ACI 10 «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы, часть I», занятие 2

Class Two: The Benefits of the Wish for Enlightenment
transcribed by: Katherine G. Williams

[cut] And in Tibetan, it's spelled like this.

[silence]

Say {jangchub} [repeat]. Louder,{jangchub} [repeat]. {Sem kye} [repeat].
{Jangchub} [repeat]. {Sem kye} [repeat]. All right. {jangchub} stands for
{bodhi}, and it means "enlightenment," okay? {Sem} means "mind," and that's a
translation of {chitta} in Sanskrit, and {kye} means "to develop that state of
mind."      Okay?       So "developing the state of mind that wants to reach
enlightenment," okay? I'm gonna talk about it tonight in a very special sense,
and to understand the way I'm gonna talk about it you have to know something
that's called "the five paths."

[silence]

Path in in Buddhist philosophy is a synonym for {mundok}, or {dzokpay}, which
means "a realization," so say {lam} [repeat]. {La} [repeat]. {Lam} [repeat]. {La}
[repeat]. Okay, so they're not really paths in the sense of a way to get to
Buddhahood, or something like that. They are paths in the sense of they are
levels of spiritual development. They are five levels of spiritual development
that every person goes through before they reach Buddhahood, okay? And
eventually every living creature will go through these five paths, okay? Some of
you may be on path five. Some of you may be on three. I have no idea who's
who's who, okay? If you're all like really Shantidevas, you're just pretending to
come here, and [laughs], okay?

[Laughter]

And ah, [laughs] okay? But sooner or later you have to go through the five
paths, so I'm gonna do a real quick thing about the five paths, and then we're
gonna talk about the wish ... I call this, by the way, the wish for enlightenment,
[silence] the {bodhichitta}. [silence] Okay, we'll go through the five paths.
[silence] [laughs] [silence] Say {tsok lam}. [repeat] {Tsok lam.} [repeat] Okay,
{tsok lam} means "path of accumulation." It's very very hard to get to {tsok lam}.
It takes a long time to get to {tsok lam}. It takes a long time to get to path
number one. Even if you decide to do it, it takes a long time. I won't say how
long 'cause then you'll quit. [laughs] Anyway, you can do it in this life. And that
is when you reach real renunciation. [silence] It's very useful if someone close to
you dies. Okay? There's a great Tibetan lama, Gampopa, and his wife died and
he started to feel, I mean he was at the time a layman he became a monk later I
think, and anyway he got real renunciation and he met the wife's uncle and he
was saying how lucky it was that his wife had died because he started to get real
renunciation and the uncle threw dirt in his face, you know. [laughs] But real
renunciation, I I don't think it's it's so ... such a ... I think it's sort of a no brainer,
you know? What it means is just what we talked about. If you think carefully
for about five minutes ... and it takes ... you have to practice it over and over
again. But if you think very carefully right now at this moment and think [cut]
any good thing in you life, anything, you know, like you're still rather healthy,
or you have some good friends, or you have a lama, or you're studying
bodhichittatara or anything good about you, your hair, your face, your children,
your husband, your house, your job, anything about you you must lose--period,
you know. You must lose it. Something will tear it away from you. There are
certain forces at work that will tear it away from you. You must lose it. And its
just a fact of I think reaching {tsowg lam} is is just a a state where you start to be
honest with yourself and see that. You know it's all it's in front of you all day but
nobody really understands it. Nobody really internalizes it. It's very difficult.
Sooner or later everything that you have down to your faith and your name and
then the memory of your name in other people's minds will be totally wiped out
totally erased. No one will remember you. No one will remember your name,
all the pictures of you will rot. Your body will rot, turn to dust, you know? I
was in Arizona last year on retreat and two deer got hit by a car next to the
house. And I watched 'em rot for about a month, you know. I went back last
month and to see what was left. And there's just a few small bones left. It was
really weird. It was really weird, eerie, that these two huge deer, there was just a
few bones sticking out of the ground and the hide had shrunk down to like this
much, a little patch and you couldn't really tell what it was. And and that's in one
year, you know, ah, six month. So like one year after you die there won't be
even any trace of you. And and that's your condition, that's our condition.
Anything nice you have you're gonna lose. It will be torn away from you. I
mean, you can sort of kid yourself and ride it for a while, but when you start to
get around forty-three [laughs] you have to admit it. [laughs] I mean you start
to see it. And it's just the truth. It's the truth. You can't get anywhere in
Buddhism until you admit that, okay?                You just have to admit it.           It's
actually...somebody I saw interviewed the Dalai Lama and said, "Oh Buddhism is
very depressing, you know, you're always talking about this fact that you're
gonna lose everything." And the Dalai Lama laughed in his, you know, his big
giggle, you know, "Hahahahaha," and he said, "It's liberating," you know, you
quit lying to yourself, you know, this is the way it is and this is the way it's gonna
be and just admit it. And I don't think it takes a genius. And that's all. You just
have to think like that. It doesn't take a genius. It's gonna happen. It will
happen. It's happening as we speak. When you get that you get {tsok lam}.
When you get that understanding you get {tsok lam}, in general, I'm not gonna
go into certain specifics of it, okay? [silence] Say {jor lam} [repeat]. {Jor lam}
[repeat]. Ah, {jor} means "prepare," and {lam} means "path." So {jor lam} means
"path of preparation," okay? {Jor lam} is marked by four stages, and in those
four stages you begin to understand the subject of emptiness more clearly,
intellectually, okay?     Intellectually you start to understand the idea called
"emptiness." And we're gonna talk alot about emptiness. Ah, so don't worry,
okay? It's a little bit of a confusing subject, but anyway {jor lam} is marked by
four stages and in each stage you begin to understand more and more about
emptiness in an intellectual way, in your mind, Okay, and that's {jor lam}. It's
preparing to {tong lam}. [silence] Say {tong lam} [repeat]. {Tong lam} [repeat].
Okay, {tong} means "to see." {Lam} means "path." So {tong lam} means the "path
of seeing." Ah, what you see at {tong lam}, in the first instant of {tong lam} is
emptiness, directly, okay, in a deep state of meditation, not as an intellectual
understanding, but purely as a direct and unconceptual seeing of emptiness with
your mind, okay, not with you eyes, okay, but you just...you...for the first time
you see emptiness in a direct way, you perceive emptiness directly without
thinking, okay, you're not thinking, like "Oh, maybe it's empty because of that or
because of that or because or that. It's a pure unadulterated, non-thinking,
nonconceptual perception of emptiness. It lasts about fifteen, twenty minutes
first time okay? And then there's a second part of the path of seeing where you
begin to h...you come out of that meditation. You come out of that perception
and you begin to see other things, okay? And the other things you see are some
extraordinary, amazing things. And we'll talk about...that's kinda what we're
gonna talk about tonight. So there's two stages to {tong lam}. In the first one
you see emptiness directly, no thinking, no...you can't even say to yourself, "I'm
seeing emptiness," 'cause all you're doing is seeing emptiness and you can't have
a conceptual thought at that moment. And you don't even...you can't even say
to yourself, "I saw emptiness," until the moment that you come out which is like
twenty minutes later, okay, af...after the direct perception of emptiness. That's
{tong lam}. [silence] Say {gom lam} [repeat]. {Gom lam} {repeat}. {Gom lam}
means "path of habituation." {Gom} is also the word in Tibetan that means "to
meditate." But meditate is called {gom} in Tibetan because when you meditate
you're getting your mind used to the object. And the more you meditate on an
object the more your mind will get used to it and the easier it will come up in
your mind. So the Tibetan word for meditation is {gom} and in this fourth path
it means to habituate yourself to something. What are you habituating yourself
to? You're getting use to what you saw during the second half...especially the
second half, but also the first half of the path of seeing. You're getting used to
what you saw in the path of seeing. You are applying the understandings that
you got from the path of seeing in order to reach special goals, okay? And that's
what {gom lam} is. And it's it's a long process. It's no twenty minute thing. Very
typical is seven lifetimes, after seeing emptiness directly, okay? Very typical is is
for seven lifetimes you are using the knowledge you gained when you saw
emptiness directly and right after that to...you're getting used to that knowledge.
You're applying that knowledge in your everyday life, and then as a result of of
getting used to it, or practicing, you are able to reach the fifth path, okay?
[silence] [laughs] Say {mi lob lam} [repeat]. {Mi lob lam} [repeat]. {Lam} means
"path." {Mi lob} means "no more study." We are hoping to reach this, path of no
more learning. This path is a result, I mean, this is the final result if you have...if
you are in a certain state of mind called "bodhichitta," if you have the wish for
enlightenment in your mind at that time, you reach total Budhhahood, okay? So
if you have bodhichitta equals total enlightenment. If not, it's nirvana. I'll just go
over briefly the difference between total enlightenment and nirvana, okay? And
[unclear], without any warning, is going to give us the definition [laughter] of
nirvana. [laughs] [unclear] [laughter] [unclear]

