ACI 10 «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы, часть I», занятие 1

Class one : Author Structure and History of the Text
Feb. 25 1997

...When we were trying not to meditate about work, I thinking about work and
my work is very interesting nowadays, we started this company fifteen years
ago, we started this company and we rented a desk in some guys office for like
fifty dollars a month and there were three of us and one guy had fifty thousand
dollars and he started. We started making diamond and diamond things and
then every year it would double and triple and quadruple and then, you know,
we moved into uptown office and we expanded to two buildings and then we
bought our own building down town and we had nine hundred people working
there, and selling like a hundred and fifty million dollars a year and it was very
exciting and very interesting and, and then about three years ago it started to
collapse and it started to shrink again and now its just like my work day and
again today and this week is very interesting.

Because here you have hundreds of people who have built their lives around this
thing for fifteen years and it's just literally dissolving in front of their eyes. And
we are all standing around and looking at each other and saying, "What did we
do for fifteen years?" And I remember distinctly, I an looking at Celeste Hains
who introduced me to Ani la and her hair is all gray, like we are all using all these
dye's now and stuff, not me because mine just fell out, but anyway, and we're all
looking at each other and saying, "What happened? Where did the time go?" An
it literally we are looking at each other and saying, 'You got old.", [laughs] And
you know, people are thinking, "What am I gonna do know? I mean I worked
all my time here, and I don't know what to do now and people are scared and
upset and people are like looking at each other, like, what happened where did
the time go? And people are trying to evaluate what they got in fifteen years,
like where did the time go?

And some of the very smart people, they have saved up like thirty thousand
dollars or something's. The bossess went from fifty thousand to one hundred
million and now he owes the bank all this money, like he'll be under fifty
thousand and, and he 's like shell shocked, his eyes are like glazed all the time
now and he's just walking around like , "Like what's going on? What happened
you know." And we're all just walking around, like What happened? you know.
And it occurs to me that it's a little bit like dying, it's a little bit like getting old, it is
getting old. And everybody's sitting around, saying, "God you really got old,
what did you do with all those years? And we're trying to figure our what we
did with all those years. There's somewhere in America, there's about four
million women wearing these rings, with our diamonds in them and that's about
all, you know. And I only met one in my whole life on the subway one time.
And you're just wondering what happened, you know, what really happened?
And fifteen years just went like that. And we're all just standing there, it's like a
dream and that's the story of everything . That's the story, that's why we're
here, that's why you're here.

It's a much different class than any other kind of class. I mean, supposedly, that
thing where you're standing around old and wondering what the hell happened
to you, is why you're here, that's why you're here. You know, you're here to
find out why that is and it's very interesting, Like we could do a language class
and I used to, and we could do a textual study class and we could that too, but
that's not the real point. The real point that at we're here, we all share one thing
in common and that's that we're all getting old and dying. Like everyone in this
room will be dead at a certain point. And you can go too allot of Buddhism
classes and you can study death meditation and you can study the bardo and
what happens to you when you get old and you can memorize all the colors
that come and stuff like that. But still the bottom line is that you are here
because you are gonna die and I am here because I am gonna die, and, and you
have to be in that state of mind to be in this class and there's no other point to
have the class, you know, I mean, there's no other reason to be here.

You know, John can talk about homework assignments and all that, but that's
just kind of a trick to get you to think about it. But you have to keep the main
motivation of why you are here, you are here because you're gonna die. And
you're here because you're getting old and you can't stop it, you can't even slow
it down. We were talking about it the other night, Friday night, there's this
contradiction about going to the gym, That during the three hours you're in the
gym to get younger, you actually got three hours older and even though you
might look better for awhile after you come back from the gym, you actually
got older. SO, and during the time that you go to the health food store to buy
vitamins, the more time you spend there the closer you are to death. It's kind of
ironic, like you go there to try to get healthier and you cook well to try to get
healthy, or you exercise to lengthen your life, but while you're doing it you're
dying and you are getting shorter, you're life is getting shorter while you're
doing it, so you can't stop it, you can't slow down the process, you're dying.

And all the things you've built up in your life, whatever they are, they will just
collapse, you know, everything you are, your job, your family relationships,
your family relationships, your spouse, your children, everything you are, what
ever money you have, anything that's going right in your life will collapse, you
know, everything. And that's just a fact, so it's like we're just trying to do
something, it's like a last minute desperate thing to do something about it,
because it's collapsing a we talk. At nine o'clock we will all be two hours older
than we were when we came in. And two hours close to dying. And that's the
point to being here and Buddhism says that that has a cause. You know,
Buddhism says that that has a cause and that dying has a cause and that getting
old has a cause, and that there are certain forces that there are when they make
what ever you get run away from you.

There are certain energies there are certain powers, behind everything that you
experience, that bring you the things which you have and then they will rip them
away from you also. And the point of Buddhism, the point of this class is to
study those, those forces. You know, what are the forces that bring you your
family, what are the forces that brought you your job. What are the forces that
brought you your own body and your own face and your own name and your
own identity, because those forces will change and then you'll loose everything.
Everything down to your own name you will loose. People won't remember
your name fifty years from now, they won't remember anything about you.
What is it that brought you here? And what is it that will take you away?
Because Buddhism says, there are forces or energies that cause that to happen
and you can change them and you can study them and that's the whole point to
being here. You know, a certain number of people in this room will be able to
pull it off before they die and then the rest won't and then some number will do
it shortly after they die, maybe.

But the point is, how many people in this room can study the instruction book
about what to do and then pull it off, really pull it off, before you die, to change
those forces. You, according to Buddhism you can change those forces and you
don't have to die like that. And you don't have to go through a world like that.
You don't have to be in a world like this, where everything changes. I think
sometimes Buddhist teachings get corrupted into "What's the most pleasant way
to deal with a life that is totally bad?" [laughs] You know, you know, it's like,
"What's the best way to suffer? How to be calm while your life is collapsing,
because it will collapse. you know, everything you have you will loose.
Everything good about your life will die and get old like my company. I mean
the company looked very strong and sturdy and nine hundred people and
millions of, hundreds of millions of dollars of money and we all looked so stable,
you know. And it changes, it goes away and is there something that you can do
about it, so it's really a very deadly serious class that we have.

And I can, I'll write Tibetan funny squiggle letters here and You'll try to
memorize them, and you will be doing homework, but the real reason is much
more serious. Is can you... I would say that in this group maybe five people will
pull it off and the rest will be where? I mean, we can talk about it and we can
talk about it allot, but just briefly one thing, your body is made of one kind of
stuff, when you hit it with your hand it makes some kind of noise and it's solid.
It's made of some kind of meat and blood and bones and things like that and
that's obvious. And then there's you mind which is totally something different,
and in America and in the West we tend to think of the mind as the brain and
since the brain is made of some meat also, we think the mind must be made of
meat. But it's not.

