ACI 10 «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы, часть I», занятие 6

Class 6: Taking Joy
transcribed by: Lauren Gohara




Okay. We went through basically two stages now. One was...and it's all getting
ready for getting the wish for enlightenment. Like attaining the wish for
enlightenment. And one was, the first stage basically was getting rid of all the
obstacles in your mind that would prevent you from, from getting bodhichitta.
And for that, basically we went through {shakpa}, which is purifying yourself of
your bad karmas, and as a preliminary to that, there was like prostrating,
offering, taking refuge. Um, then secondly, we went through the practices that
help you to collect enough good energy to get bodhichitta. And that was all the,
like rejoicing and the other practices like that, asking Dharma teachers to teach,
asking them to stay, and practices like that. Um, and you may have noticed
that's basically what you go through when you do a meditation session, when
you warm up for a meditation session and do your preliminaries, it's basically
the same thing. Um, so you can, you can use those when you do your, your
meditation sessions. You can use them as preliminaries for that. And in fact, if
you're practicing {gyal dakpay gam ma}, the practice of guru yoga for Gyeltsen
Kapa's practice, then that consists of those steps. Each verse is a different one of
those steps and that's appropriate for a daily practice. So it's not only for the
practice of getting the wish for enlightenment, it's also for a daily practice, you
can do it for a daily practice. And you need it when you warm up for
meditation. Um, I get a lotta people say to me...people get very excited when
they first learn meditation. And then, after a while, it wears off, because nothing
is happening, you know, they're not progressing. And then, um, people talk
about {shamatha}, which is the ultimate type of meditation, the deepest state of
meditation. And they, they talk about it almost...either they talk about it too
lightly, like "Oh, we're doing a {shamatha} retreat this weekend," you know, like,
maybe by the end of the weekend I can get {shamatha}, you know. Or they talk
about it in terms which are too, too long term, they say, you know, "Oh, I heard
such-and-such a Lama say if you practice six years, you know, maybe you can
get {shamatha}," you know. Um, and I think they're both two extremes. Ah,
you can get {shamatha} just by doing the preliminaries properly. And then most
likely by doing a very steady, and...slow and steady wins the race. Practice of
meditation each day, do about an hour or two each day and, and, you can reach
{shamatha} like that. It's not, it's not like some very impossible thing, and it's not
like some ridiculously easy thing. It's somewhere between those two. But I
think what separates successful meditation from unsuccessful meditation, very
often, is whether or not you've done the preliminaries. You know, whether or
not you have warmed up properly before you went into a meditation session.
And I believe personally that's what a lot of Americans are lacking. I think that's
why a lot of people fail in their meditation practice. I think they haven't done
their preliminaries properly. So even just the practices you've learned so far are
appropriate before you do a, a meditation session. How long should you spend
on them? Well, if you're like me, you have forty-seven minutes in the morning
to do your meditation, so, maybe ten minutes or something, you know, take like
ten minutes. Go through them at a fairly steady rate of speed. I've also noticed
that people go...they spend like ten minutes on the first preliminary, then five
minutes on the second one, then three minutes on the third one, and then
towards the end, they start rushing, you know. Try to space it out. It's very
important in a meditation session that the preliminaries are going in a nice,
steady stream. And that you don't start wandering on one of them and then ten
minutes later you wake up and you realize you're, you only got twenty minutes
left to meditate, you know. So, spend, try to spend an equal amount of time on
each one and make sure they, they go in a very regular pace. I think people tend
to either rush through them or they tend to get distracted and hang up on one
for, like, twenty minutes and then it's time to start thinking about work and
what you're gonna have for breakfast and stuff like that. So, go through them in
a very steady pace. You know, like, even time it if you want, until you get used
to it, you know, do the, this preliminary for five minutes, do this one, this one,
this one, and then move through them at a steady, at a steady pace. And then
that sets up your mind for meditation. In the study of bodhichitta, in the study
of the wish for enlightenment, we've been talking about it in terms of getting
real bodhichitta. Getting real bodhichitta, or the real wish for enlightenment is
extremely rare, you know. I don't know who's in this audience, you know, I
don't know what level you're at. I can guess, but it's probably wrong. I really
don't know. But if you don't have it now, the odds are that maybe one or two of
us in this room will get it in our lifetime. You know, it's a very rare, very difficult
to get real bodhichitta. There is a ceremony by which you pledge yourself to, to
the wish for enlightenment. You, you do a tiny one before class, {sangye
chudang tsokyi choknam la, jangchub bardu dakni kyabsu chi}, and then the
second half, {dakki jinsok gyipay sunam kyi, drola penchir sangye druppar
shok}, you're saying, "Oh, I wish I could have bodhichitta." That's like a mini-
bodhichitta ceremony. There's a more formal ceremony that you can take.
Nowadays, a lot of people do two ceremonies as one ceremony, but, in the old
days, and traditionally, it would be good to do two different ceremonies. One
ceremony is for committing yourself to the wish for enlightenment, in the form
of like a prayer or a wish. And the other is to commit yourself to the wish for
enlightenment in the form of action. You commit yourself to the Six Perfections,
you commit yourself to the bodhisattva vows. Um, we made a deal in this class
that towards the end of the class, we would go through, we would have a
ceremony just for the first.        Okay, and it's just a, a decision to make a
commitment that I will try to get bodhichitta. You see what I mean? And they
call it getting, wishing bodhichitta, or something like that. It's, it's the wish in the
form of a prayer. It's like saying, "I wish I could have bodhichitta. I commit
myself to try to get bodhichitta. I, I commit myself to try to think like a
bodhisattva." And you're not committing yourself to the vows, and you're not
committing yourself to the activities, necessarily. It's a, it's a mini-commitment to
the idea of bodhichitta or the idea of acting like a bodhisattva. And, in the time
of, say, Nagarjuna, this was, Master Nagarjuna, this was a custom that you
would take them in two separate ceremonies. So we're gonna have the first
ceremony here. We were planning it for April eighth, which I think is a
Tuesday? I'm not sure. Which is also the night of your review. The review
doesn't usually take more than an hour, or something like that. Um, now, my
boss has decided to send me to Bombay. So we're gonna make that class a little
earlier, okay? So, April eighth, as long as we can get the Quaker Church, which
we're not quite sure yet.

[student: [unclear]]

Probably. Ah, that will start most likely at six o'clock, okay. And I'm sorry if it,
it's hard for some of you. I didn't have any choice. I just barely saved the last
few classes. So, uh, I have to go to the airport after that. So that'll be April
eighth. And that'll start at six o'clock. That'll be the review. And then most
likely, the week before we'll do the ceremony, but I'll give you more details later.
Um, I need, like four volunteers [laughs] to jump off the...no. [laughs]

[Laughter]

Just kidding. To, to make this place really nice on that night. It'll probably be
April first. I suggest some new people. Any, any new people want to try?
There's one. Talk to John afterwards. Two, three. Brady and, and you. Okay, so
you guys talk to John after. Maybe during the break, okay? And the idea is to
make this place into a celestial mansion, you know? And to make it really
beautiful, and appropriate for taking that commitment, okay? So you have to
use your imagination. And don't, don't be shy. You know, it's a very important
task, and it, and it's a very important moment.

