ACI 10 «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы, часть I», занятие 3

Class Three: How to Make Offerings
Geshe Michael Roach
March 6, 1997

(Transcribed from audio cassette #161 by G. Durgin, 8-9/98)




There are certain things...Anila, [unclear]?

[student: [unclear]]

There are certain things that are like necessities for human beings, I think. One is
food, Arizona Iced Tea, things like that. You know? I mean those are obvious
necessities. Like after you go for about a day or two days without them then
you start to feel the need for them. And then I think that the motivation behind
bodhicitta, the motivation behind that, that kind of compassion, is sort of a
human need. And, you know I've been in, recently in Russia and in China. And
in Russia they used to have religion and then it got stopped up and then it got
replaced by communist morality, which is pretty strict. And then recently, I was
there in ninety. And then I've been going every year since then or a couple times
a year. And then, we have monks working there and it's very, its very
noticeable, that people are starving for something, you know. Like they have
enough to eat. In nineteen-ninety you couldn't get anything to eat in St.
Petersburg. And now you can get anything you need to eat but now people
they have some other kind of hunger and you can really see it, I mean I'm not
like Billy Grahaming, you know. You can really feel it. You walk around with
robes on or something and at least twenty people will stop you and start asking
you. Because they don't have anything. You know, like communist morality is
gone, whatever they had before that is gone, and people are like staving. And
its very noticeable. If you, I mean, in this country there is like people doing
semi-spiritual practices and things like that. I mean we have something. We
have churches and temples and things like that. But in St. Petersburg there is
nothing. There is nothing to go to and when they see a monk they like mob
you. And its really strange. And like in the subway and everyone's reading
every kind of imaginable new-age spiritual book, you know, and its... people are
staving. Its very interesting. And when you go to China its the same thing.
There are all these underground presses that we're working with in China. In
China, not in Tibet. And they're cranking out like truckloads of Buddhist texts
everyday and night, sneaking them around. There's like six of them going. And
they produce, I don't know, like 500,000 books a month or something, and they
just go, because people need something. You know? And I think the capacity to
love people, or the capacity to have compassion is, is a human need. And I think
you feel it when you, when you come to this class I think you're expressing some
kind of need. You know, its like hunger. And you need...I mean people, when
you hear about the idea of a bodhisattva, and then you've heard about it for a
while and then you've heard about bodhisattvas doing incredible things and
giving people their bodies, or giving people their eyes, or just living their whole
lives for other people, there's something very attractive about it. They say if you
have certain seeds in your mind then you'll be very attracted by that idea and
you would even like get goose-bumps and chills up your spine when you hear
about this. [unclear(Banivatara?)] says that in the opening chapter. And there's
some kind of attraction to the idea that you could get compassion. You know,
like, you don't have it. Like I get irritated on the way here. [laughter][laughs]
You know its like people on the street, people, stupid people on the street. I was
on the bus the other night and there's stupid people on the bus and the last thing
I was thinking about was, was to be good to them or be nice to them but there's
some kind of human need that you have to do it. And, and you know it. And
you feel it. And you sense it. That you would like to be like that. And you're
attracted to the idea. You can't do it right now but you're very... if you're.... I
think everyone in this room in the back of your heart you would really like to be
like that. You know, you would like to be so compassionate, that if someone
asked you for your eyeball you could just reach into the socket, without
hesitating and just hand it, you know, take it out and hand it to them, or
something. I mean, you're very much attracted by, you know, if you saw
Braveheart, you know the guy at the end, you know, he has... someone is able to
just overcome all the hesitations and just give their body, or give themselves, to
somebody. It's very attractive. Like it's a very exciting idea. I mean, it's really
something wonderful about it. And you sense it and you would like to be able
to do it and you'd like to have that kind of compassion. You know, you hear
about... there's this bodhisattva in the eight-thousand verses called the
{daktamula} and he's always crying. He's like, crying all the time. Why he's
crying we'll talk about tonight. It's not what you think. [laughs][laughter] But
anyway, I mean you hear just the name, the name, the bodhisattva that couldn't
stop crying and, and it's just attractive. You know, it's just something that, kind
of like, "Gee, I'd like to learn to be that." It's like, seeing some great dancer, or
seeing some great singer, and thinking, "Well, I'd really like to be able to do that,"
you know. And I think everybody in this room... you get the smell of it, you get
the sense of it, you.... its attractive. There's something very attractive about it.
But there's no, like, school for compassion, you know? There's like no, like, you
can sign up at NYU or FIT. And, [laughter] [laughs] you know, Compassion 101,
you know, and you can go and, you know, they'll start you off and then you get
a masters in it and then you get a Ph.D. in it. And, there's no school like that.
You know, there's nobody teaching it like that. And you're kind of wondering,
you know, "how could some... I would like to learn to be like that. I would like
to learn, to love another person as much as I love myself." You know? And
that's like some kind of holy grail. You know? It's like some kind of goal that
would be really nice, if you could care about other people as much as you care
about yourself. I mean theoretically there's no reason why you shouldn't, you,
they just have a different body than you have. I mean theoretically there's no
logic to taking care of yourself more than taking care of others. But we all do it.
And is there any way to stop that? I mean is there any way to reach the opposite
where you can just care about other people as much as you care about yourself?
It would be some kind of liberation, I think. It would be some kind of {moksha},
you know. I think it somehow be very great release, or somehow great
liberation to escape the desire to take care of yourself more than other people.
Some kind of illness. And I think we all sense that and we're all like wondering
how, how you could do it. How could you pull that off. And, and that's the
subject that we're starting tonight. Okay? So that the benefit of the idea is so
that, is that, by the end of this process you could care about other people as
much as you care about yourself. And that that would be some kind of great,
incredible liberating experience and, and something very beautiful. And I think
you hunger for it. I think you know it. I think you have some hunger for, for
being like that and it's very frustrating not to be able to do it. You know, its very
frustrating to encounter your own selfishness from time to time. And... or just
your lack of compassion for people. You know? Its very...I don't know about
you, but for me its very depressing. You know. So I... Shantideva, Master
Shantideva, has a, he has a plan. You know, he has a strategy. And he s... he has
a suggestion about how to get this compassion. And we're gonna start that
process tonight. So that, that's the goal. That's the idea. And maybe, two or three
people in this room, if you haven't got it already, which I don't know, will get it.
Maybe, maybe couple people get it. But you... but the bottom line is you have to
follow the plan, you know, you have to study it and then you have to put it into
practice. You know, you have to try to bring it about. And, and that part, you
know, I can't do, you know that part... I can repeat what Master Shantideva says
is the method. And then, I've met people who, who seem to have accomplished
this goal and then I've met other people who seem that they haven't
accomplished it. And maybe they have been studying and doing dharma for the
same amount of time and then you just wonder about the difference between
them and how... what happened to the one person or what didn't happen to the
other person and it seems... I think it's just doing it, it's just trying it. It's just
trying to do it. Something like that. And the, and the second kind of person is
just not really serious. They don't really want to do it, you know. So, so we're
gonna start that strategy and there are certain steps and you have to do them.
And so, you know, you can learn the Tibetan, and you can learn all your outlines
and you can get a hundred on your homework and ace the quiz so...but that's
not the point. I mean, the point is you have to try it and you probably won't get
another chance, you know. I mean, this classes will go on and maybe not and
things will happen but its... its safe to say that most likely you
won't hear this whole outline again very soon. And you really ought to do it
now. You have to start tonight. You have to think about it and start doing it.
Okay? [unclear]

[silence]

If it's hard to see or you cant hear just make noise, okay. If anybody can find us
a nice, beautiful, big, free place to have classes we are open to suggestions. Can
you...?

[silence]

[student: unclear][laughter]

Say {gelken}[repeat], {gelken}[repeat]. Its good, or maybe its the room, I don't
know. [laughs][laughter] Okay. Say {tunken}[repeat], {tunken][repeat]. Okay.
We have to get rid of the {gelkens} and we have to collect all the {tunkens}.
Okay? {Gel}, {gel} means "something that works against something", and {ken}
means "a condition." So {gelken} means...I don't know what you want to
translate that as. I mean, its like, you want to make enchiladas but you don't
have any cheese, that's a {gelken}. You know.