[student: [unclear]]

[unclear]

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, okay. Nice. He beat me. [laughs] Say {nyendep} [repeat]. {Mylopa}
[repeat]. {Bunba} [repeat]. {Sosor [repeat]. {Dank gok} [repeat]. {Nyendep}
[repeat]. {Mylopa} [repeat]. {Bunba} [repeat]. {Sosor} [repeat]. {Dank gok}
[repeat]. The definition of nirvana, okay? {Nyendep} means "bad thoughts,"
okay, "bad thoughts." {Mylopa} means "in their entirety." {Bunba} {bunba}
means "to eliminate them in their entirety, completely." But the real catch is
{sosor dank gok}, okay? Say {sosor} [repeat]. {Dank gok} [repeat]. {Sosor}
[repeat]. {Dank gok} [repeat]. {Sosor} means "one by one." {Dank} means "to
realize." {Gok} means "to stop," okay? And what it means is the stopping of
your bad thoughts depends on realizing one by one, okay? The stopping of
your bad thoughts in what we call nirvana depends on realizing something one
by one, okay? What's the one by one? Who's in the mood? Margie? {Sosor
shok}? No? Elizabeth? {Sosor shok}?

[student: [unclear]]

What are you perceiving one by one?

[student: [unclear]]

Uh?

[student: [unclear]]

Fah. Ah, yeah, {demba she}. Say {demba} [repeat]. {She} [repeat]. {Demba she}
[repeat]. Okay. Four Arya Truths, sometimes mistranslated as noble truths, the
Four Arya Truths. "Noble" is a mistranslation of arya and it doesn't mean noble
at all. Arya is a word that's used in Buddhist philosophy to mean someone who
has seen emptiness directly. Anyone who has reached path number three is an
arya, okay? Anyone who has seen emptiness directly is an arya. Ah, and I said,
remember, there was two parts to the direct perception of emptiness, I mean, to
{tong lam}, to the path of seeing. In the first part, twenty minutes long, say,
although you are not aware of the passage of time because that's a relative
object, you see emptiness directly. Immediately subsequent to that for about
twenty-four hours...let's say if you saw emptiness in the morning say around ten
o'clock in July of 1975 or something, for the rest of that day you have these
extraordinary understandings come to you and those can all be grouped into
something called the Four Arya Truths. They are truths because they are facts.
They are reality. And they are seen by a person who has just seen emptiness
directly. So they can only be understood directly in a direct sense by someone
who has seen emptiness directly. And those are calle the Four Arya Truths,
sometimes mistranslated as Four Noble Truths.           That's the {sosor} in the
definition of nirvana. What you see one by one in order to stop your bad
thoughts permanently and in their entirety is those four facts. And it's not just
four, I mean, there's many aspects going on during that day.             You see
many...you understand many many things. In that one day you understand the
contents of the entire Buddhist books, you know. We would estimate it at
around 300,000 Buddhist books, okay? In that one day, you understand their
contents, period. You know, you understand them absolutely, perfectly, in one
day. And that's that's {sosor} {sosor dok}. You you see the Four Noble Truths
and all the incredible details related to those Four Arya Truths one by one. And
because of that...and once you get used to that, on the fourth path, you can reach
the state called nirvana. And and so to reach nirvana, do you have to change
your outward appearance?

[student: [unclear]]

No. Because it's only stopping your bad thoughts, okay? You would start acting
differently probably. You know, you might not, ah, [laughs] grimace so much
when you're walking through New York City but outwardly you wouldn't have
to change, okay? You could reach nirvana tonight maybe you reached it last
night. We don't know. Maybe you're pretending to go like that. [laughs] But
it's mental thing. If you are able to review what you saw when you saw
emptiness directly and get used to it in a very sweet way with bodhichitta, with
the wish for enlightenment, then at that moment you don't achieve nirvana.
You achieve total enlightenment.              What's the difference between total
enlightenment and nirvana? In nirvana, you just are getting rid of your bad
thoughts permanently. When you reach total enlightenment there's a whole
transformation of your body and mind. Your body totally transforms. Actually
your mind goes first by about a millisecond, okay? There's a whole chart. Your
mind changes into a totally enlightened mind. You are able to see every object
in the universe that ever existed, ever will exist, or does exist now in one instant.
In any given instant of your life you can perceive everything that ever existed,
ever will exist, or does exist in the entire universe. That's the state of your mind.
Your mind has an emptiness which is a total...it's difficult to describe but it's like
some total peace, I mean, it's a total...it's the emptiness which is connected to the
mind which which knows every...Mr. Know-it-all, okay? And every object in the
world has it's own emptiness but the emptiness which is connected to the mind
that knows everything is a very special emptiness. And in fact when you see
emptiness directly for the first time, you are seeing the emptiness of a Buddha's
mind and and that's called the dharmakaya, okay? That's called dharmakaya.
You are you are seeing that directly, okay. So when you become a buddha you
get a very special state of mind. You know everying, and there's hanging off of
it an emptiness, okay? And we'll talk about that. But that mind has some kind of
emptiness. That emptiness is a very very special emptiness. And we'll get into
that sometime. The next millisecond, due to your new state of mind, you are
able to show bodies on every planet in the universe simultaneously, if anyone's
ready to see them, okay? You could be showing yourself as Dr. Sykes sitting
here in New York City if it helps somebody, okay? If they're ready to see it and
if it helps somebody you just show up there, automatically. And and it's not just
in one city or one planet in every planet in the universe you are emanating. You
are showing up there automatically without any premeditation. You're just
there in the next millisecond and that's called the "namanakaya." So you...that's
what the path of no more learning is if you have in your mind at the moment
that you achieve nirvana, or just after that, bodhichitta, okay? So bodhichitta
seems to be rather important. And, ah, and let's go into it, okay? I'm gonna give
you...you know, in in Buddhism we like to give definitions. Who's gonna gi...I
think Margie's the expert on this. No? You ready? Yes? No? Who else? You
ready? Laura? {Symge echiny} [unclear] {cheche symge echiny} What's the
definition of bodhichitta, by Maitreya?