[student: [unclear]]

Because it's totally crazy moment, you know. It's the moment at which you say,
"I'm going to commit my life to helping other people." It's very, uh, strange, you
know, it's very unusual. And it's not real bodhichitta. Unless somebody gets
blessed at that moment and it breaks through, you know, I don't know, I wish.
But it's not normally real bodhichitta at that moment.           It's some kind of
commitment to try to get bodhichitta, to try to feel like a bodhisattva. And even
that feeling, you know, even that verbal thing in your mind, saying, and saying
it out loud, "Okay, I agree, I'll try to act like a bodhisattva," you know, "I will
attempt to reach my own Buddha paradise in order to take other people there,"
you know, "to their own Buddha paradise." It's, it's that kind of commitment. "I
will spend the rest of my life and I will expend almost all of my energy trying to
help, trying to reach Buddhahood so that other people can, can get there also."
It's that kind of commitment. It's a very strange state of mind. It would not
occur to a normal person on the street to, to think, "I want to reach paradise for
the purpose of taking other people there and I hereby commit to spend the rest
of my life helping other people, serving other people, and ultimately reaching
Buddhahood, you know, meditating for other people. And I agree to do that. I
swear I'll do that." You know, it's a very strange way of thinking. And it's some
kind of very unusual way of thinking. And we're gonna talk more about it
tonight; that's the subject of tonight. Um. And whether it's the real bodhichitta
that you get, or, or if it's just the ceremony that you go through and you commit
yourself to either the idea or the actions of a bodhisattva and the vows, there's a,
there's a step that you do afterwards. Okay, so we now have, we have like four
steps. We had purifying yourself, which was getting rid of all the negativities
that were stopping you from getting the wish for enlightenment, bodhichitta.
And then we had this process of collecting positive energy. For the same
purpose, in order that your mind could be ready to get bodhichitta. And then
we have either the ceremony or the actual getting bodhichitta. Okay, we're
gonna do a ceremony 'cause everybody can succeed at that. Okay? And
hopefully, some number of us will, will reach the other, if they haven't already.
Number three. And then number four, there's a very cool step, it's explained by
Dharmabadre in his text, it's explained by Atisha, it's explained by Nagarjuna,
Master Nagarjuna, and it's a step that you take after the ceremony, or after
you've been able to attain the wish for enlightenment. And that's gonna be our
subject tonight, okay. The ceremony is the ceremony. We're not doing that
tonight. So we can skip to the post-ceremony, okay, which is called the {jukpa},
"the tail end" in Tibetan. So we're going straight there.

[silence]

Say {gawa} [repeat] {gompa} [repeat] {gawa} [repeat] {gompa} [repeat]. Um,
{gawa} means "joy", in this case. "Joy", all right. Generally, it can mean happiness,
or anything like that. {Gawa}. Ah, {gompa} normally means "to meditate". Um,
but with certain emotions. I don't know how to translate it very well, and
maybe you can help me. I mean, like, {supa gompa} means "to practice
patience". Like if your boss is in your face screaming, you can {supa gompa}.
And people translate it blindly as "meditating on patience", but I don't know if
that's a good... it's not like you're sitting down and crossing your legs and
meditating, you know. It's actually practicing patience. It's the, it's the practice of
practicing patience. And this is the same. {Gawa gompa} means...I don't know,
it's after the ceremony, you think of all the reasons why you're so lucky and why
it's so great and fantastic. It means "taking joy". It's like that, taking joy. Having
some emotion of joy, and, and dwelling on that emotion of joy. Okay. And that
is a whole separate step in the process of gaining bodhichitta, okay, of gaining
the wish for enlightenment. It's just like being very happy that you did it, you
know. And Master Shantideva says this is a very important step because it
makes it, it sort of cements it into your mind, and it also sets the stage for getting
deeper into bodhichitta later. Okay. He says it sets the stage for your
bodhichitta increasing or flourishing after the ceremony. So, he says just as
much as it was important before to purify yourself and to collect positive energy,
then after the ceremony, or after you have taken on this commitment, you must
be happy. You know, you must sit there and think about how happy you are
and what a great thing you did. And, and he, he makes it a requirement, you
know. You have to sit down afterwards and think about what a great thing
happened and what a good thing you did. And if you do that, then the, the mini-
bodhichitta you got during the ceremony, you know, as you took the
commitment to think like a bodhisattva will be cemented and it'll increase. It'll
set the stage for it to increase. So he's very adamant about that you have to
spend a lot of time on {gawa gompa}. So we're gonna do a whole class on {gawa
gompa}, okay.
[silence]

I have to look up one thing, okay? [laughs]

[silence]

Uh, there's a spelling of the verse I'm about to give you. Some of you know this
verse, and in the ancient version it's not the same as what you learned. Ah, so I
wanna give you the one that you learned, 'cause otherwise you'll think it's
strange.

[silence]

Okay.

[silence]

Okay. First he talks about...he divides being happy into two parts. Being happy
after the ceremony. And the first part is being happy for yourself. You know,
that you be happy. And then there's a short section about making other people
happy, okay? So we're gonna talk first about why you should be happy after
this ceremony, why you should take joy. And that'll be the first of the two parts,
okay? Why you should take joy. The first part of taking joy for yourself is
thinking about what this bodhichitta's gonna do for you. What it's done for you,
how it's achieving your own goals. And then secondly you're gonna think about
how good it is for other people. All right? Like you're going to be happy that
you, you got bodhichitta for your own sake, and then you're gonna be happy
that you got bodhichitta for other people's sake, okay? Being happy for your
own sake has three parts, okay? And here's the first one.

[silence]

Say {seng} [repeat] {tupa} [repeat] {seng tupa} [repeat]. {Seng tupa} is an idiom,
it's a very unusual word, like you won't find it in a dictionary, okay? We've,
we...it came only once in, in, in four years in your classes. Do you remember?