[student: [unclear]]

It's something that works against what you want to pull off. It's a factor or a
condition which is against what you want it... What would you... word?

[student: [unclear]] [student: Self-defeating causes.] [student: ..."Obstacle?"]
I don't know. It's not really an obstacle, there's another word for that. {Gel}
means "works against, contradictory", I don't know. [unclear]. You can just put
the Tibetan [unclear]. {Tunken} is the opposite. {Tunken} means " a conducive
condition." Okay? "A conducive condition." Like, you wanna cook a nice meal
and they stick you in the cafeteria of the Quaker Church, you know. 'Cause
there is key lime cake. And, and you know, that's a {tunken}. So those are too
good.      We're gonna study the... we're starting the second chapter of the
[b:Bodhisattvacharavataraya]. The first chapter was the sales pitch. You know,
the first chapter was, "This is what compassion is like. You can get it if you want.
And this is how it would feel..." You have some kind of hunger. I mean, you
maybe recognize it or you didn't recognize it yet but you will not be happy until
you get bodhicitta. You know, you will not feel contented or full until you get
bodhicitta. You need it. You want it. And that's the whole... The first chapter
was describing what it feels like when you get it. And to, and to love other
people as much as you love yourself, basically. And that, that is totally liberating
experience. It's a totally different way to walk through Manhattan, if you have
that. So first we have to study {gelkens}. What is it that prevents us from
reaching that stage where we care about other people as much as we care about
ourselves? You know, what is it that blocks us? Like, there's certain things that
block you and there are other things that you have to get together. There are
certain conducive conditions you have to get together. But first you have to
study the things that block you. You have what we call spiritual obstacles. You
have inner obstacles that you're not even aware of. It's not like a tumor or a,
you know, inability to digest, or something. I mean, its inside you and you have
it and its holding you back and you don't even know about it and, and no one's
ever talked to you about it and even if you believed it you wouldn't have any
clue about how to get rid of it. And, and that's a {gelken}. Those are inner
obstacles that prevent you from reaching your spiritual goals and you must
study them and learn how to remove them. You must figure out what they are
and then you must remove them. And then, like, half the battle is over. You
know. If you could learn how to identify the internal obstacles or blinders that
we have and then if you learned how to eliminate them then without any
trouble at all you'd be halfway to the goal of reaching bodhicitta, of being able to
have bodhicitta. So, Master Shantideva describes how, in the opening part of
your reading tonight, first you have to get that intention, and then, you know, I
think we all realize how sexy it would be to have compassion, you know. How
nice it would be. And how, how much different it would feel if you really cared
about other people as much as you care about yourself. I mean you, you
understand that. So, in a way you've got {munsem}. You know. You have the
wish. You feel the wish, in you. And then you have {duksem}. {Duksem} means
you know, you have the intention to do something about it. You're coming to
class. You do have those two intentions. They're not real bodhicitta yet, but
they're kinds of a form of bodhicitta. You have those. Next you have to study
the {gelkens}. You have to study what it is inside you that holds you back that
you don't even know about yet, you know. It's inside you, its been inside you
your whole life and you have to identify it and then you have to learn how to
get rid of it. And that's the whole thing we're going to talk about tonight. The
second chapter is the, is the art of {dikpa shapa}. Say {dikpa} [repeat]. {Shapa}
[repeat]. {Dikpa} [repeat]. {Shapa} [repeat]. {Dikpa} means "bad deeds" and as we
said it comes from a Tibetan word that means, when you {dik} somebody, "Hey!
You!" You know, it means, wise people would say, "You. Bad." {Dikpa} means
"bad deeds". Shapa means... Tibetan word meaning "to split yourself open."
Like, just admit it. Just open up your heart and say I did it. And this is the
purification process. We're going to get to that in the next class. Because, to even
get to {shakpa} you have to do three other things first. Okay? We are not even
good enough to start the purification process. There has to be some mini-
purification to start the major purification. [laughs] Or some mini-good karma
collection. Okay? And there are certain actions that are very good for collecting
the necessary good karma to get to the point where you can do a purification.
So this is like a bridge to get you to purification. The ch.... the subject of the
second chapter, the name of the second chapter is "How to Purify Your Heart."
But there are certain preliminaries that you have to do even before you can do
that. You can't do a proper purification without these preliminaries. You must
do a proper purification of the {gelkens} if you want to get bodhicitta. You will
never be able to love other people as much as you love yourself if you can't do
the purification. You'll never be able to do the purification if you don't do three
other things first. So we're gonna study those three tonight. Yeh?

[Student:} In the homework it said that the wish for enlightenment bodhicitta
destroys your bad deeds. And the reading it wasn't clear to me, are you saying
that just getting bodhicitta destroys negative karma or do you have to do
purification in conjunction with that or what is... ?]

There are a lot of questions about that question on the homework and it wasn't
very clear and I am sorry and we won't be too tough on you. Basically, if you
ever got to the point where you had real bodhicitta it would be extremely
difficult to collect any bad deeds and whatever bad deeds you had already done
would be short-circuited or their energy would be lowered. There's a point you
reach before you see emptiness directly called {jorlam sopa}, "The Third Stage of
the Second Path." Once you get there you can not take birth in a lower realm.
Period. Impossible. Because certain bad deeds... in fact, that's the first kind of
cessation. When you say Buddhist cessation, you get a cessation for ever taking
birth in a lower realm. You cannot, after that point. And... and that's... basically
the answer to that question was: bodhicitta is so powerful. True bodhicitta, not,
not thinking about it, and not the intention. Like, some kind of intention. The
real emotion, reaching real bodhicitta, which is what we're studying now, we're
studying how to get to the real thing, ... is so powerful it would destroy your bad
deeds.

[student: unclear]



Yeh. There's a technical term called ultimate bodhicitta which is seeing emptiness
directly. It doesn't really have anything to do with bodhicitta. It is the direct
perception of emptiness. And that is the real antidote to bad deeds. But that's
another story.



[student: Geshe Michael, does bodhicitta then prevent the negative karma from
flowering or does it destroy it?]

They say both. Prevents the old one from... they say burns it up.

[student: So without the four-pointed powers?]

With... by doing the four powers.

[student: So you have to have those?]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. First one. We're gonna go through three activities, which are
for what? Just to get you to the point where you can do purification.

[student: So the three acts are needed to expel {gelkens}?]

Purification is the real expelling of the {gelkens}. These are just to get that far.
These are preliminaries to getting rid of your gelkens. It's like creating some
positive energy so you can get rid of your... your {gelkens}.

[student:[unclear] [laughter][laughs]
We're gonna have a patience meditation. [laughs] We're gonna shrink this room
smaller and smaller and make it more and more lousy and then we're going to
reach the fourth chapter. [unclear] [laughs][laughter]

