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

Class ten: The perfections of Giving and Ethical Living

Geshe Michael Roach

Transcribed by Angie Overy




[cut] trying to take, once you’ve decided to become a Buddha for the sake of all
living beings. And, since you decided on Tuesday night you can jump into the six
perfections, okay. So we’re going to cover, we’re going to talk about two of
them tonight. We’ll continue in the next course, which will begin in July after I’m
on retreat during June. And I encourage anyone who can take a retreat to take
one in May or June, sort of trying to get as many people in retreat at the same
time as possible, so June is a good month. May is good also. During that time
we’ll cover some more chapters. We’ll continue with the perfections and then
we’ll have another course in, do you know? October? It starts about the tenth of
October or something like that. So, there’ll be two more courses like this on the
Bodhisattvacharyavatara if we’re all still alive, okay.
What’s that?
[student:]
I think the second week. It’s like the eighth of July or something like that, okay.
I can give you the exact dates actually. We’ll do it after the break. Okay. So,
we’re going to discuss two perfections briefly tonight and then we’ll get into it in
the next course, okay.
Say, {jinpay}[repeat] {parchin}[repeat], {jinpay}[repeat] {parchin}[repeat], okay.
{jinpa} is over there, no, {jinpa} means giving, okay, and this is the perfection of
giving.
There are three very broad categories of giving in the perfection of giving.
{jinpa}[repeat] {sangsing gi}[repeat] {jinpa}[repeat]. {sangsing} means ‘stuff’,
things, material giving, okay, giving material things: housing, clothing, food,
things like that, okay.
[cut] I had, my first lama in India was Geshe Dhargye, Ngawang Dhargye, and
he gave a long talk about it one day. And he started to debate one of the
students and he was trying to find out if what you’re going to give, you know,
what kind of things you should give. And one student, I remember, said I don’t
have to give people material things because they’re no use, you know. It’s just
samsaric things, you know. Whatever it is that you can give them like money or
food or a place to stay it doesn’t last. It’s all going to go away anyway. It’s all
suffering. It is the truth of suffering. It is the arya truth of suffering. So, what’s
the use of giving them material things? And Geshe Dhargye got angry, you
know, and he said you’re a bodhisattva. You have to give them anything they
want, you know. He didn’t understand the question very well and he said, of
course, it’s samsaric thing and of course you have to give it to them. And he was
very adamant about it, you know, he said, anything they want, you know. You
have to give them anything they want. And they don’t know enough to want
spiritual things yet so in order to make them happy in a short-term sense you
take care of people physically. He said you have to do it. And then he got into
this long argument about, it was very interesting, he said can you give
somebody your shirt, you know? And the guy said of course, you know, if I
want to give somebody my shirt I can give them my shirt and, and ‘cos I own it.
And then he said, what do you mean you own it, you know? And the guy says I
own it and it’s my shirt and if I want to give it, I guess what it means by owing is,
if I want to give it away this evening to somebody, I own it so I can give it away.
Nobody else can give it away. It’s mine. And it’s mine to give away. So, if I
want to give away my shirt I can give away my shirt. And Geshe Dhargye was,
like, laughing you know, and he said I still don’t get what you mean ‘owning’,
you know. This is all going on by translation, right? And the translator was
getting frustrated, [laughs], you know, and, and Geshe Dhargye’s saying I don’t
know what you mean by owning. What do you mean you own your shirt? The
guy says I own it because it’s mine, you know. If I want to give it away I can
give it away and you can’t give away my shirt. I can give away my shirt. And
then he, like, laughed and he laughed and he said you think you own that shirt,
you know? And he said yeah. And he said so, so nobody else can give it away
but you? And he said yeah, that’s right. And he said so you can tell me that
you’re going to have this shirt tomorrow? And the guy said, then the guy was,
like, quiet, I mean, I think he got it, you know, some very crazy English guy in
the class, and, in the hippy days right. So he just shut up for a minute and then he
says well, no, I can’t say that I’ll have it tomorrow. And he said why not? And he
said anything can happen, you know what I mean? People lose shirts all the
time. People they, somebody steals the shirt or you rip the shirt on something
or you spill something on it or, or you die. And there’s this joke in Tibetan and,
and, Geshe, Rinpoche says it all the time. He says shirts go looking for new
owners, you know. Like, the owners die and then the shirts go looking for new
owners. And, and so you don’t really own this shirt. I mean, you can’t say that
tomorrow you will own this shirt or you house or anything else that you think
you own. You can’t say that. You can’t really say that for sure. So, what’s
ownership mean if you can’t say you’re going to have it tomorrow, you know?
So what does ownership mean exactly? And Geshe Dhaygye was, like, giggling
you know and he was like, I don’t know what you mean when you say you own
your shirt, you know. You can’t say you’ll have this shirt tomorrow. You can’t
say that anything you own, you can’t say you’ll have the same face tomorrow or
the same name. You can’t say any of those things. And then he, he was very
powerful and he said, so you have to give them away now, you know. He says
you have, anything you have you should give it away now and don’t wait til
tomorrow, you know. If you have something, if you have the ability to give
anything to someone then do it now because you can’t say tomorrow you’re
going to have it. He was very adamant about it. Master Shantideva sets forth
the ground rules, okay, and there are ground-rules about giving away
everything you have, okay. But, basically, from a negative point of view, you
don’t own anything anyway. You have very temporary power over objects and
during that brief period you should use them and give them to somebody and
do something meaningful with them and serve somebody with them. And, and
that’s, that’s the only thing you can do with them. You’re going to lose them
anyway you might as well get some mileage out of them, okay. And that’s the
idea. You don’t own anything. For a brief period you have power over certain
objects in your life and you should use them and give them away as soon as you
can, you know. Somebody was telling me a story about Geshe, I’m sorry, Lama
Zopa, that somebody from Australia brought him a very valuable crystal rosary,
you know, rock crystal rosary, like, at three o’clock in the afternoon you know.
And he’s meeting people all day, all night. And, and the student was feeling, you
know, he came all the way from Australia, offered this precious crystal rosary,
you know, felt really good about it. And then, I don’t know, then there’s a
stream of students going upstairs to meet Lama Zopa. Four o’clock this student’s
running down the stairs - look what Lama Zopa gave me. [laughs] [laughter] It’s
this really precious crystal rosary [laughs] and, I mean, great Lama, you know.
That’s about how long you should keep things I guess, you know. I remember
that His Holiness when He came to our temple they presented Him with the,
somebody gave Him a certain interesting gift and by the time he had left he had
given it away. And I think that’s the way. I mean, if you’re really interested, in a
positive way, in collecting good karma this is probably what we should do you
know. I was with my boss today. He said, this is our last meeting I guess, and
he says, I heard you got millions of dollars worth of properties and stuff and like
that and how do you do that, you know? And he’s, like, you know, what kind of
business thing you got going on? And I said we just give everything away.
[laughter] And he was, like, yeah, I know, yeah, right, but [laughter] you know.
[laughs] He’s, like, yeah but what’s the business you know? Tell me what you’re
selling, you know. And he couldn’t, he just thought I was joking and he’s like,
yeah, yeah, but what are you really doing, you know? And that’s, that’s you just
give. You have to give away. And in a negative way you don’t own anything
anyway. You might as well give it away. And in a positive way you’ll get
everything you dream of. Just give it away, you know. Just give things away.