[student: no]

Okay. [laughs]
[laughter]

It came once during the study of meditation. And when you're starting to get
dull and you're starting to buzz out in your meditation, you're supposed to {seng
tupa} and it will take you out of a sort of dullness in your meditation. And {seng
tupa} is a very difficult word to translate, but it means like "to uplift your spirits"
or "uplift your heart".        It means to think about something...when you're
meditating, you're supposed to think about something good you did or
something good about you. It's like self-esteem in that case, I mean, to get
yourself out of a dull meditation, you're supposed to think about something
good about your practice and about your life and, and Pabongka Rinpoche says
if you can't think of anything good, well, just {seng tupa} about the fact that you
are human, you know. Everybody can do that. [laughs] You know, like, what,
you must have done something right 'cause you're a human, you know. Like,
that's assuming your whole life was miserable, right? But here {seng tupa}
means...it's to, to say like, you know, "I did it, you know. I got bodhichitta, you
know, I got, at least I took the commitment, you know. If nothing else in my
life, even if my whole life is wasted, you know, even if my whole life was stupid,
at least I did this one thing, you know. For twenty minutes, at the Quaker
Church on such-and-such a night, I made a commitment. Now how well I keep
it, doesn't really matter. I at least did it, you know. I, among all the human
beings in the universe, and among all the human beings in America, you know, I
sat in this place and I at least pretended to say, 'I'm going to live the rest of my
life for other people', you know. I swear to do that," you know. And even if you
screw up, or even if you forget about it, or even if you do it wimpy or you don't
do it much at all, and you stop thinking about it after a couple weeks, um, at least
you can say, "I sat there and for that twenty minutes, I swore to do something
meaningful with my life." Okay? So that, for th...there's a special verse about
{seng tupa} and I'm gonna go through the verse 'cause it's so beautiful. And it's
such a lovely verse that a lot of people have used it since then and some of you
might recognize it, okay?

[silence]

Say {tengdu} [repeat] {dakse} [repeat] {debu} [repeat] {yu} [repeat]. Okay, this is
the first of four lines, okay, about {seng tupa}, like "I did it", you know. Okay, so
{tengdu} means "from this moment", okay?               {Tengdu} means "from this
moment". In colloquial Tibetan, {tengsang} means "nowadays" for example,
okay. {Tengdu dak} means "me" or "I", okay? {Dakse} means "my life", okay,
"my life", here. {Debu yu} means "fruitful", okay? And that's the first thing
you're supposed to think. {Gawa gompa}, "be happy", {seng tupa}, you know, be
like those guys with the gold medal in the Olympics, you know, like, like that.
And {dakse debu yu} means, I did it, you know, I finally did something
meaningful in this life. Like in my whole life, I've wasted... you know, I'm just
finishing sixteen years at this corporation like on Monday, and you look back
and you're like, trying to figure out if there were any milestones, you know, and
you kind of think, "Not much", you know [laughs] [laughter]. And then, uh, but
I think you can look back at that night at the Quaker Church and say, you know,
"At least for ten minutes, somewhere, somehow, I did something meaningful."
And that's {tengdu dakse debu yu}you know. Tonight, my life has taken on
some meaning, you know. I can look back and say, even if I was a lousy person
my whole life, at least there was one night that I sat there and swore that I would
try to, to help other people. Like that. {Tengdu dakse debu yu}. Okay? And be
happy about it.

[silence]

Say {mi} [repeat] {sipa} [repeat] {lekpar}[repeat] {tok}[repeat]. Uh, you monks
want to translate that? Not to put you on the spot, or anything. [laughs]

[student: [unclear]]

{Mi} means what?

[student: [unclear]]

Human? {Mi gi}?

[student: Other human.]

Other human. {Sipa}?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, {sipa} means generally samsara, but in some cases, it can mean the, the
existence of a human, meaning a human, a human birth, a human rebirth. {Mi gi
sipa}. {Tok} means what? {Tok}.

[student: [unclear]]
Yeah, {lekpar tok} means "well-achieved". So {mi gi sipa lekpar tok} means?

[student: [unclear]]

"I have".

[student: Achieved [unclear]]

As Rinpoche would say nicely, [laughter] "a human rebirth", okay. "Now I've
achieved a human rebirth. Now I have really achieved a human rebirth." So
what's the big schmeel? I mean, you did that, I did it a long time ago. You did it
maybe not so long ago. [laughs] Okay. {Mi gi sipa lekpar tok} "I, I have been
reborn as a human." You know. Why is that here? This is "reborn" in the
evangelical sense, okay?

[student: [unclear]]

You know, like...

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, now you've really been born as a a human. You know, now for the first
time you can say, "I took a human rebirth." Meaning, "I took a human rebirth
that had some meaning to it", okay. It's reborn in the sense of, you know, now,
now I'm a real person, you know, I'm a bodhisattva. By the way, bodhisattva
means a person who has real bodhichitta in their mind. Very rare. Ah, but in all
the texts, they are very kind and they call us all bodhisattvas who are trying to
be bodhisattvas, okay? So, now you can say, "I'm a bodhisattva", you know, {mi
gi sipa lekpar tok}, I finally became a real person, you know, because I, I, I
swore I would try to help other people, you know. {Mi gi sipa lekpar tok}.
Okay?

[silence]

Say {tering} [repeat] {sangye} [repeat] {ruksu} [repeat] {kye} [repeat]. You guys
in the mood? {Tering} you know? {Tering}? Okay, ancient books say {dering},
same thing. {Tering}.

[student: [unclear]]
{Tering, tering} means "today", okay? {Sangye}?

[student: [unclear]]

{Ruk}?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, {ruksu kye}?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah. So, "Today I have been, I have been born into the family of the Buddhas."
Okay? {Tering} meaning "today", {sangye} means "Buddhas", {ruk} means "their
family", {ruksu kye} means "I have been born into". Okay? What it means is that
once you have decided to give your life to helping other people, you, you, you're
in a different family now. You know, you've joined some new family. It's like
getting married and being, having a new family or something like that, okay?
And your new daddy is the {sangyes}, okay? And the text says that, okay? Now
you're, you're a son or a daughter of the Buddhas. You're in a new family, okay?
You still have to take care of your old family a little bit, but now you're in a new
family, okay? {Tering sangye ruksu kye}. I have now joined a new family, okay.
The family of the Buddhas. And they say that from that moment on, Buddhas
look at you and they say, "Oh, this, this person is special. You know, now this
person is like family to us." You know, and they have this feeling about you,
okay. {Tering sangye ruksu kye}.

[silence]

Say {sangye} [repeat] {sessu} [repeat] {dak} [repeat] {kyuktok} [repeat]. Okay
{sangye} is?

[student: [unclear]]

Buddha. {Se}?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, {se} we're translating as "son or daughter". It is the Tibetan word for a
prince, meaning a very big shot son or daughter, you know, "prince" or
"princess". A prince is called a {se}, a princess is called a {semo}, and it's a general
word for any very important son or daughter, okay? {Sangye sessu}, "as a, as
the son or daughter". {Dak}?

[student: [unclear]]

"I". {Kyuktok}?

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah, "I have become", okay. So {sangye} means "Buddha". {Sessu} means "as a
son or daughter". {Dak} means "I". {Kyuk} means "became". {Kyuktok}, for
those of you who care, is because there was an ancient secondary suffix "the" on
the {kyu}. And, it's just a way of saying, "period". You know, {kyuktok}.
{Kyuktok} means... it's very emphatic in Tibetan, it's like "I did it. I became a son
and daughter of the Buddhas", you know, okay.                "I'm in a new family
now." {Kyuktok}. Okay. It's very, it's very strong in the Tibetan. And that's the
{seng tupa}, okay? That's the process of {seng tupa}. So to, to repeat the whole
thing, "Now my life finally has some meaning. Now I'm really a human. Now
I'm a person." Like I wasn't a person before. I was just a selfish little grub, okay?
[laughs] And now, now I'm a person, okay? {Tering sangye ruksu kye}, "Now
I'm a member of a new family called the family of the Buddhas". {Sangye sessu
dak kyuktok}, "I am now a son or a daughter of the Buddhas," okay. And you
have to think like that. And they say in the scriptures that the Buddhas are
thinking like that. You know, when one of those little grubs who spends all their
life taking care of themselves, you know, for even ten minutes in a ceremony
thinks, you know, it'd be nice if I could learn to live my whole life for the sake of
other beings, and stop being so, thinking about myself so much and to think of
others and to do the ultimate kindness to others, which is what?