Say {chaktsawa}. [repeat].        {Chaktsawa}.[repeat].       {Chaktsawa} means
"prostrating, or bowing down". "Prostration." Prostration. {Chak} means
"hand", it's the honorific word for hand. This is a {chag}. I mean, you talk about
the Dalai Lama's {chak}. And you call your own had a {lakpa}. So it's the
honorific word for hand. {Tsawa} means "to look for something". Those of you
who were in Philadelphia this weekend we said, {kha nay tapay tsawa tsena ma
nye}. Tsawa means to look for something, okay? So what does it mean to look
for the hand? It means the Lama has something in his or her hand and when
you do a prostration you are asking them to grant you that. And that's the
etymology of the Tibetan translation, for {chaktsawa}, {chaktsawa}. I... it's not
my intention, and the main thrust of the reading for this class is not to go into
{chaktsawa}, you know. But I'll just say a few words about it. You have to do it.
Okay? I... I'll tell you about my experience with {chaktsawa}. I went to India to
study Buddhism. I looked all over for Buddhists. They told me, "You're a
thousand years too late." [laughs] [laughter] And I was very depressed. I went
to an Indian monastery and meditated and I was like, ... And then finally I
bumped into a Tibetan monks and, you know, changed my life. But, anyway, I
remember, they said, "Go to Dharamsala." You know. "You can study there and
they speak English." And, and I went to Dharamsala, and I remember being on
the bus and I remember the bust stopping at a rest stop. I remember getting
out. I remember standing and land looking at the mountains of India. You
know, and I remember thinking, you know, "I'm gonna get to this class,
everyone else is gonna know what's going on except me and I'm gonna feel
really stupid. I don't know what I'm doing." You know? And I, and I remember
the bus got into Dharamsala, I went up, you know, tried to find a place to sleep
and the next day go to Buddhism class. You know, and there's this class, like this,
and, and there's a really great Lama there and some great translators, Tibetan
monks and... And then everybody gets up and starts doing this thing and I said,
"Yeh, see, they all know what they're doing and I don't know what they're
doing." You know. And they're all prostrating, you know. And, like I grew up a
very good Christian, and I, and I was a good Christian, and I was, you know, I
did all that stuff, and it was very good. I mean I had a very fine time and...
There was this commandment about not bowing down to graven images and I
was like I had waited my whole life to see... to get a chance not to do it, you
know... [laughter] [laughs] And, and 'cause I didn't know, and I'm waiting for
the gentleman to show some picture and say, "Get down [unclear]." And, these
guys had red robes. It just...the whole thing seemed like, "here it is. They're
asking me to get down in the gutter and I refuse." And I refused for weeks, you
know. And, it just... I couldn't get into it. It just seemed really wrong to be
bowing down. Especially to a person, you know. And it just didn't seem right to
me... and to get down in the ground. And I wasn't going to go along with just
what everybody else was doing if I didn't think it was right. You know, if I didn't
understand it I wasn't going to do it. Because I went through that, you know.
And, so I didn't do it. And then,... I think you have to talk about prostration.
Prostration... you can see it's some Asian custom. You know, I've heard this
story too. People say, "Oh, you know, that's just and Asian thing. We don't have
to do that. You know, that's just something they do in, you know, east of the
Euphrates, so, whatever, you know, that's just something people do there. You
don't have that kind of eyes. You don't have to do that, you know. You don't
have to get down and do that. That's just an Asian thing, you know." And you
can think that... I mean, I thought it for a long time, but I'll tell you... and I tell
you the whole story of prostration in one sentence. You know. A few sentences.
And that's all I have to say about prostration, really, is that on the day that you
see emptiness directly, you know, on the day that that happens to you, you meet
the dharmakaya. I mean, that is the body of the Buddha. You perceive directly
the body of the Buddha. And the immediate, as you come down out of it, the
immediate reaction is to get down on the floor with your face down on the floor.
Period. You know? And that's real prostration. I mean, that's the source of all
prostration. The real thing that's happening in prostration is that a presence is
before you with which you must get down with your face in the dirt. Period.
And its the natural, its the most natural thing in the world. You couldn't
imagine... there's no hesitation, there's no thought, "How do I look?", you know.
There's no thought about anything. The most natural reaction, and it, and it will
happen, is that you get down and get your face in the ground. And you do not
look up.      You know.        I mean, I'm not saying that you can see the
dharmakaya...the dharmakaya you saw a few minutes before when you were in
the direct perception of emptiness. But when you come out and then you realize
what happened, you just, the natural reaction is to get down, face-down, on the
floor, you know. And I can't say more about it. If a Buddha or some similar
being walked into this room and if you really understood who they were, which
you probably wouldn't, which you're probably not capable of, ... you would just
get down in the dirt, you'd get your face down in the dirt and you would wait
until they said "get up" or something, you know. And that's a real prostration. If
it ever... you met one of those beings, which we don't have the {kelwa}, you
know, we don't have the goodness to meet a being like that, that we, that we are
aware of . But if it ever happens to you that you meet one of these beings, you...
there is no other reaction possible. You just get down and you put your face in
the floor and you wait. And that's a real prostration. Now, what are we doing.
What do we do when we do prostrations? I mean, what I'm saying is, try to get
that frame of mind in your mind, okay? I mean, in the monastery if you sneak
out and see a movie and they catch you, the {gieku}, the debate master, you
know, he the... he's the also the disciplinarian, so he, he, he'll get up in the middle
of, you know, a thousand, twelve hundred monks there,... he'll say, "Jampa so-
and-so has been identified, he went to a movie, he snuck out to a movie last
night, in Balykuppe." You know. [laughter][laughs] And, and, "Jampa, come up
here." And they have to come up and they have to hold a movie poster up like
that, you know... [laughs][laughter] For like an hour, you know. [laughs]
[laughter] And then they have to do like a hundred thousand prostrations ,or
something, you know. And, and I remember the {giekus} always screaming at
them and saying, you know, "Don't waste the time." You know, like you're
gonna have to do some prostrations now and don't waste your time. Meaning,
prostrations are a wonderful opportunity to waste your time, you know. I'm
not, I know myself that when I do prostrations I'm just normally thinking about
some... almost always thinking about something else. And I'm not thinking, "I'm
in the presence of the dharmakaya and I must get my face on the floor." You
know. I never think like that. I'm just thinking, "Oh, yeah, its... we're gonna start
class, and I wonder what page he's on, and you know, I mean, it rarely comes
into my thoughts that I'm, that I'm bowing down to the dharmakaya, or
something like that. It just doesn't come into my mind. And then when you do
that you've wasted a good opportunity and it will not act in the way that its
supposed to act. and then, you know, ten years later you'll be one of these
pitiful, middle-aged dharma students who didn't get it, you know. And they're
like, "Gee, I do all my things every morning, nothing's happening, you know, I'm
not very happy, I sort of, you know,tired all... getting older, and nothings
happening, you know I, I... nothing's happening in my life. I don't feel much
happier than I did ten years ago. You know. I know some more Tibetan words
or something, you know." Or something like that but they're... it's a failure. It's a
real failure. And it comes from failing to use the time when you're doing things
like prostrations. It comes from wasting the time. Prostration is a sacred... it's a
chance to do something totally different than going to work, you know. Its as
chance to do something completely sacred. Its a chance to assert your... your
spiritual life, right there. You know, you get like one minute to do something
which everyone thinks is crazy, you know. You get to do one thing that you're
not getting paid for and you're not, you know, getting...and its not any kind of
social pressure to do it, especially for Buddhists in America. And, and its one
opportunity in your life to say "I'm a... I'm following a spiritual path," you know,
and "I want to reach those goals." You know, its like some opportunity to do
something which is not commercial and which doesn't have any
connection to your worldly life. It's crazy to prostrate. It has no... it has no
function. It doesn't produce any wealth, you know. It doesn't... nobody will pay
you. Nobody will admire you, much. You know, there's no, especially if you're
doing it alone there's just no possible non-spiritual motivation. You know. Its
just... it's a chance to state, "I'm on a spiritual path." You know? And its, its a
chance to, to make a gesture - and this is very important - in which you are
saying, "I believe that the dharmakaya exists and I believe that the dharmakaya
is in this room" And you're stating that when you do a prostration. [Unclear], "I
believe the Buddha is here." You know, its like a statement that, "I believe the
Buddha exists," you know, "and I want to reach that thing." And that's, that's a
statement. And, and prostration is that. And the day that you see emptiness
directly you'll just get down on the floor. You'll be down on the floor. Charleton
Heston in the Ten Commandments when he meets the burning bush. If you
ever get a chance check it out, you know. [laughter] He's like, down on these
rocks. [Unclear]. [laughter][laughs] No, its really like that. It really is like that.
They did it pretty good. He doesn't get all the way down. He should get all the
way down. He's like, like a foot off the ground, or something. But, but like that,
it really is like that. I'll go through the mechanics, but that's not the point. The
point is: don't waste the time. If you do waste the time you will never get to
bodhicitta. You know, and you'll be one of those very sad people who, who
tried and didn't do it, you know. So, I mean Buddhists are supposed to not...
These are all "supposed to's", okay? When you do your {tamil jawa}, when you
bring your hands to you chest you're supposed to put the fing..., the thumbs
inside, okay. This is said to be not a Buddhist gesture, okay, although you see it
in some Buddhist countries. So we're taking Tibetan custom, or whatever.
Indian, Buddhist, Buddhist custom. You put your thumbs inside. And then the...
you put, you put it once up here. Okay. This is supposed to be a cause for the
parts of the physical body of the Buddha later. Okay. Like the Buddha has a
special... In the eighth chapter of the [unclear] whole chapter, the Buddha has a
special way that he or she looks in what we call the classic nirmanakaya, in the
classic Buddha form. Okay. Why do, why do I say classic? I mean, don't, don't
discount...we say, {khordepa}, "don't put down the Buddhas, don't be stupid."
You know, I mean, they don't have to look like bumpy head, long ears, you
know, thing over here. They don't have to look like that. That's called
{chokitruku}. Which means the classic nirmanakaya. But they have zillions of
other forms they can appear in and they don't have to have Asian face. They
could be anything. They could be anybody. The could be a tree. They could be
a chair. They could be a dog. They could be the person sitting next to you.
What's the problem? You know. Why not? I had an opportunity in the
Hermitage in Russia to see the wall painting from Kotan and this is before
Buddhism entered Tibet and all the Buddhas, like Vajrapani, he looks like
Gowinka. You know Gowinka, he looks western. You know, they all look like
Americans, actually. Seriously. This is before Buddhism went to China or Tibet.
And they, they all look like, like nice little greek guys, you know. And,