You really will get everything you dream of. It’s the first bodhisattva activity
because you need to get a Buddha paradise. You want it to be cool and full of
nice things so you have to give away everything. Just give everything away.
You won’t miss anything. And you’re life will start to change and everything
you dreamed of will start to come to you. And from a positive aspect that’s the
way it is. It really is the way it is. The more you hold back the less you will enjoy
things. It just won’t happen. By the way, I anticipate a question. Tell me if I’m
right. He’s going to get into some ground-rules. Like, should I walk out of here
and give every last penny to somebody? And then what are the ramifications of
that? What are the consequences of that? And we’re going to talk about that. Is
that good Hector? No? Different Question? Go ahead.
[student]
The what by which you give?
[student]
Oh, we’re going to talk about it. We’ll talk about it. Let me do a little bit and then
if I don’t get to it let me know. I believe I’ll get to it. Okay.
So, {sangsing gi jinpa} means, giving away material things. Of course, they are
temporary. Of course, they’re not going to solve anybody’s problems. But
sentient beings want them and you’re a bodhisattva. Enough said. Right?
[cut] {jinpa}[repeat] {min jikpa}[repeat] {jinpa}[repeat]. Ah, {jikpa} means what?
[student] Fear. Yeah. For those of you studying Tibetan, the ‘sa’ secondary suffix
it’s ‘fear’, like {jiksu rungwa}. And without the ‘sa’ secondary suffix it means,
‘destroy’. So this is the fear, okay. {min jikpa} means, not fearing; {min jikpa
jinpa} means, protecting people, saving them from things they’re afraid of, okay.
And, very typically, in Scripture it’s helping people who are getting mugged, you
know. Helping people like the Tibetan people who are being beaten up by
Chinese troops, things like that. Helping even bugs on the road who are getting
squashed, you know, like on a rainy day. I was out in New Jersey the other day
and it was raining and there were worms coming up in the sidewalk and then
you try and help them and that’s {min jikpa jinpa}. And that’s how the {Lam
Rim} presents it.
Anything from, anything that someone is having that they’re afraid, okay. I
think it also extends to stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, you know. If you know
somebody’s having mental fears or mental anxieties or problems then you, you,
you protect them. You try to help them. And that’s the second kind of giving.
It’s the second form of giving.
People say is it okay for a bodhisattva to use extreme means if someone is, is
committing violence for example. You know, if you see someone with a gun
and they’re killing people, what are you supposed to do? And we’re going to
get into it later on tonight. Shantideva talks about it. But, to anticipate, you have
to do whatever you have to do to protect life or protect other people. And, even
if it requires some kind of force, you should do it. It’s part of a bodhisattva’s
code that, you know, if you have to restrain a mugger or if you have to punch
him in the head or something, you have to do it. Now, that has a lot of
implications and we have to be careful about it. And we’ll talk about that. We’ll
talk about that later. The most important part of that is that your motivation
must be totally pure. You know, you have to be thinking, I’m really concerned
that this person is going to collect a lot of bad karma. I should stop them, you
know. And, and you have to have that kind of motivation. If you don’t, then,
it’s a problem.
Second thing to say about it is in the {Lam Rim} they always say, if a guy broke
down your door and ran into your house and came at you with a knife, and you
had a gun, what would you do, you know? First question. And then you’re
supposed to think about that for a while. And then it says what would you do if
you’re standing next to your mother, you know, making a pie, and suddenly,
she goes crazy and comes at you with a knife, and you had a gun, what would
you do, you know?
And people say, in the second case, well I would find a way to trip her or knock
her down or restrain her, you know, grab her. Try to stop her. If I had to take a
few cuts on my arms it would be okay because it’s my mother. So, then they say,
well you should do that with everybody. I mean, when you were thinking
about restraining someone who’s doing violence, which is your duty as a
bodhisattva, you have to try to help people who are, who are victims of
violence. You must. It’s part of your- right here- part of your first perfection.
But do it in a way, with the same kind of love, that you would with your own
mother. And if it was your own mother you would find a way to stop her
without hurting her and, and that’s the point. There’s many ways to stop evil
people without hurting them and we have to try to think of those ways with the
same kind of concern that we would with our own mother, okay.
[cut] {jinpa}[repeat] {chi kyi}[repeat] {jinpa}[repeat]: highest form of giving,
which is, Dharma, the giving of the Dharma, okay, highest perfection of giving;
highest form of the perfection of giving. And you have to think of it not in
terms of, maybe not in terms of, classes like this. This is the giving of the
Dharma, you know. I’m doing {chu kyi jinpa} right now but I think, for me, it’s
more useful to think of it in terms of this is just a vehicle by which I’m trying to
give someone a realisation, you know. Like, I understand death or I understand
giving or I understand emptiness or, you know. If you’ve perceived emptiness
or something like that and you’re actually trying to give the realisation to
somebody. It’s not just the words or, or the texts, or the talking, or books, or
things like that. I mean,that’s the vehicle. That’s the way in which it’s done but
the real goal is that you’re trying to transfer some kinds of things into people’s
hearts. And that’s {chu kyi jinpa}. And that will be the greatest gift that you can
give them, you know. Then they can produce their own {sangsing} and their
own {min jik}, you know. They can produce their own protection and their own
material things. You’re teaching them the ultimate method for producing
wealth. You know, Marx was wrong. Wealth doesn’t come from the earth.
Wealth comes from good deeds, you know. And that’s you know, it was very
revolutionary. I don’t know if it was Engels or Marx. I don’t know. Anyway.
Both. Okay. Engels and Marx came up with this idea that, ultimately, every, all
kinds of money come from the dirt because the dirt grows things, or the dirt has
gold in it, or the dirt has coal in it, or the dirt makes trees. And so, the dirt is the
ultimate source of all wealth. And, and that’s not true. It’s giving which is the
ultimate source of all wealth. All money in the world comes from giving. It’s
not that there’s a shortage of wealth in the world and that’s why some people
are poor and some people are rich. There’s no problem with everybody in the
world being rich and there’s no problem with everybody in the world being
poor. It’s not like, there’s a finite number of resources and it has to be divided
among a certain amount of people, and there’s too many people and there’s too
few resources, so some are poor and some are rich. It has nothing to do with it,
absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s that some people didn’t give and some
people did. And the people who did give will have money and the people who
didn’t give won’t have money. And that’s where wealth comes from. And that’s
the solution to the problem of the distribution of wealth, you know. It’s a false
problem. There’s no such problem. There is no problem with the distribution of
wealth. There’s no problem with everybody on the earth owning zillions of
dollars if they just knew the right way to do it and, and then there would be
enough money on the earth.               And somebody would discover fusion or
something like that. You know, somebody would discover a way to make all
the electrical needs of the earth from a cupful of water, which is possible,
theoretically possible. I mean, if all the beings on the earth collect enough good
karma then the scientists will discover it the next day and all the lights in the
world would be running off of one cup of water. In theory it’s possible,
physically. Karmically, it’s definitely possible. It’s not that there’s a limited
amount of money in the world and there’s too many people who want it. It has
nothing to do with that. It’s our own karma. So, if you could teach people that,
how to get rich quick, that would be the best kind of giving. And that’s the
ultimate kind of giving, okay. Now, what makes one kind of giving more
powerful than another?
Say {gyun du}[repeat]{jawa][repeat], {gyun du}[repeat] {jawa}[repeat].