[student: [unclear]]

{Chan guh duh. Imbat ha.} Dha. [laughs] All right. We'll spell it. This is the
definition given by Maitreya. Maitreya is an expert in bodhichitta because he's a
Buddha. There's a big debate about whether he's a Buddha already or not and
you can learn it one day but the bottom line is that he is, in a special sense, okay?
And this is the definition he gives in the [bk: Abisamalamkar]. [silence] And it's
good to memorize it. It's not a big deal. Kids in the monastery memorize this
whole book at age twelve. Okay? It's just two lines. [silence] Say {yangdak}
[repeat]. You guys are sleepy, or what? [laughs] {Yangdak} [repeat]. [laughs]
{Dzokpay} [repeat]. {Jangchub} [repeat]. {Du} [repeat]. Ah, I'm sorry did I miss
the first part? {Sem kye} [repeat]. {pa ni} [repeat]. {Shendun chir} [repeat].
{Yangdak} [repeat]. {Dzokpay} [repeat]. {Jangchub} [repeat]. {Du} [repeat]. The
long definition is {[unclear]}. Something like that. Anyway this is the short one.
{Sem kye pa ni} {sem kye pa ni} means "bodhichitta," okay, the wish for
enlightenment, {semkye pa ni}, the wish for enlightenment. {Ni} means "is,"
okay? {Ni} means "is." {Shendun chir} means "for the sake of all other beings,"
okay, "for the sake of all other beings." {Yangdak dzokpay jangchub} means
"total enlightenment," okay?           {Yangdak dzokpay jangchub} means "total
enlightenment." {Du} means "want to reach," okay? Want...you want to reach it,
okay?       So the definition of bodhichitta, the definition of the wish for
enlightenment is "the desire to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all other
beings." I want to describe what it feels like. And, okay, it's it's extremely
difficult to reach real bodhichitta. If you did it in this life it would be a
tremendous achievement. It's extremely difficult, okay? Maybe one person in a
million gets it in this life, okay, extremely difficult. You you all have to do it so
there'll be lots of...there'll be eighty million others who won't. [laughs] [unclear]
Now I wanna describe what it's like at the path of seeing, okay? So we went to
path number three. We're describing not general bodhichitta. We're describing
the bodhichitta that you feel just after you see what?

[student: [unclear]]

Emptiness directly. Okay, this is a very special instance of bodhichitta, okay?
And to know that you have to see this. [silence] Can you search for the spelling
of {nyamshak}.

[student: Okay.]

{Nyamshak.} The first one. Make sure the second syllable is right. Okay, say
{nyamshak} [repeat]. {Yeshe} [repeat]. {Nyamshak} [repeat]. {Yeshe} [repeat].
{Nyamshak} refers...{nyamshak} means "deep meditation"...an extremely deep
state of meditation. To see emptiness directly you must be at a certain stage of
meditation called [unclear], okay? You must be there. You have to get there.
You can't see emptiness directly if you are not on that platform, okay? And to
reach that platform is very difficult. It's totally impossible to see emptiness on
oth...any other...any lower platform than that. You must reach that level of
meditation to see emptiness directly. You must be practicing one to two hours a
day meditation every day in order to reach that platform. If you want to
disqualify yourself permanently from seeing emptiness directly don't meditate
one or two hours a day, 'cause you cannot. You never will. Impossible. Totally
impossible, okay? You must reach that level of meditation to have the mind in
the clear state it has to be in to see emptiness directly. It must be, according to
every Buddhist school, okay? {Nyamshak yeshe} {Nyamshak yeshe} is the first
twenty minutes or so of the path of seeing, that's that that's that direct pure total
non-conceptional perception of emptiness, okay? And all you can see at that
moment is emptiness. You can't be aware of anything else. You can't be aware
of even yourself seeing emptiness, 'cause that's not emptiness, okay? You can't
say, "Oh, I finally did it." You you don't have that thought at that moment. You
are totally unaware of the passage of time. It could have been a million years. It
could have been two minutes. You don't know, because the perception of time is
not...time is not emptiness. Time is a positive object. Emptiness is a negative
object. You cannot be aware of the passage of time. You are in the total, direct,
and singular perception of emptiness and that's all you can be aware of at that
moment. Say twenty minutes later you start to come out. And I think the
first...the first feeling or perception that you have is some kind of feeling...a a
sense of descending, okay? Because you are...your mind is actually coming back
to the desire realm. Your mind when you perceive emptiness directly is in a
different realm temporarily, okay? It's on a completely different level. And you
have this sense of coming down.            That's not coming down from seeing
emptiness. It's coming down from the platform that you had to be on to see
emptiness directly. But you have this physical sensastion of coming down. Then
you get this very joyful thought, "I did it. I saw emptiness directly," okay? It just
hits you, okay?      And you remember what you just saw.                Then you're
conceptualizing again, okay? You're not seeing emptiness directly. You're
seeing it as a mental picture. But you remember what you saw and you are
aware that was the dharmakaya of a Buddha. You are aware that you you have
seen one part of a Buddha's be...being and and then you in the next moment
you're thinking , "Great, Buddhas really exist," you know, because up to that
moment you don't know, okay? Up to that very moment, you have never seen
a Buddha directly, okay. Even if you could see ...go to India two thousand five
hundred years ago, meet this guy walking around with the big bump on his
head. You you would not have confirmed the existence of a Buddha. But with
this experience you are confirming the existence of a Buddha. You are aware
that Buddhas exist. Yeah?

[student: With the direct perception of the dharmakaya, is that [unclear]?]