The mind if you think about it is clear, it's invisible you cannot touch it, you
cannot cut it, you cannot divide it, You can't weigh it. I mean, when a person
dies their weight doesn't change, a person dies, but their weight doesn't change.
You know, People have tried to measure it. You know, they put a person on a
scale and watch him die and ten o five, the person dies, the brain waves stop, and
does the weight change? And it doesn't change. There is no change. I mean, the
mind is totally different stuff from the body and according to Buddhism, the idea
that the mind is a part of the body is totally wrong. It's a big mistake that we
have in the west and there are mistakes. Mistakes happen like that in cultures.
You know whole civilizations have the wrong idea about something. Don't think
it's impossible. You know, fifty years ago women couldn't vote because they
weren't smart enough or the couldn't, they weren't stable enough.

They weren't allowed to own money... or property, one hundred years ago.
They in this country. That's, a whole civilization believed that that was true and
the whole civilization was wrong. And the whole thing about the mind and the
body was just mistaken. If you think carefully, and you really truly pretend that
you came to this life with a fresh outlook on things and you were not influenced
by any of the things that you were told as a child, there's absolutely no evidence
that the mind stops when the body dies, there is no evidence. Okay, the body
stops and the brain waves which is a physical reflection on the minds influence
on the body stop. But that doesn't mean that the mind stopped. There is no
logical proof that the mind stops when the body stops, there isn't any single,
logical argument that you can give that the mind stops when the body stops.
You know and the only argument that you can give is that the body stops
moving, so the mind must not be there. That's true. But did the mind die? Did
the mind stop? There's no evidence for that. And it's just something that people
told you when you were a kid and you hooked a... you had to hook a wire up
to a brain of a rat, on their head and measure something. And then when that
stops their mind stopped or something like that, but there's no proof that the
mind stops. And in fact, according to Buddhism, it doesn't stop. If the mind
doesn't stop when you die, then the whole seriousness of the game is changed
on another level, then, "Where does the mind go?" You know, it's, it's one thing
to think i your heart that you won't exist here twenty five years from now or
thirty years from now, you know, it's one thing to believe in the back of your
heart that when my body dies, I'll stop and it's almost a comfort, but there is no
evidence that it does and in fact according to logic, it doesn't.

And then, and ten you're faced by that big question that Hamlet asks when he is
about to kill himself, you know, it's like to be or not to be and what is it? It's
says, something, "Ah, to dream.." He gets on this dream thing and basically he's
saying what if the mind goes on and he stops? He doesn't kill himself because it
occurs to him that the mind might go to a worse place and that's a huge
possibility. I mean, It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there are other
realms beyond what you are experiencing now.

I mean, you've been in really lousy realms, you know, you've been in other
stated of the United States, [laughs], you know you've been in jobs that were
really hell and you've been in emotional situations of your own that were
unbearable. That we're totally different than sitting in this room. You know,
you've been in totally different altered states. You know, you've experienced
altered states. You know you've been in your life you've been in mental
emotional situations that were totally different from what you are right now.

And, and it's foolish not to think that there are other realms like that somewhere.
You know, that there are not other beings and other minds in the universe that
are in some realm that we cannot see and they are experiencing some thing
there. You know, it's like very peroquial to think that the whole world is
Manhattan or the whole world is what people in nineteen ninety seven are
thinking. Or that CC, what is that t.v. show? What CNN is saying.

It's very foolish. It's almost crazy to think that that's all there is and that there is
not some other place where your mind could be right now. You know, it's very
unlikely. You know, given trillions of stars, you know, given the whole planet,
given billions of minds on that planet that other states of consciousness are not
possible. And I mean from a very frightened state of consciousness to a very
enlightened state of consciousness. I mean to believe that the range of the
spectroscope that you see right now is the only one is, is foolish. Your mind is
capable of visiting, much different places and you already know that in your life.
If your mind doesn't stop when you die, the mind, possibilities are almost
endless is what I'm trying to say. there are probably thousands upon thousands
of other realms, other states of other ways of being.

And you are faced with those when you die. You know, your mind will go on
and there is no evidence that your mind will stop. And you will go by yourself,
nobody else will go with you. At the moment of death your mind takes off .
You know, at the moment of death your mind takes off it's personal direction
and it's unique and it's not like you are going to meet the rest of us again likely. I
mean if there is trillions of being, billions of beings that we know about, the idea
that you might be with us again in the future is unlikely and the idea that you
might be in this kind of place in the future is extremely unlikely.

I mean there's billions of combinations that could occur. So to be in this room
and to be alive and to have a mind that hasn't moved yet that hasn't moved from
this body yet is extraordinarily rare. You know, to be in a place where you can
think straight, where you're semi healthy and where you've got enough food
and to be in a class where you're talking about these things is almost impossible.
It's very unlikely to happen again and the question is, "Are these books true?"
The book that you are going to study says that you can take control of these
forces and that you can change these forces. That you can understand them, that
you can study them and that you can use them to determine where you are
gonna be and that you can change where you're gonna be. I'm not interested in
teaching a class about how to be being calm or how to be serene in the face of
death. And, and in the face of great suffering. This is not the point. This is not a
what do you call it? This is not a calmness class. what?

student: stress reduction.

Yeah, it's not stress reduction. You'll actually get much more stressed and then
you'll have no stress at all . But the life that we're dealing with is very serious.
There's no way out, apparently, and, and this book says, there is. In all the
things you've ever done, in all the places you've ever been, all the books you've
ever heard about. This book says you can control those things, you can not only
stop the experience of loosing things and of getting old and these forces that rip
things away from you, you can actually stop them completely and convert them
into some kind of extraordinary enlightened paradise. You can do that and you
can do that in the same way as you drive a car. You just get these instructions
and you do it and it works. This book says that you can learn the instructions for
doing that and if you do it in a sincere way you just do it, you just pull it off and
if you don't then if you fail in this class, and I don't mean that you don't do your
homeworks right, if you fail in the sense that you don't get it, you know, you
don't get the subject, or worse, that you can't put it into practice, then, then, then
the consequences, they are , they are really, really terrible, they're like, you
cannot keep a single physical thing about your life, every good thing about your
life will be destroyed period. By definition, You know, any good thing you have
know, within ten years from now, will be torn away from you.

Ninety percent, you may still have your face, you may still have your name, you
may still have your face , you may still have a few members of your family.
Give it twenty years, and it will be even less and eventually you must lose
everything, it must be ripped away from you. So that's in the physical side, I
mean the mental we didn't even talk about. I mean the same forces that make
you loose everything good about yourself and yourself and your thoughts and
you cannot, we cannot in our current condition maintain a happy thought for
more than a few minutes, cannot do it. The mind that we have now, due to the
same forces is not allowed to have a happy thought for very long, You cannot
have a happy though for very long.