What’s {gyun} mean? Guy? Anybody? {gyu, gyun} same thing. {gyun}, stream,
{gyun} means stream, {gyun du} means in a stream, {jawa} means to do it in a
stream, okay. And it means to do it over and over again, continually, to do some
kind of giving, continually. For example, if you have a Lama, if you have a root
Lama, then it doesn’t have to be like a major gift, it doesn’t have to be, you
know, like a million dollars once a week or something like that, but even a small
gift like, if you offer a flower every time you meet them or something. If you do
it on a continual basis it has a special karma. It becomes much more powerful,
okay. So that’s a way to get more ‘bank for your buck’ as they say in my
business, you know, you can give what you can, but give it over and over again.
Make it a habit to give and that’s a powerful karma. That makes it more
powerful.
[cut]
{drakpo}[repeat] {dunpa}[repeat] {drakpo}[repeat]; {dunpa} here means like,
motivation, intentions, okay. It can also mean faith here. {drakpo} means fierce,
very, very fierce. And what this means is that if at, at the moment that you
present the offering, you feel some very, very deep feelings of devotion for that
person for example, or you feel deep, deep compassion for a poor person and
you give them money. You know, I mean, it’s a difference between throwing
money in someone’s cup or offering it to them with great sincerity and really
wanting, you know. And it’s very typical for a bodhisattva to, as you give it to
them, you pray that they will become your disciple, you know. You say I’m
going to throw a quarter in this guy’s cup. He thinks he’s getting another
quarter towards a bottle of wine or something. I’m hooking him into being my
disciple three thousand years from now, you know. He has no idea what’s
going on. I’m about to throw a quarter into his cup, you know, and you think
about it and you get the motivation up and you, and you do it, you know. The
first disciples of the Buddha, the ones that he taught the Four Arya Truths to at
the first Turning of the Wheel, in the Suvanaprabha Sutra it states that they were,
I don’t know if you know the story of the tigress. But to make it short, and we
read it once in these classes about fifteen years ago [laughs] okay, those of you
who were there. I don’t know if anybody was there. Maybe [unclear] [laughs]
was there. Well, we survived didn’t we? [laughs] Okay. But, it’s a story where
the Buddha is a prince. He goes out for a walk. He finds a tigress with her cubs.
They’re starving. And he decides he’s going to sacrifice his own body. He’s
going to give his meat to this tigress. And he lays down next to her and waits,
you know. And she’s so weak that she can’t break through his skin you know
and she can’t get her head up to do it. So then he’s worried, you know, how’s he
going to do this? So he breaks a stick, a branch off a tree, and he rips his flesh
open. Then he lays down next to her and puts her muzzle into the blood so she
can get enough strength to eat him, you know. And then slowly she eats him
and the cubs eat also. And then he’s praying, all that time he’s praying that they
should become his disciples. And those are the first disciples at the first Turning
of the Wheel and because of that virtue, and their virtue previously, as he turns
the Wheel of Dharma three times, they each of them sees emptiness at a
different level, so they achieved Path of Seeing at that moment. But the
connection was made there. So, as you give, I mean, {dunpa drakpa}, make it
with some kind of strong feelings, you know. Yeah?
[student]
It was more like just creating a connection, yeah. I mean, [student]. Yeah. I
would say though, Master Shantideva would say that you’re giving them an
opportunity to meet you in the future. They’re giving you an opportunity to
give up your body so, in a way, they’re doing you a kindness. By eating your
body they’re doing you a kindness and that’s one way you can look at it. But,
technically speaking, that wasn’t why they saw emptiness but it was why they
had a connection. Why they had a connection was the Buddha’s {monlam}, his
prayer. And that’s a very famous example of a {monlam}, okay. So, fierce
feelings; you may not have much to offer your Lama or you may not have much
to offer to a temple or something like that, but you give it with deep, deep
feelings and it’s much better, okay, much more powerful.
Say, {mi tun chok}[repeat] {mi tun chok}[repeat]; {mi tun} means, {mi tun chok}
is, means ‘the other side’ or ‘the opposite side’, and it means ‘the antidote’. It
means an antidote in this case. And what it means is if you perform an act of
giving with the antidote of the mental afflictions in your mind the giving is much
more powerful. Now, what’s an example of an antidote in your mind? Master
Shantideva gives the example of not being attached to the things you own. So, I
mean, you’ve got something nice that you own like your IBM laptop, that you’re
very attached to, you know, and, and you’re getting very attached to it, you
know. I was in an earthquake in Japan. It was on the table in the middle of the
room. I was, like, five feet away and, and I caught myself worrying about that it
might get hurt, you know, and [laughs], you know.
An antidote to that would be to think about the bad, the downside of being
attached to it. As a teaching thing, you know, the fact that it has a lot of
Scriptures in it, that’s a great thing. It’s wonderful from that point of view but if
I’m attached to it for some other reason, you know, if it’s, like, I’m attached to it
‘cos it looks nicer than other people’s computers, or it’s faster than other people’s
computers, or something like that, if I have some kind of attachment for that,
then if I could recognise that attachment, and in a fit of non-attachment, offer it
to somebody, nah not now [laughs] [laughter], then that would be {mi tun chok}.
So, {mi tun chok} means you overcome some mental, like say you don’t like
somebody. Okay, Chiltern, you can have it, okay. I’ll take the other one okay,
alright. He will, I’ve been holding back. [laughter] But, but if you, like, if you’re
jealous of someone, and, and you’re trying to overcome the jealousies, so in
order to not be jealous you praise them, you offer them praise. That would be
an example of doing it with the antidote and that makes the karma much more
powerful, okay.
Say, {yunten}[repeat] {gyi}[repeat] {shing}[repeat], {yunten gyi}[repeat]{shing}
[repeat]; {yunten} means good quality, like a good spiritual quality usually. It’s a
common Tibetan name, {yunten}. {yunten gyi shing, shing} means, a field, like a
field of earth. But, in the science of karma, it means a powerful object towards
which you do the deed, okay, a powerful object for the karma. And the idea is
that if you do karma towards this particular person it’s like planting crops in a
very fertile field and that’s why it’s called field. The example here is of the Three
Jewels, okay. Like, making an offering to the Three Jewels is karmically
extremely powerful, or to your Lama, okay, because they are {yunten gyi shing},
okay. They are very special. I think here you have to get into, if you go to Sera,
I, I was at Sera recently. They were discussing spending thirty thousand dollars
to make some silver cups for the altar. This is three years of income for the
monastery. And I’m like, I mean, my first reaction is an American reaction,
which is this is disgusting, you know. The monks don’t have food and they are
seriously discussing giving up their food in order to make some silver cups for
the altar, you know. And I’m, like, it really disturbed me and, and I was very
disturbed in the meeting and I kind of went home disturbed. And then I thought
about it. And, and if you, and I think that’s a normal American reaction, you
know, like, we go to a church, some kinds of churches, and they’ve spent
hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on some church and there are
homeless people outside the church asking for a few dollars, you know. And
you just feel, there’s this thing that you feel disgusted in a way, or you’re like
repulsed by this thing that they are doing this. And you feel very bad and, and
especially if you have some suspicion that the motivation might be competition
with the neighbouring church or, you know, who can make the biggest church,
or who can have the highest steeple, or things like that. And we grew up with
that, you know. We grew up with, with seeing that and we have doubts about it
in America. You have, in your mind, you have serious doubts about it. And
that’s, that’s all probably valid but, okay, if you ran into one of the Three Jewels,
okay, if you met an Arya, if you met a person that you had a reasonable belief
that was an Arya who had seen emptiness directly, if you had met the
Dharmakaya, you know, if you had seen emptiness directly yourself and met the
Dharmakaya, I, I say with certainty that at that moment you would think it quite
reasonable to spend all your money on making an offering to the altar for that,
for them, you know. And it would be the right thing to do. So I just ask you to
think about it, okay. I don’t mean, I don’t want to say that, you know, the
reaction we have when we see excess in religious spending, you know, is good I
think and sentient beings are important, but the best way to serve sentient
beings is to reach enlightenment. The best way to reach enlightenment is to see
emptiness directly; to, to, to be around those who have seen emptiness directly;
and, and to be aware of who Buddhas are and to see Buddhas directly. And, and
one of the direct fallouts of that experience is that you would, you understand
that it would be proper and appropriate to spend everything you had on a gift to
those Three Jewels and, and no one would ever have to know. I mean, you
could take the money and burn it in a fire offering to them and it would be the
best thing you could do. And I just ask you to think about it, okay. I don’t ask
you to, I know that’s hard to think about but it would be the, it would be the
best way that you could serve other people. And you just have to think about it,
okay. It would be the best, it would be the best way to get yourself enlightened
quickly to make an offering to such a powerful object. And the effects would be
immediate. You would start having karmic effects, getting closer to your own
enlightenment, within your lifetime. You would start to experience those things.