[student: unclear]

what I'm trying to say is that there's no, there's no.. nirmanakaya can show any
way it wants, no problem. No problem like that, okay? But anyway, if you
want to get the {chokitruku}-the classic nirmanakaya-you have to do this, okay?
[laughs] The first one is up here, okay, at the top of your head. There's also
some significance in the, in the secret teachings which I... which are secret. Okay.
Then you put it here. This is called {minsam}. This right here is called {minsam}.
That's your {minsam}. And then later it acts as a cross for the {sogtu}of the
Buddha which is a special mark of the Buddha. And then once at the throat,
which means like the mouth area, okay. Which means that someday you will be
able to speak like a Buddha and say the things that a Buddha says. And then
once at your heart, which means you'll learn, you'll, you'll gain the mind of a
Buddha, you'll learn to think like a Buddha. And those are the... ts four points
like that. Then the, the custom is that you get down slowly. Okay? And, and
that has a symbolic meaning. You're like saying, "I do not want to go to lower
realms." Okay. If you were in Philadelphia this weekend, we discussed the
possibility of going to lower realms, which, since its only a shifting in mind, is a
lot easier than like getting on a bus and going to lower realm, you know? In
other words, you could be in a lower realm thirty seconds from now, no
problem. If lower realms were self-existent, if they didn't have emptiness, it
would, it'd be kind of hard to get there. Since they are empty, and since they are
projections, basically, you can get there in about thirty seconds. There's no
guarantee that one of us in this room won't be in a lower realm in thirty seconds,
okay? And, and so you get down slow. It's a statement: "I don't want to be
there!" [laughs] [laughter] Okay? And you, and you get down slow. When you
reach the ground your palms should be flat and not, you should not have the
thumbs inside. Then the palms are flat on the ground. The custom is to; you
touch your two knees, you touch your two hands, two palms, and you touch
your forehead on the floor. That's a symbol of a... that's a, called a short {chag}, a
short prostration. {Gang... Gangchag} is your whole body out, okay. And on
the day that you see the dharmakaya, it'll be, trust me, you know, whole body
out, face down. [laughs] [laughter] You know. And you'll be rubbing your face
in the floor. Really. Natural reaction to meeting one of those beings. And then,
on that day you'll understand prostration. But in the meantime, try to visualize
certain objects in front of you. Okay. What, what are the objects? I'm gonna go
over that quickly, then we'll take a break.

[student: unclear]

Yeh?

[student: [unclear]...hands together again?]

Yeh, I think I've seen that. It seems to be a good custom. I don't...[laughs]
Actually, I don't know much about that. I believe that's a custom.

[silence]

[student: Can you pull it down a little bit?]

Sorry.

[silence]

Say {konchok} [repeat]. {Sum} [repeat]. {Sum} For those of you who know
Tibetan its not {kun}, it looks like {kun}, right? And its just one of those words
that has a different pronunciation, okay?         {Kon... konchok}[repeat]. {Sum}
[repeat]. {Konchok}[repeat]. {Sum}[repeat] {Kon} means "very rare, very hard
to find.". {Chok} means "highest, or supreme", "highest one." {Sum } means "the
number three". This is the three jewels. Okay? In Sanskrit: "tri ratna", okay?
{Konchok}, "supreme hard-to-find", was the Tibetan, the early Tibetan translation
for jewel. We can say "three jewels." And this is the most important objects of
your prostration. Okay? And this is gonna be true of offering that we're gonna
cover and also its true of going for refuge. We are covering the object, the
ultimate object of all three preliminary activities. Before you get to purification
you have to do three activities. All of them are aimed at {konchok sum}. Okay?
And that's Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, okay?

[silence]

Say {Sangye}[repeat]. {Konchok}[repeat]. {Sangye}[repeat]. {Konchok}[repeat].
{Sangye} means "Buddha". {Konchok} means "jewel." And we're going to talk
about... there's a, there's a, there's a slight difference between Buddha and
Buddha Jewel. Okay, they're not exactly the same thing. Buddha and Buddha
Jewel are not exactly the same thing. We're gonna talk about Buddha Jewel,
what is Buddha Jewel. Like when you do a prostration, who are you doing
prostration to? When you make offerings, who are you doing offerings to?
When you go for refuge, who are you going to refuge to? We're gonna cover
that, okay? {Sangye konchok}. There's two kinds of {sangye konchok}. One is
called "the one that's not real", and the other one's called "the one which is real."
Okay? [laughs] {Kundag} and {dhundam}. You know, so-called Buddha Jewel,
and the real Buddha Jewel. The so-called Buddha Jewel is those pictures and
statues that are, that are sitting on those altars, okay? That's the so-called
Buddha Jewel. It's not the real Buddha Jewel, okay? I mean, we don't prostrate
that way, we prostrate this way. Why, because there's more Buddhas over here
than over there? You know. No, there's a picture of a Buddha over here. You
know, there's just a representation of a Buddha over here. Another thing that
happens to you on the day that you see emptiness directly. When you come
down and when you are looking around a temple and you see a thangka, a
picture of a Buddha, you're seeing someone that you saw. You see what I mean?
Its not a picture anymore. Its a photograph. You're seeing... you're looking at
something... you did not see that particular nirmanakaya, okay. That's not the
point. But you met the dharmakaya. You saw the dharmakaya directly. You
met the essence of the Buddha and, "Oh, here's a picture of what I saw." You
know, "Here's the outer expression of what I saw." And so your relationship to
those pictures takes on a totally different face. Totally, absolutely, completely
different. They're not pictures any more. They, they... You know, you look at it
and you say, "somebody saw what I saw and they taught somebody to paint it.
And then somebody taught somebody else, and somebody taught somebody
else, somebody taught somebody else,. And then here's this painting here." You
know? And it's some kind of... your relationship with these pictures changes. All
right? You're looking at a picture of someone you know. And, and it's totally
different, absolutely different. And your whole relationship to the pictures
changes. So we prostrate to pictures, but they are not the Buddha Jewel. What is
the Buddha Jewel? The main Buddha Jewel is the dharmakaya The main thing in
which you are taking refuge, the main thing to which you are prostrating, the
main thing to which you make offerings, is the Buddha Jewel, is the
dharmakaya. Dharmakaya, roughly, is the emptiness of the other three bodies
of the jewel. And we'll talk about it sometime. Its basically the emptiness of the
jewel. The dharmakaya is basically the emptiness of the Buddha. The main point
here, the main refuge, the main object which is worthy of getting your offerings,
the main thing which is worthy of being prostrated to, and the thing to which
you will get your face down in the ground when you see it, is dharmakaya .- is
the dharma body of the Buddha, which is the emptiness of the Buddha. And,
and you, you have to study it. That's the real Buddha. That's the real Buddha
Jewel. And then, about one milli-second after you achieve a dharmakaya, a
dharma body, you are able to send out all these pictures of yourself. You know,
"Hey, I'd like to look like Helen McHale to tonight." Send out Helen McHale, in
Manhattan, you know. [laughter][laughs],Its not like that, I mean, after that you
have a choice to look like anything. But at the first instant of enlightenment you
become the dharmakaya.. And actually you achieved also the, the ultimate, the
Sambogakaya, the... we won't get into that. Basically, your physical form could
be anything. The main essence of you is your emptiness. And that's what you're
prostrating to, that's what you're making offerings to and we'll talk about it. You
know, what's the point of doing that? Should I open up my closet and prostrate
to that emptiness in there? [laughter] Or my wallet? Or something like that?
You know, I mean. [laughter][laughs] You know? Does it have to be that
particular emptiness, or... you know, what's the point? What's the benefit of
that? What's the benefit of prostrating to something that seems like it doesn't
even exist, you know? All right? We have to study that. But that's the essence
of the first jewel.