You cannot have a happy thought for very long. We have a kind of suffering
there is a kind of forces that control our minds and you cannot be contented,
period. Your, your life is one long history of trying to find something that
makes you happy if you get it which is unlikely as you know it changes or you
change and within a day or two it's something else, it's weird. No matter what
you get, no matter what you or I get we cannot be satisfied it's some kind of
curse in the mind and we have it and it's the same thing that's making you old
and it's the same thing that's gonna make you die. I mean the same poison that's
gonna cause those things is causing in the mind that we cannot be happy, you or
I cannot be happy. The current condition of the mind is that anytime you get
what you are looking for, within a short time your mind changes and you want
something else and, and it's the nature of our minds and it's driven by the same
forces that make you get old and die and you can't be happy, we are not
capable of it and if you get everything you dream of you still won't be happy. If
you've ever had it happen to you you would know. I mean most people don't
get the chance, [laughs].
But we can't be satisfied, it's a curse. We all have it, we all have it, if you are a
normal person, if you are a human being in this life. You have it if you think
about it for a few minutes you have it. So your body in a sense is cursed by
certain forces. Your whole life your career, your family, everything about you,
your house the place where you live. Your own health your own looks,
everything is cursed, everything is going to collapse and, and on top of that, the
mind is not able to be happy. You can't do it, it doesn't matter if you changed
your apartment or your spouse or your children or, or if you suddenly got
healthy and your bad back went away. I mean there is no combination of
external or inner circumstances that can make our minds happy, right now, can't.
SO the same forces are driving that. SO the point of this book is to study those
forces. SO that is my sales pitch, you know, I you know, there's, I have lot's of
doubts about my life, should I do this, should I do that? You know, like
everybody.

Then I always think, then I always think, "Did I do the right thing with my life?
You know, and then I think, well, Of course, because all these things are true, all
these things are true, all the things I just said are true, because there is no
question, and that's the test, that's the litmus test. What you're doing is right. I
mean there's two possibilities, either this book does work or it doesn't work.
And the third possibility is to go out and do what you were doing before, which
doesn't work, [laughs]. So it's like that, this book supposedly works let's check it
out, you know, just try it. And then if it doesn't work, I don't know, maybe
consider suicide or something, [laughs] I don't know. You know, [laughs]. It's
like that the condition is like that, it's really like that.

So let's try it, try it. I really believe that a few people in this room will be able to
pull it off, I pray that many people, I pray that many people. It's very difficult,
but you can, you can do it. You will learn all the instructions you need to pull it
off then we have to help each other, pull each other, try to induce each other to
do it. You know at least you're gonna learn the instructions here and this is what
the class is about.

I'll start, now I'll start the real class, maybe that was the real class, I'm gonna
write Tibetan, because it's a blessing, because this tradition was, was preserved
by the Tibetans and brought to us by the Tibetans, if they had not worked so
hard and passed it down so purely from generation to generation down to our
root Lama, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, then you wouldn't be here,
so it's important to study the Tibetan look at the Tibetan, I ask you to repeat
things in Tibetan even if you are not interested in learning Tibetan. I would say
that some percentage of students here teaching Tibetan were not interested in
Tibetan when they got here. Then they found out that it was easy and it was fun
and that there are allot of books that are written in Tibetan that are not in
English yet, and they learned it and it's not very hard. I mean, we like to pretend
that we are very smart, but actually it's kind of a simple language, not at all like
Russian or anything like that, or English, okay, very simple and very beautiful
and it's a big blessing if you can learn a little bit of it.

If you are absolutely new and you want to take it in Tibetan, then I'm gonna put
the pronunciation there and you can do the homework and quizzes in the
pronunciation and then you work with Tubten Phuntsok and you try to learn
the alphabet and stuff like that. You don't have to do it, so don't get scared and
don't run away tonight, alright. If you're not in the mood to learn Tibetan, you
don't have to. But please make the noises, and we say there's some blessing put
in your mind I've never done it with this thing before and is somebody gonna
help me? I don't know. Okay. [laughter] Who's Bob? He must be the artist,
he's back there. I don't know, what color. [silence]I'll I'm gonna give the Tibetan
students some time to study so if there is a little pause please be patient. Say
{Jangchub} [repeat], make noise, okay, we got this big place, we didn't know
how many people were gonna show up, it's empty, nobody can hear you
outside there's all this traffic and stuff, so make noise, it stays in your mind.

We say in the debate ground that the louder you are the more blessings it is
because there are beings around us that you can't see, some of them are just
within earshot. Seriously, it helps them, you might be one of them tomorrow,
so make noise. Don't think it's impossible you know, we had a tie up grading the
class papers from a course that we had in California and we sent them out about
three weeks ago. About three months late. And I got a card back that said,
"Dear Mr. Roach, you know, I'm sure that frank would have appreciated getting
his grades, you know and he died." SO it's a, it'll happen you know.

So, {Jangchub}, [repeat], {sempey}, [repeat], {chupa la], [repeat], {juk pa},
[repeat]. Okay, {Jangchub sempa}, means "bodhisattva", okay, bodhisattva.
{Jangchub}, means, "bodhi", by the way, the thing on the bottom is the Sanskrit,
the thing on the bottom is the Tibetan. {Jangchub}, means "Buddha hood, and
{sempa} is a beautiful word, it means, "a warrior", "a soldier", or "a warrior", like a
warrior. {Sempa}, {sempey chupa}, is how they behave, their way of life, okay.
{Chupa}, means, "Their way of life". {Jukpa, la jukpa} means entering into,
getting into. Somebody's translated it this way and I like it. You know, literally
it's, "Entering the Bodhisattvas Way of Life". But we can call it, "Guide to the
Bodhisattvas Way of Life and that's what we are gonna be studying. I told this
story Friday, true story, meeting the Dalai Lama's tutor and have him ask me in
Tibetan, "What book are you studying?" And my teacher is standing behind him
going, "[b: Bodhisattva charyavatara]". And I didn't know the name of the book
and it was really stupid, really embarrassing. So learn the name of the book that
you are studying. If you know Tibetan, the short name and the name that this
book is know amongst Tibetan scholars in the monastery is, {Chunjuk}, say,
{Chunjuk}, [repeat], {Chunjuk}, [repeat]. Okay, the n sound is for the prenasal,
ao, okay that's {Chunjuk}, that's the short name.

Okay, somebody says, "What are you studying?" Even if you have no idea what
it means, okay. "I'm studying {Chunjuk}. Okay, everybody got that? Okay.
[silence] Say, {Shiwa}, [repeat], {Hla}, {Shiwa}, [repeat], {Hla}. In Sanskrit,
{Shantideva}. {Shanti} means, "peace", {Deva} means, I like to call it Angel, but I
have to explain what Angel means in Buddhism and it's not like in Christianity
maybe or maybe it is, I don't know. Anyway, if you are able practice this path
perfectly then at some point before you die, your body will start to change and
your mind will start to change and actually, they start to support each other.
And you actually change, this physical form changes, you enter another kind of
body. You might look exactly the same to other people, they might not be at all
aware of the change in you. But you see perfectly, another kind of body. And a
completely different state of consciousness. Totally enlightened, totally blissful,
and the body is totally pure and will never go through any kind of aging or
anything like that. What other people see is a totally different question and we'll
talk about that sometime.

It has to do with emptiness. It has to do with the emptiness of the body. But
that's what I'm calling an Angel, when you become that. The mind is totally pure
and your body is changed and you've transformed into something. That's the
goal. You can do it and this is the instruction book for it. It really is contained in
this book. You know, whether you can pull it off is up to you, but I think the,
the inspiration of death is quite strong. [laughs] Hopefully a few people close to
you will die in the next few weeks and you'll get inspired. It's hard to do it unless
that happens, {Shiwa Hla}. So the author of the book is Shantideva and he lived
about seven hundred Ad, we didn't know exactly. Some scholars have estimated
about six ninety five to seven forty something.