So, if it were done for that reason, I would say it’s the highest offering you can
make but you have to understand it before you do it. And I think I do agree and
I do believe that there seem to be offerings, which are just plain excess, and just
plain competitiveness, or something like that. Those are very dirty offerings.
Those are very wrong offerings. I mean a true offering to an altar would be like
going out and selling the last car you had, buying a diamond, and hiding it in the
altar somewhere and just dedicating it to the Buddha or something like that.
That’s, that would be a pure offering, something like that, or throwing it in the
ocean with a dedication or something, okay. And you have to think about it.
Don’t ask you to accept it now but, but if you met a Buddha it, especially the
Dharmakaya, or if you saw emptiness directly or if you had a chance to make an
offering to anything connected to that, it would not be excessive. It would be the
best way to spend your money, okay. You have to think about it, alright, ‘cos
that’s the best way, fastest way to get yourself out of samsara and get other
people out of samsara. That’s just the way it is, okay.
[cut] {dokpay}[repeat]{shing}[repeat],{pen dokpay}[repeat] {shing}[repeat]; {pen
dokpa} means someone who has helped you. {pen} means, {penpa} means to
help; {dokpa} means to do help to somebody, somebody who has given help to
somebody. {Shing} we just had. It means that field, meaning a very special
object towards which to give some giving, some act of giving. The classic
examples here is your parents; anyone else who has benefited you. Your Lama
would be here; people who have given you special benefit. I’ll give my parents
spiel, okay. Some people haven’t heard it. Most people probably have. In the,
in the general confession it says {…..} your parents come before your Lama
when you do the general confession. You know, they start with the five great
deeds like trying to kill a Buddha and then, right after that, is trying to hurt your
parents, you know, and then after that is your lama and, you know, it’s kind of
amazing. The point is, what’s the big deal about your parents? The normal
American reaction is, you know, my mother didn’t like me and my father
skipped out when I was twelve, you know, or something like that, you know.
My parents weren’t very good parents. And then if you say, well, they gave you
this body, they say well that was like fifteen minutes of work or something, you
know. [laughs] It’s no big deal [laughs] you know what I mean. It doesn’t seem
like I should be indebted to them for the rest of my life for that, you know. And
the point is this and it’s very, very clear in Scripture. I mean, I didn’t really accept
this very well until I read this in Scripture. The Scripture says look, they gave
you this body and this mind, you know. Karmically, you had the karma to be
born from these two people. They gave you this body and they gave you this
mind. With this body and mind you can reach ultimate paradise, you know. You
can stop zillions and zillions of years of suffering with this particular body and
mind. You have a human body, human mind, intelligent, well fed, you know,
everything is there, educated. You have everything you need and you have it
because of these two people. They have given you the vehicle through which to
reach perfect enlightenment so, for that, you owe them anything. You owe
them everything. So, to, to give them something is also extremely powerful.
Even if you don’t get along, you know, even if they were nasty to you,
whatever, it’s irrelevant. They gave you the greatest gift in this life that you can
have for enlightenment. You owe them. And, when you do karma towards
them, you get an incredible good benefit. It’s incredible karma - much stronger,
okay. It doesn’t mean you have to stay at their house that long, you know.
[laughs] [laughter] You know, go for the weekend. Give them a lot of gifts and
get home, [laughs] okay. Personal experience. No, I have, I’m lucky, I have
perfect parents.
Say, {dukgnel}[repeat]{chen gyi}[repeat]{shing}[repeat], {dukgnel}[repeat]{shen
gyi}[repeat]{shing}[repeat]; {dukgnel} means suffering, {dukgnel chen} means
someone who’s suffering, {shing} means a powerful karmic object, a powerful
object for karma. And what this means is that if someone’s really in, in
tremendous need, you know, they’re very poor, or they’re very upset, or
they’re very depressed, or they’re very nervous, or they’re very hungry, or
very tired, or something like that; anyone who is in trouble, they qualify as a
very powerful karmic object.
We’re going to take a break but I want to, I want to talk about one short thing
before that. Master Shantideva, here, gets into a thing called [cut]
Say,{jawa}[repeat]{nyi}[repeat]{dom}[repeat],{jawa}[repeat]{nyi} [repeat]{dom}
[repeat]. This is also a very important concept in Vinaya, which we are studying
tomorrow at seven a.m., okay. Yes.
{Jawa} means activity, action; {nyi} means two; {dom} means it’s, it’s an unusual
word in Tibetan, but it means when two things happen together, when two
things come together. And, what it means in, in Buddhism is prioritisation. You
know if you have a choice between two activities that conflict with each other –
two virtuous activities, what should you do? You know, what should you do?
And, and prioritisation goes in, in two different types, okay. This is on your
homework, okay. There are two kinds of prioritisation. One is within the
particular perfection like within the perfection of giving. And the other is
between different perfections, okay. I’ll start with the one between different
perfections and I don’t, I don’t think it’s going to be any trouble for you because
you studied it already. If you have, if you only have five minutes and you’re
faced with the choice between doing the perfection of giving or meditating
seriously on emptiness for those five minutes what do you do? You meditate on
emptiness because it’s a higher perfection, okay. So, assuming that you can’t do
both, assuming that you have a very limited amount of time, and you can only
do one of them, which one do you do? You go for the higher perfection, okay.
Period. And, and sometimes it doesn’t seem very, very compassionate, you
know. Like, someone needs food and you’re going to class and you have to
study more and you have to understand more and you have to get to the point
mentally where you understand that if I saw emptiness directly I could teach all
these people that that they wouldn’t have to need to eat anymore. You know, I
could teach them a way to get beyond samsara. And I think though that you
have to be careful and you have to honest with yourself that you don’t go to the
other extreme, you know, like I’m studying emptiness, I don’t have to worry
about anyone who’s hungry. I don’t have to clean Sixth Street, I’m studying
emptiness, you know. I mean it’s more important, you know, it’s not like that,
you know. We’re talking in a real {dom}; real {dom} means where you
absolutely have to choose between one or the other. You should do all the
perfections but if it comes down to a real conflict where you can only do one
then you have to go for the higher one. And it’s the same with your vows, okay.