No. There can't be any [unclear]. There can't be any perception or awareness of
your feelings because that's not emptiness. All you see is emptiness. You cannot
be aware of any other object, impossible unless you're a Buddha, okay? So
you're not aware of any other object. You're seeing emptiness directly. And
when you come down, you start to...then you think, "Buddhism is a...is true, you
know, of all the paths that exist in the world, Buddhism is true, okay? You have
this very strong emotion that Buddhism is the way. And I'm not being sectarian,
okay? You actually confirm it by seeing emptiness directly. You also have a
perception of your future lives. You see you future lives. You know exactly
how many lives it will take you to reach Buddhahood. And seven is very typical.
So I think for...that is also the first instant typical that you really perceive your
future lives. And it's very typical that you have seven more to go. But you
know. And you you are aware that on the...in the seventh life you will achieve
Buddhahood. And they won't call you "Mike" anymore. And that's a very
important realization. And you have to cook that one. You have to think about
that one, you know? They will not call you "Andy" anymore. You...it'll be
something different, and that's an important thing, okay? You get this...you get
a very important side perception that what you saw was true, that you're not
crazy. And that's very important. You get what we call a {promenah} or a
{tsimah}. You perceive that what you perceived was correct. You are aware,
totally, purely, perfectly that what you saw was for real. Like there's a second
perception that comes during that time after seeing emptiness directly which
confirms the the perception emptiness so you're never gonna doubt it again.
The the feeling of doubt...the emotion of doubt is one of the few mental
afflictions that you can never have after the path of seeing. On the path of
seeing, when you see emptiness directly, you are no longer capable of doubt, no
one could ever talk you out of the Buddhist path 'cause you saw it, saw Buddha,
saw your future lives, saw your future enlightnement, perfectly, and you know
you're not crazy. There's a second perception that confirms the first perception.
And and so you have this total elimination of...doubt is one of emotions that you
can no longer have. Doubt about the Buddhist path cannot occur after the path
of seeing. It's one of the few {tongpaks}. It's one of the few mental afflictions
which is totally destroyed at the path of seeing. Why are we talking about the
path of seeing? If you are on a mahayana track, meaning if you've had some
familarity with bodhichitta already if you've already developed it to some extent,
when you see emptiness directly, in the aftermath, okay, number two...during
that twenty-four hours subsequent to tha...to the...and it's a very amazing
twenty-four hours, I mean, it's just twenty-four hours filled with incredible
things. You can read other people's minds very clearly for the first time, and and
things like that. It's a very extraordinary day. But if you're on the mahayana
track then at that moment {in je tob yeshe}             you get the experience of
bodhichitta. You have, I I I don't wanna use a dirty word, but it's like an orgasm,
okay? It's like a...it's like an experience...an extraordianary experience that lasts
maybe a minute or two minutes of bodhichitta and there's some kind of a...you
get almost a physical sensation of a of a stream coming out of your heart. Okay,
like a...you can't see anything...I'm not saying like white light's rebounding off
the walls. I'm saying like there's this emotion or this feeling of a clear stream,
like crystal, coming out of your heart and just reaching out to every living being.
And you have that direct experince of bodhchitta at that moment. And you
know that for the rest of your life you will spend your life for that...for other
people, okay? And that's bodhichitta. You know, at that moment you you
know that you will spend your life that way...the rest of your seven lives that
way and and every moment after that. And you see it directly. And then after
that your whole being is aimed at helping other people. You know, your whole
activity everything you do every experience you have, every...money you get,
every relationship you form, it has only one point and that's to help other
people. And it's extraordinary. It's extraordinarily sweet. I'm supposed to get
up here and talk about the benefits of bodhichitta tonight, okay? And there's this
long list which I'm not even gonna do. Okay, you can read it in the reading and
you have to fill in your homework, okay? [laughs] But that emotion...what
happens at that moment to know that the rest of your lifetimes...and you see
the...some details of your future lives. You know that you will never want again,
you know. You will never need anything really in your...in in those seven lives
you will be taken care of, dharma teachers, you will have everything you need,
you'll have great parents, you'll have perfect schooling, you'll live in the parts of
the world that have dharma. And and you see...it's like a big cradle. You see
that that's gonna be you future. And and there's this emotion of knowing that
you will spend every moment after that helping other people. And it's a
great...like...it's a...it is the ultimate feeling you can have to be aware that you're
just gonna live for other people after that. And it's some kinda great release. It's
some kinda great release to be released from the opposite of that which is
watching out for yourself, okay? There's some kind of extraordinary release, or
relief, from the attitude of watching out for yourself, just taking care of yourself.
You know, any kind of selfishness is destroyed at that moment. And and it's
some kind of very blissful release that you know from that moment on you
won't be a prisoner of that attitude anymore. And it's worth all the things you
ever did in your life to have one minute or two minutes of that feeling. Because,
in your heart, you know that even if you haven't had that experience you know
that it's a...you know...you can get a inkling or an intuition of what it would be
like to stop being selfish completely, you know, if you never had another selfish
thought in your mind, you can imagine...I mean the human soul...the human
heart craves and wants this emotion, you know. We all do. And we all get
frustrated 'cause we can't have it, you know. Until that moment that you get
bodhichitta you can't have it. And everything you do is sort of infected by some
kind of selfishness. But at that moment you you get some kind of liberation
from that. And it's sweet. And it's some kind of a...your heart has been seeking
it your whole life. And everytime you did something right, like you saw
somebody in the hospital, or you helped somebody, or you gave money to
somebody, or you kept your patience, or something like that, you...you
know...you gotta taste of the sweetness of it. But now, at this moment, you
know that you will spend the rest of your existence that way. And you will
spend the rest of your existence taking care of other people. And it's just an
extraordinary experience. It's that experience which has many fallout effects,
you know. Any kind of powerful bad deed you've ever collected to go to a
lower realm, you just don't have anymore. They are destroyed. They are
destroyed by this emotion, okay? So if if all you...I mean, if all you ever wanted
to do was was not go to hell, [laughs] or something like that, [laughs] this is that
solution, you know? You won't. It's impossible after that. And you know it.
And that's some kinda very comfortable thing. You know, it's like this feeling
that for the...you know, anyone can say anything to me, anyone can do anything
to me, it doesn't matter. I I know what my next seven lives will be. I'm over. It's
over. You know, I'm on my way out. That's why it's called "stream enterer."
You know, I'm on my way out and I know it. And it's some kind of release. And
then you feel this urge to to show other people that path. You know, you feel
this intense urge to show other people that, and to protect the books. Because at
that moment you see that all the Buddhist books are correct. It's a very weird
feeling. You know three hundred thousand books, you know three million
pages or whatever, they're all totally correct. They they are a a guidemap to
enlightenment. And you know it. And so so those teaching in those books
become some kind of obsession that you must protect them in the world. And
that's...these are all the emotions that you are having when you when you feel
that bodhichitta. So I just wanted to try to convey the the emotion of it or the
feeling of it that you overcome selfishness if only for then, you know? [laughs]
It's powerful experience of that few minutes at that particular stage is something
extraordinary. It destroys all the negative karmas in your being
, period. You know, you cannot go down again. And you know it. And that's
some kind of amazing feeling. You know, that's some kind of extraordinary
feeling. And to be aware that you will become a Buddha, you know, to be aware
that you will become a being who can sit there and show bodies on every planet
in the universe and help people, and that you will do that is some kind of
extraordinary feeling. It's some kind of...it is the highest form of of bliss, to
know that you'll be able to do that. And and that occurs at at that moment. So
one moment you're aware that you...this...what happened to you is going to
destroy every negative thing in you. And you're also aware at that...what
happened to you it going to allow you to become this being who is just this big
apple who's feeding everyone in the universe. You know, if someone needs a
friend, and if they have the right karma, the Buddha is appearing there as their
friend and and trillions and trillions and trillions of friends and then you to know
that you're gonna be like that is very cool. You know, to know that you're
gonna be that kind of being instead of this grubby little selfish guy, [laughs] you
know, is very, ah, extraordinary.              Nothing like it.        So those are
the...roughly...now, we'll take a break. And then we'll do the list of the benefits.
Yeah? You have a question, [unclear]?