In Buddhist, we don't normally refer to a very holy being with their plain name.
We don't say, "Oh, Dalai" or something like that. We say, "His Holiness the Dalai
Lama". SO normally we have to add an honorific or some kind of word
especially it becomes very important in the secret teachings that you have to do
this so we're gonna give him his proper title, and I hope I never hear a student in
this class go "Shantideva".     It's like saying, "Hey, Clinton."      Sorry, "Mr.
President."     {Gyaltste Shiwa Hla}, okay, {Gyeltse}, You could say, "master
Shantideva or something like that. In fact the Homework people should mark
off, okay you guys, like twenty points or something, [laugh]. {Gyeltse} means,
{gyelwey tse} means , "Child of the Victorious Buddhas". Child of the Buddhas,
Daughter or Son of the Buddhas.

And it means a Bodhisattva, it's a word for a Bodhisattva, so his real name is the
Bodhisattva Shantideva. I'm gonna write the mane, we're gonna study the
commentary, normally the early books of Buddhism are very hard to study
unless you get an explanation from a later source. It's very hard normally to
read something that was written thirteen centuries ago, so there over the time
been a great series of commentaries. SO we're gonna study what I believe is the
best commentary written on this book. [silence] Say, {Gyalstsab}, [repeat], {Je},
[repeat], {Gyaltsab Je}, [repeat].

Gyaltsab Je was a very famous student of the most famous Tibetan Buddhist
Master of all time, that's Je Tsongkapa, I'll spell that for you Je Tsongkapa was
the teacher of the first Dalai Lama and he was the person who pretty much
started Buddhism as you and I are learning it. Okay, Great Master from Tibet.
Dates? I always pretend like I know, you know. Je Tsongkapa was a student of
the first Dalai Lama, I'm sorry he was the teacher of the first Dalai Lama. And
another one of His famous students was Gyaltsab Je. Gyaltsab means, in
modern colloquial Tibetan means a substitute, any kind of substitute. Gyaltsab
means a regent or someone who takes over a throne of the teacher who was
before. So Gyaltsab Je was the first holder of the throne of Je Tsongkapa after
his teacher passed away. And that's what Gyaltsab Je means. Gyaltsab Je means
the throne holder, the holder of the throne of Je Tsongkapa.