If there’s a conflict between one of the three sets of vows and you cannot satisfy
both, by the way, it’s like when your mother comes at you with a knife, if you
really want to satisfy both you usually can, you know. You can usually satisfy all
of them quite nicely because they all support each other and they all basis for
each other. But, if it comes down to a circumstance where you must choose
between one of them, as a bodhisattva, you’re required to study this subject and
to know, automatically, I’m going for the top one, without hesitation.
And Je Tsongkhapa and Master Shantideva say quite clearly, Gyaltseb Je repeats
it, you not only do not break the lower vow, you collect tremendous good
virtue. So, in a case where there’s a conflict and, and you have to choose
between one activity or the other, as a bodhisattva, it’s your responsibility not to
be shy about it, you know. Don’t hesitate. I mean, it’s in Master Shantideva and
it make sense, you know. Your highest vows, secret vows, are going to produce
enlightenment in this life. Don’t even hesitate. Just go for it, you know. I think
sometimes people are just maybe don’t really believe in the higher vow as much
as the one that’s more obvious and they go for the lower ones sometimes
because it’s, it’s just more, it’s more in front of your face. But, if you sit back and
think carefully, the higher sets of vows are going to be of more service to other
living beings. And, if there’s a conflict, if there’s a conflict, by the way, half the
time you think there’s a conflict, there’s not and it’s your mind that doesn’t want
to keep them [laughs] and don’t kid yourself. It’s very easy to kid yourself but
in a true conflict of the three, Shantideva, Master Shantideva says be very clear
about it. It’s your responsibility to get to enlightenment as fast as you can. It’s
the higher sets of vows which gets you there more quickly. Go, and don’t even
hesitate, you know, especially with the third set of vows which, they’re hard,
they’re difficult, they’re difficult to practice, they’re a little bit beyond us, and but
you have to commit yourself to them and you have to go for it. And don’t be,
don’t hesitate you know. Nike says what? Is it go for it or do it? Just do it.
Seriously, just do it, you know.
Make up your mind, you know, study it, think about it. If you need to do an
analytical meditation about it, do it, but don’t leave it unresolved in your mind,
you know. Study prioritisation and just do it. When the time comes and there’s
an obvious conflict between the three just go for it because it’s your
responsibility to get enlightened as fast as you can. And don’t have {…}. If you
have it, if you know what that means I’m talking to you, okay. If you don’t
know what it means don’t worry about it. Okay, {jawa nyi dom}.
So, within one perfection, you have to pick the more important one, okay. Like,
if you have a choice in the perfection of giving to give this object, you know, you
have ten dollars. You can either give it to this or that. You have to think
carefully. The ground rule is very simple. What will get you to enlightenment
faster, you know? Which is the more powerful object towards whom to give this
money? It doesn’t mean that you can’t reserve a certain amount of money for a
lower object. And you should. It doesn’t mean that you should ignore all the
lower objects. You shouldn’t. But, the main emphasis of your giving should be
towards powerful objects like, identify powerful objects, study it, understand
why they’re more powerful and then dedicate your resources to those objects
because those are the ones that will [cut] and this is an important subject. I think
it’s easy sometimes to, it’s almost a kind of laziness to go for the one which is
more obvious or more in front of you than to think carefully is this the most
powerful thing that I can be doing for other living beings because sometimes the
more powerful one is uncomfortable because it involves a lot of devotion and
faith. And that’s hard sometimes, you know. Sometimes the more powerful one
is a little bit like jumping off a building, you know, [laughs] you feel like you’re a
little scared, you know, but just do it. Okay. It is the right thing to do. Don’t be
shy. You can decide intellectually before why it’s correct and get used to the idea
and then when the time comes, do the right thing, you know, do the necessary.
Yeah?
[student: inaudible]
He says if you don’t have a lot to give but if you’re doing a lot of study and
practice is this a good offering? You know sometimes I forget which city I’m in.
We covered this in Indiana. Nobody was there ‘cos it was too expensive. But,
anyway [laughs] I mean, the flight okay, teachings were free. But, the highest
form of offering is called {druppay chupa}. What’s a {druppay chupa}? {Drupa}?
Practice. It’s your practice. I mean if you have to choose. I don’t have time to go
through the kinds of offerings you know. It probably goes like this: water,
flowers, you know, arms, legs, eyes, and then all your money and your house
and your wife and kids and then somewhere up there, above everything, is
offering to holy beings, especially to your Lama, your own success in your own
practice. Like, it would be very appropriate to go to an altar. I remember I met
the Dalai Lama when He taught the Kalachakra and, and mentally, when I
touched His hand, I offered Him the fact that I had kept certain monk’s vows,
you know, that were hard for me, but I just offered it to Him. And I had a
feeling this was the nicest gift I could have given Him, you know, ‘cos I didn’t
have money or anything like that. But, but, just the fact that you have even tried
to follow the practices properly is a very appropriate gift to give to a Lama, very
sweet gift. It’s the gift they want the most. And you can do that anytime. You
don’t have to have any money to do that. I mean, when you get up in the
morning and do your water bowls, you can visualise your own practice. And it
doesn’t have to be perfect practice ‘cos it’s not perfect practice but you offer the
best, you know. You say yesterday I screwed up most of the day. I was in a bad
mood all day today, which is true, ‘cos I didn’t get enough sleep last night which
is true, ‘cos I was trying to finish the reading and I couldn’t, which is true, and I
got cranky at everybody, you know, that I met today, but I fought it. You know,
the last half hour I fought it, you know. And you can offer that and that’s a
perfect offering. That’s a great, that’s the one they really want the most, okay.
We’ll take a break. Come back in about ten minutes, okay.
[cut] and the text gets into the second perfection. And you have twenty-one
minutes for the whole second perfection. Say, {tsultrim gyi}[repeat]{parchin}
[repeat], {tsultrim gyi}[repeat]{parchin}[repeat]: perfection of, they say, morality.