[student: You said this was a very important point [unclear]]

Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]
Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]

Ah, when you become a Buddha. The day you become a Buddha.

[student: [unclear]]

Other people, okay?     People can perceive that Buddha, okay?      It's very
important. There's something very important about the process of naming, and
how it stops at that moment. So...

[student: [unclear]]

That...yeah. Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]

[laughs] Long story. I I...he wanted to know why it's so important that one of
the perceptions that you have as you see the Four Noble Truths, after the direct
perception of emptiness, is that the day I become a Buddha they won't call me
"Mike" anymore, whatever. Why is that so important? Partly because, anyone
who sees your dharmakaya will no longer, at that moment, be conceptualizing.
And they'll be seeing your...if someone sees you...if someone sees your
emptiness, your Buddha emptiness, they will be perceiving...they they will not
be naming or labeling at that point. It's a it's a state in which the only perception
is the absence of anything else in labeling. You asked for it, okay? [laughs]
Okay, take a break and come back in ten minutes, okay?

[student: [unclear]]

Oh, great. Is that extra? [cut]

[cut] All right. [laughs] Here by half an hour. Ah, two kinds of bodhichitta,
okay? Two kinds of the wish for enlightenment. Ahm, [silence]. Say {mun sem}
[cut] When you first get real bodhichitta, which is very difficult, {mun sem}
means that feeling that you had at that moment of "I'm I'm going to devote the
rest of my lives," because...by the way that's the only...I mean, you're not really
sure there's future lives, directly. At that moment, you are. At that moment,
you know there's gonna be future lives. And you...{mun sem} is that is that
emotion that I described. It's that understanding, that very clear knowledge that
you will spend the rest of you existences helping...ded...dedicated to other
people...devoted to other people's benefit. And that's {mun sem}, okay? In the
scriptures it's called like "the desire to take a trip," like "planning to take a trip."
It's sitting in your house...here it's like sitting in in exactly the same spot where
you saw emptiness directly. I mean, it happens to occur before you get up.
Okay, there's actually a third part of the path of seeing when you get up and
start walking around. That's another part. But this occurs even while you are
still seated on that holy ground...on that place that becomes holy ground where
you saw emptiness directly for the first time. And and that's that emotion.
That's called {mun sem}. So that's sort of the wish for enlightenment in the sense
of wanting to do it, and knowing that you're going to do it. {Juk sem} say {juk
sem} [repeat]. {Juk sem} [repeat]. {Juk sem} is that day to day bodhichitta that
gets you through all your days after that, seven lifetimes of days, working for
other people. That's the state of mind you're in when you're actually working
for other people. And that's less conscious, okay? It's sort of a undercurrent of
your entire day that you are constantly looking...your your day consists of
watching out for opportunities to help other people, naturally. You know, you
just naturally attracted to doing from the lousiest little kindnesses to other
people up to teaching them how to do it which is the greatest kindness you can
do for other people. And and you...all through your day you are just skipping
from one event to another. You're thinking, you know, "What could I do at this
moment that would be the most help to people?" If you read the biography of
Master Shantideva this is like how he spent his day, right? He's always stopping
and using his clairvoyance, you know, "does somebody in Kansas need me right
now," you know? [laughs] You know, and that comes in his biography. So this
is this the state of mind through which you are spending your days after that
moment, okay? That you are actually watching out...you just naturally spending
your entire life...you're prioritizing, you know. If you have a choice between
two good deeds, you are naturally attracted to the more important one, which
ultimately is reaching Buddhahood yourself and helping other people to get
there, okay? So that's the the state of mind that you're in, and that's driving your
whole life...for the rest of your life you're gonna do that. For the rest of the life,
the day will be spent getting up and just looking around and seeing like Master
Shantideva, you know, what's the best thing I can do for people right today?
And you start doing it. And that's called {juk sem}. Okay, technically speaking,
you can have...there's a ceremony by which you can commit yourself to {mun
sem}, where you can say I commit myself to the idea of being a bodhisattva,
okay? Is that bodhichitta? No. I mean, if it was it would be easy, okay? If it
was, it would be really easy. That's not real bodhichitta. But obviously, it's a
seed for real bodhichitta. And if you keep doing that, then then you'll be able to
get real bodhichitta. So it...there's a ceremony by which you commit yourself to
the idea of commiting yourself to to helping other people. And we're gonna do
that ceremony in the last class here. It's a very sweet...it plants a seed in you
mental stream that will one day become that perception that I described, okay?
And that's that's {mun sem}. {Mun}...{juk sem} is that...there's also committments
you can make that are related to {juk sem}, and those consist of the bodhisattva
vows. Okay, there's a ceremony by which you commit to the activities of a
bodhisattva, and that's like sixty-four different committments that you make in a
ceremony. And the flavor is very cool. First {a doc tu shin ma}which is not to
praise yourself and put down other people, {a doc tu shin ma}. What's the next
one?

[student: [unclear]]