His monks name was Darma Rinchen, and this Dharma was not "the "dharma".
So don't get confused, it's another Tibetan word, okay. It's not the word for
Buddhist religion Dharma, it's a different Darma. Okay, it doesn't mean d, h, a,
r,m, a, . People mistake that and they spell hid name wrong. Okay, Dharma
Rinchen was his monks name, okay, we're gonna do one more, I'll give you the
title of his book and then, and then we'll take a break. [silence] So the main text
that you're studying is The Guide to the bodhisattvas Way of Life By Shanti,
Master Shantideva.
And you are studying this book called [b: Entry Point for the Daughters or Sons
of the Victorious Buddhas] Child of the victorious Buddhas is a code word in
Tibetan for Bodhisattva. So it's really, [b: The Point of Entry for Bodhisattvas].
This word in Tibetan is used in Tibet there were no high ways there were no
bridges and in Tibet when you came to a river which was frequent in Tibet, is
you were going from Lhasa, fifty miles from Lhasa, you had to cross maybe
twenty different rivers, very cold rivers and you, you pace up and down the
river and you try to find the {jungnok}. The {jungok} is the most convenient
place to cross where you can get the least wet that you can you know, so you
have to like walk up and down and find the place where your horse can get into
the water and get over to the other side with out you getting too wet. In a
snow, you know, in melted snow. So {jungok} is very important in Tibet.
{Jungok} means that particular point where it's the easiest place to get into it and
get on the other side. SO really this books title has a very important meaning,
it's like, what's the easiest way for people like you and me, living in the twenty
first century to get into bodhisattva behavior and get to the other side, which is
getting beyond death, getting beyond suffering and that's the meaning of this
books title. Okay, we'll take a break, take about a ten minute break, there's
drinks and stuff back there, I don't know if there is a bathroom, is there? Okay,
so take a ten minute break and come back if you like. [laughs] [cut]
I wanted to give you a little bit about Shantidevas Master Shantidevas life. All
we know is that he was born around seven hundred AD. He was born
somewhere in the, by the way you have in the reading which you will get a
whole description of his Life, it's al we know, it's about three pages long in
Tibetan. The description that you get in your reading , you know we were just
sitting around on day the people who are translating the commentary and we
were wondering if there was anything about Shantidevas life that we could find
and we found a biography by the teacher of the eighth Dalai Lama, who's name
was Yongdzin Yeshe Gyeltsen, and he was the personal tutor of the eighth Dalai
Lama and then he wrote a book of biographies of the great teachers of
Buddhism, especially in the Lam Rim, and in there he gives a Life story of Master
Shantideva. SO I thought that in there you would like to hear a little bit about
Shantideva's life. He was Born in the area of Bodhgaya, which is like north east
India where the Buddha Himself was born and he was born into a royal family,,
he was a prince and you have to really appreciate what a Prince was in India. A
King in India wasn't like Clinton, Bill Clinton, He was much more. I mean, a king
in India owned everything in the country, owned everything. It wasn't like he
had power over a certain section of things. I mean like if he cam into your house
and said, "I like your horse or I like your kids or I like your wife or I like your
house, you gave it to him because he owned it. He owned everything in the
kingdom. ANd this was the nature of a king in the old days. I mean, total
control over every object in the kingdom, and that's what it was to be a king and
Shantideva was born into this family and at the age of... Oh by the way, his
mother was said to be an emanation of Vadjrayogini, which is a very high
Buddhist enlightened woman Buddha and according to tradition, his mother
was, was an emanation of Vadjrayogini. ANd at the age of six he met a tantric
teacher, a teacher of secret Buddhism and he taught him the practice of
Manjushri which is the Buddha of wisdom, it's the form in which the Buddha
takes which reflects the Buddhas knowledge. And he was given by this teacher a
way to reach Manjushri and the word reach is important, reach means meet and
also become. And that's the meaning of sadhana. And so the point is that he
was taught So the point was that he was taught by a secret teacher of the secret
teachings a practice by which he would first meet Manjushri and then become
Manjushri and this teacher gave him the practice at the age of six, he worked on
it really hard and after awhile he was able to meet Manjushri directly and take
teachings from Manjushri. If someone in this room could meet Manjushri, the
nature of it would be that the other people in this room might not even be able
to see Manjushri. You know, like some people would be, if you practiced that
practice sincerely, you could meet and talk to Manjushri Himself and you would
be able to have direct communication with that being. ANd the other person in
the room wouldn't know what you were doing, they would say that you were a
little bit crazy maybe, probably, anyway, he could meet Manjushri and he could
have teachings from Manjushri, anyway, at a certain age his father passed away
the king passed away and the people in the kingdom, this is the nature of a
very , of a person with very good karma. Like you don't have to go through an
election, everybody in the country comes to you and says, Oh, please be King,
you know, and it was the nature of his karma that the entire population begged
him to be king. This is also true of world emperors in the [b: Abbhidharma], in
the third chapter. This is also where they describe that people with a certain
karma, not only do you become king of the world, but people are begging you
to be king of the world, unanimously. So people begged him to be king and he
didn't have any interest in being king because he had been practicing bodhisattva
way of life for a long time and didn't want to do it, but then he realized that if he
refused then people would be upset and bodhisattvas don't like people to get
upset. So he said, "Okay, okay, I'll be king." Then, the day before the coronation
he had a dream and in the dream Manjushri, who is this incredibly, you know,
beautiful bodhisattva was sitting on the throne, his fathers throne and
Shantideva, Master Shantideva, he comes in too.             ANd he wasn't called
Shantideva at the time, he was called Shiwey Gocha? No. Which we are not
quite sure about the Sanskrit but that was his monks name, before he became a
monk. He came in and in the dream he's looking at the throne and he's thinking,
"Well, I have to get up on this throne, but Manjushri's already there and then
Manjushri says, "You can't get up on this throne, You're teacher is standing on
this throne. You know and it's very improper in Buddhism to sit where your
teacher is sitting. And he says, "You can't get on this throne because I am sitting
on this throne." So when he got up he took it as a sign that he should not
become a king and he actually ran away, that morning. He ran away from the
palace, like, he just split and people were looking for him and he was gone and
he ran out into the forest and he searched for an monastery and he found, And
he ended up at a great monastery called Nalandra in north east India. This is an
extremely famous monastery of ancient India. He began studying there, he
took the vows to leave the homelife and he started to study. As soon as he
started to study he grasped everything immediately because of his past lives and
he was, he became a great scholar very quickly. There were two kinds of, but he
never let on that he was a great scholar and a great Master of Buddhism, he
would just lead a very quiet life. And in fact he decided that he wouldn't reveal
himself to anybody, and even though he had already reached very high
Bodhisattva levels and seen amazing things, he didn't want to show anybody, so
he pretended to be a big goof off and he basically just ate and slept and went to
the bathroom. And so he became known by the name, I like this name, it seems
to fit many of us. What is it? {Bu su ka} or {Bu shu ka}? Sanskrit is {Bu su ku}.
Okay, there were two kinds of monks living at Nalandra at the time, about half
of.. and Nalandra was big it was like one thousand monks. About half of them
could read your mind, could read peoples minds and those that could read
minds, they know that he wasn't {bu su ku}, but those who couldn't read minds,
as far as they could see, this guy was sitting around eating allot, sleeping allot
and pooping allot and apparently, he didn't have any other concerns. So they
called him {Du she simbawa}, Say, {Dushe}, [repeat], {Simbawa}, [repeat]. {Dushe
simbawa}, [repeat]. So he got a reputation for being {Du she simbawa}. Okay
and it's often used in monasteries to describe certain kinds of monks, [laughs]
who appear to be big goof offs. So they said, "he only cares about three things."
Nalandra monastery at the time had a very high reputation, it was like Harvard
or something of Buddhist world at the time, and they were very embarrassed by
having a monk that all he did was eat, sleep and do the other thing . SO they
decided, they had a big meeting, a secret meeting and they decided to get rid of
him, and they thought that the best way to get rid of him would be to embarrass
him in such a way that he would leave the monastery himself and that would
save them the trouble and the bad karma of kicking a monk out of the
monastery. So they had this big meeting and they decided, you know, there's
certain rituals on the monastic calendar where one of the monks, Sojong is one
of them, Where on of the monks has to get up and recite from a sutra from
memory, we're not allowed to take a piece of paper so he said let's let Master
Shantideva be the recitor this time and he'll blow it and he'll be embarrassed and
he'll leave the monastery on his own and save us the trouble of kicking him out.
So they went to Shantideva and said, "Would you like to be the reciter tonight?"
Or you know, at the next Sojong or whatever. And he said, "Hey, I'm just a
stupid monk, you know, I don't think I could do that, I don't think I would be
capable of doing that. And then you know their plan would fail, so he says, "
Come on come on, please, please." And he says, "Alright, alright, I'll do it, I don't
know if I can do it but I will try. They prepared this temple and you can still see
the ruins of Nalandra Monastery, I mean it existed thirteen centuries ago and
you can still see that it was huge and they had this huge meeting hall like maybe
one thousand, two thousand monks, what ever and they prepared it in advance,
they prepared a throne like twelve feet high or something, like something really
high, because you are supposed to recite from a high place, but they made sure
that there was no way to get up to the throne, like they didn't have any steps or
any ladder or anything. They just had this big high throne like up here where
you would never be able to get up to it and they were going to embarrass him
further like he would spend a half an hour trying to climb up on there. And so
the story is
that Master Shantideva came into the assembly and if you've ever been in a huge
assembly of monk it's very powerful and all this energy flowing through the
temple and, and he walks down the main isle and he goes to the front and he
does his prostrations to the, to the throne, which means I'm only the
representative of the Buddha tonight. And then everybody is watching and
starting to giggle, which often happens in monastic gatherings and [laughs], he
goes up to the throne and then he puts his hand on it like that and then suddenly
he's on it and suddenly he's up on top of it and every one's like "How did he do
that?" SO suddenly with out any effort he's just sitting on top of the throne. And
then he began to recite, Oh, I'm sorry, first he made an announcement he said,
do you want me to do some Sutra that you heard before or could I recite
something original? And they said, "Oh, make a fool out of your self, recite
something that we haven't heard before". So he said, "Okay, I know this one
thing called Guide to the Bodhisattvas Way of Life and maybe you'll like it . And