I like to call it ethical way of life, okay. I think it strikes your brain the way it’s
supposed to, okay, living ethically. And Master Shantideva in this text that we’re
doing, in the section that we’re doing, is most concerned with the third kind of
{tsultrim}. Do you remember what the three kinds of {tsultrim are}? {…, … , … }
mentioned in the {yonten shi gyurma} right? Right? [laughs] Okay. First, the first
kind of ethical behaviour, is keeping away from bad deeds, not breaking your
three sets of vows. The second kind of ethical behaviour is to undertake deeds
which collect good energy. And then, the third kind of ethical behaviour is ethical
behaviour which is aimed at liberating other sentient beings, okay. Liberating
yourself so you can liberate other sentient beings. They are not mutually
exclusive, okay. Anyway, which one do you imagine Master Shantideva is
concentrating on? The third one, okay, so everything I’m going to present about
the ethical way of life, the perfection of an ethical way of life, he relates to the
third, which is, living ethically in order to become a Buddha and help all living
beings, okay. And he does it in three categories. And the first one is called
{shendun hlurlang}. [cut] [end side A]
[side B]
It means, as a bodhisattva, you should not prematurely and for a minor purpose,
hurt yourself, okay. You have to take good care of your body. You shouldn’t
waste your body, and then the book says, on minor goals, okay. [laughs]
Meaning, don’t, don’t just, I mean, what they’re saying is that, and this is very
important, your acts of giving should be responsible, you know. Like, I had
someone come to me and say, you know, I’ll give you all my money and I’ll give
up everything and I’ll give up my house. And this is proper. This is good. But, it
would be irresponsible. They have a child. They have a family. It would not be
responsible. You have to, within a, you still have to be responsible. You should
not harm yourself to, to, to do something like to buy a Rolls Royce for
somebody or something like that. I mean it should not be something that hurts
you, especially physically, as a bodhisattva. Your body is a very holy automobile
with which to reach enlightenment. And you should care for your body and you
should have enough resources to take good care of yourself and the
commitments you’ve made, you know. If someone’s willing to give up the
commitments they’ve already made to serve the Dharma then most often they
give up their Dharma commitments shortly afterwards, [laughs] okay. You have
commitments. You have to fulfil them. You need the resources to do that and,
and that’s a responsibility that you have. And it’s a bad habit to be irresponsible.
That was one of the first pieces of advice I got from the Dalai Lama, you know. I
wanted to quit everything and stay in India. He said go back and finish school
[laughs],you know. You know, I didn’t want to hear it, but it was right. And you
have to, it’s, if you get in the habit of being irresponsible you’ll be irresponsible
with Dharma later on. You need, you have certain commitments, you have to
honour them. And you shouldn’t do things that are going to hurt your health or
hurt the people around you for the sake of the Dharma. It’s, it’s contradictory.
Okay. And that’s, that’s where Shantideva gets into that. Does it mean you
shouldn’t be wildly generous? I didn’t say that. Okay. You should. I mean it’s,
but you shouldn’t do at the expense of your health or your, or your comfort. I
mean the comfort you need to practice nicely, okay. And it does take comfort to
practice nicely, you know. You do need a decent place to stay. You do need
decent food. And you have to take care of that first. As a bodhisattva it’s your
responsibility that you take care of your health and, and your livelihood first
okay.
[cut] {jin}[repeat]{du}[repeat]{gu}[repeat], {lu}[repeat]{jin}[repeat]{du}[repeat]
{gu}[repeat], okay. [laughs] {lu} means body, {jin} means giving, {du} means
time, and {gu} means purpose. Okay. Body, giving, time and purpose, and, here,
Master Shantideva wants to kind of counteract what he said before. And that’s
the whole theme here.
He says when the time comes and you’re ready, and the time is right, and you
have to give up your life, then do it, okay. [laughs] Okay, when you’re ready, if
the time comes, you know, if it’s the right time and if there’s a clear and pressing
need, and if you are ready, which is a big deal, I mean you have to be totally
ready in the way that you wouldn’t regret it in the {bardo}, okay. [laughs] ‘Cos
then, when the time is, is right, do it, okay. If it’s necessary then, then you’ll
know and then don’t hesitate at that point either, okay. That’s kind of hard.
Okay.
Now we’re going to cover three principles that describe how to attract students
to the Dharma with the Dharma, okay, by teaching Dharma alright. We just
finished how to attract them to the Dharma by giving away things, right? And
now we’re going to get to how to attract them to the Dharma with the Dharma
alright.
[cut] {kun chu}[repeat], {nyenpoy}[repeat]{kun chu}[repeat]. This refers to,
{nyenpa, nyenpa} means a person who is learning the Dharma, the student,
okay. {Kun chu} means the behaviour of the student; the student’s behaviour.
And, at this point, Master Shantideva gets into the proper way to listen to the
Dharma and the behaviour of the student. And, what he’s saying is that, if the
student doesn’t follow certain kinds of behaviour it would be improper to teach
them, okay, that you should not teach a person who doesn’t follow certain
minimum codes of behaviour. Most important being respect for the teacher and,
and the Dharma, okay. If the student, if you know that the student doesn’t
respect you as a teacher or they don’t respect the Dharma that you’re teaching it
would be improper to teach that student. That’s the most important one here.
And he says you’re not allowed to teach that student.
Secondly, the student should have, conform to certain kinds of behaviour in the
class, okay. They should sit attentively, not do things which are considered
impolite in that culture. In, in Asia if you have a hat on your head it would be
considered very improper to teach that person. If the person were carrying a
sword or something like that, you know, weapon of some kind, it’s very,
considered quite improper to teach a person like that. A person who has a scarf
wrapped around their head or something like that it’s considered very
inappropriate unless they are sick says the text, okay. And those are the
examples that, that he gives but I think you have to transfer it to your own
culture. You know, in, in, in Tibetan culture you’re not supposed to point your
feet at a Dharma teacher and you’re not supposed to laze around or not sit up.
Everybody’s going to sit up straight now. [laughs] You’re supposed to sit just
respectfully. And it’s just a matter of, of respect for the Dharma. It’s not that the
teacher cares. I mean if the teacher’s a good teacher or if the teacher has reached
any kinds of attainments themselves you can’t give them anything anyway.
They don’t need anything form you, you know. They’ve reached their own
levels or their own goals and they don’t really need anything. There’s nothing
you can really offer them. And, and the last thing they need is for you to call
them ‘sir’ or something like that. They just don’t need it. They, they are either
on their way out of samsara or out of samsara and you can’t hurt them anyway.
So there’s nothing, there’s no concern for, for their part. They don’t need
anything from you. But, from your side, it’s appropriate to, to sit properly, to
listen properly, to study in the way that the teacher has asked you to study. And,
Master Shantideva, in this verse says, it’s inappropriate or it’s improper for a
teacher to teach a person who is not willing to, to follow that, that code. We’re
not actually supposed to teach a person who doesn’t show a certain amount of
respect for the teaching and the person teaching it, okay.
Second one. Say, {nu kyi}[repeat]{sampa}[repeat], {nu kyi}[repeat]{sampa}
[repeat]; {nu} means a pot, and here it refers to the student, the vessel into whom
the Dharma is being poured, okay. That’s what {nu} means. {nu kyi sampa}
means the, the level that the student is on. Here it means their mind level, their
intellectual level, okay. And it means your second responsibility, as a
bodhisattva, when you are trying to attract a student with the Dharma, is to very
carefully judge their level and speak to their level, okay.            It would be
inappropriate in a general class to bring up very technical points that, that the
person couldn’t appreciate or it might even turn them off so that they would
leave and not come back to the Dharma. Then you would be, you would not be
following this, this advice. You have to judge the level of the people that you’re
teaching to and you have to match the Dharma to those people and it’s
inappropriate not to do that. The opposite is also true. If you the know the
student has a good mind and, and sort of needs a more broad intellectually
challenging thing then it would be inappropriate to teach the student something
so simple that it didn’t challenge them. And you see it, for example, in
Dharmabadhra’s works.          He’ll come out flatly and say, now here’s the
explanation for my better students who have better intellects, I can get a little
more complicated with you, you know [laughs] and he does. Even with
visualisations he’ll say, here’s the normal visualisation and knowing that my
sharper students would get bored by this here’s a, here’s a cool one for you guys
and, and he, he, he judges the student’s level and that’s part of a bodhisattva’s
responsibility. When you give the Dharma, when you’re attracting people, when
you’re trying to attract people to the Dharma you must speak on their level and
you must make it appropriate for their level, okay.