{student: [unclear]]

Become a Buddha for them. Okay? Very simple. You know, the best thing you
can do for any...people have enough food, mattresses, houses, money. You
know, you could spend your whole life and you won't, you, you won't be able to
cover one percent of them. The best thing you can do for people is to reach
Buddhahood. Nirvana and Buddhahood. Very best thing you can do for them.
So at that moment, you're thinking, "I'm finally gonna spend my life to help
somebody else." Well, what's the best thing to do? Reach Buddhahood. Does
that mean you're not supposed to give people beds, houses, food, stuff like that?
Money? Not at all. In fact, it's probably a test if you're really serious about this
that you would be running around helping people like that. Is that the ultimate
goal? No, cause you can't do it, okay? But I would say that if you are a
bodhisattva or you're trying to be a bodhisattva, the ultimate kindness to others
is to become a Buddha. But becoming a Buddha involves running around and
getting houses for people and food for people and money for people and stuff
like that.     So, I mean, if you're just one of those, you know, armchair
bodhisattvas and says [laughter], "You know, I have, I'm working for the benefit
of all sentient beings. I'm meditating to become a Buddha, you know", that's not
too bad, actually. But if you say, "I'm sitting here in this armchair watching TV so
I can become a Buddha, and I don't have to go out and help other people because
I have more noble goals in mind", that's just ridiculous, okay. And you smell that
it's ridiculous. It seems ridiculous. And you've met people like that, who seem to
be like that, okay. So that's the verse of {seng tupa}. And on the night that you
take the ceremony, if you choose to take it, and I don't say that you have to, you
know? You know, and I, and I don't encourage you to take it lightly. I do say it's
an extraordinary opportunity, you know. It doesn't happen... I don't know how
many times it's happened on 15th Street, you know. But, uh, but think about it
carefully. Don't do it lightly. You know, you are swearing to something, you
know. You are, you are really taking a vow. You know, don't it be like one of
those American marriage vows or something like that, you know? [laughter]
You are swearing to something for the res...rest of your...in fact, this vow stays
for all your future lives, so it's, it's rather serious vow to make. And you...it
would be silly to take that vow or to make that commitment and then not do
something about it, you know. Then that would be pretty strange. So you have
to think carefully about it. You still have a couple weeks, I guess, or week or two,
I don't know, to think about it. But don't do it lightly. You know, and I, you
know, frankly, when I was first given the opportunity, I didn't do it because I, I
felt like I wasn't ready to commit to that. And, uh, so I ask you to think about it
carefully. You don't have to, there's nothing like that. It's supposed to be a very
bad motivation to do it because everyone else is doing it. You know, it's
supposed to be a very lousy motivation to take a commitment because everyone
else is rushing out to take this commitment. You know, make your own choice
and take your own sweet time. And then keep in mind also that you probably
won't have much other opportunity to do it [laughs], okay? There's a balance
there, okay? But that's the...it'll be an extraordinary thing. And, and, think about
it carefully and, and get...start to get ready now. You know, start to get psyched
up now. And then after the big moment, this is the anti-climax. This is, this is
{gawa gompa seng tupa} you know, be happy, flip out, you know, be, be happy
about what you did. I'm gonna go really quickly over the next verse, I'm not
gonna write it. It's in you're reading. Yeah?

[student: What's the difference between these last two lines?]

Oh, the last two lines in the {tengyur}, in the...this was written in Sanskrit
originally. It was translated into Tibetan. There are different versions of the
Tibetan translation. And the version that made it into the canon doesn't say
{dakyur towa}. It says {teng dakyur} which means "Now I have become." And
that's why I had to look it up. This is the verse, this is the verse as most of you
know it, and this is another translation of it. And this is...they're both fine,
they're both the same thing, but I didn't want you to get confused, so I had to
look it up. The version, the original version which was chosen for the {tengyur},
there were, there were many translations floating around in the fifteenth
century, fourteenth century, when they got the {tengyur} together. And this, the
one they chose for the {tengyur}, it doesn't quite read like this, but it's exactly the
same meaning, okay. Um, what's the next verse say? Yeah?

[student: I meant between the last two lines, they both seem to say apparently
some people get [unclear]]

Ah, one is like "I'm in the family," which emphasizes I have new parents. And
then, the second one is more from the point of view of how they see you. You
know, from your point of view, you have new parents. And from their point of
view they have a new son or daughter. And that's the main thing. And it is a
slight, slight... it's almost the same, it's not quite, okay? What do you guess is the
next verse? {Sasse dagye dan} {dane} [repeat] {dake}[repeat] {chini kya} [repeat]
{rugda tumpa leksomde} [repeat] {kyunme tsumpe rigde la, nyopa mingyu
dedaja}. Okay? Uh, which most...some of you might know that verse, okay?
And I'll, I'll explain it to you. {Dane dake chini kya, rugda tumpa leksomde}. The
next verse, by the way, is...the {seng topa} is over. Okay? You're over...by the
way, some people even just give the vows with this verse. When Rinpoche gave
the bodhisattva vows at that esteemed Buddhist center on Sixth Street, he just
used this verse. Um, and it's enough, okay? But the next verse says {dane dake
chini kya, rugda tumpa leksomde}, which is in your reading. {Dane dake chini
kya} means "Now, no matter what, now, no matter what," by the way, the, the
happy time is over at this point. You know, now you're thinking...well, you
gonna figure it out, okay? "Now, no matter what," {dane dake chini kya, rugda
tumpa leksomde}, "I have to behave in a, in a way which befits my new family."
You know, I don't want to embarass my new family. Now I have to behave in a
manner which is, which matches the new family of which I am a new member.
{Dane dake chini kya, rugda tumpa leksomde}. "No matter what, I have to
behave in a way that is, that is appropriate for my new family." Okay? [unclear]
{Kyunme tsumpe rigde la}. {Kyunme tsumpe rigde la} means "This family is
{kyunme}" which means "faultless". {Tsumpe} means "totally holy, sacred". {Rig},
my new family that I'm in, is, is totally pure, and totally holy. {Kyunme tsumpe
rigde la, nyopa mingyu dedaja}. {Nyopa mingyu} means...{nyopa} is a very
difficult word, but it's like, uh, it means "to mess something up", "to make
something dirty", "to pollute something". And it refers to your mind, okay? It
means "I will not defile this new family by thinking in ways which don't fit a
bodhisattva," okay? I will not embarass my new parents by ever having lousy
thoughts. Okay? Especially selfish thoughts, okay? {Nyopa mingyu dedaja}, I
will act like, I will, I will try to behave in a, like a bodhisattva, because now I
belong to a bodhisattva family. Okay? And no matter what, I will not mess up, I
will not embarass the family. Okay? Which means, I won't do anything which is
selfish, basically, which is very hard to do and you probably will embarass the
family five minutes after the vow, and, uh, but it's a commitment. It's like, it's
like some kind of commitment to keep an awareness that, okay, now I got that
commitment; I'll try not to make it dirty, you know. And for example, I spoke
about it last time, because it's my expertise, jealousy, would be, would be an
example. You know, you're saying, "I swear to make sure that every sentient
being gets everything that would make them happy. Ooh, they got that, I don't
like...I, I, wish I could...I don't like it that." You know. [laughs] That's like, that's a
{yompur guruk}. That's making dirty your new family. You know, that's, that's,
that's acting in a way which is gonna embarass your new totally pure, totally
holy family, okay? That's a typical example, okay. And that's so you're...first
you get yourself high. And then secondly you, you come down a little bit and
you say, "Okay, now I'm really gonna keep it. I'm not gonna embarass this new
family that I'm in," okay? All right, we'll take a break there, and come back at
8:30 if you can, okay?