he began to recite, the Guide is in poetry, it's very beautiful poetry in Sanskrit
and it's pretty good in Tibetan and he began to recite, he started from, the book
has nine or ten chapters, he recited through the nine or eighth chapter, he got to
the ninth chapter and they were just, everyone was totally amazed, you know, it
was like incredibly beautiful, the meaning and the poetry both were
extraordinary and they were sitting there entranced, you know, they were
sitting there watching him. And the ninth chapter deals with emptiness So he
started to get into the ninth chapter and it got harder and harder, you know,
people still write commentaries on the ninth chapter, just by itself and they are
trying to catch it trying to understand what he is saying and he's slowing down
and he's reciting very carefully and he's he's trying to communicate the meaning
of it and he's reciting and reciting and then suddenly about a third of the way
through the chapter he begins to rise into the air. So he's like rising off of the
throne into the air and the monks are just sitting there staring at him and they
are trying to understand what he's saying about emptiness and he keeps rising
and rising and rising and then suddenly, you know, the history book says, you
know, it's as if his mind and space itself were competing for space, you know, it
was like his mind was more vast then space and it couldn't fit him anymore and
he started to rise up out of sight and people were trying to hear, and you could
still hear him but you couldn't see him anymore an then there were a few people
who could read peoples minds and, and hear, there is a thing called [nawey
ngunshe], there's an ability to hear something that's going on a hundred miles
away and they were like straining to hear him and he was out of sight and he
was still reciting and they could hear him. ANd then suddenly he's just gone,
suddenly it's quiet and there is a thousand monks sitting there and you know,
[laughs], And he's gone you know, and they had all these meetings afterwards
and they are trying to set piece what he said together, like a good, those monks
at Nalandra were extraordinary. Most of them had total recall . So they sat
down and they began to write down what they remembered and they began to
write out the [b: bohicharyavatara] from memory and the people who had
heard him and the people who had clairvoyance were saying oh, wait there was
one more line you guys didn't hear it, he said, this, and somebody else said there
was four more lines and somebody else says, "No, no, there was a whole other
chapter that you guys didn't hear. So there began to be this big fight whether
there was nine chapters or ten chapters and there was this group in the
monastery, it formed into factions as usual and there was one group that said,
"There's none chapters." And one group that said, "No, you didn't hear the last
chapter, there's ten chapters." Sometime later we found out that Shantideva had
landed somewhere in South India, hundreds of miles away and they sent out
search parties try to find him and ask him to come back and they got to south
India and found him at a Stupa called {Pelyunchen} and he was just sitting there
meditating and they said, "Hey, we're really sorry, you know, for calling you Mr.
Three thoughts and everything, could you kind of explain more about this book?
And, and there's a chapter in, in this book where he mentions two other books
that he wrote. He wrote what's called, [b: Sirtri Samuchaya], which is " A
Collection on Trainings" and he wrote a commentary on the sutras called [b:
Sutra Samuchaya] and, and they said you know, "Could you, we're really sorry
and could you teach us those other two books too?" And He said, "Well first of
all I'm not coming back to Nalandra, I can't come back, but I will teach you again
the [b: bodhicharyavatara] and give you more instruction and I'll teach you the
collection of training." Which he did in the spot, He taught two monks and they
went back and began teaching it and we still have two of those books in the
Tengyur, in the canon that He taught. And he said, "If you want the written
copy and if you want to know how many chapters there are for sure, I left a
copy in the rafters of my room written in tiny letters on these little pieces of
paper." And they went back to his room and they found stashed away, two of
the books that we still study in the monastery. Then He went through a period
of his life where he would be meditating and he would think to himself, "I
wonder what would be the best thing that I could do to help other people right
now." And then he would see some kind of situation where people were hungry
or people were having some kind of a war or conflict and then he would go and
get involved in it. So I think that he was really on of the first socially involved
Buddhist masters. you know, he, he's famous for having gone to one area of
India where there was a famine. He did some miracles to feed the people there
and then he taught the people there Buddhism. There was another incident
where there was like a conflict and a war and he got involved and he solved it,
he stopped it. He stopped that and that's in his biography. And then there was a
very famous incident where there was a king that was being endangered by
some ruffians and you'll read about it, you can just read the biography. And
then he did some extraordinary things, he was in the last part of his life in his
biography, he would confront people who were teaching strange things. You
know like people would teach some strange thing like, "If you commit suicide
you can reach Nirvana, or emptiness means you can do whatever you want."
"Everything is empty, so that means that you don't have to be a good person
anymore." They were teaching things like that. So He would go to that person
and challenge that person to a public debate or a public argument and then they
would have public contests of reasoning and actually in front of thousands of
people then they would decide these questions. And there's one famous incident
where a person was losing, the other person was losing and they got, but they
know magic and they started to do magic in the sky and it turned into a magic
contest, you know, [laughs], and you know, like that. ANd then finally Master
Shantideva was victorious and, and there are many stories of Him disguising
himself as a beggar or as a know nothing or as, just as a stupid old guy and, and
then going to some place and then eventually everyone realizes who he really is
So the purpose of studying his life is I think two fold. One is that, the, the
process that you are going to learn, the bodhisattvas way of life is first of all the
tradition from the man who started it, from the man who wrote the book is that
it's for you yourself, it's for you to practice quietly, you know, no one has to
know that you are a bodhisattva. You know, nobody know that he was a
bodhisattva, from all appearances, he was a plain old guy. He was an expert at
just appearing like a plain old guy. The point is that, you have to become a
Buddha yourself, you have to perfect this path yourself and the arena or the
place where you're gonna do it is your office or your house or your, where you
hang out, the coffee shop where you hang out. In other words, this book is
designed that you practice it in your life as it exists now, okay, there's no change
required in your circumstances. The perfecting the six perfections which is the
subject of the book occurs where? I mean it' s where, where ever. [laughs]
Okay, it's mental you can do it where ever you are, that's the whole point, that's
the beauty of the Bodhisattvas way of life, It's private, it's interior, it's even secret.
I mean, you are doing it inside yourself. I mean, it will become apparent to
people that you are a bodhisattva eventually, but not necessarily and they could
mistake you for years and the point is that it's interior and the point is that it's
going on inside. The bodhisattvas way of life is a, is a way of life that you live
inside and I think that's the first lesson that you learn form Shantidevas way of
life. I'm gonna outline, just briefly, we're running behind, which is very unusual,
[laughter], and there's one more thing on your
homework that I'm gonna put and that's and then we can stop. I wanted you to
know the basic structure of the book which is the structure of your life from
know on if you chose to try it and as I said, you have a choice, you know, you
can either go out and just die or you can try it and I think if you, if you try it
you'll find that it works it's very amazing and you're very fortunate to be
introduced to this book okay, so, I'm gonna outline the ten chapters for you.
[silence] An I in your way, can you see? Say, {jangchub}, [repeat], I know it's
getting late, but you gotta make noise. {Jangchub}, [repeat], {kyi}, [repeat], {sem
kyi}, [repeat], {penyun}, [repeat]. Okay, the first chapter, the function of the first
chapter is a couple of things, it's to get you excited about the bodhisattvas mind
state, which is bodhichitta. Okay, bodhichitta is the name for the way a
bodhisattva thinks and you can't do any bodhisattvas work until you think like a
bodhisattva. and I like to call it a warrior. You know and we'll talk about it
more. But basically bodhisattva means like a a warrior. And you know, when I
say a warrior you think like you know, "I can't be a warrior, I'm just a plain old
office worker, you know." But a bodhisattva warrior you can be and the warfare
takes place at your office and the enemy is this is your mind, parts of your mind
and the warfare will go on in your mind and you will be much greater warrior
than all these guys who just go around cutting up flesh., you know, it's much
more difficult to control your mind than to go around killing people in a battle,
much more difficult, ten times, one thousand times more difficult to fight with
your mind than to fight with some physical enemy, so you are gonna be a
warrior like that, the battle field will be your office or your home or your family,
especially that guy, [laughs]. And you gotta get into that state of mind another
word for it is bodhichitta another word for it is the wish for enlightenment,
okay, that's the first chapter. Those of you who know Lam Rim, this also covers
the first two stages of Lam Rim, which is the, the steps for beginning people and
the steps for intermediate people are all contained in the first chapter. [silence]
Say, {dikpa}, [repeat], {shakpa}, [repeat], {dikpa}, [repeat], {shakpa}, [repeat].
{Dikpa}, comes from a word that means threaten, {Dikpa} is a verb that means
threaten and this noun has come to mean bad deeds, something bad that you did
or you said or you thought. {Shakpa} is the word that is used for splitting wood
and what it means is to bury your soul, to open up and bury your soul. And
what it means is, if you, if you choose as of tonight to attempt the way of a
bodhisattva which is really the only way to get out of suffering, which is the
only way to get out of death, you have to prepare your heart, you have to clean
your heart and you have to do it by your self, you don't go to some little room
and there's a guy behind a curtain or something like that. There's some kind of
inner purification that you do that sets up your mind to become a bodhisattva
and that's the subject of the second chapter. Okay, it's some kind of inner
purification that you do of all of the negative things that you've done in your life,
to cancel them or to counteract their energy. And it sets up your mind, it
prepares your mind to get into the bodhisattvas way of mind. When the
bodhisattva walks through Manhattan, which they do, they don't see anything
what you see, if you're not a bodhisattva, and I don't know if you are a
bodhisattva. We don't know, you know, who is a bodhisattva, but their
experience of life is totally different, and if you learn it, or if you learn even a
little bit of it, aside from overcoming death and all of those horrible cosmic
things, it's allot more fun. It's just a great way to be alive. It's a lot more fun to
go through your day like that. It's extraordinary. Your life becomes very, very
happy and very, powerful and very sweet and amazing, literally, things you
can't dream of things you literally can't imagine right now will start to happen to
you, but you have to purify first, to get into that state of mind you have to
purify. That's the, hat's the second chapter, okay. Third chapter, [silence]. Say,