[cut] seen a lot of westerners lose good teachings ‘cos they didn’t respect the
Lama, you know. I’ve seen, I’ve seen Lamas say, oh I don’t know anything
about that. I’ve seen Khen Rinpoche do that. [laughs] Like, somebody will come
to him and ask him about something but in a disrespectful way or, or not
generally show respect and then he’ll just say, well, you know, I don’t really
know much about that, you know, like something he’s been doing for forty
years or something. And I’ve seen a lot of westerners lose a lot of teachings that
way so I think it’s, you have to, we have to be careful for that, yeah.
Say, {gya chen}[repeat]{mula}[repeat]{men}[repeat]{mijar}[repeat], {gya chen}
[repeat]{mula}[repeat]{men}[repeat]{mijar}[repeat]; {gya chen} means
widespread. I don’t know. There’s a good word in English and I can’t think of it
but it’s, it’s like …; {mu, mu} means people who have the capacity to think big,
meaning Mahayana-type students. Like, they’re not Mahayana yet but they
have the capacity to think big, you know. {gya chen} means big, wide, big-wide
okay. Like, the {gyatso} is {gya}, you know, {tso} means lake and the ocean is a
{gyatso}, you know. {gya chen} means, I don’t know how to say it but like,
expansive thinking people, meaning people who can think on a big level, who
can think about all living beings, okay. {mula}, if they have any kind of aptitude
for that, {men mijar} means don’t hook them up with Hinayana. Don’t hook
them up with lower Dharmas, you know. If you find a student who’s capable of
bodhisattva teachings, or especially if you find a student who’s capable of the
secret teachings then, then don’t waste their time. I mean don’t, don’t give them
less than what they can digest. Give them what they can digest, you know. If
you find a student who can digest bodhisattva or even higher teachings then
feed it to them. Feed them up to where they can digest it and don’t, don’t leave
them half full, okay. The opposite is obviously true also: don’t overfeed a person
with small scope, you know. Don’t freak them out and make them crazy and
make them give everything up, okay.
If it’s very short and relevant. [student] Okay, that’s short and relevant.
{gya chen}, I don’t know, what do you want to call that? Vast. Okay. {Gya chen}
is a code word for Mahayana. Vast. {Mu} means, {mu la} means they like it or
they are attracted to it, {men} means lower teachings, {mijar} means, {mijar}
means literally don’t hook them up with those lower teachings, okay, don’t,
don’t put them on that track, okay.
Okay, last thing and then we’re done. I’m sorry we went over a little bit. Master
Shantideva gets into three activities that would help other people keep their faith
in Buddhism. In other words three kinds of behaviour that you, if you’re trying
to attract other people, should try to, try to emulate so that you can attract other
people. And, the first one is this:
{ma depa}[repeat]{pang}[repeat], {ma depa}[repeat]{pang}[repeat]. Those of you
who studied - what course was that? Bodhisattva vows. They talked about cases
in which a bodhisattva could stretch their activities a little bit if it was important.
And then they divided activities into rules, like especially Pratimoksha rules,
which are meant to limit your activity. Like, for example, rules that are meant to
keep monks indoors during the rainy season, things like that. And then other
kind of rules which were meant to keep other people from losing faith in the
Dharma. And Je Tsongkhapa makes a very clear distinction between those two.
An example of the first kind of rule would be where monks are not allowed to
keep cloth over nine or ten days. Like, if we don’t make it into a robe within I
think it’s {.. chu}, if we don’t make it into a robe within ten days we’re not
allowed to keep it. I mean the whole monk’s vows, one big theme in the monk’s
vows and nun’s vows is you’re just not supposed to own anything. You’re just
supposed to be free or liberated from the trouble of ownership and you’re not
allowed to keep cloth more than ten days. If you’re a bodhisattva monk or nun,
if you’re keeping bodhisattva vows, and someone offers you a warehouse of
cloth on the condition that you keep it for a year before you can give it away,
what do you do? You take it in a minute, okay, and, and that’s the, that’s a rule
for bodhisattva monks and nuns. And that’s, that’s because keeping, not keeping
cloth is, is something that’s meant to keep your activities few and your worries
few. Like, a, a pure Hinayana monk’s life is very easy. I mean you just not
supposed to own anything, not supposed to do much, just stay there and be
quiet and do your thing. A bodhisattva monk has to own as many things as they
can - legally, morally, purely - and use them for other people, you know, and
this is the difference. But then, there’s those other vows and there’s other rules
for lay people, which are meant to protect other people’s hearts and their faith in
the Dharma and, and those kinds of rules we have to keep very strictly. You
know, anything that would cause another person to lose faith in Buddhism
because of our behaviour we have to try to keep those very strictly, so Je
Tsongkhapa’s very careful about dividing between the two. And then he goes,
Master Shantideva goes, into a lot of behavioural things that might turn people
off to the Dharma. His are more basic, you know. He’s talking, like, don’t blow
your nose on the street and don’t spit on, in front of people and don’t look
sloppy in front of people and things that would make people say oh Buddhist
monks, you know, they’re so dirty and, and their behaviour is so gross that, that
they get turned off to Dharma. Like that. So he’s just talking about that, that as a
Buddhist, especially if other, if you work at [unclear] International and everyone
knows you’re a Buddhist and they’re judging Buddhism on your behaviour, then
you’re under some bodhisattva pressure to act a little bit more strictly than, than
other people, because people are watching you and judging Buddhism by that,
okay.
{Ma depa} means lack of faith or losing their faith and {pang} means, prevent it,
okay.
In other words, your activities as a bodhisattva should not, should prevent other
people from losing their faith in Buddhism because of the way you’re acting,
okay.
{lam tunpa}[repeat]. You tell me. {lam tunpa}? You guys? Anybody? Showing
the path, right?      It sounds very, you know, mystical and I don’t know,
Buddhistic. What it really means is, when somebody asks you how to get to Sixth
Street [laughter] don’t, don’t do it grossly. This is a matter of etiquette and what
he’s saying is he starts getting into good manners, just having good manners.
{lam tunpa}, in this case, means in Asia you can’t point to things like that. If I say
Jay Siller, you know, that’s considered very insulting in Asia. To point your foot
at somebody is considered a gross insult. It’s like flipping a [unclear] at
somebody, okay, and, and it’s like that. What Shantideva is saying is that you, a
bodhisattva should have a pleasing manner, should have good manners for their
culture okay. I don’t think it means that you have to put the salad fork on the
inside and the other [laughs] fork on the outside but what it means is that a
bodhisattva, a person who is trying to practice the bodhisattva path should have
a generally pleasing manner. You know, when you get on a bus you let other
people come by you nicely. You are sensitive to other people’s impressions and
their needs and you’re just polite, you know. You just act in a way which is polite
and which is pleasing to other people and, and that’s important he says for a
bodhisattva. I think, you know, you might think it’s not very important or it
doesn’t matter much. Master Shantideva says no, it’s a reflection of your whole
commitment to serve other people that you are pleasing even in your
mannerisms and even in the way you point to something. And he says don’t
wave your, you know, he’s talking about how you just carry your body and
carry yourself in a way which is pleasing and be thoughtful and considerate and,
and polite to other people, okay. That’s rather revolutionary in our city. Okay.