[pause]

Couple of things while I'm thinking about it. Khen Rinpoche is...again, I urge
you to go to his teachings. He's starting on Sunday, the thirtieth?

[student: [unclear]]

Thirtieth of March, two...

[student: [unclear]]
Easter Sunday, two p.m., out in Howell, New Jersey. You can get a bus from the
Port Authority. It goes straight there. You have to walk like one minute. It
leaves every half an hour, so no excuse. And it's incredible. I mean, you're crazy
if you don't go, okay? First thing. Secondly, he's also going to be teaching
classes on the {sadhana} of vajraghini, based on his, new, new publication. He
has a new book coming out on it which is, I've heard it's really beautiful. So, if
you had that empowerment, you definitely want to catch those. And...soon.
[laughs] [laughter] Must be secret. [laughter] [laughs] I believe within the next
month or so, it'll start. Um, he has committed, about last night, to do a vajraghini
empowerment on the 23rd and 24th of August. Okay, normally, he does the
third weekend, but that's the fourth weekend 'cause I think the first is on a
Saturday or something like that. Or the Friday, okay? So, reserve those two
dates. If you have that, if you're eligible for that, you should, you must go.
Because you have smashed all your vows. [laughter] And, uh, [laughs] you need
to restore them, okay? [laughs] All right? Okay. [laughs] Least they can be pure
from, until the 25th or something. And then His Holiness is coming to teach.
He'll be in New York on the 25th of?

[students: The 26th and 7th [unclear]]

When in St. John's? St. John's?

[students: [unclear]]

Twenty-ninth, St. John...of May, sorry. May 29th. Um, we're trying to purchase
a block of tickets. There are forty dollar tickets, and there are twenty-five dollar
tickets. The forty dollar tickets, we were told, are probably gonna be reserved
for the people who organized the event, and we can't, we probably can't get
them, but we're gonna try. And then we're gonna send somebody to stand
there from four a.m. in the morning. Some guy with the nice tie back there.
[laughter] And, he's gonna try to get the twenty-five dollar tickets. You know,
like scalp, we can scalp them, okay? So, you must tell Hector tonight if you're
willing to pop for a forty dollar ticket, if we can get them. And I don't think we
can. And if not, that you'd like us to pick you up a twenty-five dollar ticket. And
this is not being organized by us, we are not charging money for dharma. Um, I
believe they need to cover his trip; he usually travels with a large number of
people, and things like that. And then, Hector, you want to raise your hand?
Stand up. Hector's the one, okay? And you know, I'm gonna encourage Hector
not to accept any orders later. Okay, I mean, make up your mind and tell him.
'Cause what usually happens is, you know, somebody like Hector puts out a lot
of moolah from, you know, their 401k or something, and, uh, and then people
end up saying, "I can't go," or you know, "My...", you know, something happens,
so. So don't do that, okay? Don't, don't stick him, all right? It's what usually
happens, okay? [laughs] Okay? So, anyone who contacts you tonight, anyone
who gives you the moolah by next class or whatever, and then just close it, all
right? Okay? And I...you must go, okay? All right? [laughter] To those, to
those, to all of those events, okay? Yeah? What's that?

[student: [unclear]]

There're also some very limited tickets, I think, to a two- or three-day teaching
he's giving, His Holiness, in upstate New York. I think the only tickets you can
get right now are to see it by video next door. I still think it'd be worth doing it,
so you could talk to, uh...

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah.

[student: [unclear]]

Okay. So, yeah. He's scheduled to go through the overflow room and meet
people, so. Okay? All right.

[silence]

There's a third part of the thinking about what bodhichitta has done for you.
The first part was that {seng tu}you know, getting high about it. The second part
was, "Okay, now that I have this commitment, I'm gonna try to keep it clean."
And then the third part, which we haven't mentioned yet, is thinking about the
rarity of what you just did. And we kinda covered that, you know. It doesn't
take a genius to imagine that in the history of mankind, a person who formally
commits themselves to spending the rest of their lives helping other people is
extremely rare. And it's extremely rare even to hear about it, you know, I mean,
much less take a commitment. I mean, if you go out on the streets of New York
and try to find a single person among all those ants racing around who says,
"I'm, I'm living my whole life for other people's benefit," you know. "I'm,
everything in my life, everything I'm doing is aimed at helping other people.
And I'm trying to perfect myself and reach my own Buddha paradise so that I
can help other people. So that I can be of service to other people." To find any
one person in New York who will think like that, I think is very rare. It appears
to be rare. I mean, we never know for sure, and you should be very careful.
You can never know for sure. We could be the last person in the world who's
not a bodhisattva. So never be sure. But, it's extremely rare. It appears to be
extremely rare that someone would give up their whole life to helping other
people, or to commit themselves to that. Master Shantideva at this point in the
text compares it to a beggar in India. If you've ever seen a beggar in India, like,
they are real beggars. And, they are really penniless. I mean, they have the cloth
around their waist and that's it. That's all they have. You know, even a well-paid
laborer in India gets paid by the day because they have to buy their dinner, they
have to buy their food for dinner after work. And Indians don't eat till ten p.m.
because they have to cook the meal after they buy it. And they don't have the
money till they get outta work. You know, every night they're paid by the
employer, and then they take that, they take that dollar and go to the market
[cut]