[silence]

Say {chu}[repeat]. {Konchok}[repeat]. {Chu}[repeat]. {Konchok}[repeat]. {Chu}
means "Dharma." Okay? {Chu} means "Dharma." And {Konchok} means
"jewel." And this is the Dharma Jewel. Not the same as "the dharma". Dharma
basically, you could... it has many different meanings. One meaning is "the
teachings", one meaning is "any existing thing", and then as the, the Jewel of the
Dharma, is something different. The Jewel of the Dharma is the one that you're
prostrating to. The Jewel of the Dharma is the one that you're making offerings
to. The Jewel of the Dharma is the one you're taking refuge in. If you do it well,
you'll be ready to purify yourself. If you don't do it well, you won't be ready. If
you do it well you'll get a kind of love which is as great as the love for others that
you have for yourself. If you don't do it well, you'll end up just the same as you
are now. Probably worse. You... people tend to degenerate as they go through
life. [laughs] Spiritually. All right? Gotta do it. You know? Or you can do it
half-ass and you'll get a half-ass result and you'll be a half-ass spiritual person and
you'll die. And you'll go to some half-ass place. [unclear][laughs][laughter]
Seriously! I'm very, very, deadly serious. Deadly serious. I mean, we will die .
We'll all be a bunch of corpses and a few people will go to such sweet thing. And
the rest of us will say, you know, "Wow, what'd I do wrong?", you know. And
this is what you did wrong. and you have to know what you're bowing down
to. And its {Chu konchok). Dharma Jewel. What is the Dharma Jewel? The
Dharma Jewel, which is not really the Dharma Jewel, okay, {konchog}, is the
books. You know, all those nice books. And the teachings themselves. You
know, the verbal teachings... when His Holiness gives a lecture that's not the real
Dharma Jewel. Its Buddhist dharma - its not the Dharma Jewel. What is the
Dharma Jewel?

[student: [unclear].]

[student: Realizations... [unclear]?]

Two things, okay?

[silence]

Realizations. For example, those five passages we talked about last week are all
real Dharma, the real Dharma Jewel. And seeing emptiness directly is, is the
ultimate Dharma Jewel, the real Dharma Jewel. When you bow down and get
your face in the floor, you're bowing down to the perception of emptiness, the
direct perception of emptiness. Okay? When you make offerings, you're
making offerings to the direct perception of emptiness. When you go for refuge,
you're going to refuge to the direct perception of emptiness We'll talk about it.

[silence]

Cessations: I'll give you two examples. Once you reach, as I said, a certain point
in your understanding of emptiness, which is at the third level, {sopa}, of the
second path, {jorlam}, you can never take birth in the lower realms again - totally
impossible, can't do it! That's called a cessation. Meaning: you just can't do it
anymore. Something won't happen any more. Never, ever. When you see
emptiness directly, and come down out of it, two things won't happen ever
again. You will never doubt Buddhism ever again. Totally, perfectly, purely
impossible to doubt Buddhism again. Never will happen! Doesn't matter -
someone could shoot you, burn you, threaten you, try to talk you out of it,
doesn't matter. You saw emptiness directly, you know the Buddha exists, you
saw your future lives directly... tell me anything. I mean, tell that person
anything. They saw their future lives. They saw the day that they're gonna
become a Buddha, so what're you gonna tell them? It's like somebody knows all
the lottery numbers like three days in advance. Seriously. [laughter] So what
are you gonna tell them? You know, you gonna give them a money-making
scheme? You know, who wants to hear it? There's, they have no reason to listen
to anybody. Period. They're smart. You can't talk 'em out of it. You get a
cessation for the emotion of doubt. That's an example of cessation. Those two
things... for example, seeing emptiness directly and, for example, never doubting
again, cus you saw directly, yourself... those are, those are the Dharma Jewel.
When you bow down, when you put water bowls out in the morning, these are
the things to whom you're, you're presenting them. Okay? Can the absence of
doubt, in your mind, drink water? Its like putting out cookies for Santa Clause,
who is not even a person. You know what I mean? Can they drink the water?
Its not even a 'them'. I mean, an the absence of doubt in your mind drink water?
[laughs] Can a direct perception of emptiness drink water? Eat cookies on
{tsog}? You know? [laughs] Lose [unclear][laughs], you know? [unclear] I
mean... And can the dharmakaya ... it's just a... I mean, the shear emptiness of
the Buddha's other three bodies, can it drink water? It can't. It's a permanent
thing. It's an unchanging thing. It can't change from not drinking to drinking.
It's unchanging, totally unchanging. Cannot drink water. Cannot be aware of
your offering water. Okay. Can a lack of doubt in your mind be aware that
you've offered water today? No!. Okay. [cut] you're making offerings.

[silence]

Say {gendun}[repeat].     {Konchok}[repeat].     (Gendun}[repeat].      {Konchok}
[repeat]. {Gendun} means "sangha". Okay? Sangha. In Sanskrit, Sangha... Jewel.
The Sangha Jewel, which is not the Sangha Jewel {konchok} is all us dudes and
dudesses running around in red robes. Okay? People in red robes are, you
know, [unclear] people who have taken one of the eight praktimoksha vows.
I'm sorry, one of the five higher praktimoksha vows. Okay? I call "nominal
Sangha Jewel" - "so called Sangha Jewel." Allright? The real Sangha Jewel to
which you prostrate, to which you make offerings and to which you take refuge
is anyone who has seen emptiness directly. That's a {Pakba}, that's an Araya,
that's {Gendun Konchok}. On the day that you see emptiness directly, you
become two of the three jewels.         You could open a store called "Two
Jewels." [laughter][laughs] And you can sit there. Okay? Cus you're now
worthy of the prostrations, and offerings and refuge of the entire world. Okay?
You can sit there in a chair, you know? Because when people make offerings,
when people take refuge, when people prostrate, they're prostrating to you.
You are two of the three jewels. You are the, the... what people are seeking
protection in. They are looking to you for help. It's very interesting. You know,
at that moment you become two of them. I mean, you have the Dharma Jewel
in your mind and you are the Sangha Jewel, at that moment. We're gonna take a
break there. Come, try to come back in ten minutes and we might finish
remotely on time. So... we will, I think we will finish on time, probably.