{Chun a mea desh yea}, yeah, you know, you never fail to give other people
whatever they need physically or whatever they need spiritually. You commit
yourself to that, and that's the flavor of the bodhisattva vows. And then you
commit yourself to six kinds of activities called the Perfections. So in the
second...in the second part of bodhichitta you're committing youself to doing
specific things. In the first part, you're committing yourself to the ideal...on a
concept of spending the rest of your life helping other people. And and those
are the two divisions which are on the homework. There's another two divisions
that I'm not gonna do because people always mix them up, okay? Maybe we'll
do it next week, okay? It's mentioned in your reading and you'll see it. Let me
see if it...I'm gonna go over two other points on your homework. There's a...this
class is 'sposed to be...this 'sposed...the class is supposed to get you excited about
getting bodhichitta. I mean, I think you sensed it from that other first part what
it would be like. And that's the main...that's all I have to say about it, okay?
There's a...there's another thing that that happens if you're able to reach that
state. If you are able to reach the state of that experience called bodhichitta, real
bodhichitta, of getting it, there's a certain effect on your mindstream, and I
wanna talk about that, okay? We've been talking...we talked in the first class
about suffering, and we talked about how there are certain forces at work which
destroy your life, okay? And and they're not evident. They don't...they're not
very obvious. There are certain forces at work which rip out every nice thing
that ever happens to you. And you finally meet the man of your dreams, or the
woman of your dreams, and you spend a few years together, and then these
forces will kill one of you, or both of you at the same time, or something, but
they will separate you, inevitably, it always happens, okay? These forces will
separate you from this person you found. These are the forces that make you
get old. Okay, and if you don't feel it yet, you will, okay? [laughs] And it's not
fun, [laughs] I guarantee ya. Russians say [unclear]. What's it mean? [laughs]
"It's no...getting old is no fun." [laughs] It's very bad. And and and it's some
kind of cause that's making it happen. There's some kind of forces at work when
you're born, they are created along with your body and they are destroying
your body as you live. You know, they are tearing your body down as you go
through life and then sooner or later they destroy your body. If you don't get
hit by a car, or cut up by some stupid surgeon, your body will kill itself. You
know, the organs are...they...the organs of the body, according to Tibetan
medicine, have contradictory functions. They are working toward different
goals. The lungs are trying to cool your body down. The stomach is trying to
heat your body up. And sooner or later, one of them has to leave town, okay?
There are two function in contradiction to each other. And one of them will
overwhelm the other. If you live long enough, your organs that exist inside the
skin will will kill each other. One of them will kill the others. If the lungs get...if
the power of that...of cooling gets too strong you get pneumonia and you die
from that. If the power of heating of the stomach gets too strong you get fevers
and you die from that. And Tibetan medicine divides it into broad areas of...it's
just a question of which one wins out. But if you don't get hit by a car, or cut up
by some stupid surgeon, then your body will k...will nicely kill itself. One of the
organs will will overwhelm the other organs and ya...kill ya...it'll kill you...your
body will kill itself. And that's the that's the condition we're in. There's some
kinda forces running that. There are certain forces dictating that. There are
certain energies in the world which are making that happen, and they exist when
you are born, and they start working on you and then sooner or later they kill
you. And every kind of good thing you can get they they are at work to destroy
it and they do if you don't practice dharma, okay, they will destroy it. These
forces are karmic imprints, okay, in your own mind. They are the effects of
karmic imprints, okay? What is a karmic imprint? All right. When you do
something nice or something bad, when you say something nice or something
bad that hurts another person or helps another person, or even if you think
something good or bad for a millisecond, it puts an impression on your
mindstream. It puts a a very distinct impression on the mindstream that stays
there. And and we have a course on karma. You can study it. There's a special
presentation on how the imprint stays in you mind. How it's created and how it
is replicated until it gives its result. But basically, every time you have a thought,
and in the space of a finger snap you have

[student: Sixty-four.]
sixty-four discreet karmas of the mind, {deni sempa} fourth chapter [bk:
Abhidharmakosha], opening lines, "Karma is thought." Karma is the movement
of the mind. The mind moves at the rate of sixty-four instant...sixty-four mental
actions per inst...per finger snap. You are creating sixty-four separate imprints in
you mind every time there's a finger snap. And each one of those will have its
own result. Okay, right now in you mind those imprints are ripening into the
perception of this place, and me, and you. You see me standing here, and you
hear me because some kinda imprint in your mind is is giving...it's it's flowering
and it's creating a perception in your mind. And and you see me and you hear
me at the rate of...there are sixty-four discreet karmic results going off in you
mind in the time it takes to watch me or hear me snap my fingers. There are
sixty-four perceptual events happening.           And madhyamika says it's like
ah...you...they put flower petals on a target on an arrow target and they they
glue flower petals out like two or three inches. And then you...a strong man, it
says, a str...a very strong man pulls the bow back and shoots the arrow. And
when the arrow hits the flower petals, it looks like it does it in one smooth flow.
It looks like all the flower petals are being penetrated at the same instant. But
yo...but but but logically you understand what's really happening, right? I mean,
you can't see it with your eye. You can see it with microphotograpy or
whatever. But you can see that...but you understand that the first flower petal is
being penetrated before the second flower petal is being penetrated before the
third flower petal and even though it's one plof and you just see the arrow
penetrated all the flower petals you know mentally you understand that it must
have gone through them one by one. You perception of this world is the same
thing. There are discreet...it's like a motion picture. And there...they are discreet
scenes going off, imprints giving their result. And you are...you have the
impression of time passing, you know? They are going off so fast and at such a
smooth rate that you have the impression of time passing and and of events
happening in your life. And everybody in this room, according to Buddhism,
which you don't have to accept now but you can prove it eventually in this class,
was together in the past at some point. We did some extraordinary virtue in the
past and because of that we are all empowered to have the same general
perception right now. We are all perceiving the Quaker House at this moment.
We all have the karmic imprints in our minds that force us to see the Quaker
House at this moment. And "force" is a very important word. Okay? It's forced
on you. You don't have a choice. You can't say "I'd rather not see the Quake
House right now." You know, you might say you'd rather not see me right now.
[laughs] But in order...I wanna I wanna emphasize that it is not will power. You
cannot choose. These perceptions are force on you. And and when you are
getting cut up by the doctor, or when the car hits you, or when you have a
headache, or a cold, or something like that, you are very aware of that. You are
very sensitive to that point that by will power alone by wanting it alone you
cannot change that condition. Those perceptions are being forced on you by
events going off in your mind at the rate of a cert...a certain number per second.
And it looks like life. It's called you life. It also applies to your thoughts, okay?
Your thoughts are the same thing. Thoughts are going off in your mind. You
are perceiving your own thoughts. You are thinking you own thoughts. You
are also thinking the thinker of the thoughts because they are going off in a
smooth flow in your mind due to due to karmic imprints, due to what you did in
the past. And they are...and they are being triggered at a certain rate. The the
laws of of this process are very, very cool and it takes a long time to study it.
You have to study the laws of this process and then you can really catch it
happening. You can see it happening. But the bottom line is you and I have to
learn how to plant good imprints. You know, knowing that your life is a series
of imprints going off in your mind, it would be prudent to with...to with...what
do you call it, to take out all the bad imprints if you could, and fill up you mind
with good imprints, okay? If you filled up your mind with a a lousy little good
imprint, you would have a lousy little good experience like, you know, a good
cup of tea or something. And it would last about three or four minutes or
something like that, okay? If if there's a certain kind of minor imprint in your
mind from thinking about offering somebody some some hot tea on a cold night
or something and never doing it, just thinking about it, that creates an imprint in
you mind which flowers in the mind as a perception of a cup of tea. So Starbucks
exists, for you [laughter], if you enjoy it because of your good karma. Because
you you were either thinking about or you were promoting or you were
actually engaged in the activity or giving people something nice to drink, period,
you know. And your...every detail of you life is like that, every single detail. So
once you know that, and you can prove that, and you can study that and you
can start to manipulate it and that's fun. That's really cool, you know. Wanna
get rich? You can do it. Wanna get a million dollars? Set up the causes, in
advance. Somebody give you a million dollars. It's very cold and very
calculated. You can do it, if that's what you're interested in, okay? But there's
another thing about the imprints, and you can guess. They wear...they wear out.
Okay? As they flower, the energy which makes them flower is limited. You
know, you only thought for a few minutes to give somebody a nice drink, so
you only have a five minute imprint. And wh...and and the imprint flowers.
You perceive a cup of tea. You feel a cup of tea on your mouth. You feel it go
down your throat. And then about four minutes later, it's over. And that
imprint has just disappeared from your mind, okay?                    The imprint is
impermanent. Yeah? Hector?