[cut] they're in and that's it. That's a well-paid person. And the beggars are
worse. You know, the beggars have absolutely nothing. And they just have a
cloth around them. And that's all they have. And, he, Master Shantideva
compares it to a beggar like that, digging through the garbage. And if you've
ever seen the garbage in India, there's not much garbage in India, because
everything is picked up by somebody. India is clean. There's no garbage
anywhere, you know. Everything is picked up by somebody. You know, I've
seen old women picking up pieces of screws. You know, standing in garages all
day, waiting for a piece of a screw that they could pick up and sell for the metal,
you know. And that's...there's people that just stand there, waiting for that.
There's no garbage in India. But there are these like, filthy places where people
throw out really rotten, filthy things that they, no one can use. And there's pigs
there. I mean, if you've never seen a real pig, a real wild city pig, you know,
there's these massive pigs, you know, just groups of pigs just wandering
through the streets and eating these things. And then there's a few beggars with
them, looking through the same stuff. And that's India. So he compares it to a
beggar like that, who uncovers this, you know, banana peel, and there is a
diamond. You know, there is a huge diamond, you know. And it's just like
some dumb luck, you know, like some big mistake. Somebody accidentally
threw the diamond out and this guy is digging through this refuse and finds this
huge diamond. And he says, you should think the same when you get, that
night, when you get your, your commitment. When you finally get that
commitment, you should be like, overjoyed, like this guy who just found the
diamond. And that...because it's rare. You can't get it anywhere else, okay.
There's not like at Giants Stadium, you know, there's not like bodhichitta night,
you know, [laughter] sixty thousand, [laughs] sixty thousand people paying
tickets to, to get a bodhichitta commitment, you know. It doesn't happen. It's
extremely rare. Because, the, it's, who would think like that, you know? Who in
the world would think that it's important to help other people, or to dedicate the
rest of your life to helping other people? Lives, really. You know, it's just
extremely rare. And, and the last part of the, uh, of the thought there, is that
you have to think how rare it is, okay? The night you get it, you have to think,
you are one-in-a-million. I mean, the people sitting here, I, I estimate one-in-two
million, actually, in the United States. I mean, people tonight, who are hearing
the bodhisattva {charavatara} or some similar text, you are probably one in a
million. I mean, you have collected some extraordinary karma to even hear
these things. And, and we've all collected some...we, you are one-in-a-million.
And you should think like that. You are like that. And you should be happy
about it, okay? And that's, that's thinking about the rarity. Then he goes on to
what bodhichitta is going to do for other people. How it can help other people,
okay? And that's like being happy about what you did, because thinking about
what you're gonna be able to do for other people. All right? And that also
divides into three parts, okay? The first one is, thinking about how you're gonna
be able to destroy all the sufferings of other people. Okay, like being happy
about getting bodhichitta because now you're gonna have some equipment, or
some ammunition, to help other people stop their suffering, okay? And, and
there's five very sweet sections there. And I'll just write them very quickly,
okay?

[silence]

Say {droway} [repeat] [chidak} [repeat] {jompa} [repeat] {droway} [repeat]
[chidak} [repeat] {jompa} [repeat]. {Drowa} means, what?

[student: [unclear]]

"Beings", okay? It literally means the verb "to go", so it means any creature.
Anyone who moves. It means "beings", living beings. {Drowa}. {Droway
chidak}. {Chidak}? {Chidak} means the "Lord of Death." Have you seen his
portrait at Sixth Street? Huh?

[student: He's holding the Wheel of Life.]

Yeah. He's holding the Wheel of Life. Okay, he's this nasty monster with big
fangs and long fingernails, holding the Wheel of Life. Okay, where does he stay?

[student: At the entranceway.]

She said at the entranceway. Well, that's where his picture stays, but where does
he stay? [laughter]

[student: [unclear]] [laughter]

[Laughs] That's [unclear]. Where does he stay?

[student: [unclear]]

Say inside of you, okay. He lives there. He's been there since the day you were
conceived. At the moment of your conception, he was, he's been there. And he
doesn't have big fangs, and he's not that ugly, and he doesn't have big
fingernails, and stuff like that. It's your death. It's, it's your coming death. It's
the death which is coming to you. That's the Lord of Death. It's a condition
which was planted in you the day you were born, okay? The day you were
conceived, that condition was planted in you.                There's this big...in the
commentaries, they say, don't think, you know, he's some like little midget that's
running around somewhere under the pews, you know. He's inside of you and
he was put there the day you were conceived. And they say he's like a rat, you
know, he's like gnawing away at your insides. Everyday, every minute, he's like
chewing a little more. He's been eating away your guts since the day you were
conceived. And then one day he hits the heart or something and you die, you
know. And that's it. He's inside you, now, and he's eating. And he's just clawing
away. {Jompa} means you destroy him. Completely, okay? And you have to
think about it, okay? I mean...and I always say, you know, I've, I strongly object
to Buddhism classes which are like, stress reduction seminars or something, you
know. Like, it's not the point. I mean, the Buddha didn't say, "I hereby...I will
teach, I will turn the the Wheel of the Dharma to remove stress in America," you
know. [laughter] Wasn't what he said. He said {kega nachi}, "I will remove
illness in people, I will remove rebirth. I will remove aging, wrinkles. I will
remove death itself. I will destroy death." You know, if you follow this, you can
destroy death. It's a much bigger stakes than stress reduction. Or, or being a
nice guy or something like that. It's destroying death itself. And that's the first
benefit for other beings. If you get bodhichitta, you know, if you're able to
develop that kind of compassion, you will actually be able to stop the death that's
coming to other people. And that's something cool. And that's something
important, okay? How? How you do it is another thing, you know. Just by
sitting for fifteen minutes and wishing it, is it gonna happen? You have to think
about it. You know, can you really stop other people's death? And how would
you go about doing that? I mean, obviously, first, you would have to...

[student: [unclear]]

Stop your own, okay? [laughs] It's rather optimistic, or it's kinda, what d'you
call it? It, it just seems rather...what do they call it?

[student: [unclear]]

Not absurd, but, it's like, uh, no, I mean, uh...Delusions of grandeur, or so...I
mean, I don't know what. But you, you say you're gonna stop other people's
death and you haven't stopped your own, okay? So, obviously, the clue, the
trick, is to, it's like seeing emptiness. The difference between hearing a person
who has seen emptiness describe it, directly, and a person who hasn't seen
emptiness directly describe it, is night and day. And it should be like that. It
would be like that.          And the difference between hearing someone who's
destroyed their own death, describe it and teach it to someone, and someone
who hasn't, is a big difference. It's a huge difference. It is all the difference. And,
and so, by getting bodhichitta, you are making the first step in the process of
stopping your own death. And then you'll be, you'll have the equipment to, to
teach it, or bring other people there. And that's the whole point, okay? It's not
that compassion is gonna stop other people's deaths.                 The Buddha has
compassion. He didn't stop our deaths, okay?            There's some other process
going on. You must become enlightened, and then you must teach other people
what you've found out, okay? With authority, okay? Question: if, if someone in
this room has stopped their own death, would you necessarily be able to see
that? No. Would they even maybe appear to you to die? Yes. Is it
contradictory that to you they apppear to die, and that to themselves they don't
appear to die? No. Because objects are? Empty. Okay. Nice. Ooh. Hm.
[laughter] Okay. Um...{Ulwa jumpa} That explains why the Dalai Lama is
getting bald, okay? [laughter] To you. And it's not a joke. I don't say it lightly.
[silence]

Say {ulwa} [repeat] {jumpa} Sorry, did you have a question?