[cut]

[unclear] No Tibetan says {kyapdro}. Sorry. Paul? [unclear] And,... its
{kyamdo} and not {kyapdro}, okay? This is taking refuge, going for refuge, all
right? When you take refuge in the three jewels... And speaking of the three
jewels, [laughter][laughs]

[student: Okay, I am none of the three jewels. But that's what we are learning
today. Anyway, I'm here today to make a short announcement. Okay. Okay
I'm here today to make a short announcement... [cut]

Taking refuge. I mean everybody talks about, everybody talks about Buddhist
refuge. And this is another one of those things that I was told, you know, in
Dharamsala, "You gotta take refuge," you know? And you'll get a name, you
know? And so, that's about it, you know. After they graduate then I'll get a
name. Who'd I take refuge... ? The Buddha, dharma, sangha. Not all Buddha,
no dharma, no sangha. And you learn this whole thing and you get a name.
And its like, okay, but what does it mean? And, and I think, I think, I think its
very possible that we never learn what refuge means. You know, its supposed
to be the thing that differentiates a Buddhist from a person who is not a
Buddhist. You take refuge, you know, you're a Buddhist. You don't take refuge,
you're not a Buddhist. Okay? There's a joke in the monastery that there was an
abbot of a major monastery up on a throne teaching thousands of monks and he
was not a Buddhist, yet he didn't have refuge. He didn't take refuge. So you
have to know what refuge is. Okay? And, and its one of the three preliminaries
before you can do purification. Okay? If you don't take refuge correctly, if you
don't know what refuge is, the worst thing is you won't get it. And refuge is
protection, so you won't get any protection. What do you take refuge in? The
three jewels. Those three jewels that we talked about. The trick question is,
"How can they protect you?" You know? And we talked about it in Philadelphia
the other night. Now Buddha - his other name is Shakyamuni, right? Lord of
the Shakyas. Not to be confused with Sakyas. Okay? Sakyas are Tibetan
Buddhists. Shakyas were the tribe of which the Buddha was the head. He was
the head of the whole Shakya tribe. And there was a point when his village was
attacked, and all the Shakyas were attacked by these people. People ran into the
Buddha, and ran into the Buddha's house and actually, physically hid behind him
and touched him and grabbed him, and said, "Protect me." You know? And
then soldiers came in and chopped them down with swords. You know.
Standing next to the, a fully enlightened being, holding on to the fully
enlightened being's robes, in his house, seeking protection, they were cut down
and murdered, right next to him. Okay?.. And, and... so what's protection? You
know? So, I mean, you have to keep that in mind. If you came from the same
background I came from, its kind of a Judeo-Christian thing. There's a thing
called god: he likes you, he'll take care of you. You know? [laughter] Seriously.
I'm not making fun of it or I'm not putting it down. I'm just saying we come
from that background. we believe subconsciously, in the gut, that there's this
thing and if you want it bad enough they'll take care of you. So what's the sense
of having somebody to take care of you when you could stand next to me and
get murdered. And he can't help you. What's the point? You know, what does
refuge mean? And, and that's the whole point. You know, when you take
refuge. We're onto the second... we finished prostrations right? But, basically, its
all for the same beings or the same one, I don't know. I mean, the dharmakaya
is not a being. The dharmakaya is the absence of a self-existent thing that never
existed in the first place. Okay? And the Dharma Jewel is some thought in some
guys mind and the Sangha Jewel is some guy who's seen something that we
maybe haven't, you know? So, so how're they going to help you? You know,
what's the point? What's refuge mean? It's supposed to be the most central,
basic, important, Buddhist concept. What's it mean? How can they protect you?
And you have to study it. It takes a long time. In the monastery, its like, we do
a twelve year course [unclear]. The basic thing is this: You can't really get
protection until you understand emptiness. Period. Buddhism will not help you
much... I mean you will not have assured protection until you can understand
emptiness pretty well.

[student: unclear]

If you see it directly you're, you're coked. Absolutely cool! I mean, on your way
out you, you know how many lifetimes, you've seen your future lives, you've
seen your own enlightenment, you know all of these thing directly. And you
will never have a bad time in any life, major, again, period. And you know it. So
what's that feel like? What's it feel like to know your rent's always gonna be
paid? [laughs][laughter] You know? What's that feel... ? That's protection.
What's it feel like to know you'll never die and go somewhere strange? Never,
ever. You know? It just won't happen. It just won't happen. And you see it.
You know. And to know that, that you will be this eternally compassionate
perfect being in a certain amount of time, and you know it. That's protection.
That's real protection. And you, you, you have to try to get that protection.
That's real protection. And hat's why all these three jewels are linked up with
what? There's one word that keeps happening in all the three jewels.

[student: Emptiness.]

Emptiness! In dharmakaya, the Buddha - emptiness. In Dharma Jewel - seeing
emptiness directly, and what happens to you after it. And then Sangha Jewel -
becoming a person who has seen emptiness directly. This is the real protection.
The gu... that picture can not help you. Trust me. Come up here, let me drill
your teeth. We'll ask him. You know? I mean, our image of the Buddha, some
statue cannot protect you, you know, it. can't. The Buddha himself cannot
protect you. You know? So you have to... its the understanding dharma that
protects you. And that's, that is the refuge. That is taking refuge. I mean, you
have to have that. Otherwise, these pictures won't help you. You know. People
have been slaughtered next to the pictures, you know. People have died on
altars, you know. Its not protection. You have to understand dharma. You
have to understand karma, for example. And that's protection. Understanding
karma is great protection. Okay? And those are all kinds of taking refuge. So
you have to study refuge. You have to learn about refuge. Mainly, when you
bow down in the future you have to be thinking about emptiness. Okay? And
you have to be thinking about people who have seen it directly. "If there was
one person in this world who has seen emptiness directly, I'm bowing down to
that person, right now." And if you're not thinking that, you're not doing
prostrations, you're not doing it. You know. You're just not doing it. Its not
some picture on a table. Its a, its a being who has seen emptiness directly or a
being who has reached enlightenment. Basically, those two things. Sha... ,
Master Shantideva throws in bodhisattvas, okay? That's okay, we'll throw in
bodhisattvas too. Okay?.. Those are the objects of you... when you bow down,
when you do prostrations, you must think of them. You must think of those
three jewels. The real meaning of the three jewels. And then you have to take
refuge in the sense of, okay: respect the pictures, respect the statues, bow down
to them because they represent those things, respect sangha, you know.
Sangha, we are, you know, special emergency sangha. We'll fight all people.
And you know that. But you must respect the robe. It doesn't matter who the
robe is on. It really doesn't matter at all. You must respect the robe. The robe
repr... The Buddha said, "This is my representative in the world." You know
People who have those vows, who wear those robes, I mean, you have to
imagine that they are representing the Buddha. And, and its, its not at all the
point to think of their personal failings or, or what's wrong with them personally
and, and then not respect the robes. You must respect the robes. At all costs.
You know, you must. And that's, that's taking refuge in the nominal {sum}. And
you, and you must respect the books. And you must care for the books. Take
care of them. And that's, and that's, that's a reflection that you are really going
for refuge in emptiness, in the understanding of emptiness, and compassion.
Those are all symbolic actions that you're doing to show that you know what's,
what's going on. You are representing people who have seen emptiness directly.
Okay? And that's taking refuge. Okay, third thing, we have four minutes to
cover the entire homework. [laughter]

[silence]