[student: [unclear]]

Ah, partly. Yeah, partly. It's called...there are four karmic results. And one is the
tendency to enjoy doing it from having done it alot in your past life. Like, you
see certain children, I...we were talking about it the other day. You go to
them...their parents' house and they walk over to you with a cookie and they
they wanna feed you. There's like these special kids like that. And and these are
children who have in their past lives have been giving a lot and they don't have
that normal child's thought of of being possessive. And and that...the habit or
the attr...being attracted to goodness is a past...is a result of a past karma. Yeah,
it's one of the four results of doing good deeds or bad deeds. So we have to try
to imagine a a karma...like if you wanna set up your future, you know, you can
actually choose what you want. You know, you have to study the...how to plant
imprints, and you have to study how to accelerate imprints. And then, actually,
you could conceivably, in this very life, consciously and purposely plant certain
imprints in your own mind and then use special methods, called tantra, to
accelerate them, and then cause them to to flower before you die. You know,
you can do that. And that's that is the process. You can study karma. If you
understand what imprints are most effective and then you can study the
methods for accelerating their growth, you know, and also the methods for
eliminating all bad imprints. And you can do it quite consciously, and quite
coldly. You know, I mean quite...you can design your future at at any point in
you life, if you understand dharma, you can design your future. You will be
limited by the attitudes that you spoke about. You know, if you have bad
attitudes from bad karma, you will be limited. For example, if you don't have
the capacity of of great faith, if you are not capable of feeling extreme devotion,
because of some bad karmas in your past, then you might not be able to pull pull
off that process in in this life because that is one of the accelerators. You know,
that is one of the...that is probably the primary accelerator of of of a good karma
in in the higher teachings. So you have to study what are the best imprints to
put in your mind. Why am I talking about all this? One of the benefits of
bodhichitta...one of the selling points in Master Shantideva's text...and I'm not
gonna give you all of the questions on the homework tonight. You have to
study your reading, okay? One of the selling points is that...you tell me, what
would the...what kind of imprint would create an entire world of of bliss for you
in the future? You know? Okay, get this, if you give you're gonna get rich. If
you gi...if you keep you're morality, you're gonna be happy. If you keep your
patience, you will have a beautiful body and a beautiful face, and and like that.
So you tell me, you know, what's the ultimate imprint? If you have to sit here
and just arrange imprints tonight, you go home and say, "Yeah, I don't wanna
just have a coffee for five minutes. I'd like, oh, the bliss of an ultimate Buddha
paradise for all time, how 'bout that? You know? [laughs] I mean you can
decide. You can decide. What is the imprint which creates that?

[student: [unclear]]

Pardon me. [laughs]

[student: [unclear]]

It's bodhichitta. Okay? That's one of the selling points of bodhichitta. Because
bodhichitta is interesting, from the point of view of quality of the bodhichitta and
from the point of view of the scope of the bodhichitta, it is perfect karma. It's a
perfect imprint. In fact, at that point, we don't call it karma. We call it collecting
the two collections, okay? The the name changes. But you are designing your
future paradise with the with the best way of all to do it, because the scope of
bodhichitta is how big? It's infinite. Okay? Can you help an infinite number of
beings right now? No. Do you have to start with the people around you and,
particularly, the person sitting next to you that maybe is the last person you'd
like to start with? Yes. That is all sentient being for you right now. That's all
the...that's all the all sentient beings that you can reach right now. And,
unfortunately, that's the one you have to work with, okay? Those are exactly
the sentient beings that represent for you all sentient beings. So so bodhichitta
has to be directed from the beginning at the people around you, and then it then
it based on the people with whom you have a direct experience you imagine or
you you you expand the the idea out to other living...all other living beings,
okay? And at and at the moment that you get real bodhichitta, that emotion is
aimed at at every living creature in the universe and and you really...I don't
know if you can really even imagine it until that moment what it would feel like
to aim it that way, but intellectually you can do that now. You know, as a
exercise at collecting good imprints, which is of great importance for anyone,
you can do it right now. Now what...that's the scope that would create...by the
way, if you leave out one person, what happens? If there's one asshole at work
that you just do not want to include.

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah. [laughs] It's not true bodhichitta, but what a...what's the karmic result?
[student: [unclear]]

By the way, you gotta understand what a Buddha paradise is like. Every single
detail of every single perception from seeing the corner of the of the railing up
there to seeing some guy's window sill up there on the other side of the street
and hearing some traffic noises outside and having some subliminal thoughts
about what you'd like to eat after you get outta this place, all of them are bliss.
Every single perception is total bliss. Imagine the most pleasant moment you've
ever had in this life. Imagine the the ten or twenty seconds of of extreme
pleasure you've had in this life, and and then multiply it times everything you
perceive. The stripes on Hector's shirt, the details of the design on his tie, each
one gives me that feeling all the time, okay? If you leave out one person, one
stripe won't. [laughs]

[laughter]

And that's not a Buddha field, okay? That's not a Buddha paradise. Really. So
really it's the only way to get to a Buddha paradise. What I'm trying to say is this
is a selling point for bodhichitta.      You cannot and you will never reach
Buddhahood if you don't have perfect bodhichitta. Impossible. Because the
imprint will be defective. The imprint will be one dollar short, one day late, you
know? And it won't create it. Do you have a question?

[student: [unclear]]

Un huh.

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]

Un huh.

[student: [unclear]]

Un huh.
[student: [unclear]]

Ahm. He asked a...basically, he asked it...what if you...what if the exercise of
trying to get bodhchitta was infected by the desire to win the lottery or
something like that...you know, what if it was infected by the limited desire to
win the lottery or something like that, okay? To rephrase your question, that's
okay, right? You'll read in your reading...and you might miss it if you don't look
carefully...that that one of the selling points for bodhichitta is that it it
accomplishes all your desires, all you wishes. And those wishes start with lousy,
short-term, this life wishes and and trying to stay outa the hells in your next life
for your for your own rear end all the way up to the desire to bring each person
to a perfect paradise like the one we described. But none of them is exclusive.
None of them is contradictory. I think that's a a...it's a problem to think like that.
They're called "shared." Okay.