[student: Yeah. How would, how would that person's death appear to them?]

They wouldn't die.

[student: What would they be [unclear]?]

Oh, they would have what we call a...there's a special kind of body they take on.

[student: What do they see?]

They just look down and see, like a {chanreysiks} body. I mean, His Holiness, if
he is Avalokiteshvara, he looks down and sees a...it's a physical body, not made
of molecules. It has...

[student: Does he, does he see it die? Do they see themselves [unclear]?]

Oh, no, nothing at all. They're just like, having the usual bliss. It's another day in
paradise, you know? [laughs] Okay? [laughter] Say {ulwa} [repeat] {jompa}
[repeat] {ulwa jompa} [repeat] . {Ulwa} means "poverty", meaning spiritual
poverty or physical poverty. And {jompa} means "to destroy it." If you are able
to get bodhichitta, and the night that you make that commitment even though
that's not real bodhichitta, probably, um, you still are taking the first step in
being able to remove the poverty of other beings, okay? Spiritual and physical
poverty, okay. In the only way it could ever have been done. Which is what?
Get there first yourself, and then describe to them accurately how you did it.
Okay? And that's all the Buddha can do. There's this whole thing in the [b:
Abhidharmakosha] opening pages, commentary by the first Dalai Lama, he says,
"Buddhas don't run around pouring water on people's heads. They don't run
around putting their hands on people. They cannot take away your bad deeds
with some wave of a wand. They have to teach you the Dharma. And you have
to follow it. And that's the only way." Okay? And to do that, you have to get
there first. Okay? Okay, number three. Mm. {ulwa jompa}

[silence]

Say {ne} [repeat] {jompa} [repeat] {ne} [repeat] {jompa} [repeat].       {Ne} means
"illness". {Jompa} means "to destroy it". {Ne} means "illness" or sickness". Two
kinds of sickness, I mean, mental affliction sickness, and then, you know, the flu
and colds and AIDS and stuff like that, okay?

[silence]

Say {chir} [repeat] {dukngyel} [repeat] {jompa} [repeat] {chir} [repeat] {dukngyel}
[repeat] {jompa} [repeat]. {Chir} means...the longer form is {chir sipay dukngyel
jompa} which means "in general", {chir} means "in general". {Dukngyel} means
"suffering". And {jompa} means "destroy". This means "every kind of suffering
in samsara". Every kind of suffering in the Wheel of Rebirth that people have.
All kinds of suffering. Every kind of suffering. Okay, so that one's more
general. And that's why it's called general. Okay. One more.

[silence]

Say {kyepar} [repeat] {ngyen songkay} [repeat] {dukngyel}[repeat] {jompa}
[repeat]. Ah, {kyepar} means "in particular" or "more particularly". Okay? In
particular. {Ngyen song} means "the three lower realms". Okay, {dukngyel
jompa} means "to destroy the suffering of the three lower realms". What are the
three lower realms?

[student: Hell realm.]

Hell realms.

[students: Hungry ghost realms.]

What they call hungry ghosts, okay? And?

[student: Animal.]

And animals. We can only see one of them now, directly. If you are like me,
okay. But it...so number four was to destroy all the suffering in general of all the
realms. And then number five is especially it destroys the suffering of the three
lower realms. Bodhichitta. And again, the process, which is a question on your
homework...you know. I don't have to repeat it. Right? I mean, by sitting here
for ten minutes in a ceremony about bodhichitta is not gonna remove the
suffering of the three lower realms. Or else it would've been done a long time
ago, by people better than us. Okay? It means when you really get bodhichitta,
and you're able to act it out and then become enlightened, well, then you can
teach people. And you can lead other people there. And they will no longer
have that suffering. Okay? Okay. Um, one last thing. We're actually going to
finish on time. Almost. Then he gets into, you not only gonna be able to wipe
out the sufferings of beings, but you're gonna be able to stop the causes of those
sufferings. You're gonna be able to wipe out in their hearts the things which
cause those sufferings. And he divides tho...those causes into two types. So
there're two types of things running around inside of sentient beings that create
all these sufferings that are listed here. Sickness, death, those other things. And
he gets into those. So there's a whole verse, two verses, in Master Shantideva's
text, which if you're a good monk philosopher like Gyeltsub Je, you catch it. And
if you're not, you probably miss it. But he makes a big point about it. And you
should know. There's two causes for all these problems. And he points out that
two of the verses that come here at this point are addressing those two causes,
okay? And I'll give them to you.

[silence]

Say {nyon-drip} [repeat] {nyon-drip} [repeat]. {Nyon} stands for {nyomo}.
Okay, say {nyomo} [repeat]. {Nyomo} means "mental afflictions". I like to call
them bad thoughts, sometimes. Okay. What's the definition, roughly?

[student: Anything which, which disturbs your well-being and happiness.]

Basically that. A definition, philosophical definition in the scriptures, you know,
in the technical scriptures, "any thought which disturbs your peace of mind" is a
{nyomo}, okay? Any thought which disturbs your peace of mind is a mental
affliction. I used to like to call them "mental disturbance" but then I thought, you
know, that means something else in English. But it is a disturbance of your
mind, okay? {Drip} means, {drip} is a very difficult word. {Drip} means
"shadow", okay? But in philosophy and in the study of Buddhist psychology, it
means "a mental obstacle". Okay? A spiritual obstacle. Let's say "spiritual
obstacle". And all those spiritual obstacles are of two kinds. The first kind are
called {nyon-drip}, okay? {Nyon-drip}. These are conditions. These are obstacles
which block you from reaching nirvana. That's their definition. A mental
affliction obstacle is defined as "an obstacle which primarily prevents you from
reaching nirvana". It also, by the way, secondarily prevents you from reaching
Buddhahood. But pri...its primary function is to stop you from reaching nirvana.
So we have to identify them. And we have to, we have to stop them, okay.
Because they are stopping us, okay? And it's very interesting to think that there
are certain states in your mind that are blocking you from reaching nirvana. If
you could remove those obstacles, you would be in nirvana.              It's very
interesting. So you think of nirvana not as like a development, but as a
removing of an obstacle, like, like tearing down a wall.. Like nirvana is sitting
there waiting for you, and because you have {nyon-drips}, you can't reach it.
Okay, so {nyon-drip} is an obstacle. Mainly they are the mental afflictions
themselves. And in the highest school of Buddhism, the tendency to think, see
things as self-existent is the, is the worst {nyon-drip}. Okay? And different
schools explain it in different ways. But the highest school, the Prasengyika
school says the ultimate {nyon-drip}, or the ultimate obstacle to reaching
nirvana, is the tendency to see things as self-existent. Whether that tendency is
something you picked up in this life, or whether it's the inherent tendency to do
that, which even amoebas and bugs have, okay? Okay, second kind of {dripa}
and then we're finished.