{jangchub gyi}, [repeat], {sem}, [repeat], {sungwa}, [repeat]. {Jangchub kyi},
[repeat], {sem}, [repeat], {sungwa}, [repeat]. Okay, acquiring has two meanings
here. one is, you know, developing the mind of a bodhisattva you know, getting
the mind of a bodhisattva, which comes before you start acting like a
bodhisattva. Secondly it refers to a ceremony in which you commit yourself to
thinking like a bodhisattva. Okay, there's traditionally in the old days there were
two ceremonies, one ceremony that by which you swear that for the rest of your
life you will think like a bodhisattva and then another ceremony that you swear
that you will keep certain bodhisattva vows, nowadays they have been joined
into one ceremony, but the old way which is still considered the best by Je
Tsongkapa, is that there should be two ceremonies. And it's just, you figure out
what it is to think like a bodhisattva, and then you decide to commit yourself to
it and I would like, I think it would be very cool if at the end of this course if you
get into the state of mind of a bodhisattva or if you decide that it's something
nice that we could do it here and that we could do a ceremony, you know we
could really fix up this place you know, like a Buddha paradise and we could do it
at the end, you know, just the commitment to think like a bodhisattva, which is a
very unusual way of thinking and very beautiful and if you do even just a little
bit of it, your life would be incredible, very sweet life after that. So we'll try to do
that maybe I think. that's what that means. And specifically chapter three is not
only talking about how to get it, but how to collect good energy, you see, what
was chapter two? It's purifying negative energy. And then chapter three is all of
these tricks on how to collect good energy. If you're gonna be a bodhisattva or
if you are gonna start acting like a bodhisattva, you're have to clean your mind
and then you have to collect all this good energy in advance and there are all
these special spiritual practices. there's meditations and special practices that you
can do to start you know, it's like those ever ready batteries that you stick in the
wall and they are ready by the next morning. So, purification is like getting it
down to zero and then plugging it into the wall is chapter three is where you
learn all these special meditations where you can, you draw on all the spiritual
energy of the whole universe, you know, you draw on the energy and you are
getting it into yourself and then your ready to be a bodhisattva and you are
ready to start acting like a bodhisattva, okay. So chapter three is like again a
purification. We're not gonna do the whole ten chapters in the first course we're
gonna spread it out over the three courses in the whole year. So probably that's
about all we'll do in the first course and that's plenty. If you really taught the [b:
bodhisattvacharyavatara] well, which Khen Rinpoche did, it took about twelve
years, okay, we're gonna do it in a year because you're so advanced and quick.
[silence] That might be misspelled so we gotta check that, no that's right. Say
{Bagyeu}, [repeat], {tenpa}, [repeat], {bagyeu tenpa}, [repeat]. {Bagyeu} is a hard
word to translate. It's related to Tibetan words for bride, okay, a new wed bride.
And it refers to in Asia, when a woman goes to stay with the husbands family
and she's like, .... you know, has to do everything just right or the mother in
law screams, right. That's {bagyeu}. So {bagyeu} means, "To do something with
great care, carefulness and this carefulness refers to once you learn how to think
like a bodhisattva and once you start to get into thinking like a bodhisattva,
which is totally different than anything you've ever did before. It's a whole new
skill and no one knows you're doing it it's all inside, but when you start and
when you start to grow it, you have to take really good care of it, because it's
very fragile at that point and {bagyeu}, means some kind of care that you take
with your baby bodhisattva mind that your like being very careful to, to protect
it, that's {bagyeu} that whole chapter is devoted to that. [silence] Those of you in
the Tibetan track, this is misspelled in the reading, okay. It's missing the first
syllable, so be careful, you might want to fill it in. We're using a text that's very
old and has allot of corruptions in it and we're trying to fix it as we go but it's
very corrupt, it's a very old manuscript and it has many mistakes in it. So we are
trying to fix it as we go. So say, {she shin}, [repeat], {sungwa}, [repeat], {sheshin},
[repeat], {sungwa}, [repeat]. {Sheshin } is a state of mind especially useful in
meditation, which I like to call it the alarm button or something like that. It's a
state of a mind especially when you're meditating that turns on the alarm when
your mind wanders, like you are supposed to be meditating on compassion or
something and you start to think about what you'll have for breakfast and
{sheshin} is the state of mind that says, "woah",
you know, "wait a minute" you know, "You're supposed to be thinking about
compassion and you're thinking about pancakes, which I do all the time, you
know. But {sheshin} is the state of mind that catches yourself, but {sheshin is
some kind of awareness, it's some kind of, it's a little corner of your mind,
especially during meditation that rings the alarm, when the mind is wandering,
but it can also apply to the whole bodhisattva attitude. This rings the alarm
when you're about to scream at somebody at work. "Hey, hey wait a minute,
you're a bodhisattva." You know. You're starting to get jealous of somebody at
work you know, and "Hey, wait a minute, didn't you just commit yourself last
week to helping all sentient beings achieve their wishes and you're unhappy that
somebody got something, you know, and {sheshin} just goes off. So that's
awareness. And there's another state of mind called {drenba}, say {drenba},
[repeat], which is also the subject of this chapter, it's an equal subject of this
chapter, but it's not in the name of the chapter, and that's why I put that little
"and recollection. " {Drenba}, we call "recollection" and that's the state of mind
that keeps you on your subject. Okay, it's two different states of mind in
meditation. One of them says, "Hey, wait a minute, you're wandering." That's
{sheshin}, that's awareness. There's another state of mind that' says, "hey, let's
stick on the subject, let's stay on the subject., that's {drenpa}, that's "recollection".
So the fourth chapter is treating these two kinds of awareness and they not only
apply to meditation, but they apply through out the day, to your bodhisattva
behavior. This is the last thing that we have to do so I will try to get you out by
nine thirty. [silence] This has been translated, it's a very hard word to translate.
Say {sopa}, [repeat], {sopa}, [repeat], This is the word they mispronounce, the
poor Lamas in the world, they say, "Zopa", okay, or something like that. It's
{sopa}, and it's very hard to translate into English. You can say forbearance, you
can say, "patience". To me patience means, being able to wait for a bus, which I
do very often and, or being able to wait. But {sopa} is a very specific thing, it's
the art of not getting angry, it's the art of not getting angry when the time
comes, when someone yells at you or, when something goes wrong in your life
or when there's a traffic jam, it does not have to be a sentient being, it can be a
situation, it can be your own life, it's the art of not getting upset or angry when
things are not going well. There's a whole chapter devoted to that. [silence]
Say, {tsundru}, [repeat], {tenpa}, [repeat], {tsundru}, [repeat], {tenpa}. {Tsundru
means, it's a tough word to translate also, it's defined as {tsun kang gela trowa o}
in this chapter, opening lines. {Tsundru} is defined as having a good time doing
good things, it's to enjoy doing good things. It's to get off on or to get high off
of doing good. Working hard to do good things. Rinpoche, often says, "It's not
{tsundru} to go out and work on your car or six hours." Okay, that's effort, but
it's not {tsundru}, {tsundru} means, it's time to do some mighty good deed and
you're excited. And you have enthusiasm for it. And that's {tsundru} and that's
the whole chapter. Say, {samten}, [repeat], {tenpa}, [repeat], {samten}, [repeat],
{tenpa}, [repeat]. By the way {tenpa}, through out here means chapter. {Samten}
means, meditation, the ability to meditate deeply. Okay, especially as a platform
from which to see emptiness directly. Okay, especially for that purpose although
not only for that purpose. [silence] Say, {sherab}, [repeat], {kyi}, [repeat], {liu},
[repeat]. Okay, {sherab kyi}, [repeat], {liu}, [repeat]. {Sherab} means, "wisdom",
many kinds of wisdom, the ultimate one is how to see emptiness directly. Okay,
and this is the chapter. Suddenly they have changed the Tibetan word for
chapter. Around the ninth or tenth chapters. The last chapter, assuming you
had enough clairvoyance to hear it....[silence]. Say, {ngoway}, [repeat], {liu},
[repeat], {ngoway}, [repeat], {liu}. {ngoway} means the act of dedication,
meaning, we're gonna do one after class in about one minute and it's where you,
in this particular case, you take some good thing that you've done, like coming
to this class and you try to visualize it as an epicenter like the place where you
throw a stone in a pond and you try to see the effects or the what do you call
that? like the ripples or the repercussions of what we did tonight, spreading out
into the universe, like this looks like, a, just a group of people who got together
on a night in new York city, it's conceivable that from the activity that we do
tonight that millions of people are affected in the future. You know, it's
conceivable that among the people in this group there is a person or people who
will either themselves or through other people, turn millions of people on to, to
ideas which could stop them from dying or, or lead them to some kind of
existence in a paradise or something. It's possible to do that and it's possible that
somewhere in this room there's the seed for that, you know, someone in this
room, or someone's gonna say something to someone who comes. And, and
they get it and they do it and they teach other people to do it. The idea is that
you teach other people to come here and I'm not talking about that you teach
people Tibetan Language or you teach people one two three four five or
something like that. You learn how to stop your own death. You learn how to
change this kind of body into some kind of angels body and you learn how to
reach some kind of Paradise, personally. And then you pass it onto other people
and it's quite conceivable it' even probable that though meetings like this that
somebody does it or somebody's in the process of doing it, or someone has
already done it. And that though the process of what we're doing, that, that,
instructions, those instructions are passed onto other people and they do it. And
they actually pull it off, so dedication means that you see this event tonight as a
stone being thrown in a pond and you imagine these ripples could, could pass on
that knowledge that has been passed to us, I mean, that's the whole idea, and
that's why it's important for you to get it straight. You have to get it straight.
You know you see people, I have people who say, "He said I'd get kicked out
after two classes, now which two am I gonna miss? Did it occur to you? No.
[laughs] That's not the point you know, you are entrusted tonight with a very
holy, sacred lifesaving thing and you have to treasure it and take care of it.
That's the whole idea of a notebook, take good care of the notebook. treat it like
the last book of instructions on how to cure aids, which is that it's more
important than that and, and you're entrusted with that. SO know you have
some kind of responsibility, you have to do it yourself and then you have to
spread it to other people so that's the idea, so that's the chapter on dedication.
Last thing, last question. Did Shantideva, for those of you who have had some
Buddhist classes, get all the perfections, sorry, Master Shantideva, did he get all
the perfections n his book or did he miss a few. We're talking the six perfections,
let's write then down for people who, these are the six, the six high points in a
bodhisattvas career. The six things bodhisattvas are all supposed to do. So that
we have a chapter called {sopa}, do we? {sopa tenpa}, what chapter?