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah. No. That's obviously bad. Yeah. But we call in Buddhism "shared." And
in your first reading you might have noticed the word "adjunct," okay? Adjunct
means "shared," means "the highest bodhisattvas in the universe would like to
have a nice coffee, and they would like to not suffer in their next life, and they
would also like to reach a higher birth in their next life, and they would also like
to reach Buddhahood for all sentient beings," and those are not contradictory
goals but the lower ones are only shared with people of lower motivation, you
know. They are not exclusively that. We are not allowed...you are not allowed
anymore as a bodhisattva to limit your vision to coffee, or to limit you vision to
your own happiness. It's it's it's destructive. Yet, as you said, it's a great...it's a
very bad thing. It's a great danger. But we are encouraged to practice it as an
adjunct. You know, Buddha would like to have a nice cup of coffee. Buddha
would like to live in a nice apartment, and will. Buddha would like not to go to a
lower birth in his next life. Buddha would like to stay in the upper realms, if he
had to. But on top of that, and always, it's it's encompassed by a much broader
thing. And if you don't have that vision, if your vision is limited your future will
be limited. So what Shan...Master Shantideva is pointing out in the in the verses
you'll read is that if all you care about is your own happiness it's still the smartest
thing to do, okay? It's still the best thing to do is to is to work for other people's
happiness, you know. And you will not be able to reach ultimate...you will
never reach any kind of real happiness in this life if you don't care for other
people...if you don't work for other people, impossible, it won't happen. You
cannot collect the proper imprints. Imprints are always collected relative to
other people, mo...I mean, most often. Imprints are always impressed on your
mind through your relationships to other people, almost always. I mean, there
are some exceptions. If you scream in a traffic jam, you can put a bad imprint in
your mind. If you stub your toe on a rock and you get angry at the rock, you
can you can put...you will put a bad imprint in your mind. But mainly you
cannot do great good or great evil unless there's other people around to whom
you're focusing. And that's just the way karma works. The imprints work like
that. So the selling point for bodhichitta is that if if you want to to transform
your life, bodhichitta, it says in the text, can take this body which is doomed. I
mean, all of our bodies are doomed. They are defective, you know? They are
just time bombs waiting to go off. Your body will destroy itself sooner or later,
probably sooner than later. Probably already started, as you may have noticed.
And and if you have real bodhichitta then you can actually transform this body
to another body before you die, okay? You have to get bodhichitta and then
you have to...you have to accelerate it, and most preferably with the secret
teachings. If you can get instructions in the secret teachings then then that is the
process of how to accelerate it so that it is more certain to happen before you die,
okay? And and you must have bodhichitta to get that. You you must get get
that or you...it won't happen. We're talking survival, right? We're talking the
choice between dying like a plain old person, or or moving to another kind of
existence before you die. Last question. If I move to my other existence before I
die, will you see it?

[student: [unclear]]

Hm?

[student: [unclear]]

She...Maria said, "Not necessarily." I would say...I would say, "Almost certainly
not." I would say, "Almost certainly not, until you yourself are at the karmic
point where your karma and your own mind are so pure that you are about to
enter that state or close to entering that state, you won't see a thing," you know.
The Dalai Lama will look like he reached his sixty-first birthday, and he's a little
bald and getting wrinkles, you know. But what does the Dalai Lama experience
about the Dalai Lama, okay? What is his experience of his own body and his
own mind? If you don't...if you're not close to that experience yourself, you
cannot see it. You will never see it. There could be, and there certainly are,
beings in this room who are enlightened and you just can't see it because you're
not close enough. And you see them as normal people. And that is the great
lesson of Master Shantideva's life. You know, mister three thoughts. Okay, until
you reach that...close to that state, everyone around you will look pretty similar
to you. [laughs] So it's quite possible that people around you have have attained
some kind of a...this state, and and you wouldn't even...not only you wouldn't
see it but you can't see it 'cause you're not good enough. It's nine. Somebody
had one question. [unclear] Yeah?

[student: [unclear]]

Oh, okay. I won't...they won't go home without it, okay? The rest of the
questions on the homework you can figure out from the reading, okay? Now
last selling point that Mary asked me to [laughs] to do. Ah, there are many
many people in the United States who want to learn these things. And ah, and
the number of qualified lamas like Khen Rinpoche out in New Jersey is about
zero. I mean, I won...I won't say zero, but I'd say you can count them on one
hand, you know. I mean, the good lamas, the really...even any kind of lama
[laughs] in the United States. You know, I can't say good or bad it's not in my
my...I I don't know. But if I was to try to name to you ten lamas that I know in
the United States, I don't think I could do it. I don't think there's more...I'm not
aware of more that ten good...I mean, I shouldn't say good. I'm not aware of
more than ten Tibetan lamas who've had a lot of training who are teaching in the
United States. I'm just not ah...I'm I'm not aware of them. If they exist
somewhere, I don't know about it. And there have been hundreds of people
who have written to us, and they said, "We want to learn these things." And
they're very very devoted and they really want to know and for different
reasons they can't come here. Some are in pri...a lot of them are in prison. A lot
of them are just like family people with a with a descent job and they have five
kids and they can't move. And then a very small precentage moves here. But it's
difficult for them. It's very difficult to move to New York, especially if you're
from any other place which I can tell you. 'Cause I came from Arizona and it
was like a disaster when I got here. So there are many people interested in these
classes.      There are hundreds of people taking these classes by by
correspondence. And they really really want to have a personal connection.
They want someone to look at their...what they wrote on their papers, to to
make a comment, to say something. And and it means a lot to them. We get we
get dozens and dozens of letters from people who really say, you know, "This
saved my life." I had a guy call me from North Carolina. He was crying. He's a
doctor. He was crying on the phone, you know. He was just crying for like five
minutes. And I'm like, "Okay, okay," [laughs] you know. And ah, and ah, it's like
that. I mean it's a very important...ahm, so I'd...I want to...ah, we need people to
help grade them.        We don't have enough people, okay?             Ah, I'd say
anybody...anyone who's taken two courses? If there's any...the people here
who've take at least two courses. I'd like...John, can I talk to you? Mary. Put
your hand up. That's Mary. Mary's like struggling to...she just did like her seven
thousandth audiotape, okay? And and she's struggling to keep up with all this
stuff. And she's in the dungeon over at Three Jewels, [laughs] down in the
basement with all the dripping water and stuff. And we really need people. We
really need people. And I'm not gonna say anything else. If you're sitting here
in a bodhisattva class, I don't think...I'm not gonna say anything else, okay? We
really need people. Talk to Mary. Sign up. If you don't I'll come after you.
[laughs]

[laughter]

Okay, it's not hard. And it's very sweet. And it means alot to people. You
know, especially like prisoners and stuff, and it means alot to them. So so don't
be don't be crazy, you know. D...d...you have to do it. We have to do it, okay?
And you find some time and you do it, okay? And that's my sales pitch. You
should tell me next week. If not, I'll break some arms. Do you have a question?

[student: [unclear]]

Excuse me.

[student: [unclear]]

Okay. And then we'll then we'll stop.

[student: [unclear]]

That's secret teachings and and I can't a

[student: [unclear]]

I can't I can't I won't teach that. [laughs] Okay. Any...okay, we'll meditate for
just one or two minutes. You know, try to think about the a...I think, try to
imagine the day that you perceive emptiness directly, if you have not already.
And imagine from the description what it might feel like. Okay, just for one or
two minutes and then you're actually going home pretty much on time this time
so, okay? I re...I repeat there's no class on Tuesday, okay? It'll be on Thursday.
[cut]
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COURSE X: Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Part One