[silence]

By the way, when do you get rid of your {nyon-drips}?

[student: [unclear]]

The day you reach nirvana. [laughs] The moment you reach nirvana, you have
overcome your most subtle {nyon-drip}. And that's nirvana. You've reached
nirvana. Okay? Um, on the hinayana track, it happens on the, as you enter the
fifth path. Entering the fifth path, reaching nirvana, and clearing away your last
{nyon-drip} are simultaneous on a hinayana track. Okay? On a mahayana track,
when you reach the eighth bodhisattva level, you have removed your last
{nyon-drip}. And you have achieved what we can call nirvana, okay? It happens
on bodhisattva level number eight. Okay? And, and, by the way, at that
moment also, you wipe out your subtlest tendency to see things as self-existent.
To grasp, I should say, to grasp to things as self-existent, okay? You wipe out
that tendency at that moment. It stops at that moment. And that is nirvana.
Okay? It happens at the eighth bodhisattva level for, for mahayana people, it
happens at the, op...entering the fifth path for the, to hinayana tracks, okay? Say
{she-drip} [repeat] {she-drip} [repeat]. Second kind of spiritual obstacle, okay?
And these are spiritual obstacles that mainly prevent you from reaching, what
d'you guess?

[student: [unclear]]
Total enlightenment itself. Okay? So the first kind of, of, of obstacle here just
prevented you from reaching nirvana. Which is defined as what? Mainly just
removing your mental afflictions because of what you saw. Because of the
emptiness that you saw, you know. Having learned to remove your mental
afflictions because of what you learned, specifically after seeing emptiness
directly. But number two, {she-drip}, is much more subtle. When you remove
your last {she-drip}...by the way, {she} means "knowledge". {Drip} means
"obstacle". So {she-drip} means "obstacle to knowledge", meaning obstacle to
total knowledge. Omniscience, okay? When you remove that one, you are a
Buddha. When does that happen? Which bodhisattva level? Tenth bodhisattva
level. Okay? And you've removed it. You've removed the...and by the way,
this is...what I...I mean, what d'you have left to do after reaching nirvana? I
mean, you just got rid of your last mental affliction. What left is there to do?
Let's say for a mahayana person. What d'you do on bodhisattva bumis nine and
ten, you know? You're gaining omniscience, mainly. Okay? Mainly, you're
gaining omniscience. You're learning to be omniscient. Okay? You also destroy
at that point the very, very subtlest seeds in your mental continuum for things to
appear to you as self-existent. Okay? Not how you grasp them, but how they
look to you. Okay? The very subtlest seeds for things looking to you like
they're self-existent, are destroyed when you lose your last {she-drip}, okay?
That's an example of a {she-drip}. Or the inability to see what's going on on the
other side of Pluto right now is a {she-drip}. Okay? And you, when you get rid
of that, you become omniscient. All right? So you'll see in Shanti...Master
Shantideva's text, you can be happy about...okay, on the night that you do the
ceremony, you have to be thinking about {nyon-drips} and {she-drips}, sorry.
Okay, it's kinda complicated. But on the night that you get bodhichitta, on the
night that you make that commitment, you have think, "Ah, this is cool. I'm
gonna be able to stop people's deaths. I'm gonna be able to stop people's
sickness." But more importantly, you're gonna be able to stop the things that
cause those things. Which is the {nyon-drip} and the {she-drip}. It's these two
things that cause death. It's these two things that cause sickness. And you have
to realize that, you have to figure that out. It's mental afflictions. And it's the
tendency of seeing things as self-existent that cause all sickness and death. That's
the point. So, you can get high at that moment not just about the fact that you're
gonna be able to stop people from dying, but you're gonna be able to stop them
from having the causes in their minds that make them die. And that's cool. So
you're supposed to be thinking, "I, oh, this is great. I committed to stop the
things inside of people that make them die and get old and get sick." And it's
these two very subtle things. And you have to learn more about them. Okay?
You are committing to learn more about the real causes why people get sick and
die and get old. Okay? And that's very interesting. You know, you're, you're,
you're supposed to be happy...this whole class is about taking joy. You're
supposed to take joy in the fact that as soon as you've committed yourself to
ultimate compassion you can be happy because ultimate compassion involves
finding out what really makes people die and get old. And then stopping it.
Helping people stop it. Okay, and then, you're supposed to take great joy in
that. So it's not like a simple ceremony. I think when we do the ceremony, we
might have to stop for like half an hour and be happy. And don't...it's a hap... it's
easy to be happy and say, "Oh, you know, nobody in New York is doing this, I'm
very lucky." You know, "Oh, I got a new family, it's very nice," you know. "Oh,
I'll never screw up now because I don't wanna embarass my folks, you know,
my Buddha folks," you know. And that's okay, you have to think like that. Then
your mind has to go on to, "Oh, yeah, this is really nice. I can teach people how
not to die anymore. You know, I can teach people how not to get sick anymore.
I can teach people how not to have a bad boss anymore." You know, like you
can take joy in that. Then at the very end, you have to take some kind of special
joy. You know, "I'm gonna be able to identify what's inside of people's hearts
that makes them get old and die. And I'm gonna stop that, too. And I'm happy
because I'm gonna learn to do that." And that's the last part of the, of taking joy.
And that's the last part of this class. Unless you have a question, okay. Yeah?

[student: [unclear]]

Ah, it would be, I think, uh...tough question. Tough question. The, the most
subtle workings of karma, I would think, are {she-drip} because they're much
more, they're much more difficult to...they say that only a Buddha can see those
things directly. So, I would consider it a {she-drip}, you know. They say only a
Buddha can see the most subtle workings of karma and its consequences. Only a
Buddha can, can look at every centimeter of things in this room and explain to
you exactly what karma you did to be seeing that thing right now. You know,
they can look into your past and say, "Okay, on October third, 1839, in Alaska,
you know, you were smiling at someone, and that's why that pillar is here right
now, you know. And only a Buddha has that ability. One more question. Yeah?

[student: Did you say that these two are the basis for [unclear]?]

Say again?

[student: These two, um, being able to relate to these two problems will give
you...is this the basis for being able to [unclear] the other five, [unclear] process
where like...]

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you look at it as a cause-and-effect thing, these have to
be removed before the other two can, the other five can be removed. Yeah,
yeah. For sure. Okay. All right, uh, we're kinda over, so we'll just go straight
into the prayers.

[prayer: short mandala]
[prayer: dedication]

One last mini-announcement. Um, most of you may know, someone, some
very kind sponsor called karma donated us a hundred-acre estate in Connecticut,
and we're now gonna be able to start doing retreats there. And I'll announce
more about it next Thursday. But just to keep it in mind, I mean, we'll start...it's
about an hour from New York. And it's extremely beautiful. And we're gonna
be start...we'll start doing meditation retreats there this spring. So I'll tell you
more about it next Thursday, okay?