Say, {nyelway}[repeat]{kun chu}[repeat], {nyelway}[repeat]{kun chu}[repeat];
{nyelwa} means to sleep, sleeping, {kun chu} means, how did I translate it –
proper method of sleeping, okay. I’m an expert okay. It’s very interesting.
Master Shantideva here gets into a good way to go to sleep, you know, nice way
to go to sleep. And he says, if you can emulate the Buddha, as the Buddha laid
down the final time on this planet, when he went into his parinirvana. He lay
down on his right side and he put his right hand under his head and he put his
right foot under his left foot. So his left foot was resting on his, his right leg was
resting on, his left leg was resting on his right leg; just lying down on your right
side, okay, and sitting like that. And he says if you can emulate that as you go off
to sleep it’s very good. I tried that for years and it was very difficult. [laughs]
[laughter]
And I couldn’t get to sleep or else I would flop over one way or the other and,
and then I can say honestly that it does have some good effect on you. If you can
do it, it has a good effect on you. And you’re not going to be able to do it all
night. You will end up flopping over or something and that’s okay. If you have
trouble sleeping because you’re trying to do this then do it for a while and then
lay down or something, you know, but get used to it and, and try to do it. I, I
still can’t do it very well and I still, I don’t try very hard but we should. I’ll try,
okay. [cut]
It’s sometimes Gyaltseb Je’s outline is a little, I don’t want to break my
bodhisattva vows okay, but sometimes it’s a little, this is, this is considered what
you would call pleasing mannerism in Asia. If you came in and saw the guy
asleep in the exact position that the Buddha himself went into his final sleep it
would be very pleasing to other, they would get more faith. They would say, oh
this person even in their sleep this person is trying to emulate the Buddha, you
know, so [student] something like that, yeah. Then he says two more things.
He says as you go off to sleep think of some very virtuous object. If you have
studied the {dakkye} with Rinpoche, if you’ve had teachings on {neljorma}, you
have very specific visualisations that you’re supposed to be doing as you go off
to sleep, very important. If you haven’t studied that it’s very typical in all of the
Scriptures, open and secret teachings, that you would, for example, put your
head on your Lama’s lap and imagine that your Lama is sitting there and, and go
off to sleep with some kind of devotion for your Lama. And that’s very typical.
But any kind of very sweet virtuous thought just before you fall off to sleep is
ideal and, and Master Shantideva says, outwardly lay down like that, inwardly
go to sleep with some very virtuous intentions and as you go to sleep think, I’m
going to rest this body, I’m going to make sure this body gets enough sleep
tonight and then I’m going to get up and bust ass doing virtue, you know. I
mean, as you go to sleep you’re supposed to think and then when I’m fresh, you
know, you won’t believe what I’m going to do tomorrow, and that’s the, that’s
the attitude with which you’re supposed to fall off to sleep. So, imagine you’re
putting your head on your Lama’s lap. It’s very auspicious and it has and then
think of the qualities of your Lama. Lama, you know, you might, you see all
kinds of things in your Lama and, and you see things that you think are not
pure, you see things which are pure. As you go off to sleep, or as you visualise
your Lama, think of them as pure – physically and spiritually. Okay. If you’re
not seeing them as pure they really are not, for you. That’s madhyamika. That’s
their emptiness. If you have a Lama who’s defective there’s only one cause of
that. Is it just your perception at this moment? Not necessarily. Is it your
perception forced on you by your past deeds? Exactly. And, and for you they
may truly be defective in some way but they’re not.
And, if you were more pure, your Lama would be pure. So, it’s considered
auspicious that as you go off to sleep and you visualise your lama, physically, I
mean if you’re visualising Khen Rinpoche, we have a photo of him when he was,
like, thirty and very handsome and very, you know, much of a, very powerful,
very, very, he was a very, how do you say? Powerful debater, very cocky; he
looks like a gunslinger, sort of, and you know, he was very powerful and very,
very, you know, like that. And think of him like that, you know, good health,
perfect health, perfect body. They say sixteen years old or eighteen years old or
something and very, very beautiful. I like to dress him up in, like, jewels and,
and silk clothing and, you know, like that. Perfect Keanu Reeves with all these
jewels and, you know, long hair and all is fine, as a Buddha. Imagine him as a
Buddha in, in the Buddha’s paradise. And don’t be shy, you know. People think,
people think it’s dumb or immature or like, I don’t know, people hesitate to do
that. I mean people think it’s somehow, you see somebody bow down and hand
somebody a flower and you think oh, this person is like, what do you call that?
Frivolous or [student] huh? [student: inaudible]
No. Naïve, they think it’s naïve. They think this person is naïve, you know. If
you really know what you’re doing, you should be throwing flowers on the
floor and, when Rinpoche walks into the room, and you should be bowing down
to him and you should be making sure he gets the kind of cookies he likes and
you should be visualising him as this perfect deity, ‘cos he is. And it’s not naïve
and it’s not stupid. The other thing is stupid, you know, to be reasonable and
practical and not to look funny to other people, not to look stupid to other
people or not to look too devotional to other people ‘cos you want to look
reasonable, you know. You could die like that, you know. You will die [laughs],
no you will die like that. I mean forget it. You don’t need it. That’s how, that’s
samsara. You want to die like that, die like that, you know. That’s not the point.
It is Jesus Christ walking into the room and throw yourself on the ground and
throw flowers on them and give them everything you know. And this is, that’s
the reality. And if you hold back or if you think it’s naïve or you think it’s silly
you’ll get some reasonable result [laughs] you know. [laughs] And it’s not. It’s
not. They really are, you know, Rinpoche really is the, the representative of the
assembled Buddhas of the corners of the universe and appearing in the form of a
man, you know. And, and if you don’t relate to that being that way you won’t
get the full benefit of that. You, you won’t ever get the full benefit of it if you
hesitate because it looks stupid or something like that. It’s stupid to hesitate
that’s what I’m trying to say.
Okay, we’ll stop there. We’ll do just one or two moments meditation like that
and then we’ll do mandala.
I know some of you might not show up for the review because some people
always skip out, so take a minute or two, especially if you’re planning on it.
Yeah?
[student: inaudible]
They want to know if it’s possible to have the review downstairs? Is that, how
many people want it downstairs? How many people would rather have it here?
I don’t know. It looks about fifty-fifty. You decide. [laughs] he’ll call. But take a
few moments now, appreciate what we’ve done, you know. We started on
Bodhisattvacharyavatara. I think you taste the sweetness of it. It’s a very sweet
book. I mean, I’ve been doing with you a lot of heavy-duty philosophy for
three, four years and you taste the sweetness of it and think about it, you know.
Think about, I, I think it’s nice to think about not being shy or not being inhibited
to, to be a bodhisattva, you know. Don’t be shy. You see some, I saw an old man
on the street today trying to, his car wouldn’t go in reverse. So we pushed his car
all the way down the street. And, okay, so stop and do something unusual.
That’s what you’re supposed to be doing. And, and have devotion and do see
your Lama, Khen Rinpoche, as fully enlightened Buddha and that you’re not a
normal person anymore despite how much you would like to be. You’re very
unusual now. You’re very special. You have that belief that it’s possible to
overcome death and teach other people how to do that and, and appreciate it,
okay, and be happy. Alright.
Couple of minutes.
[prayer: mandala]
[prayer: dedication]
Goodnight.
Course X – Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Part One