal condition of the human body." He
said that. He said

[student: An accident?]

Yeah, he said, "It's a temporary, auspropicious [?-I think he meant auspicious]
balance of all the elements." It's like a juggler sud...getting all the balls up
perfectly for one second, and the nature is not that. [cut]

[end of tape]
930712-1.aaa