Say {choepa}[repeat]. {Choepa}[repeat]. {Choepa} means "making offerings."
Okay? Making offerings. Again, its a statement. Okay? Making offerings, I
think a lot of American Buddhists, me included, I mean, I like the philosophy, I
like meditation, I like thinking... I'm not particularly into, you know, going out,
buying a cake, taking it and putting it on some table in front of a picture. You
know what I mean. It just doesn't... I don't get that urge. You know? It just
doesn't... I don't get that urge, you know? It doesn't... its not something that,
that I'm driven to do, like I'm driven to study, or meditate or something like that.
Like, I'm not... it just doesn't do it the, in the way that the other things do it. But,
but you have... its because you don't understand offerings. You have to make
offerings. You will not reach the state we're talking about, you won't see
emptiness directly, you won't develop that love for others that is greater than or
equal to the love for yourself. You'll never do it unless you make offerings. You
must make offerings. You have to learn the art of making offerings and then
you have to make offerings. And if, and if its some kind of obligation, like
prostrating is an obligation, or meditating in the morning is an obligation...
"{Chay mare)" in Tibetan, they say. The gieku, you know the debate master,
says, "Stupid end." Prostrating is not an obligation. Its an honor. Its some kind
of thing that geniuses do: they make offerings.               And, and you have to
understand what's going on when you make an offering. So we're gonna talk
about offering for the next three minutes. Okay? [laughs] Its, first of all its an
action which is totally useless. Okay? Nobody cares if you make offerings. I
mean, we don't live in a Buddhist country, so people are not gonna say, "Oh,
Tasha... You should see what Tasha put out yesterday. [laughter] Man, she got
moolah." You know? "She's imp... that's really impressive... that she would
spend all that money." I mean if you go to Thailand you see, you know, people
competing to who, who can make the biggest offering. Something like that. So,
nobody's gonna do it in this country, nobody cares. Okay? What I mean is a
selfless act. It should be totally, purely, uninterested. I mean, do not buy the
kinds of rolls that you like to eat two days later after you take them off the altar.
[laughter] You destroy the power of the offering. Seriously. If you want to
destroy the power of the offering, if you wanna make sure the offering is totally
wasted, then turn it into something worldly. You know... Buy, buy something
that you want to eat, or think about how its going to look to other people. You
know. And you'll just destroy it. It won't be an act of offering. It'll be just some
worldly thing. A pure act of offering should be unknown, pre... I mean, ideally
people wouldn't even know about it. You know, I mean, go sell your car, buy a
diamond, take it to the temple and put it in some corner of the altar where
nobody'll ever find it. Or throw it in the ocean. Or something like that. That's an
offering. That's a real offering. And it, and it should be something meaningful,
you know, it should be something... give it your best, you know. Because what
you're doing when you making an offering is you're stating that these beings
exist. You know, you are making a statement that, I believe there's something
beyond this world. That everything else you do is, is worldly. You get up, you
put on your clothes, brush your teeth, comb your hair, eat your breakfast, go to
work, walk home, do... , watch TV, read the newspaper, do the magazines, you
know, eat, sleep: the whole day is spent wasted. I mean the whole day is
something wrong. And its just... It'll only cause one thing. Its called death. You
know? [laughter] I mean, its only, its only an activity which will lead to one
thing only. Its death. You know? There's no other result of that activity. Its just
wasted time. You know, you want to make it something... Offering should be
something that's not like that. You know? No one's gonna eat it, no one's gonna
see it, the lack of self-existence in the Buddha's three bodies does not need your
cake. [laughter] The, the direct perception of emptiness cannot eat your cake.
[laughter] Okay? And those beings who have seen emptiness directly aren't in
the room. And they can't eat it either. Okay? Like, like when you're offering
it... , I mean you tend to offer things that are worldly objects but you have to
imagine how that being is, is, is taking that thing. They do get something. They
suck something out of it. Something happens. It does make contact with those
beings. When you put a, flowers on your altar they see it, they experience it.
Now, what happens to them, you know, is... Yeah?

[student: [unclear]

We'll talk about this, okay? How will they experience it? They experience it
exactly the same as they experience their thumbnails, as they experience the tip
of their shoes, as they experience, you know, Pluto, or... for them its all the same.
They experience it as total bliss. And you can't offer them anything that they
don't experience as total bliss. And if you didn't offer anything they'd still
experience that as total bliss. [laughter] You know? That's the way they are.
That's all they know. That's all they're capable of experiencing. So what's the
point of offering something to somebody who's not even a person, who can't
ever experience it in any way different than if you didn't offer it? They don't
need your cake. [laughter]

[student: [unclear]]

You are, you are working up to purification. You're trying to set up your
purification. You're tryna, you're tryna make yourself ready to try to get
compassion. And if you don't do it, you won't. So, so it's all just for you, really.
And when you read Master Shantideva's verses you'll see. It says, he's begging
the three jewels to accept his offering for him. "Please help me out, please.
Could you take my cake, please?" You know, and begging the three jewels to
take his cake. You know? and they will. And they can. And, but the main, the
main thing that happens is something changes inside of you. You know, when
you make offerings something changes inside of you. If you wanna be a
dharma idiot, [laughter] you know, if you wanna be dharmically retarded,
[laughter] then don't make offerings. You know. Just put that in the category of
devotional, peripheral, stuff that Tibetans do because their mother and father did
it, you know. You wanna stay where you are, then don't make offering. Cus,
cus we... Making an offering requires spiritual genius. You know. You have to
have a high spiritual IQ to make an offering, you know. To want to make an
offering, and to understand why you should make an offering, and then to, to
do it, to actually go out and spend good money on somethin' that's gonna rot on
this table in your room, you know, is, is an act of genius. And, and as you get
better at it you'll go out and you will spend everything you have. You know?
And, and you'll know why you're doing it. You know. You have to think of it
like that. If it feels like an obligation, or prostrating feels like a pain in the butt,
you know, just some stupid custom that Buddhists do before they have a
teaching, or something, then you didn't get it at all. And you won't, you will not
purify. And you will never find those things. And you'll be one of those... you'll
either quit, or you'll be one of those boring, and bored dharma students ten
years later who didn't get it. You know. And... you have to make offerings, you
have to study it and make nice sweet offerings, okay? And you'll start to get the
results. Something will change in you. So do it. Okay? What should you offer?
Very briefly, ... Yeah?

[student: Just a quick question. If, if everything is blissful experience and you're
perceiving, you know, you're understanding what you're offering is empty, why
does it matter if you offer more and more expensive things all the time?]

Its just an act of giving everything you have. Its, its, its very important.

[student: Giving it up.]

Its like saying that, "I choose not to be in this mortal worl... I will not just go die
quiet..." What's it? "Go quietly to that..." You know, [laughs] [unclear] space, or
whatever. No, I'm not gonna do that, you know. I'm gonna be different, you
know. I'm not just gonna die like a sheep." I mean, use a, well, the resources I
have on something that has real meaning. Instead of a house, or a car, or a wife,
or a family, or some stuff. I'm gonna use it for something that has meaning.
You know. I'm gonna use it for offering. Its gonna sit there on that altar and
rot. You know. Or I'll throw it in the ocean. You know. And then you've used
your money meaningfully. Okay? Because you've stated, "I believe in the three
jewels. And I want to get [unclear]." And that's a statement of [unclear]. You
know. And, and that's powerful. That's very powerful. You have to do it.
Okay? Okay. Three kinds of offering. The first one we call, "the offering of
things that nobody owns." Okay?

[silence]

By the way, I don't mean to put down family life and all that, and things like that.
[laughter] That's not the point. What I'm trying to say is that, offer your family
something meaningful. You know, if you love your family, and your kids, and
your husband or whatever, offer them enlightenment. Because to offer them
food or, or a place to stay, or a new car to drive, then those will all die. They will
all go away. And then the effort is wasted. And that the energy of that money is
wasted. You know? Try to do something that will get them out of dying. You
know. Try to give them a real gift. It doesn't mean that you can't offer people
smaller gifts - you have to. What I'm saying is that, if you really care for
someone give them something that's more lasting than... a car, or a house, or
clothes. You know? Give them something that will keep them, like, for a zillion
years, or so. And you can. And you have the capacity to learn to do that. I'm
just saying use your energy for that. And use your resources for that.

Say {dakpa}[repeat].   (Nasuway)[repeat].      {Zay}[repeat].   {Dakpa}[repeat].
(Nasuway)[repeat]. {Zay}[repeat]. This is the kind of offering you do when you
imagine things that have no owners. Okay? Mountains, oceans, flowers, the
sky, just anything you can imagine. There's a list in Shantideva's... we're gonna
get it... Master Shantideva's reading. We're gonna get a whole list. Okay? But
basically, all those things in the world which nobody claims, and you can offer
them. Walk through Manhattan, offer them the sunset. You know? Offer it, the
sunset to your lamas. You know, offer the stars to the three jewels. You know.
Very inexpensive. [laughter][laughs] Shant... Master Shantideva gets into, "Why
would anybody want to make this offering?" He says, "Well, I didn't have much
virtue in my past life. I don't have much money." You know? "I really don't
have much available cash." "I [unclear], can I just offer you the stars and the
moon and, you know, things like that?" And th..., and they say, "Fine." That's...
they would love to have that. [laughter] Okay? I mean, I used to go out on tsog
day and sit on a surf board and offer Gesche Dhargye the ocean and the sunset
and all that. It's fine. No problem. You know? Offer it. Offer all those beautiful
things. You know? Think of beautiful things... when you see a beautiful thing,
you know, offer it. Offer to... Its very, very sweet. Once you get into it its very,
very cool. It's very easy. You're walking down a street in Manhattan, you see a
particularly beautiful cloud with a red, red hue on it, and you just offer it, to you
lama. You know? Just, you know, like just for a second close your eyes think
of... that they can see what you just saw and offer it to them. And it will change
your inner being. And certain things will start to change. And you'll start to get
ready for bodhicitta. And if you don't do it it won't happen. Its fun and it, and its
extremely important to do. So just do it. Then Master Shantideva says, "Hey
wait. There is something I own." Even us credit-card, bankrupted people.
[laughter]