student: [six]

Six, so we've covered, [unclear], it's covered in chapter six, right? SO we got one
out of six, he's not doing too bad. Any other ones?

students: [Wisdom?]
Wisdom is easy, he got wisdom. What chapter?

students: [unclear]

He covered wisdom in chapter nine. He got meditation, which you can also call
concentration, in what chapter?

student: [Joyous effort]

Did he miss anything else? He got, what chapter?

student: [Seven]

It's not too bad it's where {du she sim ba wa}. Okay, this is the trick okay, the
chapter called, guarding awareness, which is what chapter?

student: [Five.]

Chapter five was it? It's particularly to be applied in keeping an ethical way of
life, so that chapter relates to the second perfection. I'm gonna call it living an
ethical way of life. It's often translated as morality and I don't know about you,
but I always think of Billy Graham. That's a good way of [unclear], to think of
bill Bradley or something. But anyway, you know, leading a good life, leading a
good, a good life. Living by ethical standards in your life. So he covered that in
chapter five, but he's missing, yeah, what's the best thing that you people here
could give to the people in the future, I mean, specifically what was that. I mean,
exactly what you're learning here. Really, seriously. If what you said, if, I don't
say, "It is." If what we've said is true and if, by learning this book and putting it
into your life, you can, yourself reach a paradise in this life, and, and get out of
that way of life which is being committed in Manhattan right now, apparently, of
people just running until they drop dead. Literally. You know, if you could put
an end to that, with other people, if you personally could learn how to do it, if
you could really learn how to do it and, and pass it on to someone else there
would be no greater gift, there is no greater gift than that, you know, people
have enough bagels and apartments and clothes, you got clothes in New York,
but to give that to somebody would be the greatest gift, so that's dedicating, the
act of dedicating is to teach people that, so that's giving. And that's chapter ten.
Okay, we'll meditate, just for, we'll do one minute silent, okay, think about the
ripple effect, you know imagine, the responsibility. I always think of, I mean, I'm
not getting, [unclear], okay, but I think of Buddhist, you know, with twelve
people, in some little town somewhere, effecting millions of people and it will
happen, you know, it could happen. So think of the ripple effect. Think of what
could happen someday, if it's true that you can really reach those things in this
life before your body dies then it's extraordinary. Extraordinary things could
start here. And image, try to dedicate what we did tonight, try to imagine that it
could trigger something in other people, do that for like one minute. And then
we'll do a short prayer and I'll promise not to go so late next time, [cut].
970227-1.aaa
160a.txt

ACI Course X: Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Part I