[silence]

Say {rangee}[repeat]. {Nu}[repeat]. {Khulwa}[repeat]. {Rangee}[repeat]. {Nu}
[repeat]. {Khulwa}[repeat]. {Rangee nu} means "your own body." Nobody in
here doesn't own there own body. Unless maybe its been [unclear], I don't
know. {Rangee nu} means your own body. (Kulhwa} means "to offer". Offer
you own body. There is a story of the bodhisattva who's called "Crying All The
Time." {Taktungha}. He heard this voice in his head that said, "Go east young
man. Don't go west, don't go south, don't go north." I think it was east. "And,
don't do anything else. Just go." And he just dropped everything and went.
And he just started walking to the east, you know. And, and he keeps hearing
this voice, "Go. Go, go, go, go" And he's walking, walking, walking, you know.
Then he starts to hear... he starts to see this lama - this is in ancient India - and he
starts to see this lama teaching. And he keeps walking and walking, walking.
He's getting closer and closer and he starts to hear the lama, he's te... he's
teaching emptiness. This is the eight-thousand verses [b:Prajnaparamita] - very
famous scripture. And he's hearing, and he's hearing this lama, he's getting
closer and closer, and he starts to see the lama, and all these students sitting in his
room, teaching and he's like, he's like entranced, you know, and he can't believe
it. He's walking, walking, walking. Finally he gets to this town and he says, "I
got to buy some offerings for my lama." He figured out that he's in such-and-
such a house. And so he stops in the marketplace to pick up some offerings.
And he realizes he's totally broke. He has no money at all. So he's looking
around for something he could sell. And he decides to sell his arms and his legs.
You know, as meat. Like he just decides to... if anyone wants like a hamburger,
you know, he will offer some fat part of his arm, or some fat part of his leg or
something like this. He actually sits down in the market and he starts to scream
out, you know, "Meat for sale!" You know, "Human hamburgers. Anybody
want meat for sale?" You know. And they say that there are these demons
blocked the sound. Now, he's screaming at the top of his voice and these
demons are blocking the sound. No one can hear him. He's a crazy guy sitting
there with his mouth .... You know? And nobody can hear him. So, out of
frustration he starts to cry. You know, he just starts to weep, out of pure
frustration. And that's how he got his name. He's called "Ever-Weeping." Very
famous example of a bodhisattva. It has a nice ending but I won't go into it.
[laughter] This is not... Okay, okay. [laughter] This fair damsel, the daughter of
a rich merchant, sees him from the rooftop. She's like out on this parapet and
sees this guy, you know... and he's crying, you know, and she feels sorry for
him, so she goes down and finds out what, that he needs money for offerings.
So she goes and talks dad into [laughter] paying for offerings. And he gets the
offerings and sees emptiness and all that, meets the lama, sees emptiness. Nice
story. This is not that kind of offering. This just means I give up myself to the
service of the three jewels. I give up my life to the service of the three jewels.
And that is the offering of yourself, of your body. Okay. "I will be... I put myself
at your service. Just use me." Okay? It's like that. Last offering, then we'll stop.

[silence]

Say {lhu}[repeat].   {Chulway}[repeat].    {Choepa}[repeat].     {Lhu}[repeat].
{Chulway}[repeat]. {Choepa}[repeat]. {Lhu} means "by your mind" or "with
your mind." {Chulwa} means "you emanate them" or you "send them out" just
with your own thoughts. You close your eyes and you do it in your own mind.
And {choepa} means "a offering". This is the kind of offering that you do in a
fantasy. Okay? Its fantasized offering. And here are twelve different kinds.
And I'm not going to go through them all. It's in your reading. Okay? But I'll
give you some typical ones, okay? One is that you imagine some beautiful
bodhisattva, or Tara, or anyone you want, and you're offering them a bathing -
you're bathing them. Okay? Offering them a bath. Okay? And, and there's a
whole process, you know? You have to bathe them the right way and then you
have to dry them the right way. Then you have to prostrate the right way. And
its very sweet. And you do it all in your mind.. There's one where you offer
them a beautiful palace to live in, or you cover their body with beautiful silk.
You know, you can do that, you can sit there and change it, you know. Make it
one, you know, dress them in one way and then just dissolve it and dress them
in another way, and you can keep offering all sorts... flowers, every kind of
flower you can imagine. The point is just, its this huge fantasized offering. And
it has profound effects on your, on your mental continuum. Okay? It has
profound effects on your being. It sets you up for purification. If you can do
these,,, it, it sounds like something worthless, but you know how powerful
fantasies can be. You know how powerful dreams can be. You know? There's
some kind of thing about visualizing something and really getting into the
fantasy. You know, don't just do it as an obligation. You know, get into it. Pick
a bodhisattva that you really think is cool and just go through the whole thing
and offer them everything. Go through the all twelve offerings. Its your
meditation for this week, okay? You're going through all twelve offerings and
just have a good time. I mean, that's {drowa}. That's perfection of the [unclear].
Having a good time doing a good thing is one of he six perfections. And just
enjoy it. You know? Get off on it. And what will happen is that it'll act itself out,
eventually. You'll be able to make real offerings to these bodhisattvas. And, and
you'll find that it starts to affect your behavior. Just like all the bad fantasies that
we have about saying something to somebody at work and stuff like that. You
know. Like you go home and you fantasize about how you're gonna say it.
What, what, how to finish [unclear] [laughter] and what a joy it will be, you
know... and, and stuff. These are gonna be like real fantasies that you can, that
can carry out in your mind. Last note, and we'll stop. You will see names of
bodhisattvas in the reading. Some of them are; Manjusuri, Avalokiteshvara,
Vajrapani is in there, Samantabhadra, like that. These are beings that you
normally think of as tantric dieties or angels, or something like that - fully
enlightened beings. In the sutra teachings - in the teachings which are not secret
- they are bodhisattvas. Okay? They were bodhisattvas in the time of Buddha
and later. And they were specialized... they specialized in these offerings. They
were like known for their ability to do these offerings. Especially the last one.
And you'll find that there's a form of the last one, which is called "the
unsurpassed offering." And you have to learn to do that. Okay? You'll see that.
So don't get confused, okay. In the open teachings they are bodhisattvas. In the
secret teachings, I can't tell you anything. Okay? It's kinda late so I think we'll
just go straight to mandala offering. But do the fantasizing at home. You know,
the twelve offerings, they're listed in there. And [unclear], what we're talking
about is actions that prepare your mind to learn compassion, If you do them
you can learn compassion. If you don't you never will. And you'll be one of
those very sad, frustrated dharma students who couldn't do it and really didn't
change much. And you don't have to be like that. You know, you have the
information. And just do it. Okay. And this one you can't say, "I didn't have
time'" You can do it on the way to work. You can do it on the subway. You can
do it while you're on the phone at work with your friends. [laughter][laughs]
You can do it all the time, right? No problem.

[student: You could tell them that get there readings and homeworks on the way
out by the door.]

Please speak up [unclear] and the homework. On the... well. By the way, the
people doing that, they did two all-nighters last week, one all-nighter this week,
its Ora, Elizabeth, couple other people. So you should thank them if you get a
chance.

[Student: You can pick them out by the door.]

By the door.

[prayer: short mandala and dedication]
TRANSCRIBERS NOTES, Tape #161: These words were used, and then repeated
by the class:

gelken
tunken
sangye
dikpa
shapa
chaktsawa
konchok
sum
gendun
chu
rangee
nu
khulwa
nasuway
zay
lhu
chulway
choepa



This is a list of non-English words which may be good to have in the list for
reference:
nirmanakaya
dharmakaya
sambhogakaya
gieku (sp?) (debate master)
Samantabhadra
Avalokiteshvara
Vajrapani



These are additional non-English words:
moksha
chokitrulku
munsem
duksem
jorlam
sopa
kelwa
tamil jawa
khordepa
chag
gangchag
tsog
Geshe Michael Roach
Course X: Guide to The Bodhisattvas Way of Life, Part One